Overview
Marksmanship is a ranged combat skill in Crimson Desert, available to all three playable characters (Kliff, Damiane, and Oongka). It belongs to the Stamina (Blue) branch of the skill tree. Perform a basic attack with your ranged weapon. Further investment increases ranged damage.
Skill Details
Detail | Info |
|---|---|
Character | |
Skill Tree | Stamina (Blue) |
Category | Ranged Combat |
Cost | Ammo |
How to Unlock | Abyss Artifact x1+ |
Input | L2 |
Skill Progression
Marksmanship has 2 upgrades that branch from it as you invest more Abyss Artifacts.
Skill | Effect | How to Unlock | |
|---|---|---|---|
Hold to charge your shot and increase its power. | Spend 1 Abyss Artifact or observe skill in action | Hold R2 while aiming | |
Fire 10 arrows in a wide spread. | Spend 1 Abyss Artifact or observe skill in action | R1 while aiming |
Tips
Invest in Marksmanship early to unlock its full progression chain.
Key Tiers
Two investments on the Bows side of the Stamina tree stand out as the backbone of a focused ranged build: the top tier of Charged Shot reached through Marksmanship 5 of 5, and Focus Shot at 3 of 3. At 5 of 5, Marksmanship unlocks the strongest Charge Shot tier, giving a single fully drawn arrow enough damage to threaten large aerial targets in one hit when it lands clean. Focus Shot 3 of 3 refines the aiming half of the same build by widening the slow-motion mark window and letting you stack more marks per activation, which then feed back into the Charge Shot for the release.
The two trees are designed to be used together. Charge Shot supplies the raw damage on release, and Focus Shot supplies the reliable marks that tell the Charge Shot where to go. Running one without the other leaves holes in the rotation: a maxed Charge Shot without Focus Shot marks is easy to miss against moving targets, and maxed Focus Shot without the Charge Shot payoff wastes the buildup on weaker arrows. Players building toward aerial hunting should plan to take both ends of the bow build to full investment, not split points across unrelated Stamina branches.
Charged Shot at 5 of 5 (via Marksmanship 5 of 5): the top tier of the charge release, highest single-arrow damage.
Focus Shot at 3 of 3: wider slow-motion window and more marks per Focus activation.
Combined use: mark as many times as possible during focus, then release the fully charged shot on the last mark.
Patch 1.04: Legendary Phoenix Hunt Use
Patch 1.04 introduced the legendary Phoenix, the flying counterpart to the other Legendary Animals in the Crimson Desert region. The Phoenix spawns in the area just south of the Trader Expanse and flies with a flock of smaller birds, and it carries an unusually high health pool compared to normal hunted birds. Ground-based damage sources that work on other legendary targets are not practical here because the bird stays in the air until it is brought down, which forces the fight into a pure ranged engagement. Marksmanship's maxed Charge Shot is the tool the fight is balanced around.
A maxed Marksmanship build handles the Phoenix in a manageable number of attempts. The pattern is to fast travel to the nearby waypoint, track the Phoenix visually by spotting the colored flock, position underneath or slightly ahead of its flight path, enter focus mode, stack as many marks on it as the slow-motion window allows, then release a fully charged arrow. A clean fully charged shot stacked with multiple marks is enough to drop the bird out of the sky in one or two cycles. Without the 5 of 5 Charge Shot tier, the same rotation does not put out enough damage per arrow, the bird flies off after taking partial damage, and its despawn behavior can make the next spawn take several in-game days to reappear, which is why the investment matters for this specific hunt.
If the Phoenix does survive the first volley and flies away, reloading the area from the fast travel point is faster than chasing it. Taking the kill shot does not complete the hunt on its own: the body still has to be skinned on the ground to drop the Phoenix Feather, and the feather is the key crafting component used at any witch's crafting table to produce the sigil that registers the bird as a pet. The quest Sighting of the Phoenix covers the initial encounter, but the pet conversion is driven by the skin drop rather than the quest reward.
Recommended Pairings
Two equipment-side choices make the maxed Marksmanship rotation noticeably more consistent against the Phoenix and against other airborne targets added to the pool in Patch 1.04.
Explosive Arrow: stocking a small supply of explosive arrows and loading one on the final mark of the Focus Shot stack is the most reliable single-shot burst against the Phoenix. The explosion damage is added to the Charge Shot payload, so a fully charged explosive arrow with multiple marks stacked on a flying target can finish the hunt in a single release. See the Explosive Arrow Build page for how these slot into a Marksmanship-focused loadout.
Frost imbuement on the bow: a frost imbued shot briefly freezes airborne targets in place on hit. That frozen window is enough time to line up and fully charge a follow-up arrow without the Phoenix drifting out of range, which removes the hardest part of the fight, tracking a moving target while the charge bar fills.
Investment order: unless you are also building a melee character, put skill points into Charged Shot 5 of 5 and Focus Shot 3 of 3 before spreading into other Stamina branches. The Phoenix is not the only legendary flyer on the map, and the same bow build handles eagles, hawks, and condor-class birds that are used for the new bird-pet system added in the same patch.