On a one-minute single-boss fight the talent split is 7/39/5. It runs Marksmanship to
Sniper Shot at the bottom of the tree, takes
Deadly Aspects and
Focused Fire from the top of Beast Mastery, and puts five points into
Improved Tracking in Survival.
502-0053352501513051-5 · Horde (Orc) plays Tuned 7/39/5 · 1 min: +1 Scatter Shot, −1 Rapid RecuperationThe search tunes a build for every fight and faction. They differ in the mana talents and a few spare points, so what follows holds for all of them.
Why these talents
Deadly Aspects gives every Auto Shot a 10 % chance to grant Quick Shots: 30 % faster ranged attacks for 12 seconds. Auto Shot is your biggest source of damage, and a faster Auto Shot rolls for the next proc sooner, so Quick Shots is up 45.7 % of the fight. The talent is worth 4.7 % of your damage. For your shots it works only under
Aspect of the Hawk.
Careful Aim adds your Intellect to your attack power, one for one at 5/5. Worth 5.7 %, it is what makes Intellect a damage stat for you, and
Mortal Shots below needs it.
Mortal Shots raises the damage of your critical strikes from twice to 2.3 times for Auto Shot, Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot and Serpent Sting's ticks. Sniper Shot is the one shot left out. Worth 5.6 %.
Lethal Attacks adds 5 % crit to all your attacks on top, for 4.4 %.
Improved Tracking is 5 % more damage to the creature type you are tracking, worth 4.5 %. Keep the boss's type tracked all fight: Track Dragonkin, Track Demons, Track Undead and so on. Our simulator assumes you always do, and the benchmark boss is a dragonkin.
Sniper Shot is the bottom talent: a four-second cast on a 15-second cooldown that adds 295 to a shot of your weapon's damage. It needs
Trueshot Aura above it.
The talent is worth 5.5 %, all of it through its rotation line.
Ranged Weapon Specialization (3.7 %),
Improved Arcane Shot (4.1 %),
Improved Stings (2.5 %) and
Barrage (1.3 %) fill out the tree. At 5/5 Improved Arcane Shot takes Arcane Shot from a six-second cooldown to four and a half. Barrage adds 10 % to Aimed Shot and Multi-Shot.
Focused Fire adds 2 % to everything you and the cat deal, for 2.0 %.
Flexible points
- Efficiency and Rapid Recuperation. These are mana talents. Efficiency cuts the cost of your shots and stings by 3 % a point, though not Sniper Shot's. Every single-boss build spends three to five points on them, but on the one-minute fights those points are worth nothing, because you never run out. On a single target they trade against each other: the two-minute build takes four or five points of Efficiency and no Rapid Recuperation.
- Rapid Killing. It cuts Rapid Fire's cooldown to three minutes and buffs your next shot after a kill, so in a boss fight it gives you nothing: its worth is 0.0 % on every fight. You take it because Rapid Recuperation sits under it.
- Trueshot Aura. It gives the hunters in your group 75 ranged attack power at rank 4. Rank 5 gives only 50, so cast rank 4. It measures 0.0 % here because the benchmark group already has a hunter with it. You need the point for Sniper Shot anyway, and the buff matters whenever you are the only Marksmanship hunter in your group.
- Spare points.
Hawk Eye,
Survivalist and Scatter Shot turn up in some builds and do nothing on a boss. Spend them on whatever helps your raid.
What each talent is worth
A value here is the benchmark rerun with that talent's points removed, over the same simulated fights. Each one counts that talent's points alone, so they don't sum to your damage. The "last point" column is what one point less would cost, which is the number to check before moving a spare point.
On every fight
The other fights' builds move the mana talents, one point of Improved Arcane Shot and the spare points. On one boss the three-minute build splits them, two points of Efficiency and both of Rapid Recuperation, while the two-minute build puts them all into Efficiency. The three-boss builds on two and three minutes take a point out of Improved Arcane Shot for a third point of Efficiency. On three bosses for one minute, neither mana talent is taken. Hawk Eye and Survivalist fill those points. The table lists each fight's build against this one.