Marksmanship Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (11.0.5)

The main role for a Marksmanship Hunter is simple: use your mobility and stuns/slows/roots to land Freezing Traps on the enemy healer, and use your cooldowns to burst your enemies down. You should try to avoid committing burst cooldowns unless there is crowd control available for the enemy healer. You have multiple ways to do high burst damage as well as no "ramp," meaning that when you switch targets, your damage is immediate and frontloaded; you should take advantage of this.

You should coordinate with your teammates so there is always a stun available for the kill target during your crowd control combinations on the enemy healer and crowd control on any off-target that would otherwise be able to interrupt your rotation.

Important: On your minimap, there will be an icon for hunter tracking spells. You should always have Track Hidden enabled. The game does not communicate it, but having this enabled will vastly increase the range of your stealth detection.

Choose your talents. Talents and PvP Talents are expanded on separately in this guide, but as a baseline, these PvP talents are good in everything:

• Survival Tactics
• Chimaeral Sting
• Trueshot Mastery or Consecutive Concussion (2v2)

Choose your Pet. Pets are expanded on separately in this guide, but generally, you want a Cunning pet unless you expect the enemy team to burst you in a stun, in which case you are likely better off with a Tenacity pet.

Cunning pets make you mobile and help you to support your partner if they are the kill target. Tenacity pets make you more difficult to kill when you are the kill target.

The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns. If the enemy healer uses their trinket in the opener, you will have an advantage over them for the next 90 seconds.

As Marksman, more than most other specs, you want to be setting the pace of the game as soon as possible with the strongest opener possible.

In a perfect world, the Healer will always be stunned before you throw your Freezing Trap. This makes the process a lot easier and more reliable. You have two stuns available to use on healers to set up your own traps ( Intimidation and Binding Shot).

If your team doesn't have many stuns for your kill target, you may want to save Binding Shot to lock the enemy DPS down. You should be careful doing this, though, because if you Binding Shot at the wrong time, you may accidentally refresh the diminishing returns on more than one player and delay the next go.

If you are going to stun a healer before your first Trap from Camouflage, using Intimidation will make it easier for you to also pre-cast an Aimed Shot because if you had used Binding Shot, the stun will only happen when the enemy moves to the edge of the Bind, which may be too late or soon.

What follows is a generic opener. In the actual game, there will be variations based on comp; for example, if you are playing with a rogue, they can Sap the Healer instead of you using Freezing Trap.

The Marksmanship Hunter Arena Compositions page of this guide gives guidelines on the game plan for Marksmanship Hunter comps in 2v2 and 3v3 arena.

• Use Camouflage

Being in stealth (Camouflage) will allow you to reliably get clean openers. While in stealth, you want to position near the enemy healer to make it easier to land your Freezing Trap, but still with a decent distance between you and the DPS wherever possible.

Demon Hunters will be able to see through your Camouflage with Spectral Sight. A way that you can counter this is by summoning your Pet after using Camouflage. You will be in Camouflage, but you will be able to attack the Demon Hunter using your Pet to cancel their Spectral Sight. You will be able to cast Mend Pet to heal your Pet without breaking Camouflage (and can use Roar of Sacrifice, Masters Call and even Revive Pet as well).

• Cast Flare if any member of the enemy team is in stealth

If somebody is in stealth, it is also a good idea to Disengage towards the area you are expecting them to be in before firing the Flare to catch them off-guard and be able to throw the Flare further than they would expect.

• Cast Hunter's Mark on your kill target

This will give you a damage bonus on your opener, although it will also make it obvious the player you are going to open on and they might move to a pillar. If they do move to a pillar, it is fine to open on their partner without the Hunter's Mark. You can also refresh it onto the same target if it's dispelled or apply it to different targets as much as you want; there is no cooldown on Hunter's Mark, as long as you are out of combat (in stealth).

• (Optional) Cast Volley at a random area at the side of the map

This optional step is to proc the Razor Fragments effect when the Trick Shots buff fades, buffing your first Black Arrow if used before you naturally get a Deathblow proc. If you are intending to take advantage of the wallhacks from Kill Zone or playing a Salvo build, you should skip this step.

You must remember to do this at a random location, to avoid the Volley doing damage and breaking your Camouflage.

• Pre-cast Aimed Shot

Do this when you are within at least 30 yards of the enemy healer, which will enable you to reliably do the next steps.

When opening with Aimed Shot, it will benefit from Careful Aim, give you the Precise Shot buff and it can potentially grant a Deathblow proc too.

If talented into Steady Focus, you can substitute Aimed Shot for Steady Shot. Getting a Steady Shot off from Camouflage will give you the Steady Focus effect for most of your opening rotation, which will allow you to do more damage with your burst cooldowns, although if you are crowd controlled early you may not be able to get the full value from this so it is matchup dependent.

• Cast Intimidation on the enemy healer as the cast ends

If you have high Haste and are very close to the enemy healer you may have enough time to quickly fire a Black Arrow/ Tranquilizing Shot at your kill target or Scatter Shot at an off-target before the Intimidation ends, but if you aren't sure go straight to the next step.

Note that if you are playing with a class that is able to stun, they should stun your kill target immediately when you use Intimidation.

• Cast Freezing Trap on the enemy healer

Using the @cursor Freezing Trap macro (which you will find in the Macros section of this guide. ), you should find it easy to trap healers out of stuns.

The next step depends on whether you need to cross-crowd control the off-target, or whether you want to do more damage immediately.

• (If 3v3) cast Scatter Shot on the "off target" (the enemy who is not the Healer or your kill target)
• (If 2v2) cast Rapid Fire (Use Black Arrow first if available)

The correct choice here will vary based on the game. For example, if you are playing with a Holy Priest in organized 3v3, they will probably use Holy Word: Chastise on the off-target, and you can go straight into using Rapid Fire or Black Arrow, and potentially use Scatter Shot on the off-target afterward to help your Priest land a Psychic Scream out of the Trap.

It's ideal to crowd-control the off-target early to prevent them from doing damage, crowd-controlling your team on their burst, or using defensives on the enemy kill target.

• Proceed with your burst damage rotation

In some situations, it's worth casting Tar Trap on the offtarget out of the Scatter Shot to extend the crowd control chain, but this is situational and usually not worth doing into specializations that are able to break roots.

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control, and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage. It is ideal to cast Steady Shot for the Steady Focus buff before doing this.

1. Use Black Arrow whenever it is available and will not break crowd control
2. Use Rapid Fire
3. Use Trueshot
4. Use Wailing Arrow
5. Use Rapid Fire
• During the rotation and particularly around this point, you should be thinking about what has been used by the enemy team and if it is worth swapping targets. For example, if your kill target has used defensive cooldowns, you may want to swap targets to the other DPS.
• At this point, your Trap on the Healer should be ending, and if you are not crowd-controlled and still have pressure, it is worth casting Chimaeral Sting on the enemy healer if your team is not able to cast a disorient category crowd control (e.g. Blind, Psychic Scream, Blinding Light, Intimidating Shout) on the enemy healer after the Trap ends.
6. Use Aimed Shot
7. Use Aimed Shot
8. Use Rapid Fire

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control, and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.

1. Use Explosive Shot (optional, this does not do enormous damage so if you don't feel you have time, skip this)
2. Use Volley with Salvo (when Salvo re-applies Explosive Shot, it will immediately burst the Explosive Shot on the target you just used)
3. Use Trueshot
4. Use Aimed Shot (you do this before the Rapid Fire so that your Explosive Shots go off at the same time as your Rapid Fire, which results in a higher burst of damage occurring a few seconds into the crowd control chain when the enemy team are more likely to try holding their trinkets).
5. Use Rapid Fire
• During the rotation and particularly around this point, you should be thinking about what has been used by the enemy team and if it is worth swapping targets. For example, if your kill target has used defensive cooldowns, you may want to swap targets to the other DPS.
• Because you will have just done so much area of effect damage, you may find that the other DPS is already low health from the cleave.
• At this point, your Trap on the Healer should be ending, and if you are not crowd-controlled and still have pressure, it is worth casting Chimaeral Sting on the enemy healer if your team is not able to cast a disorient category crowd control (e.g. Blind, Psychic Scream, Blinding Light, Intimidating Shout) on the enemy healer after the Trap ends.
6. Use Black Arrow/ Kill Shot if available
7. Use Aimed Shot
8. Use Aimed Shot
9. Use Rapid Fire
10. Use Aimed Shot
11. Use Arcane Shot when you are not able to cast Aimed Shot

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns ( Salvo and Trueshot) are not available.

1. Use Black Arrow/ Kill Shot whenever available (although you can also save Deathblow procs for a crowd control chain when the target is stunned for higher kill potential during a go)
2. Use Rapid Fire as often as you can (although try to spend focus before casting Rapid Fire and avoid casting Rapid Fire if you think it will be interrupted)
3. Use Steady Shot to maintain Steady Focus if the buff has fallen or is about to run out
4. Use Aimed Shot when available (if the enemy team stops your Aimed Shot casts that is fine because it means that they will not be able to interrupt Rapid Fire)
5. Use Arcane Shot when you have the Precise Shot buff, are not able to cast Aimed Shot or Rapid Fire, and are near full focus
6. Refresh Hunter's Mark if you are disarmed or if the enemy team is full health with no crowd control on Healer or kill target
7. Use Explosive Shot ideally when you're able to Rapid Fire afterward to maximize the burst.

The above priority list is based on how to do the most damage, although you should be aware of how powerful Tranquilizing Shot is and weave this into your rotation whenever you can if the target has any magic buffs. When your Tranquilizing Shot can hit two players through Kodo Tranquilizer, you should be using it on cooldown.

If you are playing a build with Readiness and Wailing Arrow becomes available shortly before Rapid Fire comes off cooldown, you should try to delay your Wailing Arrow cast until you've used Rapid Fire so you benefit from the cooldown reset and follow the Wailing Arrow cast with a second Rapid Fire.

With the tier 4-set bonus, it is ideal, but not required, to have consumed a Precise Shot buff using Arcane Shot before using your Wailing Arrow to increase its damage. During your opening rotation this can be awkward and delay your go so not worth doing, but during a fight, you should aim to always use Arcane Shot beforehand to get the most out of Wailing Arrow.

Maintain Concussive Shot on your target if you are kiting or if your teammate needs it. Remember, Steady Shot refreshes the Concussive Shot debuff.

Hunter comps rely heavily on landing Freezing Trap on the enemy healer, and this requires some setup (and a lot of practice).

It is much harder (and much less reliable) to land traps during combat without a stun or crowd control already on your target.

I would recommend using the @player version of the Freezing Trap macro if you are not confident aiming traps yet. You can find this in the Macros section of this guide.

• Intimidation
• Binding Shot (this is a little less reliable/predictable than Intimidation because your target can stand still or do things like use Phase Shift to leave the Bind or Grounding Totem, or Blessing of Sacrifice before leaving the Bind to counter your Trap)
• Concussive Shot ( Consecutive Concussion helps with trapping)
• Tar Trap + Entrapment
• Disengage (If you are struggling to trap and aren't able to stun to set it up, I recommend that you use the @player Freezing Trap macro instead of aiming your Trap. Use Disengage or Concussive Shot as needed to move on top of them)
• Tranquilizing Shot (eg for Holy Ward or Nullifying Shroud)
• High Explosive Trap and Bursting Shot (if you miss a trap, you can always knock them into it!)

Every healing class has multiple ways to dodge or deny your Trap; below is a non-exhaustive list of what each healing specialization has to avoid traps and some tips specific to that Healer. Having an addon like Omnibar to track important enemy cooldowns and Gladiatorlossa2 to tell you when they are used will make your life a lot easier.

Remember that in all cases, healers can use mobility and erratic movement to make it difficult for you to trap them. Also, remember that when they are spending global cooldowns trying to outplay your Trap and moving instead of casting, you are still applying pressure even though the Healer is not caught in a trap because the Healer is spending their time trying to avoid you, rather than doing an optimal healing rotation.

A healer can counter your Binding Shot by standing still to avoid the stun. You should try to use Binding Shot when the healer is already running, and aim so that the reticle is on the healer so the stun procs immediately. Also remember that if a healer does stand still during Binding Shot, you can use High Explosive Trap to knock them into the stun.

When trapping Discipline Priest s you must be aware of:

• Shadow Word: Death
• Phase Shift
• Psychic Scream
• Mind Control (cast as you throw the Trap)
• Shadowmeld
• Ultimate Penitence

You may notice that almost all of the Discipline Priest abilities that can be used to avoid your traps are on the Shadow spell school. When you are standing near the Priest in the middle of the game by kicking them on the shadow spell school, they will not be able to use Shadow Word: Death or Fade to avoid your Trap.

You must always be aware of Psychic Scream, too. If you get too close to a Priest, when it is off cooldown, your plans will backfire, and you will be feared.

Other than that, trapping Discipline Priests is about tracking the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death and Fade and throwing the Trap when they are not able to use either (or stunning when they don't have Fade).

During Ultimate Penitence, a Discipline Priest is immune to interrupts and crowd control. You can trap the initial cast if you are quick, but if the channel begins, they will be immune to your Trap.

When trapping Holy Priests you must be aware of:

• Shadow Word: Death
• Phase Shift
• Holy Ward
• Spirit of the Redeemer
• Divine Ascension
• Mind Control (cast as you throw the Trap)
• Shadowmeld

Holy Priest is similar to Discipline with a few changes.

They have Holy Ward, which must be purged with Tranquilizing Shot (if you are unlucky and do not get the dispel, you will need to wait 15 seconds for it to expire unless your partner can take it off).

When a Holy Priest uses Spirit of the Redeemer, you can place a trap underneath the angel to trap them instantly when it ends. Be careful, though - if you do this too soon, their partners may try to eat the Trap, or the Priest may see you throw it and cancel the Spirit of the Redeemer into a Fade to immune the Trap.

Ideally, you would hold Chimaeral Sting into a Priest until they have used Spirit of the Redeemer, because otherwise, they can use this to be immune to your silence.

When trapping Holy Paladins you must be aware of:

• Blessing of Sacrifice
• Blessing of Protection (on the stun before trap)
• Hand of Reckoning
• Blessing of Freedom + Divine Steed
• Hammer of Justice
• Blinding Light
• Searing Glare

The main thing here is to be very aware of versus a Holy Paladin is Blessing of Sacrifice. When this is active you should not trap the Paladin as the trap will break instantly unless you are playing with Diamond Ice. A thing to be aware of is that during a Diamond Ice Freezing Trap, the damage reduction from Blessing of Sacrifice has no effect.

Remember that Holy Paladins are relatively squishy, so swapping to the Holy Paladin when they use Blessing of Sacrifice is always an option. If you are able to force their Divine Shield doing this, they will gain Forbearance and will not be able to use Blessing of Protection to escape the next stun into Freezing Trap combo.

When you are trapping out of Intimidation into a Holy Paladin, make sure you throw the Trap immediately, as otherwise, they can escape the Trap by removing the stun with Blessing of Protection.

Like with Priests and Psychic Scream, you need to be careful when standing next to a Holy Paladin to avoid Blinding Light.

An interesting quirk in this matchup is that if a Paladin gets Searing Glare of on you, you are still able to root them with the Entrapment effect from Tar Trap, which you should take advantage of to keep the Paladin standing still until the debuff fades.

When trapping Mistweaver Monks you must be aware of:

• Eminence
• Revival with Peaceweaver
• Paralysis
• Leg Sweep
• Ring of Peace
• Roll/ Chi Torpedo

Mistweaver Monks are difficult to trap when they know it is coming because of their high mobility. As another complication, they are able to teleport away when stunned using Eminence.

Fortunately, to be able to do high-output healing, Mistweaver Monks need to stand still. Either throw the Trap when you see them casting and do not think they will move, or follow them until they have no movement abilities left, and then throw your Trap.

Avoid trapping out of stuns into Mistweaver Monks unless you know they are out of range of their Transcendence: Transfer (40 yards) and have already used Revival (which can be used while stunned to immune your Trap).

If you are facing a "Fistweaver" (melee) Mistweaver Monk, it is easy to trap them when they chase you using the @player Freezing Trap macro, and between your traps, it is a good idea to swap onto the Fistweaver, as they are often the easiest kill target on their team.

It is also good to slow or use High Explosive Trap on Fistweaver monks wherever possible, as they are unable to heal without being able to attack something in melee range.

When trapping Preservation Evokers you must be aware of:

• Nullifying Shroud
• Hover
• Deep Breath
• Dream Flight
• Stasis to dispel themself
• Dream Projection by hitting themself with it as trap lands

Nullifying Shroud is a big counter to Hunters. Unless somebody on your team is able to remove the Shroud, a lot of the time, it is easier to do your opener without using crowd control on the Healer just to build momentum. Remember, you can still kick the Evoker during Nullifying Shroud.

Avoid using Intimidation on an Evoker the moment that Nullifying Shroud ends because they will see the buff wearing off and use either Deep Breath or Dream Flight at that moment to immune your stun.

If an Evoker is casting Dream Projection, use Counter Shot before throwing your Freezing Trap if available, as they can otherwise use the Projection to dispel themself.

When trapping Restoration Druid you must be aware of:

• Wild Charge
• Dash
• Mighty Bash/ Rake/ Maim into Cyclone
• Tranquility with Preserve Nature
• Grove Guardians (spawning tree NPCs that may "eat" your traps)
• Growl on your pet
• Shadowmeld

Restoration Druids are one of the hardest targets to trap. They do not cast as much as other healers and, therefore, have no reason to stand still when you chase them.

With practice, you get used to their movement, and it gets easier to trap them, but do not allow the Druid to bait you into bad positions when chasing them.

Be careful of Grove Guardians. Restoration Druids will deliberately spawn these non player characters when you push for a trap to make it more difficult for you to aim. Take your time and be precise when you can see the trees spawn next to the Druid.

When facing Druids, remember to take Kodo Tranquilizer. This will greatly reduce the Druid's healing efficiency, and you can then win by maintaining pressure and surviving rather than relying on big crowd control setups.

When trapping Restoration Shamans you must be aware of:

• Grounding Totem
• Thunderstorm
• Lightning Lasso
• Earthen Wall Totem (does not stop the Trap but will stop you from being able to kill their teammates)
• Spirit Link Totem

The main thing to watch for here is Grounding Totem. Good Shamans will be very quick with using it, stand near them, apply slows and roots, and wait it out. When the Shaman uses Grounding Totem, quickly Arcane Shot it and throw your Trap. A mouseover Arcane Shot macro will help with this a lot.

Earthen Wall Totem is mentioned above because even though it does not deny your Trap, it will stop you from being able to kill somebody with your burst. Whenever you see a Shaman drop Earthen Wall Totem, you should be looking to knock their partner out of it using High Explosive Trap. If you cannot get their partner out of the Earthen Wall Totem (or cannot kite them out of the totem), do not trap them until they are outside of it.

Even if there is a stun on the Healer before you aim your Trap, there are other complications. For example, you could be facing a shaman who will press Grounding Totem to deny your Trap, a warrior using War Banner, or a Retribution Paladin using Blessing of Sanctuary to cancel your Intimidation.

You always want to cross crowd control on the off-target when you are trapping (usually Scatter Shot into Psychic Scream if you are playing with a Priest). Whether you Scatter Shot before or after the Trap depends on the matchup.

Survival of the Fittest is an extremely powerful defensive ability. Use this when you expect to be stunned (for example, instantly use this if a rogue uses Blind on your Healer) or when you are taking heavy damage during your own offensive cooldowns and want to stay aggressive. With two charges (from Padded Armor), you should want to use the first charge early to mitigate as much damage as possible.

Fortitude of the Bear is available to you when you have a tenacity pet summoned. This not only increases your maximum health, as it says, but it also heals you for this same amount so that you are left with increased current HP after using it. Be aware that you can use this whilst you are in crowd control and stuns, but not when your Pet is crowd-controlled. If an area of effect crowd control is coming ( Ring of Frost, Leg Sweep, Blinding Sleet) you will want to move your Pet away beforehand so that you can still use this self heal.

You can also use Fortitude of the Bear when you do not have an active pet if you are talented into Lone Wolf, but without a pet, you are not able to use it while crowd-controlled.

Feign Death is your main defensive tool due to its short cooldown and the Survival Tactics PvP Talent. Use it whenever you are about to take damage to reduce the burst damage you take and to force the enemy to re-target you.

Against Assassination Rogues, you should take Emergency Salve every time. This will turn Feign Death into an excellent defensive and mobility tool as it removes Crippling Poison as well as other damaging poisons. Emergency Salve can also be good into Shadow Priests to dispel Devouring Plague and is decent into other Rogue specs to dispel the slow.

Aspect of the Turtle is our immunity cooldown. Use this when the enemy team is focusing you down, and your Healer can not heal you through the damage or is stuck in crowd control. Although you can not attack with this cooldown active, you still have the ability to use Traps, Flare, and other non-offensive spells. You will usually want to combine Aspect of the Turtle with your 2-minute cooldown PvP trinket when stunned for maximum value.

It is worth communicating with your Healer and deciding what enemy cooldown you will use your trinket and Aspect of the Turtle to counter.

Exhilaration is a strong instant heal. Try to use this early as the cooldown resets quickly via Natural Mending.

Roar of Sacrifice is a vital utility ability for you or your teammates. This makes the teammate you use this on immune to being Critical Strikes by spells but causes your Pet to take 10% of the damage that your teammate takes. Use this immediately when the enemy team uses their cooldowns on a teammate or yourself.

Do not rely on Roar of Sacrifice alone to save you from cooldowns. It will make the damage predictable because there are no critical strikes, but it is not a damage reduction cooldown and most classes will be able to kill you with their cooldowns if you use Roar of Sacrifice and nothing else.

Master's Call is a utility cooldown to help you or your teammate kite or push for damage. Versus Balance Druids, it becomes an absolutely essential defensive cooldown. You must cast Master's Call on your Healer immediately when your Healer is rooted in a Solar Beam.

Interlope is a defensive cooldown that you may choose to use. It will allow you to either redirect damage off yourself or teammates or redirect crowd control off your Healer. An easy way to get value from this talent is to play it into Hunter teams and Interlope your Healer when they are stunned to redirect the Freezing Trap.