Marksmanship Shot Rotations

**EDIT** As of Patch 3.1, Kill Shot is now on the Global Cooldown again. It cannot be used in the macros it used to be. Also, due to Piercing Shots’ new mechanic, firing Aimed Shot before Arcane Shot in your rotation will be slightly more beneficial, especially if you have it glyphed.**END EDIT**

Of all the emails and comments I’ve received, the question I’m asked the most is this:

“What shot rotation do you use?”

Because this question seems to be so popular, I feel it needs to be addressed. Rilgon also did a post on this, and you can read it here.

Firstly, I’d like to state this : there is no longer a standard shot rotation.

*GASP* What?!

Yeah, there’s no longer a steady, permanent rotation. But why?

Remember how, back in the Burning Crusade, our Auto Shots would only fire if we weren’t firing any other shot? Well, that doesn’t happen anymore. In Wrath, as long as we are standing still, our Auto Shots will fire no matter what else we’re casting, even if we’re in the middle of a Steady Shot. This is super-cool. The reason we used to need a rotation was because we needed to leave little gaps between shots for our Auto Shot to fire through. Now that we no longer need these gaps, we don’t have to pace ourselves. We can fire shots on every global cooldown, and this is exactly what you should be doing.

So what does this mean, exactly?

Well, firstly we need to change our way of thinking. This is often the hardest thing to do. We don’t have to think in terms of Pattern anymore. There is no Steady Steady Arcane Steady Steady or anything of that square nature. Scratch it from your mind. Now we’re going to have to think in terms of Cooldowns. Most folks know the Global Cooldown (GCD); if you don’t, the Global Cooldown is 1.5 seconds in which all standard spells/shots are unavailable immediately after they are used. For instance, if you fire Chimera Shot, you can’t fire Arcane Shot for another 1.5 seconds. Some shots have cooldowns that are longer than the Global Cooldown (in fact, most shots do). Chimera has its 10 second cooldown (all long cooldowns include that 1.5 GCD within the stated length of time), Arcane has a 6 second cooldown, Aimed and Multi have a shared 10 second cooldown, and Kill Shot has a 15 second cooldown. Steady Shot, because it requires channeling to cast, simply has the GCD which is activated immediately after the shot is finally fired. This is why you are able to “spam” Steady Shot.

Nassira…for the love of all things Holy, I already know this! Move on!

Okay. Just making sure…

What we need to do as Hunters is NEVER miss a cooldown. Easy, you say? Not quite. You need to juggle five different shots, and those shots all have different cooldowns. So how do you decide which shots to fire when?

You need to set your priorities straight.

What’s our biggest damage? Before you say CHIMERA! think about how to get the most damage out of Chimera. That’s right; you need Serpent Sting active first. Therefore, your first priority should always be Serpent Sting. If Serpent Sting is not active on your target already, you need to do that first. That part is easy. Then you have to wait for the GCD. And please don’t forget that before ANY shots are fired, you need to make sure Hunter’s Mark is on your target.

As soon as that GCD is over and your shots are available again, your next priority is going to be Chimera Shot. Chimera Shot (with Serpent bonus) is your high-yield damaging shot. This means that in a shorter fight, if you use it first, you will most likely use more Chimeras overall. This is why shot priority is chosen by damage output. Once Chimera has been fired and begins its 10 second cooldown, you must wait again for the GCD, but as soon as that wait is over…

You immediately fire Arcane Shot, which is your third priority.

But wait a second…if you’re fighting more than two mobs, your third priority will be Multi-Shot, and then Arcane, and you won’t be using Aimed until you’re down to two targets. Oh gee, now it gets more confusing.  I know what you were doing while you were reading this. You were thinking, “Oh! Well, I can almost make out a pattern here and then I can just stick to that!” NO! BAD! It just won’t work that way. If you start thinking in Patterns again, you’re going to severely limit yourself. Moving on…

Assuming you have one target again, your fourth priority will be Aimed Shot. While Aimed Shot isn’t super low on damage yield, it does have a very long cooldown, and therefore should only be fired after Arcane, which has a medium damage yield and a much shorter cooldown. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if you are having Mana issues in your raids, simply don’t use Aimed Shot in your standard rotation. The time you save from being in Viper is worth more than those few extra damage points you’d gain from Aimed Shot. Only use Aimed Shot if you never dip into Viper during a fight, or if you must move and it is your only available Kiting shot. Does that make sense?

Your fifth and final shot is going to be Steady Shot. Steady Shot used to be “kind of a big deal”, but now instead of it being like finding a quarter on the ground, it’s like finding a penny on the ground, and generally you won’t take the effort to bend over for so little (shut up about lucky, Steady Shot isn’t lucky unless you have ISS). Think of Steady Shot as a “Filler” shot. You should only be using Steady Shot when you have ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER SHOTS AVAILABLE. Steady Shot does awful damage and takes forever to cast, therefore making it the least important shot we have. If ever you find yourself firing Steady Shot when any other shot is available, you should STOP CASTING IT and fire that other shot. If there is a very small bit of time until your next instant shot, instead of starting a brand new Steady Shot, just wait it out. This, of course, requires judgement on your part. Please be sure you don’t wait that long, or you’ll lose damage.

Kill Shot, of course, is a HUGE amount of damage. This makes it take priority over EVERYTHING else. However, because it can only be used when your target is below 20% health, you must wait to use it. As soon as it is available, STOP EVERYTHING and fire it immediately. If you fire it immediately, there is a chance that the fight will last long enough that you will be able to hit your target with Kill Shot again, giving you a huge boost in overall damage. As of now (patch 3.0.8), Kill Shot does not trigger the Global Cooldown, meaning that the split second Kill Shot is fired, you can fire another shot. Keep yourself on top of that – many people are binding their Kill Shot to all of their other shots via Macro so that it’s fired immediately. I don’t do this, as I like to keep things flexible, but if you find yourself unable to use Kill Shot quickly enough, go ahead and try the macros.

So let’s recap :

1. There is no shot rotation. There is now a shot priority.

2. The priority is as follows: Hunter’s Mark, Serpent Sting, Chimera, Arcane (or Multi for three targets), Aimed, and Steady only as filler.

3. You must be constantly firing something; if two shots cool down at the same time, fire the shot with the highest priority (this happens often between Arcane and Aimed).

4. USE YOUR BRAIN! If the fight is getting very close to its end, use the shots with the highest damage and disregard mana useage. This is why I don’t like macros – there is very little flexibility when we desperately need that flexibility. If you manually weave your shots, you can use your brain to determine exactly when you should begin unloading everything you have.

I hope this helps you to better understand the Marksmanship shot priority. I will be posting a video of a shot priority as soon as I can, hopefully this week. If you have any more questions, concerns or comments, you know where to leave them!

Happy hunting!

❤ Nass

~ by Kelly Jennelle on February 24, 2009.