Season of Discovery Marksmanship Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

The Hunter rotation is based around maximizing your Auto Shot usage. Whenever you use an ability, it has the potential to delay your Auto Shot if your Auto Shot is off cooldown and ready to go, meaning most of the time, you will want to use abilities in the down time between Auto Shot uses.

Normally, the only two abilities that you will use in your normal single-target rotation are Aimed Shot and Multi-Shot. You will never use Serpent Sting or Arcane Shot. There are two reasons for each. First, they are both magic-damage based abilities, meaning they do not scale with your ranged AP. The more gear you get, the more your Aimed Shot and Multi Shot's physical damage will out scale them. Serpent Sting also takes up a debuff slot, of which there are only 16 available. Now that debuff limits are removed in the Season of Discovery, Serpent Sting is a solid choice for one of these slots, but is only worth using if you have the Mana to support it. Arcane Shot is bad because it shares a cooldown with Aimed Shot. Since you can only choose to use one of them, always use Aimed Shot. The only exception would be if the target was going to die before the Aimed Shot cast finished and you could get the Arcane Shot off instead.

However, with the new runes added in the Season of Discovery, you have the choice to have a third shot added into your rotation, placed as the highest priority ability. Currently, this is Chimera Shot. If you use Chimera Shot, you also will keep up Serpent Sting, as it will automatically be refreshed through your use of Chimera Shot.

Before you begin a pull, you should always make sure Hunter's Mark is on the boss. If a Hunter in your group has Improved Hunter's Mark fully talented, then they should be the one using it.

As a Hunter, unfortunately the pet runes are far too powerful to not take right now. The rotation below will be as if you take Chimera Shot, but that is not the optimal choice currently. If you take the standard pet runes, just drop Chimera Shot from the rotation below and replace those gaps with more melee weaving.

1. Auto Shot;
2. Chimera Shot;
3. Auto Shot;
4. Aimed Shot;
5. Auto Shot;
6. Multi-Shot;

This is the basic full rotation. It will not always follow this exact order, but this is the order you should start with. Remember that the full rotation is all about maximizing Auto Shot usage, so prioritize getting Auto Shots off and using Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot in the downtime between shots. Multi Shot has a 10 second cooldown and will be a lower priority than your other two shots in single target scenarios.

Finally, do not forget about traps. Explosive Trap and Immolation Trap can both be used in combat with runes, which are massive damage increases and should be used on cooldown in both single target and AoE.

Hunters are unique in that they have both a melee and a ranged basic attack with separate cooldowns and short animation times. During an open spot in your rotation, you can choose to run into melee to use Raptor Strike and Flanking Strike for some extra burst damage. To pull this off, you need to be doing your ranged rotation from the minimum distance, or 8 yards. As soon as you finish the Auto Shot, run into melee (within 5 yards), and use Raptor Strike. Once the Raptor Strike goes off, turn around and run back to the minimum ranged distance. You should only have to run 3-5 yards depending on your character's and the boss' hitboxes, making it a relatively short distance.

Especially when you are so limited in the number of ranged shots, melee weaving is where your skill can really shine. Maximizing melee weaving into the open ability slots in the rotation listed above is critical to maximizing your damage. In general, you'll want to use the following rotation listed below. You'll want to melee weave every 3 ranged auto shots, alternating melee weaving with two ranged shots and 3 auto shots in between.

1. Auto Shot;
2. Ranged ability;
3. Auto Shot;
4. Ranged ability;
5. Auto Shot;
6. Melee Weave;

A very important note: melee weaving is only worthwhile if you are not running either Aimed Shot or Chimera Shot. If you have both, staying at range full time will be more DPS.

At level 40, Hunters now have access to Rapid Fire. This is your main damage cooldown, but is actually relatively weak comparatively. The general best practice is to use it on-pull with other damage based racial abilities since most encounters are short. Otherwise, just use your abilities when they're up or when you need them on encounters.