Best Level 80 Marksmanship Hunter 16/55 DPS Talent Spec

Wow hunters have always been pushing high on the dps meters in raids. With WOTLK Marksmanship hunters finally pull better dps than Beast Mastery hunters. This build focuses on deep marksmanship talents combined with some beast mastery talents that help your pets dps and at the same time give a little more survivability. Readiness is also used for chain Rapid fires. This is a great build to use if you are looking to push close to the top in raid environments.

The first beast mastery dps talent you will get is 5/5 Improved aspect of the hawk. White damage is a big portion of hunter's damage. With this you will be shooting 15% faster about half the time. This will be a big percent damage increase and is a lot better than alternative talents.

The second beast mastery dps talent you will get is 3/5 endurance training. This is really just a filler point in order to get lower in the tree. This talent does offer some value because it gives you better survivability in all environments. It also increases your pets health, which all hunters know is a blessing in raids.

The third beast mastery dps talent you will get is 2/2 focused fire. If used right this talent can be very good. If just used regular, the talent is ok. On this talent you want to make sure that you wait 5 seconds before using kill command because it gives you pet 20% crit for those seconds, and you will crit ever 5 sec or so..... so this ability gives your pet 20% crit on all specials the whole fight if used right. Not to mention the obvious 2% damage increase. GREAT hunter dps talent.

The fourth beast mastery dps talent you will get is 1/1 aspect mastery. This is obvious also. Hunters need mana. Enough said on this one, just get it.

The fifth beast mastery dps talent you will get is 5/5 unleashed fury. A hunter is only about 1/3 to ¼ of a marksmanship hunter's damage, but this will give your hunter a passive 3 to 6% damage increase. Not bad, but if you wish you could throw the points in wild quiver and improved hunter's mark in the Marksmanship tree. This is especially true if you know the raid is pet Unfriendly.

Thats it in the Beast mastery tree. Lets move on to the Marksmanship tree.

The first marksmanship dps talent you will get is 3/3 Focused Aim. Increasing you hit chance by 3% is great and the steady shot push back is great too. This is a great 1st tier talent.

The second marksmanship dps talent you will get is 5/5 lethal shots. This is obvious. This is a talent with tons of synergy with kill command, focused fire, mortal shots, and go for the throat. This talent will provide you with a dps increase of about 9%. The first marksmanship hunter tier is one of the best in the game.

The third marksmanship dps talent you will get is 3/3 careful aim. This will give your hunter a lot of attack power. And scales great with combat experience. This talent will get better as your gear gets better and will make you feel better about having to stack up intelligence on you items. In no circumstance would I recommend gemming or changing intelligence tho :).

The fourth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 5/5 mortal shots. This talent is great. Everyone likes to see high numbers. And a hunter puts out a lot of numbers. So a lot of high numbers equals high dps. Mortal shots will allow you to stack crit rating because of the great synergy with hunters and crit.

The fifth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 2/2 Go for the throat. This is just a crit synergy talent. This will allow your pet to dish out some more damage. This talent may be situational to hunters, but all in all is a great talent. With this and unleashed fury, you will put out pet numbers not too far behind Beast mastery hunters.

The sixth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 3/3 improved arcane shot. You will be using arcane shot every 6 seconds, so this is a great dps up. It is about a 3% up which makes it a 1% per point up. This is very average, but the talent does scale good with better gear.

The seventh marksmanship dps talent you will get is 1/1 aimed shot. This talent is great. Everyone loves mortal strike shot. Just get it and include it in your rotation and you will prosper. It also scales great. Every hunter must have if you ask me.

The eighth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 3/3 improved stings. This is a great talent not only because it increases the damage of the sting. But it also helps chimera shot scale better. Just get it and use it with serpent sting and chimera shot and you will love the big numbers.

The ninth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 5/5 efficiency. This will keep you out of aspect of the viper more. You will get a 2% per talent dps increase over a 10 min fight. This means in raids this could be a 10% dps increase. A penny saved is a penny earned and mana saved is dps on the charts.

The tenth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 1/1 readiness. I love this talent. It was OP with bestial wrath. This talent is great to pair up with rapid fire for burn down sections of a fight, or to burst down that pvper in the bgs. If you learn to use this at the right time it will quickly become your favorite hunter CD.

The eleventh marksmanship dps talent you will get is 2/2 combat experience. This is a great talent that gives you attack power through careful aim and extra agility. It also increases crit. What more could you ask for.

The twelfth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 5/5 ranged weapon specialization. A flat 5% dps increase is great. This is a no brainer. All marksmanship hunters must have.

The thirteenth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 2/3 piercing shots. This is a filler talent (one of the few in the marksmanship tree). This is a good talent even though it is a filler. The damage increase you will see is about .5 to .8 dps per point. Makes little less than average but ahhhh.

The fourteenth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 1/1 trueshot aura. This is a great raid and personal buff. 10% attack power buff does not stack with similar raid buffs tho. So will be great if no one has the similar buff and only one wasted point if it is already provided. Offering up to 6000 attack power to the raid is a good thing.

The fifteenth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 5/5 master marksman. ANOTHER 5% crit increase WTF. This is a great talent, even better than lethal shots. 25% mana reduction on you main special attack. I mean, if you don't want 3% damage increase per point then don't get this, lol. One of the best 5/5 points in the game if not THE best.

The sixteenth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 3/3 Improved steady shot. This is a great talent and if you do the math, should give you 1.3(ish) dps per point. This is above average. Great point if steady shot is high in your rotation. If you would rather try wild quiver then be my guest, but we are talking about .8% per point to 1.3% per point, its up to you.

The seventeenth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 5/5 marked for death. This is a great talent and pulls in about 2% dps per point. Double average. And BAM, 40% crit bonus, which makes it runner up to only boomkins.

The eighteenth marksmanship dps talent you will get is 1/1 chimera shot. This gives you the extra shot you need to make a clean rotation and is instant so you don't have to worry with auto shot push back (for the most part). Get this and serpent sting and BAM, a dot that auto refreshes and an extra punch to the shot ( really good if it crits, we are talking HIGH numbers).

So that does it for this build. I got lots more where that came from. Check the rest out.

-Brandon c.