- Author: Nevermore
- Date: September 1, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
When it comes to choosing the right race for your character, you should take into consideration that each race offers entirely different bonuses and effects, each of them shining in a different aspect of the game. However, if min-maxing is not your thing, feel free to choose the race that fits your character fantasy the best and suits your aesthetic style.
Both factions typically have a best choice when it comes to a race for Marksmanship Hunter in PvP — other races generally offer lesser performance, but their racials can still provide fun or interesting effects!
Horde
For Horde players, there are two races that compete for the number one spot when it comes to playing a Marksmanship Hunter. Orcs and Trolls both offer extremely good racial effects for Marksmanship Hunters, with the best choice depending entirely on your playstyle and what you prefer. Both races provide offensive and defensive racial effects!
Orcs are one of the best possible choices when it comes to playing a Marksmanship Hunter in the Horde; they provide powerful racial effects that can empower them both offensively and defensively. Their racials revolve around increased burst damage, increased pet damage, and crowd control resistance!
- Axe Specialization increases your expertise by 5 when using axes or fist weapons. Sadly, this racial effect is only useful if you are trying to use one of your close-range abilities since Hunters do not require expertise for their ranged weapons.
- Blood Fury is an on-use spell that increases your Attack Power and scales with your level. At level 80 it will provide +322 attack power for 15 seconds on a 2-minute cooldown. The fact that this is an on-use ability has big implications for burst phases / stacking your cooldowns.
- Hardiness provides you with resistance to crowd control effects which is absolutely amazing in PvP. Lower crowd control duration for PvP situations means that your enemy has less time to counter you!
- Command is a very powerful racial, that can enhance your pet’s damage. Your loyal companions will love your leadership! Feeling empowered by your mere presence, they will viciously tear your enemies apart, dealing 5% increased damage.
Trolls are the second available choice when it comes to Marksmanship Hunters in the Horde. They offer both defensive and offensive cooldowns, focusing on increasing their attack speed, passive damage buffs, regeneration, and crowd control reduction!
- Berserking is an on-use spell that offers +20% increased attack speed for 10 seconds on a 3-minute cooldown. The fact that this is an on-use ability has big implications for burst phases / stacking your cooldowns.
- Beast Slaying increases your damage dealt to Beast-type enemies by 5%, which is very powerful. The only use for this ability is against a hunter’s pet.
- Da Voodoo Shuffle passively reduces the duration of movement slowing & immobilizing effects on you by 15%. This racial effect will greatly improve your mobility, especially when taking into consideration that some of your talents further enhance your resistance to movement-impairing effects.
- Regeneration increases health regeneration by 10% and allows you to regenerate health during combat at 10% of your normal regeneration rate. While this racial is mostly only relevant while leveling or questing, it can have situational uses in end-game content when it comes to increasing overall survivability.
- Bow Specialization and Throwing Specialization increase your critical strike chance with bows & throwing weapons by 1%. As long as you are using a Bow, this racial effect will be extremely useful!
Blood Elves are a good choice when it comes to playing a Marksmanship Hunter PvP in the Horde. They do not possess a lot of racial effects, however, they do possess two interesting racial effects that can impact your gameplay. First of all, they have access to a close-range silence, allowing you to create interesting combos with disengage. Secondly, they possess a defensive racial against magic!
- Arcane Torrent is a racial effect that provides an instant AoE silence, while also providing you with 15 runic power. This racial effect can be combined with other interrupting and silencing effects to create a complete crowd control lockdown on a target, completely impairing any spell caster.
- Magical Resistance reduces the chance to be hit by spells by 2%. This racial effect provides a fairly powerful advantage in PvP, as it forces enemy casters to have a higher Hit Chance in order to be effective against you!
- Arcane Affinity increases your initial Enchanting skill by 10. This does not have colossal gameplay implications, only providing a minor initial bonus to leveling Enchanting.
Taurens are a mediocre choice when it comes to playing a Marksmanship Hunter, having racial effects much more suited for the other Hunter specializations. They do however provide great defensive bonuses, offering an AoE stun and increased health!
- Endurance increases base health by 5% — meaning your natural health at level 80, without your extra health or stamina from equipment, buffs, etc. This can help you survive slightly better than other Hunter races but is generally a weak racial considering that you will not be stacking stamina.
- War Stomp gives you an on-use AoE stun with a 2-minute cooldown. This racial effect can provide you with a powerful stun effect that you can use to create a crowd control lock on a target or interrupt several targets at the same time.
- Nature Resistance reduces the chance you will be hit by Nature spells by 2%. This is mostly a negligible racial when it comes to PvE. However, it can be quite relevant in PvP, as this racial effect is especially useful against Druids and Shamans!
- Cultivation increases your initial Herbalism skill by 15. This doesn’t have a gameplay impact besides minor convenience.
Alliance
When it comes to the Alliance there is only one choice that can be considered the absolute best, and that is Night Elf. Night Elves provide very strong racial effects for PvP, possessing both offensive and defensive racial effects!
Night Elves are the best choice when it comes to playing Marksmanship Hunter in the Alliance. Their racial effects are both offensive and defensive, providing a unique mechanic that allows you to hide in plain sight! You can choose to use this racial as a defensive tool or an offensive one!
- Quickness reduces the chance you’ll be hit by melee and ranged attacks by 2%. This racial effect can provide you with high survivability against physical damage dealing classes, as they will often find themselves missing their attacks against you.
- Nature Resistance reduces the chance you will be hit by Nature spells by 2%. This racial effect further improves your survivability against death knights, druids, shamans, and hunters.
- Shadowmeld can be used in order to escape combat and become stealthed once every 2 minutes. It will also cause you to drop all threat on every target you’re currently engaged in combat with, but all threat will be restored the moment you leave stealth — which will happen the moment you move or take any action. Simply put, this racial has high applicability in PvP, but it also has excellent utility in the early stages of PvE, especially dungeons, in case you pull a group of mobs or steal aggro from a tank by mistake. Besides completely removing any threat that you have, Shadowmeld will also force any player currently targeting you to lose its target, effectively, allowing you to cancel a spell cast, further disabling any caster that attempts to harm you.
- Elusiveness reduces the chance to be detected if you are stealthed. This effect will further enhance your Shadowmeld!
- Wisp Spirit increases your movement speed by 75% while dead. You generally don’t want to be dead, but this is still a nice bonus.
Dwarves are the second-best choice when it comes to playing a Marksmanship Hunter in the Alliance. They provide you with a few interesting racial effects, offering you a powerful defensive cooldown, an offensive racial, and a gimmicky effect that allows you to fulfill the Dwarven fantasy of seeking gold!
- Mace Specialization increases your expertise by 5 when using maces. Sadly, Hunters can not use maces, thus, completely invalidating this racial effect.
- Stoneform is an on-use spell that gives you +10% increased armor for 8 seconds on a 2-minute cooldown. For most classes and specs, this would be a purely tanking-focused boost but it can prove to be useful when it comes to overall survivability during tough encounters, even as a DPS. The fact that this ability also removes all types of poison, bleeding, and disease effects make it the perfect defensive tool!
- Gun Specialization increases your critical strike chance with guns by 1%. This racial effect is extremely useful as long as you are using a gun!
- Frost Resistance reduces the chance you will be hit by Frost spells by 2%. This is mostly useful against mages and death knights, as frost damage is quite rare in PvP.
- Find Treasure is a very cool racial from a roleplay point of view, allowing you to see treasure on the minimap. This is very fun to use while questing and leveling up, but it unfortunately has zero relevance in raids.
Draenei are a good choice when it comes to playing a Marksmanship Hunter in PvP. They provide an interesting effect that allows them and their allies to min-max their stats better while also providing you with a defensive racial!
- Heroic Presence increases the chance to hit with spells and physical attacks by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards. This racial effect allows you to min-max your build and that of your allies better than any other race. This racial combined with Focused Aim can easily help you reach the Hit Chance cap.
- Gift of the Naaru places a heal-over-time effect on a single target that lasts 15 seconds, with a 3-minute cooldown. This racial effect can improve your overall survivability, granting you (or your allies, if you’re feeling generous) a much-needed self-sustain tool.
- Shadow Resistance reduces the chance you will be hit by Shadow spells by 2%. This racial will provide you with a strong survivability bonus in PvP content, being useful against classes that use the Shadow School — Warlocks, Priests, and Death Knights.
- Gemcutting increases your initial Jewelcrafting skill by 5. This doesn’t have a gameplay impact besides minor convenience.
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