Marksmanship Hunter Midnight 12.0.5 Guide

Welcome to the Method Marksmanship Hunter guide written by me, Qenjua. I've been a Hunter main for the past 8 years. I’m occasionally streaming both Progress as well as high Mythic +. If you want deeper insights into this class, that the guide might not be able to provide, you can find my coaching on: https://metafy.gg/@qenjua. Feel free to join my Metafy Group; this is where I will be sharing updates on my UI, as well as some tips and tricks.

Marksmanship Hunter Overview

Marksmanship Hunter has fairly high mobility since Aimed Shot is the only cast you have to stand in place for. This class also grants a bunch of unique utilities such as, Binding Shot with Horsehair Tether, Freezing Trap, Misdirection, and Harrier's Cry, as well as an immunity Aspect of the Turtle, a Freedom with Master's Call and a damage redirection ability with Roar Of Sacrifice.

The weakness of this spec is that you need at least 3 targets for your Multi-Shot to trigger Trick Shots to start doing AoE damage, or alternatively, only be able to hit 2 targets at the same time without any required setup through Aspect Of The Hydra. The spec is also very focused around its cooldowns, making it comparably weak outside of these windows.

Patch 12.0.5 Hotfix (May 5th)

Marksmanship has received a handful of buffs to several abilities, including Explosive Shot, Rapid Fire and Arcane Shot. Most of them target Sentinel way more than Dark Ranger, which is already suffering from clunky talent interactions. This is more or less pushing Dark Ranger aside in every type of content besides pure single target, which is not relevant in the current raid Tier.

Changes in Patch 12.0.5 for Marksmanship Hunter

Introduction of Nebulous Voidcores (Bonus Rolls) and the Ascendant Voidcores (Weapon and Trinket upgrades).

Marksmanship Tree Changes:

• Reintroduction of several Explosive Shot talents that see play on Sentinel Talent builds.
• Rework of the Windrunner Quiver Capstone talent. Precise Shots now have a chance to trigger Precise Shots again. This is relevant for Dark Ranger only, and complicates the Rotation a bit.

Midnight Changes for Marksmanship Hunter

Hunter Class Tree:

• Hunter's Mark, our raid buff, is now a flat 3% damage increase against the marked target
• Several Talents have changed positions
• New Choice Node (Roar Of Sacrifice / Guardian's Hide) which grant either active damage redirection or passive damage reduction
• New Guttural Roar makes Intimidation an AoE stun.
• Previous Pack Leader Node Horsehair Tether got moved to the Class Tree
• %HP increase from Rejuvenating Wind got moved into a new Node - Touch Of Grass
• New Node Shell Wall - Reduces damage taken during Aspect Of The Turtle by an additional 20%
• New Node Combat Experience - Increases Agility by 3%
• New Node Precision Strikes - Increases auto shot damage by 25%
• Natural Mending changed to be a flat 60s cooldown reduction on Exhilaration
• Wilderness Medicine no longer reduces Exhilaration cooldown
• New Node Improved Feign Death - Reduces Feign Death cooldown by up to 10 seconds
• Kill Shot and Deathblow removed (moved to Marksmanship Tree)
• Explosive Shot / Harmonize removed
• Bursting Shot removed
• Explosive / Implosive Trap removed

Marksmanship Tree:

• Several Talents have changed positions
• The Streamline mechanic and all of its talents have been removed
• Ammo Conservation has been changed to Quick Draw, to increase your movement speed by 50% after casting Aimed Shot
• Some talents have been changed from conditional stat increases to static stat increases
• Kill Shot is now a Marksman exclusive talent
• Headshot no longer allows Black Arrow to consume Precise Shots stacks, but instead increases the damage from Kill Shot / Black Arrow by 2% per stack, up to 10 stacks.
• Shrapnel Shot got changed to grant Lock And Load when casting Volley
• New Node Focus Fire, granting Rapid Fire 20% increased damage after being reset via Surging Shots
• New Node Unload, making Rapid Fire cast a Free Arcane Shot / Kill Shot / Black Arrow at the beginning and end of its channel

Dark Ranger Hero Talent Tree:

• Soul Drinker Reworked - granting Aimed Shot a 10% increased chance to proc Deathblow (20% in total) and Rapid Fire a 100% chance to proc Deathblow
• Phantom Pain replaced by Through The Eyes - giving us 5 additional Headshot stacks
• Banshee's Mark / The Bell Tolls reworked and put into a choice node, increasing Black Arrow Critical Strike damage or Minion damage respectively
• New Node Blighted Quiver - Tuned down version of the TWW season 3 Tierset, making Black Arrow fire extra Black Arrow during Withering Fire
• New Node Corpsecaller giving the Black Arrow DoT a chance to summon a Dark Minion
• New Node Wailing Dead summoning a Dark Minion everytime you cast Trueshot, also replaces Trueshot with Wailing Arrow for the duration
• New Node Pact Of The Hollow allowing your Dark Minions to deal AoE damage whenever you cast Aimed Shot

Sentinel Hero Talent Tree:

• Reworked the previous Sentinel mechanic, to no longer apply a stacking debuff that implodes for damage. Now instead the hero talents revolve around buffing our Spotter's Mark damage increase and proc chance from various sources
• New choice Node Stargazer granting stacking Critical Strike damage after consuming Precise Shots, or Open Fire for increased Volley damage
• New Node Arcane Talons, increases the damage increase from Sentinel's Mark by an additional 15%
• New Nodes Moon's Blessing and Lunar Calling buff the generation of Sentinel’s Mark
• New Node Can't Miss, Won't Miss which is increasing Trueshot duration and Precise Shot damage
• New Node Sanctified Armaments that turns a part Rapid Fire damage into Arcane, allowing it to bypass Armour
• New Node Invigorating Pulse for increased maximum Focus and higher Focus regeneration from Steady Shot
• New Utility Node Conditioning for movement speed or Scout's Vigil for a buff to Camouflage and Enemy detection radius
• Moonlight Chakram: replaces Trueshot after casting, making you able to recast it to throw a chakram that deals damage
• Lunar Storm redesigned. Now procs AoE damage everytime Sentinel's Mark is consumed