A dwarf hunter stands in combat stance in WoW Dragonflight.
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Best Marksmanship Hunter talents and build in WoW Dragonflight

If you want to find a Marksmanship Hunter, look towards the top of the DPS charts.

Marksmanship Hunter is one of the best DPS specs available in the early stages of World of Warcraft Dragonflight. With immensely strong single-target damage and respectable AoE throughput, Marksmanship is an effective choice in both raids and Mythic+ dungeons. 

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The class is most recognizable for its strong opening rotation and cooldown-oriented bursts of DPS. At the start of any raid encounter, you should look for Marksmanship Hunters to dominate the top of the damage charts as they pump out damage via their extremely powerful cooldowns. While the spec is reliant on its burst, it still has a solid amount of sustained damage that any raid or dungeon team will want to take advantage of. 

As a pure damage dealer, Marksmanship Hunter can hang in the back line of a group and decimate bosses’ health bars.

Here are the best talents, stat priorities, and consumables you need to be using in order to make the most out of your Marksmanship Hunter in WoW Dragonflight. 

Best Marksmanship Hunter talents

Screengrab via Blizzard Entertainment

Your most important talents in this build center around Trueshot, your most reliable DPS cooldown. With a flat two-minute cooldown, Trueshot causes your Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire to have a significantly reduced recharge rate, while your Aimed Shot is fired much faster. Having this cooldown at your disposal turns you into a DPS machine every two minutes, while deep talents in the tree such as Windrunner’s Guidance and Unerring Vision only make the ability stronger. 

In the general Hunter tree, your deep talents at the bottom of the lineup will include Steel Trap, Death Chakram, and Serpent Sting (as well as its follow-up, Poison Injection). These three abilities will give you even more powerful cooldowns and consistent DPS to take advantage of in between your regularly scheduled casts of Aimed Shot, Rapid Fire, and Arcane Shot. 

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Marksmanship Hunter gear and stat priority

Image via Blizzard Entertainment

Marksmanship Hunters will always want to prioritize Agility as a primary stat while keeping an order of Mastery > Critical Strike > Haste > Versatility in mind when gearing your character. 

Completing your four-piece tier set should always be your top priority. Whenever you see a tier token drop in the Vault of the Incarnates raid or see a piece of Stormwing Harrier tier gear appear in your Great Vault, you should almost always be adding it to your loadout. The only piece of gear you’ll want to prioritize over your tier set (on most occasions) will be the Hunter-only rare drop Neltharax, Enemy of the Sky, a unique bow that drops off of Raszageth, and is widely considered to be one of the strongest items in Dragonflight

Related: How to get Neltharax, Enemy of the Sky Raszageth bow in Dragonflight

High-priority trinkets include the Manic Grieftorch and Whispering Incarnate Icon, which drop off Broodkeeper Diurna and the Primal Council, respectively, in the Vault of the Incarnates raid. The Algeth’ar Puzzle Box, which can be looted out of the Algeth’ar Academy, is also a strong trinket choice thanks to the immense level of Mastery that it gives. 

Best consumable items for Marksmanship Hunters

When it comes to consumables, you’ll want to be using the Phial of Elemental Chaos as your go-to phial, and the Elemental Potion of Power as your in-combat potion.

Other consumables include the Fated Fortune Cookie, which should be used as your personal food option in lieu of an allied player placing down a feast, as well as the Completely Safe Rockets, which should be applied to your weapon before starting a Mythic+ dungeon or raiding session.


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Michael Kelly
Staff Writer covering World of Warcraft and League of Legends, among others. Mike's been with Dot since 2020, and has been covering esports since 2018.