Part 2: Marksmanship
In my last article, I talked about the Survival tree and how it can provide a means for us to be more adaptable and provide us and our parties with more survivability. (Shocking, I know.) This time around, I’m going to be discussing the Marksmanship tree, the most popular talent tree for hunters worldwide. (According to Armory Musings, a MM build accounts for approximately 58% of all culled talent builds for hunters across the globe, as of 07-30-07, shown in article found here.)
Because so many hunters sport a MM build, I would like to think that nothing said in this article will come as a shock to anyone. However, I guess there’s always different ways of looking at things, and different methods to try, so I’m going to take a stab at telling everyone things they already know anyway, just for the sake of being thorough (and because I already said I’d do it).
Pew Pew
Hunters shoot stuff. I know, I really am stating the obvious here, but honestly, this tenet is what the Marksmanship tree is all about. Hunter shoot stuff, stuff go boom. That’s pretty much it.
Next time, I’ll discuss the Beast Mastery tree!
Just kidding. Kind of.
Okay, so by now we all know that an MM build is great for burst damage and supports great dps output without dependency on the hunter’s pet. But, that can’t be the only reason this tree is so popular, can it? Well, I’ve long felt that many novice hunters choose to place their points in the MM tree because it’s just the most logical choice for folks who haven’t done their Hunter Homework, and it’s probably one of the easiest builds to play and be successful with. That’s not to say that there aren’t finer points to this tree that folks can learn to maximize their effectiveness. Far from it. But because this tree is very intuitive to the dynamics of the hunter class to begin with (shoot stuff!), it’s easy for folks to understand the basics and be successful.
One thing that I’ve noticed as being extremely common, is that whenever hunters spec into one of the other two talent trees (Survival or Beast Mastery), their remaining points are almost invariably put into the Marksmanship tree. This, I believe, is because the MM tree plays to a hunter’s natural strength: ranged combat.
Notable Talents
Lethal Shots – Increases your critical strike chance with ranged weapons by 5%. It’s easy to see why this one’s appealing.
Aimed Shot – An aimed shot that increases ranged damage by 870. This one is a staple for hunters (though the efficiency of it is arguable), and works great for generating threat when using Misdirection.
Go for the Throat – Your ranged critical hits cause your pet to generate 50 focus. Our pets have a focus pool that is basically the same as a rogue’s energy pool–it consists of 100 points and any special abilities used will drain that pool by a certain amount. Now, focus regenerates quickly, but the more special abilities your pet uses, the more focus it uses. With this ability, any time you crit, your pet gets half their focus pool back, which means more opportunities for your pet to use it’s special abilities (like Growl, Claw, Bite, etc).
Mortal Shots – Increases your ranged weapon critical strike damage bonus by 30%. At first glance, it’s obvious that this talent sounds good. But what does it mean, exactly? When one of your attacks critically hits your target, whatever normal damage would’ve been applied to the target is increased by 100%. (In other words, the damage is doubled.) For example, if you fire Arcane Shot and it hits the target for 650, if that shot is a critical hit, the damage applied would be 1300. With Mortal Shots, that 100% damage increase upon a critical hit is increased to 130%. So, using our previous example, with Mortal Shots, that Arcane Shot would actually apply 1495 damage.
Scatter Shot – A short-range shot that deals 50% weapon damage and confuses the target for 4 seconds. Any damage caused will remove the effect. Turns off your attack when used. As all the PvP hunters out there know, this little beauty (along with the various Barrage talents) is great in PvP situations where our dead zone tends to leave us vulnerable.
Ranged Weapon Specialization – Increases the damage you deal with ranged weapons by 5%. Free increase to ranged damage? Why, yes. Thank you!
Trueshot Aura – Increases the Ranged and Melee Attack Power of party members within 45 yards by 125 (Rank 4). Free increase to both ranged AND melee attack power for you and your party members? Why, yes. Thank you!
Careful Aim – Increases your ranged attack power by an amount equal to 45% of your total intellect. Kinda makes you wanna stack Int, doesn’t it?
Master Marksman – Increases your ranged attack power by 10%. ANOTHER free boost to ranged attack power? It’s no wonder the MM tree is so popular!
Silencing Shot – A shot that deals 50% weapon damage and Silences the target for 3 seconds. This one is great for pulling casters, and shutting down opposing-faction casters in the battlegrounds/arenas for just long enough for you to get the job done. 
And that brings us to the end of the Marksmanship tree. As you can see just by reading the above talents, this tree is all about ramping up your hunter’s ranged damage output. This tree is what some refer to as the “Glass Cannon” tree. It’s all about the ranged damage and the hunter as an independent source of fire power, which is a big part of what makes this tree so appealing to so many: the obvious (read: blatant) upgrades to ranged damage and ranged attack power. This is why you see many hunters focusing solely on acquiring +Agi or +AP items, because about 58% of hunters utilize an MM build, and those are key stats for this tree.
Gearing up a Marksman
If you want a highly specialized MM hunter, focus on the most obvious strengths of this tree and seek out gear that will increase those strengths. The thing you see mentioned again and again in the MM tree’s talents is ranged damage and ranged attack power. Play to these strengths, and you’ll earn your stripes as a bonafied Glass Cannon. If you want pure, unadulterated damage output without having to rely on your pet to help you, go with a MM build and stack +AP and +Agi. If you’re not putting points in Efficiency, you’ll also want a fair amount of +Int so you can use mana-using shots frequently. Also, many MM hunters use Aspect of the Viper rather than Aspect of the Hawk because they spam mana shots, and have plenty of RAP already without Hawk. But, if your secondary (or tertiary) stat is +Int, then you can roll with Hawk and really pump out the burst damage.
This has, of course, only been a brief over-view of the Marksmanship tree, and I’ve left a lot of the minute details out. (Mostly because I feel by now this has to be the most familiar tree to just about all the hunters out there, and it would be redundant to belabor the point.) But, there are those out there how haven’t experienced the tree first-hand (I’m talking to all you BM levelers out there) who would probably benefit from a fly-by about what makes the MM tree so appealing to so many. If you want impressive numbers, an MM build might be for you.
Next time, we’ll be looking at the Beast Mastery tree!
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First comment (haven’t read all yet!), to say just one thing: that data is severely screwed, or so it used to be. I believe that he gets the data from Arena teams and thus it’s natural that many of those hunters that *do* bother with arenas are MM as they have to rely less on their pets…
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Where did you read that he gets the data from browsing arena teams? I was under the impression that it was culled from a random search of armory entries, and have yet to see anything indicating otherwise on his site. Please cite your source.
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The source was himself!
Let me check his earlier posts…
“Finding characters is the tricky part; I took the ‘Arena Ladder’ charts for 2v2, 3v3 & 5v5 teams in my ‘Misery’ battlegroup of 14 realms. For each team I retrieved the character sheet for each team member, then looked up and retrieved all the characters from their respective guilds. This approach has been pretty successful however it is limited in a number of ways:”
Quote from his introduction post.
I don’t know if he later changed this, but since he needs a starting point, maybe the arena charters are still his starting point…
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In short, his list his missing:
- Characters NOT in guilds (my two hunters, for instance);
- Characters in guilds where none of the players participate in Arenas, including probably most hard-core raiders as those will probably do the arenas on other chars that are probably not on the same guild…
Hope this clears it a bit!
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Thanks for pointing to the post where he mentioned those conditionals! I had read the intro post a while back, but apparently completely forgot about those statements, and wouldn’t have thought to go back and look.
Still, given the numbers of hunters in guilds, and the numbers of guilds with at least one member in an arena team, I suspect the statistics are still largely an accurate representation of the class on a worldwide scale. (Although, I would be interested to know the exact number of level 70 hunters in the game–alt or not–and the number of those that are unguilded…)
Also worth noting, the qualification in the first paragraph of the post:
58% of all culled talent builds
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I don’t think his results are adversely skewed by his seach methods, at least not in the way you think anyways. Playing as any class one of the things you do a lot of (or at least I do) is talk to a lot of other people who play your class, and look up a lot of them on armory. Having done a LOT of this myself (even though I never kept numbers) I think that his results are fairly accurate, and if anything are actually a little short on the number of MM hunters. Almost all of the big raid guilds still feel that their hunters need to be MM to be useful during raids because BM’s rely so heavily on their pets (which die fast on bosses) for both damage and buffs, and you only really need one SV hunter per raid for their raid wide damage buff and their damage has a tendancy to be lower than the other two specs. From my own experiences most of the unguilded are going to be either MM or BM, with a preferance for MM. Also add in the fact that he bases his searches around people engaged in PVP/Arena, where a large number of people have started to ride the BM train for Bestial Wrath, and The Beast Within. All these things combine to show that while his numbers might not be terrifically accurate, Lass’s statement that most hunter’s have at least experimented with, or currently run a MM spec is still very much true. I would hazzard a guess that over 80% of hunter’s have used a predominately MM spec at some point in time. And the most commonly taken points for the extra talent points in BM and SV specs all come out of the MM tree (Lethal Shots, Aimed Shot, Go For the Throat, Mortal Shots).
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“because BM’s rely so heavily on their pets (which die fast on bosses)”
Well, I haven’t gotten that far on a hunter, but you probably should read BRK: It doesn’t look as that’s the case anymore! In fact, pets usually survive more with less heals than other players…
And let’s not forget a huge number of hunters that ARE BM (usually even run with a boar), DON’T participate in Arenas nor are in guilds that have chars that do… Yes, I’m talking (writing, tbh!), about those chinese farmers!
They do play and usually they play hunters… 
(Although I doubt any of them reads this or any other wow blog!)
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I would have to concur with Xeln’s assessment regarding raiding as a BM hunter. I’ve tried all three specs, relatively recently, in a raiding environment, and it was my experience that, regardless of the type of pet, and with Avoidance Rank 2 and the changes to Mend Pet to make it a Heal Over Time, typically pets will die during boss fights, or due to positioning issues (Flame Wreath from Aran comes to mind, although from what I hear, pet movement no longer effects this) cannot be used at all, and subsequently significantly gimp the hunter’s damage output throughout the course of the fight (as well as damage output from party members due to lack of buffs).
Perhaps BRK is an exception to the rule (there’s always one), or perhaps he fudges the truth a bit for the sake of bravado. But, given the live results I’ve seen from all three specs in a raiding environment recently, what Xeln talks about largely holds true.
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Actually, even BRK admits that his pet dies a lot of the time, that’s why he recently changed his build to include improved rez pet. Pets can handle the damage dished out by bosses easier than a lot of player if the pet is properly trained, but they WILL die if they don’t get heals above and beyond Mend Pet, and this mostly doesn’t happen during raid boss encounters.
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“Actually, even BRK admits that his pet dies a lot of the time,”
Yes, but it seems that that started to happen on the tougher bosses on the 25 man raids. I recall that prior to that it worked just fine, or so he said! I think that many pets still die too much out of two things:
- Wrong pet talent usage;
- Players wanting to be Lelogas and forgetting about the pet!
Besides, if pets work great now that they have cool talents such as Avoidance (50% less damage from AoE *should* make them last considerably more!), and the magical resistances (you can easily take a pet to 160+ resist with 140 on his own and 40% of your own resists). Of course, even in these days, “old” hunters are still stuck to the “old” way! How many of those will keep just stacking 640 HP on their pets at a cost of 215 TPs when they could easily have 90 resist on *ALL* schools at only 10 TPs more?
Even 90 resist, at 70 versus level 73 bosses will get your pet a whopping 18,5% resistance. That’s 370 less damage out of a “simple” 2K magical hit! Take two such hits and you’ve already had more damage reduction that by simply having 64 more STA… Take 3 or 4 and do the math… And you if focus on some schools more than others for when you can know what magical schools your pet will have to deal more with, then you can easily up that to 24,7% (120 resist) or even 28,8% (140 resist)… And that’s not adding the 40% of your own resists, nor the 45% of AotW for when it’s useful… Add the 50% less from AoE, and you can easily see that pets *should* last enough, although they won’t be invincible nor will get along without heals…
Still, many hunters choose to spend those TPs in Stamina/Armor like in the “old” days and completely forget that their “new” pets, since TBC, already factor in 30% of the hunter’s STAmina! So, your “new” pets already have more STAmina without using TPs on it than they had before TBC *with* max rank Greater Stamina!
Like I said, I am not 70 yet nor do I raid, so this is just theory, and I believe that maybe MM is “eazy-mode” for raiding hunters as they rely less on micro-managing their pets, and maybe only the best micro-managers get to play BM good enough in raids to make it a viable build! If I ever get to raid, maybe it will be a viable option for me as I’m a good micro-manager! (At least all those hours in Starcraft were put to some good use!)
Phew: another lengthy comment! 2nd one tonight, luckily on two different blogs!
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Someone: Unfortunately, theory only occasionally reflects what actually happens.
While Avoidance has made pet survivability leagues better than it ever used to be, pets still die frequently. Yes, it’s a simple thing to tailor your pet’s build to a boss you’re doing, but if you’re like many raiding guilds and clear several bosses a night, it’s rather unrealistic and selfish to tell your fellow raiders, “Brb guys, I gotta go to a stable! This pet’s only good for Curator, now I gotta get my Aran pet!” or “Brb! Gotta respec my pet!” It’s much easier for everyone if you bring a pet that is more well-rounded, if you know you’re going to be dealing with several different bosses, all with different abilities. As a result, yes, your pet is more likely to die. Bring a couple stacks of pet food, toss up Mend Pet as often as you are able, and hope for the best.
As for your remarks that a MM build is “easy-mode”, I’d say that’s a tad unfair, and relatively biased. Playing a BM build doesn’t make you a better player, necessarily, and really the benefits of an MM build come down to the buffs you bring your raid members and the amount of attack power you can stack to increase your own dps.
For raiding, you’re not just considering your own wants, but what will also benefit the group you play with. First and foremost, you should personally enjoy the build you play–whether that’s solo PvE, group PvE, or PvP–but you should also keep in mind what will also benefit your group. It’s not all about “I wanna prove how awesome I am at multi-tasking, etc”, it’s about “How can I maximize my effectiveness, and the effectiveness of others I play with?” Each hunter build has things to offer in this regard. With BM, it’s Ferocious Inspiration. With MM, it’s Trueshot Aura. With SV, it’s Expose Weakness. Stacking these abilities by bringing hunters of varying specs with you to a raid increases everyone’s performance. If that’s “easy-mode”, then gimme more of it.
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What I meant as “Easy-mode” for MM is that they don’t need to care too much about their pets: if they die, they don’t loose 40% of total DPS plus the 3% of Ferocious Inspiration procs as do BM hunters!
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I am one of those people who made a hunter and went nutty on the MM table. I have never tried to do the other ones since I wanted to kill the target as quickly as possible. Now I am not sure how to play the other trees if I do change to them. Is the BM one to be the basher, the MM the sniping one and the SV to the CC type?
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name: Highsland
realm: Thunderlord (Horde)
class: hunter
race:orc
Yes, i have respecced many times and by far MM is the best if you want to PvP go 5/41/15 . You will have tons of health and lots of AP and agil too. But i do recomend BM if you want to raid, only for hardcore raiders though. Because MM will do fine for kara and you will still be able to have fun in PvP.
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