PvE Marksmanship Hunter Talents & Builds – WoW Classic

Marksmanship Hunters have two main builds they can utilize, one standard build that works for both dungeons and raids and one specific build for players that don’t have enough Hit Chance. We will showcase both builds, explaining each of them in-depth and what possible changes you can make based on the different situations.

PvE Marksmanship Hunter

Stat Priority

Best Professions

Talents & Builds

Rotation & Cooldowns

Pre-Raid & Best in Slot (BiS)

Enchants & Consumables

Standard Marksmanship/Beast Mastery Build

The standard build is a mix of Marksmanship and Beast Mastery, being adaptable and functional throughout the entirety of WoW Classic! Depending on the type of content you are doing, the Monster Slaying and Humanoid Slaying talents can be freely swapped for maximum efficiency. A clear example of this would be the first Molten Core, Upper Blackrock Depths, Dire Maul, and Blackwing Lair which can benefit from the talents, especially Monster Slaying. You will want to sacrifice the Beast Mastery Tree points to acquire either Monster Slaying or Humanoid Slaying.

Some of the core talents of this build are Mortal Shots, Aimed Shot, Improved Hunter’s Mark, and Lethal Shots! Since Critical Strike Chance is so important for Hunters, you will always want to ensure that you have 5/5 in those talents. However, Improved Hunter’s Mark is relative depending on whether or not another hunter from your group already has 5/5 points in it or not. If you know for sure that another Hunter has 5/5 in the talent, you may only take 2 points in it to get 3/3 Hawk Eye instead.

Trueshot Aura is always going to be mandatory even if there are other Hunters in your raid group using it! Since it only extends to your party, you will always want to get it for the extra Attack Power! The rest of the talents from the Beast Mastery talent are taken to ensure that your pet also deals hefty amounts of damage. While you may take Monster Slaying and Humanoid Slaying, for different specific instances and scenarios, both Unleashed Fury and Ferocity provide a substantial Damage Output increase if you choose the right pet. Either way, you will want at least 2 points in Unleashed Fury. 5/5 in Improved Aspect of the Hawk is also mandatory for the RNG Attack Speed proc that can result in heavy burst moments.

Standard Marksmanship/Survival Build

This variation of the Standard Build utilizes the Survival Tree instead of the Beast Mastery Tree and is specifically picked for the Surefooted talent! This build variant exists to aid Marksmanship Hunters during their gearing journey before they acquire Hit Chance. The only real benefits besides Surefooted in this build are Monster Slaying and Humanoid Slaying, while Clever Traps and Entrapment are situational depending on how much you use your traps. Deterrence is also optional, yet quite an effective defensive tool, especially for dungeons that go wrong. Savage Strikes is, however, great if you decide to Melee Weave!

The rest of the build remains the same, with all the points in the Marksmanship Tree remaining unchanged. The only real issue with the build is the overall lower damage output which is way lower. The build would perform considerably worse than the other variant if compared between two characters having the same gear itemization if their items already grant enough Hit Chance.