Hunter Marksmanship Talent Builds

Marksmanship Talent Guide

This Marksmanship Talent Guide goes over each of the talents in the talent tree meant to allow you to do the most ranged damage. The marksmanship talent tree has traditionally been by far the most popular talent tree, at one point almost 85% of all hunters were marksman based. However, recently the other talent trees have started to gain favor, especially beast mastery, but most hunters are still marksmanship based. The tree focuses on ranged attack power, critical hits and extra ranged shot types. It is a solid all around talent tree that allows good raid DPS as well as PvP ability.

Tier 1 Tier 1 is available at level ten, when your first talents open up.

• Improved Concussive Shot - Max 5 points, this provides your concussive shot up to a 20% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds.
  • This ability helps with controlling your target. When it procs it allows you to get away from the target, lay a trap, do an aimed shot, or any number of other things.
  • In PvP it is almost a must, as any chance to slow down your opponent is invaluable.
  • Recommended for PvP
    
    
• Lethal Shots - Max 5 points, increases your critical strike chance with ranged weapons by up to 5%.
  • A 5% crit increase for 5 points is a solid talent and one that almost no hunter passes up.
  • Almost a 100% lock for your first 5 points in the tree.
  • Must have talent
    

Tier 2 Tier 2 talents are available as soon as you have 5 points in that talent tree.

• Improved Hunter's Mark - Max 5 points, this talent causes up to 100% of your hunter's mark ability effect to apply to melee attack power against that target as well.
  • This talent boosts your pets / groups damage against the target and can make a big difference in melee heavy groups.
  • Beast Mastery (BM) hunters come into marksmanship to get this ability to increase their pets damage output significantly.
  • Almost a must have for raiding hunters unless you are sure than another hunter will have the ability.
  • Recommended for Raiding and BM hunters
    
    
• Efficiency - Max 5 points, reduces the mana cost of your shots and stings by up to 10%.
  • A nice talent as it effectively provides almost 10% additional mana.
  • Allows you to put out more special shots before running out of mana (OOM) in long fights.
  • Viewed in high regard by raiders, but generally ignorable to everyone else.
    

Tier 3 Tier 3 talents are available as soon as you have 10 points in that talent tree.

• Go For The Throat - Max 2 points, when you critically hit with a ranged attack your pet will generate up to 50 focus.
  • Considered a must for Beast Master hunters and a real bonus for any other hunter that wants their pet to have focus to continue to attack with abilities at all times.
  • This talent allows your pet to continue to put out damage with its special attack, or even to just keep growling to hold aggro. Either one drops your target faster as both the extra damage and the not having to run from a target to reestablish range both help.
  • Recommended
    
    
• Improved Arcane Shot - Max 5 points, reduces the cooldown of your arcane shot by up to 1 second.
  • Reduces the time between your arcane shots by up to 20% which can add up to some serious extra DPS.
  • Great in PvP allowing you to remove opponents buffs even faster.
  • Recommended
    
    
• Aimed Shot - 1 point skill, this shot increases ranged damage of that shot and applies an 8 second healing debuff that reduces healing by 50%. The shot has a 2.5 second cast time with a 6 second cooldown.
  • This ability hits very hard but at the cost of a long casting time. In game terms 2.5 seconds is almost forever, and the shot is rarely used other than as an opening move or in PvP.
  • Even though you won't always use it, its too strong a talent to pass up.
  • Extremely strong in PvP where the healing debuff can make a huge difference in a fight.
  • Strongly recommended
    
    
• Rapid Killing - Max 2 points, reduces your rapid fire abilities cooldown by up to 2 minutes. In addition after killing an opponent that yields honor or experience your next aimed shot, arcane shot or auto shot (within the next 20 seconds) causes up to 20% additional damage.
  • This ability provides a good boost in raid damage, allowing you to use it almost every pull (at least every other pull).
  • If you don't use it though, it is a waste of talent points, and many players never bother to pop the ability often enough.
  • If you use rapid fire, grab it you'll love it.
    

Tier 4 Tier 4 talents are available as soon as you have 15 points in that talent tree.

• Improved Stings - Max 5 points, increases the damage done by your serpent and wyvern stings by up to 30%, increases the mana drained by your viper sting by up to 30% and reduces the chance your stings will be dispelled by up to 30%.
  • Provides a nice increase to your DPS by upping your sting damage significantly.
  • Great for PvP players that constantly use viper sting on enemy healer.
  • Over all a great talent if you use stings and are going deeper into the marksmanship talent tree, it's very hard to find points for given the other talent at this level...
  • Recommended
    
    
• Mortal Shots - Max 5 points, increases your ranged weapon critical strike damage by up to 30%.
  • This talent provides huge upgrades in critical strike damage.
  • At level 70 where critical's can easily hit 2000+ a 2000 point critical hit becomes 2500+.
  • Hard to say anything bad about this talent, especially for PvP players where burst damage is king!
  • Must have talent
    

Tier 5 Tier 5 talents are available as soon as you have 20 points in that talent tree.

• Concussive Barrage - Max 3 points, your auto shot attacks have up to a 6% chance to daze the target for 4 seconds.
  • 6% is not a lot in PvE but adds up quickly in PvP where any amount of time dazed is huge.
  • Allows you the time to pull of aimed shots more often when it proc's
  • Skip for PvE, take it for PvP
    
    
• Barrage - Max 3 points, increases the damage done by your multi-shot and volley attacks by up to 12%.
  • Both already cause decent damage and this is a nice upgrade.
  • The only real issue is in PvE were many times you will not be able to use it due to CC'ed targets in the area.
  • Worth learning how and when to use the shots though as the DPS increase can be significant.
    
  • Recommended
    
    
• Scattershot - 1 point skill, this short ranged shot deals 50% of your weapon damage and confuses the target for 4 seconds. Any damage will remove the effect, and as soon as shot it turns off your auto attack so that you will not hit them again.
  • A great talent and definitely worth putting 21 points into marksmanship for, especially for PvP players.
  • Useful in many situations in PvE and PvP as it stops casts, holds up runners, allows time to do an aimed shot, and much more.
  • Strongly Recommended

Tier 6 Tier 6 talents are available as soon as you have 25 points in that talent tree.

• Combat Experience - Max 2 points, increases your total agility by up to 2% and your intellect by up to 6%.
  • Both stats are key hunter stats, agility provides a better critical hit chance and attack power bonus, while intellect allows you to use more special attacks.
  • Very nice to have but not absolutely needed
    
    
• Ranged Weapon Specialization - Max 5 points, increases the damage you cause with ranged weapons by up to 5%.
  • 5% extra damage for 5 points is almost a no-brainer.
  • Scales with you, as your gear gets better the 5% bonus grows as well.
  • This is an amazing talent if you are this far down into marksmanship already.
  • Must have talent

Tier 7 Tier 7 talents are available as soon as you have 30 points in that talent tree.

• Careful Aim - Max 3 points, increases your ranged attack power by an amount equal to up to 45% of your intellect.
  • By the end game you will have quite a bit of intellect so that you have a large mana pool, this ability makes the most of it by providing more ranged attack power (RAP) from it. This makes picking gear easier as you can select some gear with bonus intellect and not be as concerned about gimping your DPS.
  • A great combo ability with combat experience as that 6% boost to your intellect will result in almost an extra 3% RAP increase from your intellect.
  • Recommended
    
    
• Trueshot Aura - 1 point skill, this aura increases the ranges and melee attack power of all party members within 45 yards.
  • This is a very strong ability for raiding hunters as it adds 125 attack power at rank , which when placed in a melee group can really add up.
  • Not very useful while solo playing other than as a slight bonus to your pet.
  • Recommended for Raiders
    
    
• Improved Barrage - Max 3 points, increases the critical strike chance of your multi-shot ability by up to 12% and gives you up to a 100% chance to avoid interruption while casting volley.
  • A nice talent if you constantly use these abilities.
  • The extra damage is great, however the real key is the non interruptible volley.
  • Neither are used that heavily though and as such the skill can be skipped.

Tier 8 Tier 8 talents are available as soon as you have 35 points in that talent tree.

• Master Marksman - Max 5 points, this talent increases your ranged attack power by up to 10%
  • This provides a 10% boost in your white damage for only 5 talent points.
  • It scales as you get better gear and provides even more damage.
  • If your this deep in marksmanship it is to get this and silencing shot, and since this is a prerequisite for silencing shot, you need it.
  • Recommended

Tier 9 Tier 9 is the top tier talent and is available as soon as you have 40 points in that talent tree.

• Silencing Shot - 1 point skill, this shot deals 50% of your weapon damage and silences the target for 3 seconds. The ability has a 20 second cooldown.
  • This ability combined with scatter shot and concussive shot provides a marksmanship based hunter huge control over casters. You can interrupt, confuse, daze or trap them into submission.
  • While useful in PvE it truly shines when controlling an opponent in PvE.