Specs in Brief: Marksman

When I first started playing WoW, the guy who got me interested eventually told me about specs- essentially, how I would specialize my hunter. "Go marksman," he said, "it has the best damage." And so I began pouring all my talent points into the Marksman tree, not thinking even for a moment about synnergy. Hell, looking back I silently yell at myself for putting even one point into the improved Concussion shot. You may notice that the blog is named "Lethal Shots" for the first skill in this tree :)

The Benefits

The marksman spec is all about improving the damage from your bow. It focuses solely on the player, upping his ranged attack power as well as criticals. You wind up very reliant on raw attack power, intelligence, and some small amount of agility for a premium build. The pet acts as either a deterrent or in many cases isn't used at all, since the marksman's damage is usually so high that one shot will pull aggro directly to the hunter. Talents enhance damage remarkably without increasing the mana cost per shot.

The Drawbacks

A full Marksman build is heavily reliant on special shots, all of which cost mana to use. Your end pool is your limiting factor in battle; once it's gone, your damage output is severely reduced. In raids, mana potions and Aspect of the Viper are often used to negate mana loss but it can only go so far. Marksmen have a hard time dealing with anything in melee range since ranged weapons cannot be used on a target under 8 yards.

Overall

Marksmen focuses entirely on the hunter, neglecting its partner pet, and grants amazing damage output to the class. The problem is sustaining this DPS for long periods of time, trying not to spike damage above the tank, and having very little melee defense.

Personal Thoughts

I actually like alot of the talents very early in the tree and usually take them to round out any other spec I work with- free bonus damage is not to be ignored. It makes for a very good PVP spec if your focus is a good deal of upfront damage. In raids, most Marksmen are heavily dependant on potions to augument their mana crisis. I'm not sure a heavy amount of mp5 and Efficiency are enough to pull through big fights.