Marksman Hunter

10/28/09

The leveling guide

The leveling guide, such as it is, is done!

Now, the posts in order of appearance, rather than the reverse-chronological that the tag gives you:

Cataclysm will change so much with the switch to Focus, but until then, hopefully it's at least an okay overview of what to expect leveling as a Marksman hunter.

Level 80

Welcome to level 80!

At level 80, I put the last talent point into Combat Experience, for that little stat boost. You also get a new major glyph; I generally go with Trueshot Aura, since this is a soloing/PVP build, and the aura isn't going to be overwritten.

Skills, Level 80:

80: Aimed Shot (Rank 9), Aspect of the Dragonhawk (Rank 2), Call Stabled Pet, Freezing Arrow (Rank 1), Kill Shot (Rank 3), Mend Pet (Rank 10), Mongoose Bite (Rank 6), Multi-Shot (Rank 8), Volley (Rank 6)

You get a bunch of new ranks at 80, plus two new skills. One is Call Stable Pet. Right now it's on a 30 minute cooldown, but that's getting shortened to 5 in the 3.3 patch. It lets you swap pets without going to a stable master. I use it when I switch between my soloing and group specs, to go from my bear to my wolf, and also in Trial of the Crusader to pull out my hyena (for the hamstring) for the Faction Champions.

Your other new level 80 skill is Freezing Arrow. This lets you drop a Freezing Trap at ranged, which is good for pulling with a trap. (We were using it with some success on our Thorim-25 attempts, and with another Hunter, we duoed a couple level 70 heroics using simultaneous ranged traps.) It shares a cooldown with the other Ice traps.

At this point, if you're interested in 5-mans or raids, your spec isn't terrible, but isn't optimal; this is why I developed a raiding spec. It has evolved over time, depending on hit rating from gear and whether or not I was likely to have Replenishment.

If you want a nice pre-raiding ranged weapon, there are several options. The crossbow from Heroic Utgarde Keep is popular; Loken in the Halls of Lightning drops a nice gun; engineers can make you a nicer gun. There are other options - the Argent Tournament, Heroic Culling of Stratholme, Heroic Old Kingdom.

For other level 80 pre-raiding gear, there are shoulders and a good two-hander from the Ebon Blade, a head enchant from the Ebon Blade, a breastplate and a cloak from the Argent Crusade, good pants in both Heroic Halls of Lightning and Heroic Azjol-Nerub, a good BoE belt (Tasseled Lanterns), the amazingly long-lasting Eaglebane Bracers, good boots off Keristrazsa in Heroic Nexus, great gloves off Cyanigosa in Heroic Violet Hold, a good badge trinket (Mirror of Truth), a nice haste-proc trinket in Heroic Utgarde Pinacle, and various nice rings and necks. Assuming you don't go straight to buying stuff with Conquest Badges and pick up some tier 8.5 for the very nice 2-piece bonus.

You might want to pick up a wolf for groups if you haven't yet. No matter how much you love your soloing pet, people you PUG with who know anything about hunters will go, "Hm..." if you have something besides a wolf or maybe a cat.

Marksman 1-80: Levels 71-79

Levels 71-79

Talents in the 70s are more Marksman ones, leading up to getting Chimera Shot at 78. Improved Stings are great for it, and the bleed from Piercing Shot is a nice damage boost. (It'll keep rogues from restealthing for the duration, too.)

Skills, Levels 71-79:

71: Explosive Trap (Rank 5), Kill Shot (Rank 1), Raptor Strike (Rank 10), Steady Shot (Rank 3)
72: Immolation Trap (Rank 7)
73: Arcane Shot (Rank 10), Serpent Sting (Rank 11)
74: Aspect of the Dragonhawk (Rank 1), Mend Pet (Rank 9), Multi-Shot (Rank 7), Volley (Rank 5)
75: Aimed Shot (Rank 8), Kill Shot (Rank 2), Master's Call
76: Aspect of the Wild (Rank 4), Hunter's Mark (Rank 5)
77: Explosive Trap (Rank 6), Raptor Strike (Rank 11), Steady Shot (Rank 4)
78: Immolation Trap (Rank 8)
79: Arcane Shot (Rank 11), Serpent Sting (Rank 12)

There's a lot of new ranks through the 70s, and you also get three new skills, on top of Chimera Shot from talents.

At 71, you get Kill Shot. This is sort of a ranged execute, usable when the target is under 20% health, with a longer range than other shots (for picking off runners). It has a 15 second cooldown, which can be reduced with a glyph. It hits hard and crits harder. (I've seen 12-13k on the Headless Horseman's head over the past couple weeks, and with damage boosts or on vulnerable bosses, you can get crazy numbers.) I wasn't initially sold on it for leveling until it saved my behind against an elite on a group quest in the Borean Tundra that I was trying to solo.

The next new skill you get in the 70s is Aspect of the Dragonhawk. It combines Apsect of the Hawk and Aspect of the Monkey, but alas, did not get Aspect of the Monkeyhawk (or Aspect of the Flying Monkeys of Doom) as its name. However, if you want to talk about survivability against multiple pulls or adds, it really helps. (I dodged Onyxia a couple weeks ago when the tank dropped at the start of phase three during a messy run. It was awesome. I immediately Feigned.)

You also pick up Master's Call at level 75. This will make your pet break you or someone else out of a snare. Although primarily a PVP skill, there are some boss fights where this can be helpful. (Hodir comes to mind.)

At 78 you should have enough points in Marksman to pick up Chimera Shot. This is a hard hitting shot that will hit harder if you have Serpent Sting up, possibly disarm your target if you have Scorpid Sting up, or give you a shot of mana if you have Viper Sting up. It has a 10 second cooldown which can be shaved slightly with a glyph.

Chimera Shot is the shot to which I have most other stuff macroed. I don't have any On Use: trinkets, or those could be included, as well.

#showtooltip
/cast Chimera Shot
/use
/cast Silencing Shot
/cast Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

Ranged weapons are plentiful throughout Northrend, though they seem to favor guns. Or at least, as an engineer able to make Mammoth Cutters, I favored guns.

Marksman 1-80: Level 70

Level 70

By level 70, we've invested enough points in Marksman to pick up Silencing Shot; you get your third minor glyph, as well, so you can get the Revive Pet one.

Skills, Level 70:

70: Aimed Shot (Rank 7), Misdirection, Mongoose Bite (Rank 5)

Not a lot of new ranks at 70. Silencing Shot, from talents, is both a silence and a real interrupt now, in case the target is immune to silencing. Great for trapping caster mobs, interrupting heals, and PVP. Also a nice little damage boost that may be worth throwing into your rotation. It's not on the Global Cooldown, but it has a 20 second cooldown, so you can macro it to another shot.

You also learn Misdirection, which lets you transfer some of your threat to another target (usually a tank). It can help for keeping things on your pet, as well. There are a variety of Misdirection macros out there; I use one like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [button:1, target=focus] Misdirection; [button:2] Misdirection; [button:3, target=pet] Misdirection
/p A message to let your party know you're MD.

It can be shortened, but is basically left-click goes to focus, right-click goes where to your current target (if a player) or to what you click on next, and middle mouse goes to pet. Useful for pulling bosses.

Marksman 1-80: Levels 61-69

Levels 61-69

If you've gone with the Survival talents, you can pick up Scatter Shot at level 61. Woohoo! After that, it's back to the Marksman tree.

Skills, Levels 61-69

61: Scatter Shot, Explosive Trap (Rank 4)
62: Steady Shot (Rank 2)
63: Raptor Strike (Rank 9)
65: Immolation Trap (Rank 6)
66: Kill Command
67: Multi-Shot (Rank 6), Serpent Sting (Rank 10), Volley (Rank 4)
68: Aspect of the Hawk (Rank 8), Aspect of the Wild (Rank 3), Mend Pet (Rank 8), Snake Trap
69: Arcane Shot (Rank 9)

Scatter Shot used to be the 21-point Marksman Talent (similarly to how Readiness used to be the 31-point Survival Talent). It's a Disorient, and breaks to damage, so it can be used as a precursor to a Freezing Trap, as a brief stun substitute, or a spell interrupt. It's good for PVP, soloing, and for 5-mans where crowd control actually matters.

Skills are no longer just on even levels after level 60, so you'll want to hit up the trainer more often.

At level 66 you can learn Kill Command. This has been redesigned over time, and now buffs your pet's next three special attacks. Not as a big deal for Marksman as for Beast Mastery, but still a nice little buff. It's on a 1-minute cooldown and off the Global Cooldown, so you can macro it to something and mostly forget about it.

The last new skill you'll pick up in the 60s is Snake Trap. It doesn't share a cooldown with any other traps, so you can drop it in addition to the others. It'll release a bunch of little snakes which will run off (well, slither off) to attack and poison things in their vicinity. The snakes aren't always smart, and will run off to attack adds (and occasionall rats) in the area, as well. I love them; they make me giggle.

You're probably in Outland by now; you can get a decent gun in Nagrand from the Nesingwary quests, and if you go through Shadowmoon's chains, there's a nice bow.

Marksman 1-80: Level 60

Level 60

Level 60 lets you finish off the Survival talents requisite to getting Scatter Shot at 61. You can learn to ride flying mounts now at 60, at either of the starting towns in Hellfire Peninsula. If you've spurned both the Beast Mastery and Survival talents so far, level 60 is the earliest you can pick up Chimera Shot.

Skills, Level 60:

60: Aimed Shot (Rank 6), Arcane Shot (Rank 8), Aspect of the Hawk (Rank 7), Deterrence, Freezing Trap (Rank 3), Mend Pet (Rank 7), Multi-Shot (Rank 5), Serpent Sting (Rank 9), Tranquilizing Shot

There are a lot of new ranks at level 60; there are only two new skills if you're waiting on Chimera Shot.

The first is Deterrence. Once upon a time, Deterrence was a Survival talent. Now it's a poor man's Evasion, buffing your Parry and give you spell deflection for 5 seconds. It's one of those things that may buy you some time to survive.

The other skill you get is Tranquilizing Shot. Once upon a time, this skill was learned from a book which dropped off Lucifron, the first boss in Molten Core. It was necessary at the time because it would remove Magmadar's Frenzy. Now it's been transformed to our Dispel, and it can remove certain enrages (Gluth's, possibly warriors' and rogues'). Very useful in PVP and for some boss fights.

Marksman 1-80: Levels 51-59

Levels 51-59

There are two ways to go with talents at this point - you can hop over to Survival to head towards Scatter Shot, or you can continue in the Marksman tree to get to Chimera faster. I've mapped out Scatter Shot first. This will also get you increased range and increased damage from having tracking on.

Skills, 51-59:

52: Aimed Shot (Rank 5), Arcane Shot (Rank 7), Mend Pet (Rank 6)
54: Explosive Trap (Rank 3), Multi-Shot (Rank 4)
56: Aspect of the Wild (Rank 2), Immolation Trap (Rank 5), Raptor Strike (Rank 8)
58: Aspect of the Hawk (Rank 6), Hunter's Mark (Rank 4), Mongoose Bite (Rank 4), Serpent Sting (Rank 8), Volley (Rank 3)

In terms of skills, the 50s are even more boring than the 40s. New ranks, but nothing new. I usually do the Jintha'alor quests in the Hinterlands around level 50-52 (trinket), then head up to the Plaguelands. If you go through all Blightcaller's quests up through killing the Scarlet Oracle, you can get yourself a pretty nice bow.

And then go to Outlands and replace it in Hellfire Peninsula, but still.