Marksmanship Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.0.5)

• Casting Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire as much as possible, both on single-target and AoE.
• Managing your Focus — Never capping it but also ensuring you have enough Focus to cast Aimed Shot off cooldown.
• Spending Precise Shot stacks on Arcane Shot/ Multi-Shot, generated by Aimed Shot.

• All the same goals as the single-target Rotation.
• Maintaining that Trick Shots is up for all of your Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire casts by casting Multi-Shot between them, or with Volley.

In the Single-Target and AoE sections, you will find a highly detailed priority list breakdown of the Rotation, as well as optimal openers.

Note that I wil not always reference Wailing Arrow by name throughout the opener, as it is identical to Aimed Shot for all intents and purposes, simply replacing that button in your rotation. Do not be alarmed when your Aimed Shot button turns purple!

1. Ensure Hunter's Mark is active on the target from you or another Hunter in the group!
2. Pre-cast Aimed Shot roughly 2.5 seconds before combat begins.
3. Cast Rapid Fire.
4. Cast Steady Shot to activate Steady Focus.
5. Cast Explosive Shot.
6. Use Volley at your enemy's feet. Do not worry about any existing Explosive Shots on the target, even if you are running Salvo. They will all explode!
7. Activate Trueshot along with stat-granting on-use Trinkets, Racials, etc. Save damage-dealing on-use Trinkets for 10 stacks of Unerring Vision.
8. Cast Black Arrow.
9. Cast Wailing Arrow
10. Cast Rapid Fire
11. Cast Aimed Shot
12. Cast Aimed Shot
13. Cast Aimed Shot
14. Cast Aimed Shot
15. Cast Arcane Shot
16. Cast Rapid Fire
17. If you can cast Rapid Fire and/or Kill Shots sooner than this, thanks to a Surging Shots/ Deathblow proc, then do so!
18. Continue with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.
19. A small minmax you can do is taking advantage of the fact that Aimed Shot's cast time during Trueshot is slightly shorter than your GCD. Thanks to Surging Shots, Aimed Shot has a ~15% chance to reset the cooldown of Rapid Fire. Thus, you want to spam Rapid Fire during every Aimed Shot to queue up the Rapid Fire in case it gets a reset. If it does not reset, simply go back to Aimed Shot. You have a very small window (~0.2s) of dead time between every Aimed Shot where you can attempt to queue a Rapid Fire at no GCD loss.

This priority list describes the optimal single-target Rotation for Marksmanship Hunter.

1. You should use damage-dealing Trinkets like Mad Queen's Mandate and others as often as possible throughout the fight, firstly. Other than this, if you can guarantee not losing a cast, using it with 10 stacks of Unerring Vision is very powerful. Your final use of the fight should also be as late as possible, to take advantage of the up to +50% damage bonus.
2. Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg usage is mostly about ensuring that you do not exceed 20 stacks of either the Primary (standing still) or secondary (moving around) stat buffs. The perfect distribution to target and suspend with its on-use is 20/10 Secondary/Primary, which generally means moving a lot.
3. Cast Black Arrow on cooldown while Trueshot is down.
4. Cast Kill Shot if Razor Fragments is up.
5. Use Steady Shot if Steady Focus is about to expire. You should also refresh it right before entering Trueshot. Do not do this during Trueshot.
6. Cast Rapid Fire on cooldown. Hold it for up to 8 seconds if Lunar Storm's internal cooldown is about to come up. If you have Wailing Arrow available, you can ignore this Lunar Storm hold because Readiness gives you back a Rapid Fire.
7. During Trueshot, use Aimed Shot over Rapid Fire to generate more Black Arrow procs.
8. Cast Wailing Arrow on cooldown. Note that thanks to Readiness, this will immediately reset the cooldown of Rapid Fire and Aimed Shot, so you will usually follow this up with a Rapid Fire.
9. Use Aimed Shot on cooldown, regardless of Precise Shot.
10. Cast Black Arrow on cooldown, even if Trueshot is up.
11. Cast Kill Shot on cooldown.
12. Use Chimaera Shot to spend your Precise Shot stack.
13. Use Arcane Shot to spend your Precise Shot stack. Swap it for Multi-Shot on 2 targets and above.
14. Use Rapid Fire Barrage on cooldown.
15. Use Volley on cooldown. You can macro Salvo into it. Check out the AddOns and Macros page if you have not.
16. Use Explosive Shot on cooldown. Do not worry about any existing Explosive Shots on the target, even if you are running Salvo. They will all explode!
17. Use Trueshot, your main cooldown, as many times as possible during the fight. Save it for important add spawns and damage amplification phases. You should also stack stat-granting on-use trinkets like Skardyn's Grace with this. Refresh Steady Focus before entering it, if it has less than 8 seconds remaining.
18. Use Steady Shot when you have nothing else to do, as a filler.

1. Ensure Hunter's Mark is active on the highest HP target from you or another Hunter in the group!
2. Pre-cast Steady Shot when there is 1.75 seconds left on the pull timer.
3. Cast Explosive Shot. Do not worry about any existing Explosive Shots on the target, even if you are running Salvo. They will all explode!
4. Activate your Potion.
5. Use Volley at your enemy's feet.
6. Activate Trueshot
7. Cast Black Arrow.
8. Cast Rapid Fire
9. Cast Aimed Shot
10. Cast Aimed Shot
11. Continue with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.
12. A small minmax you can do is taking advantage of the fact that Aimed Shot's cast time during Trueshot is slightly shorter than your GCD. Thanks to Surging Shots, Aimed Shot has a ~15% chance to reset the cooldown of Rapid Fire. Thus, you want to spam Rapid Fire during every Aimed Shot to queue up the Rapid Fire in case it gets a reset. If it does not reset, simply go back to Aimed Shot. You have a very small window (~0.2s) of dead time between every Aimed Shot where you can attempt to queue a Rapid Fire at no GCD loss.

This priority list describes the optimal AoE rotation for Marksmanship Hunter.

1. Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg usage is mostly about ensuring that you do not exceed 20 stacks of either the Primary (standing still) or secondary (moving around) stat buffs. The perfect distribution to target and suspend with its on-use is 20/10 Secondary/Primary, which generally means moving a lot.
2. You should use damage-dealing Trinkets like Mad Queen's Mandate and others as often as possible throughout the fight, firstly. Other than this, if you can guarantee not losing a cast, you should try to use these Trinkets with 10 stacks of Unerring Vision, which would be 10 seconds into your Trueshot.
3. Use Black Arrow with Razor Fragments. Make sure that Trick Shots is active before casting it.
4. Use Steady Shot if Steady Focus is about to expire. You should also refresh it right before entering Trueshot. Do not do this during Trueshot.
5. Use Explosive Shot on cooldown.
6. Use Volley on cooldown. You can macro Salvo into it. Check out the AddOns and Macros page if you have not.
7. It is not worth casting Barrage, as Multi-Shot is a stronger use of Focus and time.
8. Use Kill Shot when Razor Fragments is up.
9. Use Black Arrow on cooldown. Make sure that Trick Shots is active before casting it.
10. Use Trueshot, your main cooldown, as many times as possible during the fight. Save it for important add spawns and damage amplification phases.
11. Use Rapid Fire Barrage on cooldown. Make sure that Trick Shots is active before casting it.
12. Use Rapid Fire on cooldown. Make sure that Trick Shots is active before casting it. Hold it for up to 5 seconds if Lunar Storm's internal cooldown is about to come up. If you have Wailing Arrow available, you can ignore this Lunar Storm hold because Readiness gives you back a Rapid Fire.
13. Cast Wailing Arrow on cooldown, but spend your Precise Shot stack first.
14. Use Aimed Shot on cooldown. You should spend all of your Precise Shot stacks first, even if Aimed Shot would charge-cap from doing so. Multi-Shot deals serious damage in AoE builds! Make sure that Trick Shots is active before casting it.
15. Cast Multi-Shot to apply Trick Shots if it is down, and to spend Precise Shot stacks.
16. Use Steady Shot when you have nothing else to do, as a filler.