Reaching wave 30 on Endless mode in Proving Grounds to get “the Proven Assailant” title has always been a bit of a pain in the ass, but that has changed for Hunters in patch 7.0. I’d go as far to say as it’s now been kind of trivialized for Marksmanship. You still need to pay attention, but it’s way easier than it used to be.
Marksmanship is absolutely ridiculous for spread AoE damage if you take the right talents, and it’s just as good for single target to boot. These are the main talents you care about:
Sidewinders allows you to mark many things at once, and Patient Sniper adds a huge damage buff without having to build up 3 stacks (takes too long for these 1 minute waves). Combine that with Barrage when Marked Shot isn’t available and you have a deadly combination for Proving Grounds. Here is a good build to start with.
Here’s a few tips:
- It consists of 10 repeating waves which get slightly harder every time. It scales to your current gear. Some people say it’s easier at lower gear levels, but I don’t know if that’s true. You can use flask and food.
- I recommend using Trueshot on waves 4 and 10 at least, but if you’re having trouble with the mini boss in wave 5, then you could try using it there instead. I found I didn’t need Trueshot for any of the waves, but wave 4 was always close because of all the movement to get behind the shielding mobs.
- Prioritize the mystics (healers) and the banana throwers. Interrupt the healers. The banana throwers reduce your chance to hit by 75% if you get hit by them, so your main source of damage is going to be Barrage while dodging the bananas (or Marked Shot if available). Remember, there’s no set bonuses active in here so you can’t have instant Aimed Shots on the move.
- Don’t blow all your cooldowns on the bosses until their damage reduction shields drop.
- Save the blood lust power ups for waves 5 and 10.
- If you make it through all 10 waves, you should have no problem doing it 2 more times for 30, so don’t give up if you fail somewhere in between waves 10 and 30.
Easier in Legion?
Maybe. I haven’t really tried to be honest, but I do know that artifact weapons function in there just fine. I wouldn’t be surprised if Blizzard made some adjustments at some point though.
But if you’re like me and you’ve been saving this for a rainy day, this might be the time to knock it off the list.
I’m having an impossible time even making it past wave 6 in the gold challenge so far, and I often don’t make it past wave 3. The banana throwers keep evading, my primary filler shot requires me to be stationary, and cooldowns are causing problems for me. 🙁
Your shots are missing because of the bananas. You have to keep moving. I assume you’re talking about Aimed Shot? Use Barrage or Sidewinders + Marked Shot to get them.
I played up to 20 and then a banshee exploded.
I don’t want to play all 20 again…
If that’s one of your first attempts that’s pretty good actually. But yeah, it sucks that it takes a full half hour of constant combat to get this. Though I guess the title wouldn’t mean much if anyone could waltz in and get it.
What would you suggest as the best trinkets for this would be? I think I have most of them in Mythic, but as I haven’t played in a while, I seem to recall the Mirror was nerfed?
Yes, HFC trinkets were nerfed. I don’t think the trinket matters much to be honest. This mostly comes down to execution. The difference now is MM has the tools to make it easy to execute (compared to how it was before anyway). But if you’re interested in what the best MM trinkets are currently, see here: http://www.icy-veins.com/wow/marksmanship-hunter-pve-dps-gear-loot-best-in-slot
Thank you for another timely and helpful article! I got my title back in MoP using Survival; it’ll be fun to go Marks and use our new abilities. Thumbs up!
What addon are you using for the Floating Combat text?
Also, thanks for the heads up with this!
I think it’s called “nice damage”
https://mods.curse.com/addons/wow/font-damage-changer
http://www.dafont.com/star-jedi.font
Thanks for the replies!
@Jergy @bendak
I actually managed this quiet comfortably today as Beast Mastery, though if you choke once(miss calculate CD or cop an ember weaver’s globe to the face) you’re pretty much boned, I pretty much used Azortharian’s prepatch raiding build for ST and used stampede for the Round 10 Sha’s and the round 3 aoe mobs
first attempt and had no problems at all
thanks for the tip!
Not playing Legion? 🙂