PvE Marksmanship Hunter Talents & Builds – WoW Classic
Nevermore • Updated June 7, 2025
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.
Standard MM/BM 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 MM/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.
PvE Marksmanship Hunter Talents & Builds
Kurathis • Updated June 2, 2025
Below you will find the traditional PvE build for Marksmanship Hunters. Under the Survival Tree, you can switch Monster Slaying with Humanoid Slaying, depending on what type of mob you’re going to be attacking. If need be, you can also choose Hawk Eye, increasing your ranged attack range by 6 yards. Under the Marksmanship Tree, you can switch four points from Improved Hunter’s Mark (if you are not the Hunter designated to use Hunter’s Mark) and place them in Efficiency, leaving you one point extra. If you find yourself wanting to pick up Silencing Shot, you can spend that 1 extra point on it, or take a point from Unleashed Fury for it.
While this build does revolve around the Marksmanship talent tree, most players won’t find many opportunities to use Silencing Shot, which allows us to conserve that talent point and use it elsewhere. Most talents chosen are based on damage, and not necessarily crowd-control, so Silencing Shot isn’t a top priority.
Beast Mastery Talent Tree
- Improved Aspect of the Hawk: Since Aspect of the Hawk will be our Aspect of choice, it’s only natural to improve it so that there’s a chance our ranged attacks can increase our attack speed by 15%
- Focused Fire: While we don’t rely on our pet as much as Beast Mastery Hunters do, we’ll still have it summoned, and with Focused Fire, our damage will be increased by 2%
- Improved Revive Pet: It’s always beneficial to be able to revive your pet faster and at a lower mana cost since we get a damage boost with its presence through Focused Fire
- Thick Hide: This one point is spent so that we can reach the third tier of talents
- Unleashed Fury: While we don’t rely on our pet as much as Beast Mastery Hunters do, increasing our pet’s damage is still always beneficial
Survival Talent Tree
- Monster Slaying: This increases your damage caused against Beast, Giant, and Dragonkin targets by 3%. As mentioned above, these points are interchangeable with Humanoid Slaying or Hawk Eye
Marksmanship Talent Tree
- Lethal Shots: This is a mandatory talent, increasing our critical strike chance with ranged weapons by 5%
- Improved Hunter’s Mark: This talent should be picked if you are the only Hunter in your group, or the other Hunters already do not have this talent
- Efficiency: If Improved Hunter’s Mark is unnecessary for you, it’s recommended that you place the extra points in here to reduce the mana cost of your shots and stings
- Go for the Throat: With every critical strike of ours, our pet will gain 50 focus, which will increase their damage output
- Aimed Shot: This is a hefty ability – for the great damage and the reduced healing effect it has on your target
- Rapid Killing: This is mainly taken for the cooldown reduction of Rapid Fire since with the exception of trash pulls in raids, you generally won’t be killing a boss, and attacking another within 20 seconds
- Mortal Shots: This is an undisputable talent to pick up since it increases the critical strike damage bonus by 30%
- Scatter Shot: This is great for Crowd Control, but we mainly grab it so that we can access Trueshot Aura
- Barrage: We use Multi-Shot regularly enough that increasing its damage is beneficial
- Combat Experience: Increasing our Agility and Intellect will increase both our DPS and our longevity in fights
- Ranged Weapon Specialization: Increasing our ranged damage by 5% is vital
- Careful Aim: Increasing our Attack Power based on our Intellect is incredible, especially since Combat Expertise increases our total Intellect
- Trueshot Aura: Increasing all party member’s attack power in your group is always beneficial
- Improved Barrage: Similar to Barrage, it’s always beneficial to increase damage from Multi-Shot
- Master Marksman: Increased total Attack Power is great, especially when it’s by 10% and continues to scale when improving your gear
If you notice that your pet really isn’t causing that much damage, even with Unleashed Fury, you can take those 4 points, and the 1 point in Thick Hide, and place them in Efficiency and either Monster Slaying or Humanoid Slaying.