World of Warcraft: Marksmanship Hunter Spec Post 3.1

Today, I'll be taking a look at Marksmanship. At one point, Marksmanship Hunters were the only ones around, frankly because it was the only good spec. Soon after that, Beast Mastery made it's appearance and cued a lot of Hunters to change to that spec because it was just better. It's my theory that Marksmanship is going to play a bigger role in PvP now that we're done with Patch 3.1 It was a much anticipated patch, and I'm hoping that Hunters will get to experience some of the fruits of that wait. Let's find out together. Here are the best talent in Marksmanship:

Tier 1:

Lethal Shots is were it's at right now. I would have taken Steady Aim, but after thinking about it, the resistance ot pushback isn't really going to help you as a hunter. The only time it'll ever help you is when you're shooting at an opponent that is within range of your bow and being attacked by somebody else. If a warrior is up in your face, you're not going to be worrying about Steady Shot at that point anyway...because you can't He's too close. This might be good for multiple encounters, but it's useless if you're fighting a melee class one on one. Lethal Shots will give you +5% to crit a tall times.

Tier 2:

Mortal Shots is the obvious choice. If you max it out with 5 points you're going to see an extra 30% damage when you crit. Since you've taken Lethal Shots in the Tier above it, these two talents are going to work really well together. Careful Aim SEEMS like a good talent, but when you really think about it, giving you 100% of your intellect's attack power isn't very much in the grand scheme of things. Good hunters don't max out intellect, because they don't need to. Agility is the Hunter's domain. Your intellect is going to be low, therefore you're going to get a low bonus to your attack power.

Tier 3:

Grab Aimed Shot, Rapid Killing, and Go for the Throat. Aimed shot is your bread and butter along with Steady shot. Rapid Killing is going to decrease your downtime and make you ultra efficient at killing an opponent after you've already won a battle, allowing you to go on a winning streak. Go for the Throat is going to boost your pet up significantly. Normally I don't approve of beast talents in marksmanship trees, or anything else like that, but Go for the Throat is so good, you've just gotta take it.

Tier 4:

Efficiency will allow your shots and strings to save you 15% of your mana while using them. This is the the bread and butter of Marksmanship. When you've got a surplus of mana, you can dance around and shoot things all day. Efficiency is truly efficient.

Other Noteworthy Talents...

Readiness - This finished all of your Hunter cool downs. This should be a given, but I thought I'd throw it in the list just in case you forget or overlook it. GET THIS TALENT! It wins battles all by itself.

Chimaera Shot - This is an amazing tool. You're not going to do a lot of damage with it, but it's not designed to. It's designed to get you out of a tight spot when you need it. That's exactly what it succeeds at doing.

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