Marksmanship Hunter Leveling Guide from 1 to 80 — The War Within (11.1.0)

Marksmanship Hunter has very front-loaded damage, and solid AoE damage. It excels the most in dungeons, but can also be a decent questing leveler, based around killing enemies before they can reach you, usually with a strong Aimed Shot into Rapid Fire into Kill Shot combo.

Grab a Ferocity (ideally a Scalehide) pet and Misdirection+ Scale Shield, and activate them before tagging as many mobs as possible, usually with Arcane Shots and Multi-Shots, and watch the mobs flock to your pet. Make use of the pet damage reduction from Scale Shield and use Marksmanship's strong burst damage to kill the mobs before they kill your pet.

Here is a neat macro you can use for your Misdirection. You can make a macro by typing '/m' in your chat box. Make a Macro, call it "MD", and put this in it:

• #showtooltip
• /use Misdirection
• /use Scale Shield

If you are using another pet with a defensive ability than a Scale Shield, just replace 'Scale Shield' with the appropriate ability name.

This is my recommended Leveling Build for Marksmanship Hunter in The War Within. Be sure to click the "Talents by Level" option in the bottom right.

When leveling up, always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level, but 2 secondary stats on it instead of 1.

To keep things simple while leveling and learning the spec, use the slider to select your level, and watch as the leveling rotation grows with each level!

Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!

1. Use Explosive Shot. You should always try to cast it immediately following an Aimed Shot to take advantage of Precision Detonation.
2. On AoE, use Multi-Shot to apply Trick Shots. This buff makes your next Aimed Shot or Rapid Fire do AoE damage!
3. Use Volley when available. Place it on the ground on top of as many enemies as possible!
4. Use Trueshot for large pulls or difficult elite mobs.
5. Use Mend Pet for large pulls to keep your pet healthy.
6. Use Kill Shot whenever possible.
7. Use Rapid Fire when available.
8. Use Aimed Shot when available. Make sure to spend your Precise Shots stacks on Arcane Shot/ Multi-Shot first!
9. Spam Arcane Shot. Use Multi-Shot instead if there are 3 or more targets!
10. Use Steady Shot as a filler, and to generate Focus.

All pets do the same damage, but they vary in their utility and special abilities. For Marksmanship Hunters, pets are quite weak, and we mostly use them as an "anchor" to gather mobs onto instead of ourselves. The best pet for this purpose is a Scalehide. They have a 1-minute damage reduction ability, Scale Shield, that you should macro into your Misdirection.

Ferocity pets also come with Primal Rage which is a Bloodlust effect. This should be used as often as possible when you are fighting for over thirty seconds.

You can find a list of all the Pets and the abilities they bring on our Spell Summary Page.

Congratulations on reaching Level 80! Now that you have hit Level 80, we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at max level.