Marksmanship Hunter Guide for The War Within

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Marksmanship Hunter. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about the Marksmanship Hunter spec in the forthcoming The War Within expansion, including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the state of the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regular changes expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to be a launch guide for Marksmanship Hunter, but instead serves as a resource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, and what you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

The Hunter Class Tree has received a substantial rework, with the entirety of the Class Talent Tree as well as all Spec Trees having been redesigned. Below, I have listed some of the most central changes that will affect your gameplay, decision-making, and power in The War Within.

• Survival of the Fittest is now a 30% baseline damage reduction. Through other talents, it can get a 1.5-minute cooldown, 2 charges, and an 8-second duration. This is a huge boost to Hunter survivability!
• Counter Shot can now, via talents, get a 22-second cooldown, down from 24.
• Tranquilizing Shot can now, via Talents, either remove an additional Magic effect on cast, or have a 5s shorter cooldown if it only removes one Enrage effect.
• Intimidation can now, via Talents, be cast without a pet.
• Explosive Shot is now placed in the Class Tree in such a way that all Hunter specs will be using it, all the time.
• Feign Death and Aspect of the Turtle can now, via a Talent, remove all Poison and Disease effects from you. This is extremely powerful in some niche scenarios.
• Bursting Shot is now available in the Class Tree.
• Intimidation and Binding Shot can now, via Talents, have their cooldowns reduced significantly via Scrappy.
• Steel Trap and Death Chakram have been removed.
• The new talent, Implosive Trap (choice node with High Explosive Trap) is an AoE knock-up trap that can be used as an AoE stop.
• In additional, several Talents that used to be 2-pointers are now 1-pointers. This means that we can have all of the DPS-related Talents in the Class Tree, and most of the utility without having to choose. There are other changes too, but these are the most important ones.

The Marksmanship Hunter Spec Tree has also been reworked from the ground up. Below, I will list all of the new talents and some interesting interactions and outcomes from the redesigned layout of the Tree.

• Precise Shots is now a 1-pointer, and also reduces the Focus cost of Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot by 50%. It also always grants 2 stacks.
• The new talent, Fan the Hammer, gives Rapid Fire 3 additional shots, from 7 to 10. This translates to a roughly 43% damage increase to Rapid Fire, which will do a lot of damage in The War Within.
• Barrage is now a Marksmanship Tree Talent, but that is not the most interesting part..
• Rapid Fire Barrage is the most interesting part. It essentially converts Barrage into a "super- Rapid Fire" that automatically ricochets for 30% of normal damage. These Rapid Fires can, in turn, Trick Shots. The cooldown of Barrage is increased to 1 minute when this is used. A very powerful burst AoE button.
• Lone Wolf now increases damage by 5% when you do not have a pet, down from 10%. This makes using a pet far more viable (but still inferior) on single-target especially, enough so that we may prefer to use a pet for its Leech or defensive at a very small DPS loss. It will still be a noticeable loss on AoE, however.
• Hydra's Bite is now a Marksmanship Tree Talent. It is a slightly nerfed version of the old Class Tree version, as the cleaving Serpent Stings will only happen if the main target of your Aimed Shot is already affected by one.
• Legacy of the Windrunners has been redesigned — The Wind Arrows fired deal far more damage, and ticks of Rapid Fire (10 per target with Fan the Hammer) now have a 5% chance to shoot additional Wind Arrows.
• Wailing Arrow has been redesigned — After 20 Wind Arrows (from the redesigned Legacy of the Windrunners) have been fired, your Aimed Shot button turns into Wailing Arrow for one cast. Wailing Arrow now deals ~56% more damage than Aimed Shot on a single-target, while its AoE damage will depend a bit on implementation. The ability is currently pretty buggy on the Beta.
• Eagletalon's True Focus has been redesigned — The Focus cost reduction has been increased to 50% for just one point, and it also causes Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot to fire a second time for 30% effectiveness, ensuring that a single cast always consumes both stacks of Precise Shots.
• The new talent Small Game Hunter increases Multi-Shot damage by 75%, and Explosive Shot damage by 25%.
• The new talent Kill Zone effectively turns Volley into an 8% damage increase to targets in its effect. You can also ignore line of sight to enemies in your Volley.
• Readiness has been altered for the new Wailing Arrow. Casting Trueshot now also grants a Wailing Arrow, and Wailing Arrow resets the cooldown of Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire entirely.
• In addition to these changes, all Talents in the Tree have been reorganized, which has significant downstream effects on the builds we are able to create.

Aside from the changes to Marksmanship Hunter's core features, The War Within also has major implications for all specs thanks to the Hero Talent Tree system, new tier sets, and the natural reduction in secondary stats when entering a new expansion.

Marksmanship Hunter gets to choose between the Sentinel and Dark Ranger Hero Talent Trees. In sections below, we will talk more deeply about the implications of these Hero Talent Trees for the spec, and some thoughts on what looks strong and weak ahead of launch.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Marksmanship Hunter in The War Within. After the wording of the bonus, you will find a brief note/commentary that is italicized.

• Hunter Marksmanship Season 1 2pc — Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot damage increased by 20%. This pairs fairly well with the new Precise Shots, Eagletalon's True Focus, and in the case of Multi-Shot, Small Game Hunter.
• Hunter Marksmanship Season 1 4pc — Consuming Precise Shots increases the damage of your next Aimed Shot by 10%, stacking up to 2 times. Thanks to Eagletalon's True Focus, a single Arcane Shot or Multi-Shot weaved between Aimed Shots during Trueshot will maximize benefit of this set bonus.

Both set bonuses are completely passive and are not expected to have any gameplay impact.

How Good is the Marksmanship Hunter Tier Bonus in The War Within?

The 2-piece bonus is numerically very modest. On single-target, expect values of ~2-3%. In AoE scenarios, however, it can be upwards of 4-5%.

The 4-piece bonus is not straightforward to quantify. On single-target, expect around 3-4%, while on AoE, you can typically expect much less, about 1-2%.

The total expected value of the Tier Set is around 5-7%. Overall, this is fairly weak. Aimed Shot simply does not do a lot of damage in AoE scenarios, where Rapid Fire and Multi-Shot tend to dominate. In single-target, Arcane Shot and Aimed Shot are both lackluster.

Some builds, especially single-target ones with Readiness, basically never have to cast Arcane Shot, reducing the value of both set bonuses to near-zero.

Strengths

• Significantly more durable thanks to 1-minute, 2-charge Survival of the Fittest.
• Very high AoE damage, beyond just burst.
• Less of a punishment for having a pet out.
• Short Trueshot cooldowns are more easily achieved.

Weaknesses

• Expensive, hard-to-reach AoE talents make it impossible to make a satisfying AoE build.
• Having to Multi-Shot every other global in Trueshot feels unsatisfying.