Marksmanship Hunter Guide - Talents, Rotations, Races & More

Level 30 Talents (0,21,0)

All in on the Marksmanship Tree to buff you ranged damage as much as possible.

1. Start with 3 points in Hawk Eye to create as much range between you and the enemies as possible. Then put 5 points into Lethal Attacks.
2. Max out Careful Aim then put 2 points in Rapid Killing
3. Pick up Trueshot Aura, then put the rest of your talent points into Moral Shots.

Level 60 Talents (5/30/7)

Here's a look at what we think the level 60 Marksmanship Hunter Talent Tree will look like. As mentioned above this guide will be updated as we go through the beta and during launch to include any other Endgame Marksmanship Talent Trees along with all the other information you need to excel in the endgame and Raids as a Hunter.

Playable Races

Alliance - Human, Night Elf, Dwarf & Skyborn

Horde - Orc, Tauren, Troll & Skyborn

Recommended Races

Every race has strengths for the hunter and you really can’t go wrong picking whatever one you are most interested in. If we had to recommend one for each faction it would be Night Elf for Alliance and Troll for Horde. 

Night Elf provides you their new ability Elune’s Light which provides 10% increased Critical Strike Chance for 15 seconds. They come with passive movement speed and dodge chance as well, making them great for moving through the world a bit faster and providing a bit more survivability when enemies start hitting you. Wisp Spirit grants you 75% movement speed which hopefully you don’t need often, but is great for getting back to your body and back into the action.

Troll is great since you’ll be fighting a lot of beasts in the early game and they have 5% increased damage to beasts. Their Berserking buff grants you 10% attack speed for 10 seconds and they also have Rapid Regeneration which allows you to restore 50% of your health every 3 minutes. Add in Regeneration which allows 10% of health regen to continue in combat and they’re the only race in the game that has 4 directly beneficial buffs for the leveling journey 1-30.

See our complete racial abilities breakdown for details on every race.

The primary Skills you’ll use are Auto Shot, Multishot, Serpent Sting, Arcane Shot & Raptor Strike. The best pet to tame early on and through the beta is the Boar. Its Charge skill lets it get into combat quickly and build a good amount of threat right away.

1. Send your pet in to start the fight, apply Hunters Mark and be max range to start attacking with your ranged weapon.
2. Auto Shoot then follow it up with a Serpent Sting/Aimed Shot/Arcane Shot early on & Multishot once you obtain it at level 18.
3. If you pull threat, you simply finish them off with Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bite and Melee Swings.

Getting up Serpent Sting is very important once you have Rapid Killing, The proc from it will allow you to keep a big damage bonus when you engage with your next mob.

Make sure to visit your Hunter Trainer at levels 10, 18 & 26 to acquire key skills like Tame Beast, Multishot & Rapid Fire!

Always keep some food in your bags to feed your Pets to keep them happy. Certain pets like certain food, so make sure you know what type of food your pet likes. The Boar will eat almost anything so this shouldn't be an issue unless you pick a different pet.

Keep your quiver or ammo pouch topped up and always stock up when near a vendor. Make sure to upgrade your arrows or bullets whenever you reach a high enough level to do so.

A Marksmanship Hunters Favorite Stat is Agility, followed Intellect. Agility increases your Attack Power and Critical Hit Chance, Intellect helps quite a bit with your mana. Careful Aim is going to boost your damage based on your Intellect so make sure to stack as much Intellect on this build as you can. Always look for items with Agility/Intellect on them as the priority and take the other stats when they show up.

When playing in a party the gameplay mostly stays the same. You'll likely have someone tanking the enemies for you so you don't to worry about pulling threat as easily, and can unleash your power much more freely.

Make sure to keep Hunters mark up on the main target and allow your tank to get threat on a few mobs before you start Multi-Shotting on cooldown. Understanding the capabilities of your party's tank is important to make sure you aren't constantly pulling enemies off of them that they haven't build threat on yet.

Frost Trap and Immolation trap are great to use when fighting multiple mobs at once. You can slow the entire group down to help your tank kite and prevent the strays from reaching your ranged party members. Immolation trap is a great way to deal AOE damage to the group while you keep blasting them with projectiles.

Check our tier list to see where Marksmanship lands for leveling, raiding and dungeons.

You can use Rapid Fire on harder encounters, but keep in mind It’s going to generate a lot of threat for you quickly, and might pull enemies off your pet. It's better used in group play or Dungeons since a tank is much harder to pull threat from.

You can “kite” enemies that you aggro off your pet by moving away after you take a shot. Shoot, move a little, repeat. You can use Concussive Shot or Wing Clip to further increase the gap between enemies when they’re coming after you.

The Marksmanship Hunter is going to use quite a bit more mana than a Beast Master Hunter so Intellect is great and managing you mana is a must. Don't hesitate to let your Auto Shot do a lot of the work for you so you don't have to sit down to drink super often.

Keep your pet on defensive so he doesn't go around like a psycho attacking everything in sight, this can get you into trouble quickly, especially in dungeons and raids.

Auto Shot Macro

This macro allows you to spam a button as you change targets to keep shooting with no interruption.

#showtooltip Auto Shot
/cleartarget [dead]
/targetenemy [noharm]
/cast !Auto Shot

Melee Macro

This one button macro will go through you melee abilities to do maximum damage when being attacked.

/startattack
/cast Raptor Strike
/cast Mongoose Bite

Pet Attack

I love putting this on mouse wheel forward to send in my pet. You can also macro /petattack into your auto shot macro, but I prefer to have more control of my pet at all times.

/petattack
/cast Charge
/cast Dash

Pet Passive/Follow

Great for mousewheel backwards. This will make your pet passive and come to you to get out of danger.

/petpassive

/petfollow