Ensidia

Disclaimer: I did not proof read, so there are probably a million grammatical and spelling mistakes. Once again, I didn't proof read, so the odds of me leaving something out are fairly good. I wish these blogs had an edit feature for this exact reason. :(


Welcome to Strunzy's guide on the Marksman Hunter. I've decided to write this for two reasons. The first is anyone who has just barely skimmed the Hunter forums would see that people keep regurgitating the same questions out, and the same answers follow suit. I plan on answering all of these questions, and providing as detailed answers as possible. The second was because both of the hunter guides were written in 3.1, so it was time for an update, as minimal as it may be.

Glossary

Talents
Glyphs
Gem Choice
Enchants
Consumables
Shot Prioritization
Cool Down Usage
Pets
Key Bindings
Play Style
Raid Awareness
Macros
Addons

Talents

There aren't many variations of the Marksman spec. Listed below are the most common Marksman Specs
(07/57/07)2/3 Focused Aim, No Trueshot Aura, No Improved Hunter's Mark.
(07/57/07)2/3 Focused Aim, Trueshot Aura, No Improved Hunter's Mark.
If you are having some serious mana issues, take a point out of Improved Steady Shot and put it into Rapid Recuperation
(07/57/07)2/3 Focused Aim, No Trueshot Aura, 3/3 Improved Hunter's Mark.
This spec is for when you need to spec into IHM because of your guild is running with a lot of hunters, or whatever the reason my be.
(07/57/07)2/3 Focused Aim, Trueshot Aura, 3/3 Improved Hunter's Mark.
Basically you're the buff bitch of the hunters.

I used 2/3 Focused Aim in all my builds because that is the amount of hit that I'm currently running. To determine how many points you should put into or take out of Focused Aim, look at your current hit rating. If it is equal to or greater than the numbers listed below, use the Focused Aim rating that follows.

262.24 Hit Rating – 0/3 Focused Aim
229.46 Hit Rating – 1/3 Focused Aim
196.68 Hit Rating – 2/3 Focused Aim
163.90 Hit Rating – 3/3 Focused Aim

If you are a Draenei, 32.78 Hit Rating = 1% Hit, so add that to your hit rating to take account. When it comes to which talents to take points out of and put points back into, the two that are most commonly used are Rapid Recuperation and Improved Steady Shot. If you are having some serious mana issues, then take it out of Rapid Recuperation, if you are having DPS issues, than Improved Steady Shot.

Glyphs

You'll want to be usingGlyph of Feign Death.A decreased cool down on Feign Death means more opportunities to drop aggro, increased chance of surviving through a wipe, and more times to feign if having to kite. Second is the Glyph of Mend Pet. It's just basically there for after a wipe, if your pet is hated or normal, you can spam mend pet to increase the happiness, instead of having to wait for Bloodthirsty to proc. Lastly is Glyph of Revive Pet for all those times your pet dies in a fire, and you have to revive it.

Glyph of Serpent Sting. This is fairly straight forward. Chimera shot does damage based off what the serpent sting is going to do / will do, so an increased duration yields a higher chimera shot.
Glyph of Kill Shot. Again very straight forward. More Kill Shots yields more DPS. Also there are so many fights that have adds, or something besides the boss that needs to be burned down, so being able to get a KS off on each one adds a lot of DPS.

Glyph of Steady Shot. Guess what. It works again. This makes it a pretty good glyph again. Steady shot accounts for a good portion of a MM Arm Pen hunter's DPS, so an added 10% to it's damage is fairly solid.
Glyph of Chimera Shot. This is another very common glyph. The only problem I have with this, is it really fucks up your previous perfect rotation. Some times you'll cast 4 steady shots, others just one. It leaves you in a lot of those "coin flip" situations where your GCD is in the process. The only thing is, you'll want to wait for Chimera shot now, because it has such a shorter cool down, and it's such a larger portion of your DPS,

Gem Choice

Before getting into what and how you should gem, I'm going to break the ice and explain why some hunters choose to gem for Arm Pen, and others for Agi. The thing with Arm Pen, is that it increases exponentially.

Exponential growth is just like the classic problem, where every time you double the number, its relative distance from the last number increases vastly. (2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2058). As you can see, especially on a larger scale, at first the numbers are small and relatively close to one another, but once you get higher, the yield beings to increase a lot more.
The formula for Armor is the exact opposite. The more armor you have, the less of an increase in damage reduction you gain per armor. For instance, a tank with 5k armor has about 25% reduction, but a tank with 10k armor has about 40% reduction. The armor doubled yet the increase in damage reduction only went up by about 50%, not 100%. This is why the armor pen has the exponential growth. The less and less armor the mob has, the more significant the loss in damage reduction.
The thing is though, people are expecting that the second they hit this "magical" amount of Arm Pen, their DPS will sky rocket from the 5k they were doing before to the 8-9k they see others doing. This is far from the truth. The increase is minimal yet it does exsist. A hunter though that decides to gem Agi instead is still highly competitive, they'll just excel in certain area's that the other hunter won't. So what are those area's?
The Arm Pen hunter will top the meters on your class tank and spank fights. The less movement involved, and the less AoE involved the better. You'll become a one trick pony, in the sense that you can't move, and you can't AoE, you can only single target. The Agi hunter will excel in the these same things.
So when will you know if gemming Arm Pen is the right thing for you? When you have around 800 Arm Pen rating, without gemming for it, and without having any trinket procs, then you know you are ready. I don't recommend this though. If I'm having to tell you when you're ready, or if you didn't probably know previously, then you are better of just gemming Agi. No really. YOU ARE BETTER WITH AGI.

Enchants

Enchanting is as straight forward as it gets so I'll just list each slot and best enchant(s). This list will not include profession specific enchants.

Helmet

1. Arcanum of Torment - 50 AP + 20 Crit

Shoulder

1. Greater Inscription of the Axe - 40 AP + 15 Crit

Cloak

1. Major Agility - 22 Agi

Chest

1. Powerful Stats - 10 All Stats

Bracers

1. Greater Assault - 50 AP

Gloves

1. Major Agility - 20 Agi

Pants

1. Icescale Leg Armor - 75 AP + 22 Crit

Boots

1. Icewalker - 12 Hit + 12 Crit

1. Superior Agility - 16 Agi

1. Tuskarr's Vitality - 15 Stam + 8% Run Speed

Two Handed Weapon

1. Massacre - 110 AP

One Handed Weapon

1. Superior Potency - 65 AP

Ranged Weapon

1. Heartseeker Scope - 40 Crit

Consumables

This is fairly straight forward. Almost everyone uses a flask of endless rage, because it is so convenient and good. You'll always want to carry health potions, potions of speed, potions of wild magic, and mana potions with you, along side bandages. In terms of food, Spiced Mammoth Treats for your pet, and personal Agi food is best for you, but a fish feast is fine if you are lazy / poor.

Shot Prioritization

1st) Kill Shot. If the mob is equal to or less than 19%, this shot should always be on cool down. Nothing adds to your DPS than a 27k crit.
2nd) Serpent Sting. This should technically only be used once at the start of the fight. That's why it's so high on the list, because it is necessary for Chimera Shot, yet you only need to use it once. When dealing with adds, if they live for a prolonged period of time, then you will want to keep a rolling serpent sting (and piercing shots if you're good) on each mob.
3rd) Chimera Shot. Does great damage, and refreshes your serpent sting. Having this shot third is pretty self explanatory.
4th) Aimed Shot. It deals physical damage thus benefiting from Arm Pen. It doesn't hit quite as hard as chimera, but more than steady, so it fits in between. You can move this ahead of chimera if keeping the debuff on the boss is absolutely critical. You'll want to use Multi Shot over Aimed shot, when obviously, there are multiple none CC'd mobs that are bunched together.
5th) Arcane Shot. This is only used if you have less that 400±50 Arm Pen. It's a weak shot, that doesn't benefit from Arm Pen. What this shot is great for though is movement. Whenever you are moving, you'll want this on CD after Chimera and Aimed no matter what gear you have. Something is better than nothing.
6th)Steady Shot. Even though steady shot doesn't hit for that much, it's still a great shot. It benefits from Piercing Shots, it procs Improved Steady Shot to increase your next shot's damage, it benefits from Arm Pen.
7th) Silencing Shot. This is only up here, because it should always be on cooldown. It's not on the GCD, meaning it can be macro'd to all of your shots if you want. Look at the macro section for these.

When you aren't using Glyph of Chimera Shot or Aimed Shot, and following the second rotation, most hunters get into a seemly Chimera --> Aimed --> Steady x4 Rinse and Repeat which is the second rotation. Depending on your latency and haste, you might be caught in some sticky situations where you're not sure if you should cast a steady shot, or idle and wait for Chimera to come back off cool down. I personally use steady shot if the GCD > .9 seconds, or idle if it is <.7 seconds. That leaves .1 seconds of coin flip time really. If you think about it though, it's too late so just play it by ear.

Cool Down Usage

Cool down usage is so dependent on different variables of fights, like if there are burn phases, if the boss takes extra damage, when blood lust occurs. It's hard to explain exactly what you have to do. All I can suggest, is know the fights and the duration of the fights very well. Typically though you'll want to burn all your cool downs at the very start, so that they will be up again a second time in the fight, except for CotW which can be saved for blood lust if you choose. Another thing to take into consideration is if you are using trinkets that have a proc and an ICD. 95% of the time, a trinket will proc again within a couple of seconds of coming off its ICD. Being able to work your cool downs around these procs, will vastly add to your DPS as well. You'll want to pop your cool downs before the trinket pops though. Most trinket only last about 15 seconds, so you'll be losing 2-3 seconds of reaction and button pressing time, which is 20% of the proc wasted!
Here is a very rough version of heroic beasts that I thought up in my head.

Just some general tips, pre pot 1-2 seconds before you enter combat, enabling you to technically use two potions during the fight. Switch to viper whenever it is logical, or use Viper Sting. For instance on beasts I always switch to viper when worms burrow, and during the stun of Massive Crash. For faction champs, just throw a viper sting on the shadow priest or mage, and you'll never have any problems.

Pets

At the moment Wolves are the best pet for any serious raiding hunter. Although it's single target DPS isn't the greatest, the increase Furious Howl buff is pretty substantial. It is basically giving you and your pet 320 AP for half the duration of any fight since the buff last for 20sec and the cool down is only 40sec.
When it comes to your wolves talents and spec, the most commonly used spec is Ferocity. You want Wild Hunt instead of Shark Attack, because the increased stam means more survivability, as well as just being a more marginal DPS increase.
Managing your pet is fairly basic. All it comes down to is keeping your pet alive, and having it attack the right targets. A general tip for when a pet can mess things up is Razorscale and The Faction Champions. If you don't manage your pet very well on Razorscale, you'll notice that it will just sit below the boss the entire time adds come. For The Faction Champions, you might lose track of it, and your pet will start to attack a mob that needs to be CC'ed or just simply the wrong target. What I personally do is set my pet to passive, and after each mob I manually have it attack the same target as me. You could just keep it at defensive though, and watch it carefully.

Key Bindings

Key bindings are very important not just to a Hunter, but to every class. I can't just tell you what bindings you should be using, because that's just ludicrous. I don't know what works well for you, and it's pointless to tell you mine because those might only work for me. Instead I can just give you general tips and rules for your bindings.
1. Don't click. I know that you've been doing it since level 1 in beta, and you're really good at it. Trust me, you're not as good as anyone who uses logical key bindings. You're reaction time is greater, and you are focused more on where to move your mouse, rather than what's going on in the raid and in general. Just don't click.
2. Don't use the arrow keys or A + D keys to turn. Turning with these keys makes your movement so much slow it's ridiculous. Instead use your mouse to turn, and have the A + D keys bound to strafing. Example is Massive crash on heroic Beasts. The boss targets you. Scenario A) You move forward and turn with keys as well very slowly. BAM you're dead, and the guild hates you. Scenario B) Boss targets you, you angle your camera away, and use mouse to move, so you instantly are out of the path.
3. Make use of your whole keyboard. I personally use the 1-5keys, A, E, R, F, G, X, Z, ~ and with the use of Shift and Ctrl, I'm able to use all my abilities at a moments notice without ever having to move or pick up my hand.

Play Style

I guarantee you that making altercations to your play style will increase your DPS than any overly obsessive min maxing you can think of. For instance, Auto shot accounts for the largest portion of a Marks hunters DPS. Having and looking at your swing timer will let you time out your movements around the auto shots. If your .2 seconds away from an auto shot, let it go off, then begin moving. While you're moving, you can halt for a split second to let each auto shot go off, then continue on. Of course you don't want this to inhibit your ability to play, or you dying to whatever it was that caused you to move, but it's still something that should be in the back of your head.
When going through your rotations, don't live in the present, but live in the future. Don't see that something is off cool down, and use it. Know that it will be off cool down shots ahead of time, and prepare to use it.
Don't single hit your abilities. By this I mean, hitting the key only once. You'll want to spam the hell out of that key .5sec before to .5sec after the cast. This will take into effect any latency issues, as well as giving you the most accurate timing for using the ability the second it is available.

Raid Awareness

By raid awareness, I'm not just talking about looking at your screen, seeing your in a fire, and moving. You should know the encounters inside and out, know what is going to happen a minute plus ahead, and plan accordingly.

Macros

Aimed Shot Macro

1. 
   #showtooltip aimed shot
   #show aimed shot
   /cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
   /cast aimed shot
   /cast silencing shot
   

Arcane Shot Macro

1. 
   #showtooltip arcane shot
   #show arcane shot
   /cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
   /cast arcane shot
   /cast silencing shot
   

Chimera Shot Macro

1. 
   #showtooltip chimera shot
   #show chimera shot
   /cast [target=pettarget,exists] kill command
   /cast chimera shot
   /cast silencing shot
   

Cancel Deterrence Macro

1. 
   /cancelaura Deterrence
   

Cool Downs Macro (Without any trinkets and racials)

1. 
   #showtooltip rapid fire
   #show rapid fire
   /cast rapid fire
   /cast kill command
   /cast readiness
   

Master's Call Macro (When mouseover target)

1. 
   #showtooltip Master's Call
   #show Master's Call
   /cast [target=mouseover,exists][target=player] Master's Call
   

Melee Macro

1. 
   #show Mongoose Bite
   #showtooltip Mongoose Bite
   /cast Raptor Strike(Rank 9)
   /cast Mongoose Bite(Rank 5)
   

Misdirect Macro (Will MD to your focus, or pet if you have no focus)

1. 
   #showtooltip misdirection
   /cast [target=focus, help] misdirection; [help] misdirection; [target=pet, exists] misdirection
   

Addons

Here is a small list of addons that I feel all hunters must use. Of course there are many other addons that I use and recommend, but once again, these are just core raiding ones that everyone should have.
It is organized by type of addon and the various options you may choose depending on your liking. They are listed alphabetically, not by person preference.

Boss Encounters

1. BigWigs Bossmods

1. Deadly Boss Mods. By far the most popular choice among guilds.

Cast Bar's

1. Quartz. The great thing about this is the swing timer. Make sure you use it, and make it really big. It also factors in and show's you latency.

Cool Down Management

1. Cooldown Timers2

1. ForteXorcist. Powerful little addon. Most useful part of it is the guitar hero style cool down listings and DoT Timer. You can easily use it to track trinkets ICD's and what not as well.

1. Heatsink. I don't think this addon has been updated in a while, with any items post 3.2; however, it's still a nifty addon that you can easily configure and customize to work for you.

1. OmniCC. If you use this addon, and you all should, make sure you enable the ability for it to track tenth's of a second. It help's a lot when you can see exactly if you have 1.5 seconds to get off another steady shot or not before the GCD

Damage Meters

1. Skada Damage Meters. It's like Recount, except it's a lot less memory intensive. The only thing this doesn't do that Recount does is show you little pie graphs, otherwise it's the same, but better.

1. Recount

Threat Meter

1. Omen Threat Meter