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Marksmanship Hunter DPS Starter Guide - Shadowlands 9.0.5
By Moofzy
Last updated
2021/03/09 at 1:02 AM
View Changelog
Table of Contents
Quick Facts
Table of Contents
Guide Navigation
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
.
Overview
NEW
NEW Best Covenant
Gear
Talent Builds
NEW Legendaries
NEW Twisting Corridors
NEW Conduits
NEW Kyrian
NEW Necrolord
NEW Night Fae
NEW Venthyr
Pre-Patch
Starter Guide
Rotation, Priority, and Abilities
Advanced Concepts
Stats
Consumables
Macros & Addons
WeakAuras
Common Terms
NEW Castle Nathria Tips
NEW Mythic+
Common Questions
NEW Simulations
About the Author
I'm
Moofz
. I main
Hunter
and do both Mythic+ and raiding at a high level. I write the
Marksmanship Hunter guide
and most Hunter-related content and news for Wowhead. I also have a
Hunter Mythic+ website
, stream raids and dungeons on
Twitch
, and do
YouTube
content. I've also commentated multiple Race to World First events over the past couple of years and organize community Mythic+ events with
Keystone Masters
. Feel free to message me via
Twitter
or find me in the Trueshot Lodge with any Hunter questions or inquiries.
Best Marksmanship Hunter Covenant
Night Fae is currently our best Covenant choice. It is currently the best option for both single target and AoE.
Wild Spirit
s gives us insane burst every 2 minutes. Niya is our best soulbind and offers traits such as
Grove Invigoration
that complement our toolkit. She also gives us some solid defensive bonuses to aid our survival.
Kyrian isn't too far behind Night Fae (~3% in single target) and stands as our second-best covenant option. Kyrian offers a bit more consistent damage when compared to Night Fae due to
Resonating Arrow
's lower cooldown and flexibility. While Kyrian falls behind a bit in single target, it can keep up with Night Fae in Aoe, depending on cadences. Generally, Night Fae is superior in more organized groups that can play around its 2-minute cooldown, but Kyrian remains competitive regardless.
Below is a quick breakdown of all the Covenant options we have as Marksmanship Hunters, along with their relative strength.
Best Raid Covenants
Covenants
Rating
Best Soulbind
Kyrian
Good
Pelagos
Necrolord
Decent
Bonemsith Heirmir
Night Fae
Great
Niya
Venthyr
Poor
Nadjia
Best Mythic+ Covenants
Covenants
Rating
Best Soulbind
Kyrian
Great
Pelagos
Necrolord
Poor
Bonesmith Heirmir
Night Fae
Great
Niya
or
Korayn
Venthyr
Poor
Theotar
While Night Fae is the clear winner, luckily for us, Kyrian isn't too far behind, giving us another option if desired (Kyrian is actually our best PvP covenant). The bad news is that if you were hoping to go Venthyr or Necrolord, they're significantly further behind in terms of DPS (Venthyr more so than Necrolord). While both Covenants offer some solid options in terms of Soulbinds,
Death Chakram
and
Flayed Shot
are pretty underwhelming.
Best Marksmanship Hunter Covenant
Kyrian Marksmanship Hunter GuideNecrolord Marksmanship Hunter Guide
Night Fae Marksmanship Hunter GuideVenthyr Marksmanship Hunter Guide
Best Marksmanship Hunter Legendaries
For Legendaries, one option essentially, assuming you're Night Fae.
Serpentstalker's Trickery
dominates most other legendaries in both single target and AoE. It also gives us the option to multi-dot in multiple target situations. While you might not think it strong in AoE, Serpent Stalkers has a unique interaction with
Wild Spirit
that makes it Wild Spirits extremely bursty, even in AoE. That being said, if you opted to go Kyrian,
Surging Shots
is actually better in AoE due to its unique interaction with
Resonating Arrow
(Serpent Stalkers is still Kyrian's best single target option).
Serpentstalker's Trickery
for Raiding and Mythic+.
Surging Shots
for Mythic+,
ONLY IF
you went Kyrian.
I highly suggest upgrading
Serpentstalker's Trickery
as quickly as possible, considering we don't really have too many legendary options. If you're interested in PvP,
Surging Shots
and
Craven Strategem
are solid options once you've crafted your Serpent Stalkers. Take a look at our
legendary guide
to learn more about the legendaries available to Marksmanship Hunters, or our
crafting guide
to find all the materials you need to craft them.
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 providing specific builds for questing, Mythic+, and Raids. Additionally, head over to our
Marksmanship Hunter Raid Tips
for Castle Nathria to see the ideal setup for each boss!
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 > Crit >= Mastery > Haste >= Versatility
Agility
: Increases 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.
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.
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.
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
Cloak
: Increase stamina and tertiary bonuses, which are largely interchangeable. When in doubt, choose extra stamina or avoidance.
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Avoidance
,
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Leech
,
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Speed
,
Enchant Cloak - Soul Vitality
Chest
: Agility & Auto-Shot -
Enchant Chest - Eternal Skirmish
Wrists
: Hearth Cooldown -
Enchant Bracers - Shaded Hearthing
Gloves
: Increases Gathering Speed -
Enchant Gloves - Shadowlands Gathering
Boots
: Increases Agility -
Enchant Boots - Eternal Agility
Rings
: Increases Critical Strike
Enchant Ring - Tenet of Critical Strike
Weapon:
Single Target:
Increaes Damage Done to Target
Sinful Revelation
AoE:
Increases Critical Strike
Optical Target Embiggener
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
Steady Shot
if
Steady Focus
is down.
Trueshot
Rapid Fire
Aimed Shot
if
Precise Shots
is down.
Arcane Shot
to dump
Precise Shots
or to avoid capping Focus.
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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