Marksmanship Hunter PvP Guide — The War Within (11.0.7)

Marksmanship Hunter is a consistently underrated Hunter specialization with enormous burst and crowd control potential.

The Marksmanship damage rotation seems simple at first but leaves a lot of space for skill expression and outplay potential. There is almost no "ramp" in the damage rotation, which combined with the longest range in the game makes Marksmanship Hunters lethal when switching targets, even when they do not commit long cooldowns.

Once you are comfortable setting up your burst so that it does not get interrupted, timing your crowd control windows, and maximizing your consistent damage outside of cooldowns, Marksmanship is an incredibly fun and rewarding specialization.

Marksmanship rewards opportunistic and aggressive play. You win by setups, bursts, and punishing enemies that misuse defensives or position poorly. Marksmanship is not a spec that wins by attrition or dampening, and an aggressive playstyle is how it competes with other specializations that may be more forgiving when it comes to defensive play or crowd control.

Strengths

• High sustained damage when freecasting
• High burst damage and cleave when using Volley/ Salvo
• Good mobility and kiting tools
• Mortal strike from pets
• Support for team with Roar of Sacrifice, Master's Call, or Interlope
• Multiple control crowd options in Intimidation, Binding Shot, Freezing Trap, High Explosive Trap, Scatter Shot/ Bursting Shot, Entrapment, and Consecutive Concussion

Weaknesses

• Weak to teams with multiple stuns and other instant crowd control
• Needs help from teammates to land crowd control
• Crowd control has comparatively long cooldowns compared to other ranged specs
• Heavily relies on landing Freezing Trap at the right moment and timing Scatter Shot effectively
• Being able to do damage effectively relies on having knowledge of which targets are able to stop your casts
• Can break crowd control while bursting with Black Arrow/ Volley/ Salvo

• Trick Shots damage percentage increased to 75% (was 65%).
• Razor Fragments AOE damage percentage increased to 35% (was 25%).
• Dark Ranger: Black Arrow damage increased by 15%.
• Dark Ranger: Shadow Surge damage increased by 25%.
• Dark Ranger: Bleak Powder damage increased by 65%.

This set of buffs will help Marksmanship's viability in the current meta, where it has still been difficult to justify playing over Beast Mastery. This is particularly impactful as these buffs are to the instant cast Black Arrow rather than Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire, which are difficult to consistently use with the amount of micro crowd-control in PvP.

The Trick Shots buff won't impact Marksmanship much in arena, but will be useful in a lot of Battleground Blitz scenarios, where even with a mostly single target build it will increase the area of effect burst from Volley windows.

Various lesser played racess were buffed on the release of this patch, the most significant being Void Elf, where Spatial Rift received significant improvements. The changes to Regeneratin' will also make Zandalari troll much stronger in niche situations where being able to sustain a game longer by healing during Aspect of the Turtle is important.

A new ring was added in the patch, with unique special gem bonuses. These are heavily nerfed and PvP and due to the loss of secondary stats it is not expected that the new ring system will be relevant in rated PvP game modes.

• Dark Ranger: Black Arrow damage increased by 12% in PvP combat.
• Aimed Shot damage increased by 15% in PvP combat.
• Rapid Fire damage increased by 15% in PvP combat.

Marksmanship has been hurting in all PvP content ever since the 24 October nerf to Black Arrow, because it simply did not do enough damage to compete with other specializations. These much needed buffs will hopefully be enough to allow Marksmanship Hunters to finish kills, and make getting casts off on a Marksmanship Hunter rewarding again.

Beast Mastery will likely remain the favoured specialization for most players, and will likely still have more overall damage, but these changes will close the gap.

• Kill Shot and Black Arrow will now appropriately damage their primary target when out of combat.

• Withering Fire will now consistently fire 3 Black Arrows and its target selection has been improved.
• Withering Fire will now consistently fire the first shot in a Withering Fire barrage at your target if they are a valid enemy target.
• Shadow Surge will no longer damage breakable crowd-controlled targets.
• Fixed an issue where Black Arrow and Withering Fire could hit targets that are breakable crowd controlled.
• Black Arrow's periodic damage will no longer cancel breakable crowd control.

The main effect of this set of bugfixes will be a reduced need to run Diamond Ice to avoid various Dark Ranger talents breaking crowd control, which gives Hunters more freedom in their PvP talent choices.

• Dark Ranger: Black Arrow damage reduced by 10%.
• Dark Ranger: Bleak Powder damage increased by 25%.
• Dark Ranger: Shadow Surge damage increased by 25%.
• Sentinel: Symphonic Arsenal damage increased by 15%.

Marksmanship has been struggling to compete with Beast Mastery following the previous nerf to Black Arrow, and even with the compensatory buffs, the new nerf to Black Arrow will weaken Marksmanship overall in Arena.

The buff to Symphonic Arsenal won't affect Hunters in Arena but will be nice for any Marksmanship Hunter running a cleave Sentinel build that includes Multi-Shot in Battleground Blitz.

• Mastery: Sniper Training no longer benefits Black Arrow twice.

This is a bugfix which unfortunately will hurt the viability of Marksmanship in arena, which was largely propped up by the overtuned Black Arrow Mastery interaction.

• New Talent: Deathblow. Aimed Shot has a 10% chance to grant Deathblow. Deathblow: The cooldown of Kill Shot is reset. Your next Kill Shot can be used on any target, regardless of their current health.
• Steady Shot now generates 10 Focus baseline for all specs.
• Tranquilizing Shots empowered by Kodo Tranquilizer will now prioritize players.
• Updated animations for Volley and Rapid Fire.
• Improved Kill Shot has been removed.

Developer's note: Each Hunter specialization has a way to generate Deathblow, but only Marksmanship referred to it as Deathblow. These changes are meant to unify the Deathblow design while still allowing each specialization to interface with it in a unique way.

• New Talent: Bleak Arrows Your auto shot now deals Shadow damage. Your auto shot has an 8% chance to grant Deathblow.
• New Talent: Phantom Pain. When Aimed Shot damages a target affected by Black Arrow, 8% of the damage dealt is replicated to each other unit affected by Black Arrow.
• New Talent: Banshee's Mark. A Murder of Crows now deals Shadow damage and casting Black Arrow has a 25% chance to summon a A Murder of Crows on your target.
• New Talent: The Bell Tolls. Black Arrow is now usable on enemies with greater than 80% or less than 20% health.
• New Talent: Shadow Dagger. While in combat, casting Disengage releases a fan of daggers at nearby enemies, dealing very low Shadow damage and slowing affected targets by 30%.
• New Talent: Bleak Powder. Casting Black Arrow while Trick Shots is active causes Black Arrow to explode upon hitting a target, dealing moderate damage to nearby enemies.
• New Talent: Soul Drinker. When an enemy affected by Black Arrow dies, you have a 10% chance to gain Deathblow.
• Black Arrow has been redesigned. Kill Shot is now replaced with Black Arrow. Black Arrow: You attempt to finish off a wounded target, dealing high Shadow damage and low Shadow damage over time for 10 seconds. Only usable on enemies with less than 20% health.
• Withering Fire has been redesigned. While Trueshot is active, you surrender to darkness for 12 seconds. If you would have gained Deathblow during that time, instead a Black Arrow automatically fires at your target and two additional targets at 50% effectiveness.
• Shadow Surge has been redesigned. Periodic damage from Black Arrow has a small chance to erupt in a burst of darkness, dealing moderate Shadow damage to all enemies near the target. Damage reduced beyond 8 targets.
• Visual effects updated for Shadow Surge, Bleak Powder, Withering Fire, and Black Arrow.
• The following talents have been removed: Dark Empowerment, Darkness Calls, Death Shade, Grave Reaper, Overshadow, Shadow Erasure, Shadow Lash, Pack Leader
• Scattered Prey duration increased to 20 seconds (was 15 seconds).

• Lunar Storm's visual effects have been updated.

• New Talent: Pin Cushion. Casting Steady Shot reduces the cooldown of Aimed Shot by 2 seconds. Choice node with Improved Steady Shot.
• New Talent: Improved Deathblow. Aimed Shot now has a 15% chance and Rapid Fire now has a 25% chance to grant Deathblow. Kill Shot's critical strike damage is increased by 25%.
• Improved Steady Shot has been updated. Now makes Steady Shot grant an additional 10 Focus.
• Precise Shots renamed to Precise Shot and has been updated. Now empowers your next cast of Arcane Shot, Chimaera Shot, or Multi-Shot to deal 100% increased damage (was 2 casts at 70% bonus).
• Steady Focus has been updated. Casting Steady Shot increases your Haste by 8% for 15 seconds (was casting Steady Shot twice in a row).
• Steady Focus no longer plays its visual effects when it is refreshed.
• Trueshot now reduces the focus cost of Aimed Shot baseline.
• Rapid Fire Barrage Rapid Fire effectiveness increased to 40% (was 30%).
• Razor Fragments is now a rolling periodic.
• Master Marksman now benefits from Unnatural Causes.
• Wailing Arrow no longer consumes Trick Shots.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Wailing Arrow from benefitting from Hydra's Bite.
• Nerub-ar Palace 4-set bonus updated. Consuming Precise Shot increases the damage of your next Aimed Shot by 20% (was 10%).
• Nerub-ar Palace 4-set bonus no longer stacks (used to stack 2 times).
• Nerub-ar Palace 4-set bonus will no longer be inconsistently consumed by Trick Shots-empowered Aimed Shots.
• Nerub-ar Palace 4-set bonus will now consistently benefit all damage instances of a Trick Shots-empowered Aimed Shot.
• Nerub-ar Palace 4-set bonus will now behave properly with spell-queued Arcane Shots and Multi-Shots.
• The position of Unerring Vision and Calling the Shots has swapped.
• Eagletalon's True Focus has been removed.

Previously in The War Within and Dragonflight, the bulk of Marksmanship's damage in arena was tied to Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire. The heavy buffs to Kill Shot (particularly when combined with all the new perks from Dark Ranger) and increase to Arcane Shot will help Marksmanship Hunters be more mobile in all PvP situations.

The changes to the Dark Ranger tree result in a significant buff in damage overall, and also make Marksmanship damage harder to counter because it won't be so reliant on getting Aimed Shot casts off.

With the buff to Steady Focus, Steady Shot will become a staple of the Marksmanship rotation, and you will want to take care to maintain this buff as much as possible.

Before patch 11.0.5 Arcane Shot was rarely used in PvP, which made it slightly difficult to justify using the full four-piece tier set. Following the Precise Shot change you will be consuming most of your Precise Shot procs and (combined with the doubled tier bonus) you will want to pick up your full four-piece tier set.

Currently, Dark Ranger is still ahead of Sentinel in all PvP scenarios (although that may change subject to tuning hotfixes). Black Arrow makes up a large portion of a Marksmanship Hunter's overall damage, which particularly helps its performance when facing high armored plate wearers.

• Survival of the Fittest now provides 25% damage reduction in PvP combat (was 30%).
• Survival Tactics (PvP Talent) now has a 2 second duration (was 3 seconds).

• Dark Ranger: Smoke Screen now applies Survival of the Fittest at 50% effectiveness in PvP combat.
• Sentinel: Don't Look Back effectiveness reduced by 50% in PvP combat.

This round of PvP tuning aims to reduce Hunter's survivability. The nerf to Survival Tactics particularly will make it so that you are less likely to survive a stun using only a pre- Feign Death.

The survivability bonus from Dark Ranger has also been reduced by both the nerf to this talent and the nerf to Survival of the Fittest, although the survivability talent Don't Look Back from the alternative tree Sentinel has also been reduced, so these changes will not significantly impact which talent tree you will choose as Marksmanship.

• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Talents page, you will find an analysis of the talents available to Marksmanship Hunters, as well as an overview of the PvP talents, with advice on which ones to take and under which conditions.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Pets page, you will find an overview of the advantages of each pet type with advice on which ones to take and under which conditions.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle page, you will learn how to use your spells, depending on the situation (dealing damage, surviving, controlling enemy players, etc.), and what is generally expected of your class and spec in PvP.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Stat Priority and Gear page, you will find the stat priority to follow in PvP, as well as advice for choosing your gear, which may vary depending on your playstyle and composition.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Best Races page, you will find lists of the Alliance and Horde races, ranked by how good they are for Marksmanship Hunters in PvP, as well as explanations regarding why and how their racials benefit you.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter PvP Useful Macros page, you will find a collection of useful PvP macros for Marksmanship Hunters.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter Arena Composition page, you will find the list of the most powerful Arena compositions featuring Marksmanship Hunters in both 2v2 and 3v3 modes.
• On the Marksmanship Hunter in Battleground Blitz page, you will find a summary of how to play Marksmanship in Battleground Blitz specifically, including the playstyle, role in specific battlegrounds, talent builds, and macros.