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Marksmanship Hunter DPS Starter Guide - Shadowlands 9.2.5
By TheAzortharion
Last Updated:
2022/11/28
Changelog
Patch: 10.1.7
Table of Contents
Rating: 4.2/5
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5
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Guide Navigation
Rating: 4.2/5
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Welcome to our Marksmanship Hunter starter guide, which covers everything you need to start playing a new character in Shadowlands. While our other guide pages go into more individual detail, this simple starter guide covers all the basics in one place, whether you're a new Marksmanship Hunter, a returning player to Shadowlands, hardcore, or casual alike, it's the best place to get a beginners overview on the class. Included are basic talent builds, simplified rotations, stats, legendary recommendations, and more to get you started as quickly as possible.
Please keep in mind that this page is meant to get players started quickly as an introduction, and does not contain much in the way of detailed explanations, mechanics, competitive options, gearing, simulation comparisons, or nuance. For more in-depth information, including all those optimizations and more, check out the complete Marksmanship Hunter Guide pages linked in the navigation on the left-hand side of the page, and if you're leveling up in Shadowlands, you can take a look at our
leveling tips
.
10.1.7 Season 2
10.1.7 Cheat Sheet
10.1.7 Primordial Stones
10.1.7 Mythic+
10.1.7 Raid Tips
10.1.7 Talent Builds
10.1.7 Rotation
10.1.7 Support Buffs
10.1.7 Gear
10.1.7 Tier Set Bonus
Overview
Abilities & Talents
Advanced Concepts
Stats
Consumables
Macros & Addons
WeakAuras
Common Terms
Mythic+
Common Questions
Leveling
Simulations
Hotfixes
PvP Overview
PvP Builds
Mage Tower
About the Author
I'm
Azortharion
, hailing from the cold north of Denmark. I have been theorycrafting, writing guides, and
streaming
for Hunters since 2014, as well as playing the game on a high level, with hundreds of rank 1 parses and dozens of World #1 Mythic+ runs on all 3 Hunter specs over the game's history. I also founded and run
Trueshot Lodge
, the official
Discord
for the Hunter Community, where I always solicit and address feedback, suggestions, and comments for this guide. Most importantly, I wrote the Wowhead Marksmanship Hunter Guide that you are reading now! You can also find me on my
Personal Hunter Discord Server
, where I offer more direct coaching and advice to thousands of Hunters. You may also find me on
Twitter
and
YouTube.
Best Covenants for Marksmanship Hunters
In patch 9.2, covenants are freely swappable. Marksmanship Hunters will have some options as to which covenant they can play. The best overall covenant will be Night Fae, but Kyrian can be good in heavy AoE content. Night Fae is the best of both worlds, good in both single target and mid-range AoE, only falling off when 5 or more targets are consistently present.
Here is a table as a quick overview on the state of each Covenant for Raiding and Mythic+.
Best Marksmanship Hunter Covenants and Soulbinds for Raid
Single Legendary
Double Legendary
Night Fae
Dreamweaver
Night Fae
Dreamweaver
Best Marksmanship Hunter Covenants and Soulbinds for Mythic+
Single Legendary
Double Legendary
Kyrian
Forgelite Prime Mikanikos
Kyrian
Forgelite Prime Mikanikos
Night Fae
Dreamweaver
Night Fae
Dreamweaver
For more information about the Covenant Abilities, you can visit the Hunter Covenant Abilities page.
Marksmanship Hunter Covenant Popularity
Below you can see the data on what are the most picked Covenants for Marksmanship Hunters. This data updates automatically and comes directly from Blizzard's API.
For more information about the Covenant Abilities, you can visit the Hunter Covenant Abilities page.
Best Marksmanship Hunter Legendaries
Best Single Legendary for Marksmanship Hunter in Patch 9.2
Until you are able to obtain all 4 tier set pieces and your second legendary, Marksmanship Hunters will continue using the same singular legendary you used in patch 9.1.5. Your second legendary will not be obtainable until 5 weeks after the launch of patch 9.2. Below is a breakdown on the single best legendaries paired with their respective covenant.
Best Single Legendaries
Raid Legendary
:
Night Fae -
Fragments of the Elder Antlers
Venthyr -
Pouch of Razor Fragments
Mythic+ Legendary
:
Night Fae -
Fragments of the Elder Antlers
Kyrian -
Surging Shots
Best Double Legendaries for Beast Mastery Hunter in Patch 9.2
Eternity's End allows players to wear two legendary items, instead of one, with a restriction. One of the two legendaries
must be your covenant legendary
, making covenant choice now also impacted directly by the strength of Covenant Legendaries. Double Legendaries become available during week 5, after completing its story chapter.
Best Double Legendaries
Raid Legendaries
:
Night Fae -
Unity
and
Secrets of the Unblinking Vigil
Mythic+ Legendaries
:
Night Fae -
Unity
and
Secrets of the Unblinking Vigil
Kyrian -
Unity
and
Secrets of the Unblinking Vigil
There are some caveats with each of these combinations. In general for raid, we'll be sticking to Night Fae for almost every situation in raid. Venthyr can be close in pure sustained single target, but in general, its not worth playing outside of niche situations. Kyrian is technically our best pure AoE covenant, however, it's only good in heavy, frequent AoE such as Mythic+. I generally do not suggest playing Kyrian in raid due to the importance of single target damage. Even in Mythic+, we might opt to play more Night Fae depending on the situation.
Secrets of the Unblinking Vigil
is next to useless for Marksmanship with our baseline toolkit. However, patch 9.2 has brought back Tier sets. Focused Trickery in conjunction with Secrets of the Unblinking Vigil make it our best legendary for every situation. You should only use Secrets of the Unblinking Vigil
once all 4 tier pieces have been obtained.
Until then, continue to use either
Serpentstalker's Trickery
for single target or
Surging Shots
for AoE in addition to your respective covenant legendary. As soon as all 4 pieces of Tier have been obtained, Secrets of the Unblinking Vigil is our best legendary in every situation. Spending focus grants us Trick Shots, regardless of how many targets are present. Thus, Secrets of the Unblinking Vigil essentially gives every Aimed Shot a chance to refund a charge and make the following Aimed Shot free. Since the Tier set calculates the baseline focus value rather than the actual focus spent, we perpetually have a chance to refund focus and continually have Aimed Shots and Rapid Fires buffed by the 2 piece.
Secrets of the Unblinking Vigil
paired with our 4 set means that we'll be casting many more
Aimed Shot
s over the course of an encounter. While the synergy is amazing between the two and in general casting more Aimed Shots is a good thing, don't forget that casting more Aimed Shots is bad for our mobility. To perform the optimal rotation, we'll be standing still and casting about ~30% more over the course of the fight. Of course, we'll still have options to cast
Improved Steady Shot
or
Arcane Shot
s on the move. Despite this, Marksmanship is still one of the most mobile specs.
Marksmanship Hunter Legendaries Guide
Best Marksmanship Hunter Talents
Marksman Hunters in Shadowlands will have some variation in what talents they take depending on the type of encounter they face. Below I've listed two separate builds, one for single target and another for AoE. While these are the two extremes, depending on the encounter, you may mix and match parts of each build to better accommodate that particular fight. In particular, you will be changing the level 25, level 35, and level 50 rows fairly often depending on the encounter. To get an idea of what each talent's strengths are, check out our Marksmanship Hunter Talent Guide which goes into more detail for each talent, as well as provides specific builds for questing, Mythic+, and Raids.
Marksmanship Hunter Talents Guide
Marksmanship Hunter Stat Priority
Unlike previous expansions, primary stats such as Agility are much more important than they used to be, and secondary stats are close enough together that item level is usually a more important factor when it comes to choosing gear. You can find out more about how stats work in the Stats Guide, or get an overview of the best-in-slot gear to look for from dungeons and raids in the Marksmanship Hunter Gear Guide.
Agility > Mastery > Crit > Haste >= Versatility
Agility
: Increases your attack power and damage done on all abilities. Previously one of the weakest stats in BFA, but now much more impactful, making raw item level important again.
Mastery
: Increases all damage done by Hunter abilities, and increase the range of all our abilities. Mastery is our second-best stat. While it's a bit behind Crit in pure single target situations, it gains value in multiple target scenarios. Mastery falls off when a pet is required since pets do not scale with our Mastery.
Critical Strike
: Increases the chance that your abilities will critically strike. Critical Strike has skyrocketed to the forefront as our best stat. A couple of different factors such as Master Marksman play a major role.
Haste
: Haste improves focus generation and reduces cast time. Marksmanship's damage is largely limited by Aimed Shot charges so while Haste isn't necessarily bad, other stats are typically better to aim for.
Versatility
: Increases damage done and reduces damage taken by half the amount. Unlike Mastery, however, it affects all damage done including trinkets, potions, and enchantments.
Marksmanship Hunter Stats Guide
Marksmanship Hunter Enchants and Consumables
Weapon:
Single Target:
Sinful Revelation
AoE:
Optical Target Embiggener
Chest:
Single Target:
Eternal Skirmish
AoE:
Eternal Stats
Cloak
: Increase stamina and tertiary bonuses, which are largely interchangeable. When in doubt, choose extra stamina or avoidance.
Rings:
Enchant Ring - Tenet of Critical Strike
or
Enchant Ring - Tenet of Mastery
Boots:
Eternal Agility
* For Kyrian Hunters specifically,
Enchant Weapon - Celestial Guidance
may be a better choice of weapon enchant over
Optical Target Embiggener
due to the amount of Critical Strike obtained from
Resonating Arrow
. As always, it is recommended to sim yourself.
Marksmanship Hunter Enchants Guide
Best Marksmanship Hunter Rotation
Marksmanship Hunters have a priority system, rather than a standard rotation. Below is a typical Marksmanship Hunter DPS priority, using the single-target talents recommended above. More optimized rotations and notes on on cooldown use can be found in the Marksmanship Hunter Rotation Guide.
Steady Shot
if
Steady Focus
will expire within 5 sec
AND
your previous ability cast was Steady Shot.
Kill Shot
if your target is below 20% health.
Double Tap
. Sync it with Wild Spirits/Resonating Arrow.
Wailing Arrow
. Legendary Bow Ability. Sync it with Resonating Arrow.
Volley
. Sync it with Resonating Arrow.
Rapid Fire
Trueshot
. Sync it with Wild Spirits/Resonating Arrow.
Arcane Shot
if your
WeakAura
says 0.
Spam
Aimed Shot
as much as you can.
Steady Shot
to generate Focus.
When you're performing the above priority, remember these things: Try to avoid capping Focus, never cap on
Aimed Shot
charges, avoid wasting
Precise Shots
outside of
Trueshot
and try to always use
Rapid Fire
on cooldown.
Marksmanship Hunter Rotation Guide
Back to Top
Our Marksmanship Hunter guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on
View Changelog
at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Marksmanship Hunter guides for , make sure to browse the
Navigation Bar
below, and our list of
Related Guides
just beneath the
Table of Contents
.
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