Marksman MM Hunter Shot Rotation Guide

By Arust of Warcraft Hunters Union

This guide is for optimizing the Marksman MM Hunter Shot Rotation in WotLK.

Marksman hunters have a varied and flexible shot rotation, and while not as difficult as it was in BC, MM hunters have a lot of choices in their shot rotation. The basic idea is a priority-based shot cycle. Because so many shots in the MM hunter rotation have cooldowns, you want to use the most damaging shots whenever you can, and move on to the 2nd most damaging shot, 3rd, etc. Steady Shot is your last resort when everything else is on cooldown.

Marksman MM Hunter Shot Rotation:

Hunter’s Mark
Serpent Sting
Chimera Shot
Aimed Shot
Arcane Shot
Steady Shot
Silencing Shot (whenever available)
Use Kill Shot as top priority if it is available.

Repeat steady shot until Arcane is back off cooldown, then use it, Chimera, and whatever else is available in the priority order. The MM hunter shot rotation is basically playing wack-a-mole with your available buttons. For the most part you’re smacking whatever one is available.

Arcane Shot note: If you have a good ranged weapon (ilvl 264) and around 450 armor pen, you’ll want to drop arcane shot from your rotation. This will make your standard rotation: Chimera, Aimed, Steadyx4. Still use your arcane when you need an instant shot on the move.

Be sure that you don’t miss Chimera Shot. Not only is it the MM hunter’s single most damaging shot, but you’ll then have to waste a Global Cooldown (GCD) reapplying Serpent Sting. (Also, don’t use Chimera before you put up Serpent Sting — serpent is a nice part of your Chimera shot damage!) And an important note: Chimera does it’s full damage regardless of how long serpent sting is up — the serpent sting portion of Chimera Shot’s damage is based on the full potential of serpent sting, not how much is left or how much has already been done.

Note that you do want to use Silencing Shot whenever you can. Sure, it doesn’t do much damage, but it’s also not on the global cooldown — so you can macro it in with your other shots.

As a MM Hunter you always want your hunter’s mark up because it increases your crit bonus damage as well as your base damage. Start your shot rotation with it, and put it back up every five minutes, even though you’ll have to interrupt your rotation to do so.

Macros: Don’t Do It

It is possible to create a one button MM hunter shot cycle macro using castsequence; however, you will lower your dps as a result. Any time you’re building a shot rotation macro to lower you dps… it’s a bad idea. Just pay attention to your MM shot rotation instead.

You should, however, macro your Kill Command and Silencing Shot onto your shots.