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PvP inWorld of Warcrafthas always been a different beast from other pieces of content. Instead of downing static mobs with predictable movesets and challenging yourself against the game, PvP pits you against unpredictable players that have long since mastered their rotation.
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However, having the right class can make all the difference, and for a long time, hunters have risen above the rest. While all the specs are good, marksmanship stands out with its high damage output and simple rotation, more than making up for its unique lack of utility. Here’s everything you need to learn how to play marksmanship hunter inDragonflightPvP.
Getting Started
Marksmanship hunteris often a great learning class due to how forgiving it is. Unlikeferal druid or assassination rogue, there aren’t any combos to memorize or a million buttons to click. Instead, if you’re just beginning, you only have to worry about seven abilities.
However, just because it’s easy to learn, that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard to master. Hunters are notorious for having ahigh skill ceiling, and the more time you invest into playing this class, the more you’ll find yourself weaving utility spells into your rotation to make you an unstoppable force.
Racial Abilities
Human
Increase to secondary stats and ability to break out of stuns.
Tauren
Stunning stomp, more health, enhanced critical strikes.
Being one of the core classes, you can designateany raceas your hunter and perform well. However, there are a few that may perform better on their racial abilities alone.
Stat Priority
As a hunter, yourprimary stat will be agility. This is where all of your ranged damage will come from, and your class cannot function without it. While it’s easy to get lost in the equations of secondary stats, you should always be thinking about increasing your agility first.
Once your primary stat has been squared away, good secondary stats to think about arecritical strike and mastery. Crits are always handy to have on a hunter, and marksmanship mastery is extraordinarily powerful, as it increases yourrangeand thedamage of all of your abilities.Versatilityis also viable, as itincreases your overall damagewhiledecreasing your damage taken.
Gearing Up For PvP
Though it may be tempting to jump into PvP as soon as you hit max level, you’ll find that gear anditem level makes all the difference in PvP, just as it does with any kind of endgame content. Before you can hope to begin laying your enemies to waste in battlegrounds and arenas, gettingbetter gear should be your first priority.
World Questsare often handy in spiking your item level once you’ve hit max, and they should be the first place that you look. However, inDragonflight, World Quests have been changed toonly appear once every few days, so they may not be your best source for long.
you may also find good gear throughdungeons, with normals giving340, heroics offering359, and mythics handing out370item level gear. However, these pieces are often more geared toward PvE content than PvP.
The best PvP-specific gear in Dragonflight is bought withhonor, a currency earned through wins or losses in battlegrounds and arenas. These sets can be found in theGladiator’s Refuge in Valdrakken, where it’s sold bySeltherex, the honor quartermaster. These pieces of gear may be 340 item level normally, but they scale to411when you enter a battleground, arena, or duel.
There are two different sets to choose from: one that offers haste and versatility, and one that offerscritical strike and versatility.
You’ll want to pick up the second, as haste isn’t as applicable on marksmanship hunter as critical strike is.
Gems And Enchants
Once you’ve picked out your gear, you can enchant and socket gems thatincrease your agility, critical strike, and masteryfurther.
Boosts agility and speed.
Boosts agility and mastery.
Boosts mastery and critical strike.
Sensei’s Alexstraszite
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PvP Talent Tree
As a marksmanship hunter, your primary ability will beAimed Shot, and as such, you’ll want your talents to reflect that. You can easily set up asniper buildby concentrating your talents around this one ability, causing you to deal anywhere from15 percent to 50 percent of your target’s healthwith one cast.
Rotation
Marksmanship hunter’s playstyle is simple and easy to understand, revolving aroundspending and recovering Focus, your class resource. Luckily, this is all done through attacking, so there’s no need to worry about sacrificing your DPS to recover Focus.
You’ll want to begin your rotation with Aimed Shot, as your talents allow it to doincreased damage when the target is at full health. Spend one or both charges, then use your procs ofChimaera Shotto fully spend your Focus.
When it’s depleted, usingTrueshotwill recover100 percent of your Focusand boost the damage and cooldowns of Aimed Shot andRapid Fire. UseDeath Chakramto make the target take increased damage, then spend Focus with Aimed Shot and recover it back with Rapid Fire for the duration of Trueshot.
When Trueshot is over and Aimed Shot or Rapid Fire is on cooldown, useSteady Shotand Chimaera Shot to deal idle damage until those big spenders are back up. Then, repeat until the target is low, and execute them withKill Shotwhen they’re below20 percent health.
Things that have long cooldowns and aren’t part of your core rotation, likeWailing Arrow or Double Tap, should be used whenever they’re available.
Utility Tips
Although hunters can deal an incredible amount of damage with their core rotation, you’ll want to be thinking about more than just topping the damage charts.Hunters don’t have much utilityafforded to them relative to the other classes, but what you do have is important.
