Welcome to our PVE Marksmanship Hunter guide for WoW WotLK. This guide will show you what you need to know to play the Hunter class as Marksmanship.
Talents
There are two popular Marksmanship builds. The first build is for new players that don’t have 700+ Armor Penetration and utilizes Arcane Shot. The first build also has Focused Aim which gives you an extra 3% chance to hit.
This build does not use Arcane Shot anymore and instead you should now be using Aimed Shot. This build also drops Focused Aim because you should now be hit capped with just your gear. This allows us to pick up Improved Hunter’s Mark.
Glyphs
Major Glyphs
Minor Glyphs
Gems
Gems can change based on your build, equipment and caps. You may need to adjust your gems to account for your gear.
- Meta: Relentless Earthsiege Diamond
- Red: Fractured Cardinal Ruby or Delicate Cardinal Ruby
- Blue: Nightmare Tear (1)
- Yellow: Smooth King’s Amber or Rigid King’s Amber or Deadly Ametrine
Enchants
You may need to adjust your enchants to your gear.
- Head: Arcanum of Torment
- Shoulder: Greater Inscription of the Axe
- Back: Enchant Cloak – Major Agility
- Chest: Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats
- Bracers: Enchant Bracers – Greater Assault
- Gloves: Enchant Gloves – Major Agility
- Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle
- Legs: Icescale Leg Armor
- Boots: Enchant Boots – Tuskarr’s Vitality or Enchant Boots – Greater Assault
- Weapon: Enchant 2H Weapon – Massacre (2h) or Enchant Weapon – Superior Potency (1h)
- Ranged: Heartseeker Scope
Stat Priority
- Hit (8%, 263 rating) 5% should be your first goal.
- Agility
- Armor Pen
- Critical Strike
- Attack Power
- Haste
You need 8% hit cap for raids. you should first shoot for 5% for dungeons and work your way to that 8% number.
To start off with Agility is the primary stat for Marksmanship Hunters.
Once you hit 700 Armor pen though it moves up above Agility. So once you get to 700 Armor Pen start prioritizing it over Agility. The cap for Armor Pen is 1400, so you should stop there.
Initially you will have Arcane shot in your rotation doing magical damage. After your Armor Pen passes 700 though, you should remove Arcane shot from your rotation and focus on physical damage. Don’t forget to also remove the talent points associated with Arcane shot.
Rotation
Kill Shot -> Serpent Sting -> Chimera Shot -> Aimed Shot or Arcane Shot -> Steady Shot
- Kill Shot is your top priority but it is only usable after the target’s health is below 20%. Once you can use it, you should use it as often as possible.
- Serpent Sting needs to be up at all time. Buffs Chimera Shot
- Chimera Shot is your ssecond best damage dealing ability.
- Aimed Shot is better than Arcane Shot but only with enough Armor Pen. Use Arcane Shot until you have the Armor Pen then switch to Aimed Shot.
- Arcane Shot is only used when you have low Armor Penetration. Should not be used with the second build.
Pets
Pets are very important to BM Hunters. One of the hardest choices a hunter has to make is which pet to use. These are the popular raiding pets.
- Wolves have less damage but buff you with Furious Howl
- Wasps can provide Sting which is a really good debuff. (It doesn’t stack with similar effects.
- Raptors and Cats have lower DPS but are still viable.
The Ferocity talent tree is the way to go. Here is a build to get you started.
Sadly, we don’t have the extra 4 talents Beast Mastery does nor can we tame exotic creatures.
