I. Talent Build
PVE is Player vs. Environment (also known as Player vs. Monster, Player vs. NPC) which means this build is basically focused on boss and monster encounters. The image above is my hunter, Windstrife. I play at Neltharion realm in https://www.molten-wow.com/. I'm using 3/32/6 talent build. Now I'm going to explain each of the talents that I have selected and why do I use them.
Beast Mastery
- One With Nature 3/3 - Provides 10% bonus ranged attack power when using Aspect of the Hawk per talent point so you'd want to max this out. That's 30% ranged attack power, what's not to like?
Marksmanship
- Go For The Throat 2/2 - Gives your pet 10 focus every time you land a ranged critical hit. This helps your pet to deal more damage as they use focus for their skills.
- Efficiency 3/3 - Reduces your Arcane Shot and Chimera Shot's focus cost. This is important because resource managing is kind of hard.
- Rapid Killing 1/2 - Grants your next Aimed Shot, Steady Shot or Cobra Shot a 10% bonus damage each time you kill a target. This is pretty lame on PVE but one point is enough to trigger that 50 focus gain on Rapid Recuperation.
- Improved Steady Shot 3/3 - Grants 15% haste when casting Steady Shot consecutively. That haste bonus is a plus for us hunters.
- Careful Aim 2/2 - Increases Aimed Shot, Steady Shot or Cobra Shot critical strike chance by 60% on targets with 90% health. That's huge critical strike bonus and gives you a good damage output on every combat.
- Silencing Shot 1/1 - A shot that silence your target for 3 sec. Most of the time, mobs and bosses are immune to this but this is very useful once a mob is not immune to silence especially against a caster mob.
- Concussive Barrage 2/2 - Gives 50% chance per talent point to daze your targets hit by Multi-Shot or Chimera shot. Maxing this out gives 100% daze chance and slowing your target is essential when kiting.
- Piercing Shots 3/3 - Gives your critical Aimed Shot, Steady Shot and Chimera Shot to apply bleed to your target equal to 30% of its damage. This is also a huge damage output boost.
- Bombardment 2/2 - Lowers your Multi-Shot cost by 50% when it critically hits a target. This allows your Multi-Shot to be spammable when doing area of effect damage and allows you to do a perma-daze on your targets (see Concussive Barrage).
- Trueshot Aura 1/1 - Increases melee attack power by 20% and ranged attack power by 10% to all party members. Again, a damage output bonus so this is a must.
- Termination 2/2 - Your Steady Shot and Cobra Shot grants 6 more focus when dealt to targets below 25% HP. This is helpful during the "final stretch" phase.
- Rapid Recuperation 2/2 - You gain 12 focus every 3 sec when Rapid Firing is active. This is also the reason why I have 1 Rapid Killing because it grants an instant 50 focus every time you kill a target.
- Master Marksman 3/3 - Gives your Steady Shot a 60% chance to apply Master Marksman that stacks up to 5 times. Then when at 5 stacks, your Aimed Shot will have no cast time and casting cost. Instant Aimed Shot baby!!!
- Posthaste 2/2 - Reduces your Rapid Firing cooldown by 2 minutes. Allows you to use Rapid Firing several times on each combat.
- Marked For Death 1/2 - Your Arcane and Chimera Shot has 50% chance to apply Marked For Death effect to your target. You don't need to max this out because 50% chance is enough. Trust me.
- Chimera Shot - You are so fucking dumb if you don't have this as a Marksmanship Hunter.
Survival
- Hunter vs. Wild 3/3 - Very weak for PvE. It increases your Stamina by 15%. You might ask why I have this? For survival purposes. Plus I chose this over Improved Serpent Sting because I only use Serpent Sting once, twice at most.
- Pathing 3/3 - Increases your haste by 3%. Haste is good :)
Honorable Mentions
- Improved Serpent Sting (Survival) - If you prefer casting Serpent Sting more than once then go get this. Plus, this talent also improves the critical ticks of Serpent Sting. If you want to get this talent, remove 2 points from Hunter vs. Wild.
- Sic'Em! (Marksmanship) - This is probably a better talent than Rapid Killing. Gives your pet a focus reduction on its basic skill which maximizes your pet's focus. I just don't rely on my pet damage, that's all. Get this if you want extra pet damage.
- Beastial Discipline (Beast Mastery) - Also a pet based talent but that extra focus regeneration helps a lot. Get this if you really rely on your pet damage.
II. Glyphs
Glyphs are additional passive traits that also improves your skill effects. You can equip at most 3 Prime Glyphs, 3 Major Glyphs, and 3 Minor Glyphs. Listed below are essential glyphs to a marksmanship hunter.
Prime
- Glyph of Steady Shot
- Glyph of Arcane Shot
- Glyph of Kill Shot
- Glyph of Rapid Fire
Major
- Glyph of Mending
- Glyph of Disengage
- Glyph of Ice Trap
- Glyph of Freezing Trap
- Glyph of Snake Trap
Minor
- Whatever you like, honestly.
III. Pet
As a hunter, we are allowed to have pets. Our pet aid us during combat which means they also deal damage and is essential to us so we have to choose our pet wisely. For a PVE type hunter, Cat or Wolf is the best pet for us because of their special ability that gives beneficial buffs. In some cases, you will be needing a Spider or a Crab for their immobilization skills. This is usable when you need to kite some mobs or boss.
IV. Stat Build and Priority
Stat building a hunter is easy, believe me. Agility will be our number one priority, followed by hit rating, haste, critical rating and last, mastery.
Agility
Hunter is an Agi class so you really want to prioritize this stat. Agility gives us attack power, increases our hit chance and slightly increases our dodge chance (which is pretty much useless for this class). Nonetheless, this stat is our bread and butter.
Hit Chance
Hit chance is essential because you want your ranged attacks not to miss on your target. For us hunters, we need to have 8% hit rating so that all of our attacks and skills will not miss. You can get this through Hit Rating stat.
Haste Rating
Haste is also essential because you want to shoot as fast as possible. Quick shots that deals good damage is equal to large damage output. Increase your haste via Haste Rating stat. There's no point of getting the haste cap because its almost impossible but 15%-20% haste rating is enough.
Critical Strike Rating
Every DPS or damage role needs to have a good burst damage. Critical strike rating allows you to deal huge amount of damage through critical hits. Agility slightly increases this stat but it is important to get gears, enchantments, gems or potions that increases the critical strike rating stat mainly.
Mastery Rating
Mastery Rating is a new stat introduced in Cataclysm. This increases the effectiveness of the Mastery Skill of every class. Each class has different mastery for every path build. For Marksmanship, our mastery is Wild Quiver. It gives our ranged attacks a 16% chance to instantly fire an additional ranged shot to our target and each point of mastery increases the chance by 2.1%. Though that mastery effect is pretty cool, this is the least stat that we need.
V. Reforging
In Cataclysm, we are allowed to reforge an item in order to allocate the least stat that we need from it to a much more needed stat. Keep in mind that you need to have 8% Hit Rating, 15%-20% Haste, at least 20% Critical Strike chance and not much of Mastery Rating. Below is your reforging stat priority.
Hit Rating (until 8%) > Haste > Crit > Mastery
Reforge every item that has no hit rating to hit rating. Once you have 8% hit chance, reforge to haste to have at least 15% haste. The rest, reforge to critical strike rating.
VI. Enchantments and Gems
Enchants or Item enchantments is kind of straight forward. It's really on a personal basis so enchant your items the way you like. Just remember your stat priority.
There's only one type of gem that your really need. You need Agility gems for your sockets. Delicate *red gem* is our main gem. Use this for both blue and red sockets. If it happen that you have a yellow socket, and has an Agi socket bonus, use Deadly *orange gem* instead.
VII. Rotation
Rotation is pretty much the sequence of your spell casting during a boss encounter. This will allow you to have a better focus management and deal huge amount of damage at the same time.
- Start up by placing Hunter's Mark on your target and Misdirection to your group's tank.
- Pop your Rapid Fire, trinkets, potions, etc. then Serpent Sting.
- Hard cast Aimed Shot. With Careful Aim talent, your Aim Shot will be critical hit most of the time and will trigger Piercing Shots.
- Cast Steady Shot twice to get Improved Steady Shot effect and gain some focus.
- Use Chimera Shot before Serpent Sting fades off.
- Use Arcane Shot when you have spare focus.
- Pop your cooldowns again once they are ready. Use Readiness when necessary.
- Repeat numbers 3-7 until the boss hits 89% HP. Maintain the Serpent Sting duration.
- When at 89% or below, use Serpent Sting if ever you didn't maintain its duration.
- Use Chimera Shot on cooldown.
- Always cast Steady Shot twice to keep the Improved Steady Shot effect active.
- Always cast Aimed Shot when you have 5 Master Marksman effect.
- Pop your cooldowns once they are ready. Use Readiness when necessary.
- Repeat numbers 9-13 until boss hits 20% HP. Please tell me you have kept that Serpent Sting up, yeah? If not, use Serpent fucking Sting AND KEEP THE FUCK IT UP VIA CHIMERA SHOT!
- On this stage, you will also repeat numbers 9-13 but you will have more than enough focus because of Termination. In that case, spam Arcane Shot when necessary.
- Use Kill Shot whenever it's off its cooldown. If you're using Glyph of Kill Shot, cast it twice.
- Cooldowns. Always remember to use your cooldowns.
And I guess that's pretty much it. I hope you have learned something from this guide and helped you become a good PVE marksman hunter. :)
