Welcome to our Mists of Pandaria Classic (MoP Classic) Marksmanship Hunter Class Guide for Phase 1, it focuses on getting you up to speed with the Spec for PvE content, Dungeons and Raiding. The guide includes key information for what has changed going into MoP, the best Talent builds, Major Glyphs, your Rotation, Gearing and Consumables for Marksmanship Hunter (MM Hunter).
Table of Content:
What’s New for Marksmanship Hunters in Mists of Pandaria Classic
Hunters are receiving a lot of class changes coming into Mists of Pandaria, but for the most part these aren’t game breaking changes. Most of them are buffs or Quality of Life changes, making Hunter way smoother to play. Here are the biggest changes:
- No more melee weapons.
- Wing clip, Parry, Raptor Strike and Aspect of the wild are deleted.
- No more range limitation. You can use your ranged attacks even in melee.
- Ranged attacks can be dodged, so you need a bit of Expertise.
- Rapid Fire, Bestial Wrath now have a reduced cooldown.
- Kill command has a 25-yard range.
- Revive pet is way faster.
- Trueshot Aura is now unlocked for every spec.
- Stampede is a new offensive cooldown, calling all your pets to attack your target.
- No more talent trees for pets.
Is Marksmanship Hunter Good?
Marksmanship Hunters are pretty good. They aren’t the best DPS in the game, but they are hunters and as Hunters they provide interesting utility like Hunter’s Mark and True Shot Aura. Marksmanship is expected to be middle of the pack DPS wise, but they might be out-shined by their other 2 specializations. Survival and Beast Mastery are expected to be absolute beasts in Mists of Pandaria, so even if Marksmanship is far from bad, it’s not the main character in Mists of Pandaria Classic. Though, with changes on PTR and pre-patch, Marksmanship Hunters might gain a lot of power depending on what changes will go live.
Best Talents & Glyphs for Marksmanship Hunter in MoP Classic
As for a lot of classes with the new revamped talent system, you can pretty easily set up 2 talent builds: one for Single Target, usually more for Raids, and AoE, more for Dungeons and Challenge mode.
Marksmanship Hunter Raiding Talent Build
This is the default talent build for raiding. Hunters, regardless of the specialization, have a very similar talent tree. There are some things that change, like Blink Strikes for Beast mastery, but all the other choices are pretty much the same. Depending on the fights, you can swap those talents:
- If you need more instant mobility, like a quick burst of speed, replace Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera with Posthaste.
- Binding Shot can be swapped around depending on the kind of crowd control you need.
- Regarding the damage options, Thrill of the Hunt is better in heavy AoE. The same goes for Barrage vs Glaive Toss.
Best Marksmanship Hunter Raid Glyphs
Regarding Major Glyphs, you will want to obtain the most important one, Glyph of Aimed Shot, after that take Glyph of Deterrence and Glyph of Animal Bond.
Other options are Glyph of Ice trap, Glyph of Liberation, Glyph of Disengage.
There are very few good Minor Glyphs, the ones worth noting are Glyph of Direction, Glyph of Fetch, Glyph of Aspect of the Cheetah, Glyph of Aspect of the Pack.
Marksmanship Hunter Dungeons Build
The dungeon talent build is very similar to the raid talent build and follows the same logic, so as expected: Barrage and Thrill of the Hunt for more AoE potential and exploding packs. The utility options follow the same reasoning, change them depending on the dungeon.
Best Marksmanship Hunter Dungeon Glyphs
Regarding Major Glyphs, you will want to obtain the most important one, Glyph of Aimed Shot, after that take Glyph of Deterrence and Glyph of Animal Bond.
Other options are Glyph of Ice trap, Glyph of Liberation, Glyph of Disengage.
There are very few good Minor Glyphs, the ones worth noting are Glyph of Direction, Glyph of Fetch, Glyph of Aspect of the Cheetah, Glyph of Aspect of the Pack.
Rotation for Marksmanship Hunter in MoP Classic
Hunters use Focus to cast spells.
Single Target Rotation & Priority
- Maintain Hunter’s Mark.
- Stay in Aspect of the Hawk.
- Maintain Serpent Sting.
- Use Stamped on Cooldown.
- Use Rapid Fire on Cooldown.
- Use Fervor on Cooldown with low Focus.
- Use A Murder of Crows on Cooldown.
- Use Glaive Toss On Cooldown.
- Use Chimera Shot on Cooldown.
- Maintain Steady Focus by casting Steady Shot twice once it has less than 4 seconds left.
- Use Aimed Shot when Master Marksman Procs.
- Use Kill shot on Cooldown.
- Use Aimed Shot and Arcane Shot to spend Focus. Use Aimed Shot during Cooldown and on targets with more than 80% health. Use Arcane shot otherwise. When you reach high level of Haste, Aimed shot will take priority all the time.
- Use Steady shot to generate Focus.
Marksmanship Hunter Opener
Regarding the opener, place Hunter’s Mark, your Explosive Trap and Snake Trap, pre-cast Aimed shot, 2 Steady Shots to get Steady Focus, Stampede, Rabid, Serpent Sting, Chimera Shot, Fervor, Murder of Crows, Glaive Toss, Rapid Fire and then the single target rotation.
AoE Rotation & Priority
In AoE, you mainly want to use Explosive Trap on Cooldown and Barrage on Cooldown, and dump Focus on Multi-Shot and that’s it, play the single target rotation after that.
Best Gear & Stats for Marksmanship Hunter in MoP Classic
Best in Slot (BiS Gear) aren’t as big in Mists of Pandaria Classic. Reforging is the new hype, so you can tailor your gear better than before.
The gear you should aim for are: Trinkets, Tier Sets and Weapons.
The best weapons you can find pre-raid in the first phase are:
- Klalith, Fangs of the Swarm, Raigonn, Gate of the Setting Sun.
- Amber Sprayer of Klaxxi’vess, The Klaxxi, Exalted.
- Tempestuous Longbow, Siege of Niuzao Temple, General Pa’valak.
The best pre-raid trinkets are:
- Relic of Xuen if you have Inscription.
- Searing Words, Darkmaster Gandling, Scholomance.
- Windswept Pages, from Temple of the Jade Serpent.
MoP Classic Marksmanship Hunter Stat Priority
Reach your Hit and Expertise cap, so around 7.5% for both. Then, Agility is your best stat. As soon as a gear piece gives you more Agility, it’s a good idea to equip it.
After that, it goes: Critical Strike, Haste and then Mastery. Critical Strike and Haste are a bit close, having a nice baseline of Haste can help make the rotation smoother.
Best Consumables, Enchants & Gems for Marksmanship Hunter in MoP Classic
The following tables outline the recommended Consumables, Enchants and Gems for Marksmanship Hunter in Raiding and Dungeon content.
Consumables
Type | Consumable |
Food | Sea Mist Rice Noodles, Seasoned Pomfruit Slices |
Flask | Flask of Spring Blossoms |
Potion | Virmen’s Bite |
Enchants
Gear | Enchant |
Shoulder | Greater Tiger Fang Inscription |
Back | Enchant Cloak - Accuracy or Superior Critical Strike |
Chest | Enchant Chest - Glorious Stats |
Wrists | Enchant Bracers - Greater Agility |
Hands | Enchant Gloves - Greater Haste |
Legs | Shadowleather Leg Armor |
Feet | Enchant Boots - Blurred Speed |
Weapons | Lord Blastington’s Scope of Doom |
Gems
Type | Gems |
White | Agile Primal Diamond |
Yellow | Deadly Vermilion Onyx |
Red | Delicate Primordial Ruby |
Blue | Glinting Imperial Amethyst |
Prismatic | Delicate Primordial Ruby |
We hope this guide helped you improve your Marksmanship Hunter Gameplay and better understand the spec. To check out all of our MoP Classic content, such as Class Guides, Tier Lists and more, you can browse our full library of MoP Classic Guides.