[MARKSMANSHIP]Legion Alpha Discussion

[Thursley]

As long as they balance the spec fairly around the lack of mobility I think it's a good change overall. There's a lot riding on them getting it right though, because that mobility has been the clear design direction for the class for the last 3 years or so, and abandoning it now would be very frustrating if they don't make up for it.

[Ifritlol]

BM is 100% mobile tho, you can play it with one hand even, so, why complain

[ZealousBlade]

You know, I don't want attention for MM anymore. It seems like every time a dev glances in the general direction of hunters, they feel that Marksman needs to be changed in some way, to fit some non-existent person's fantasy.

Whether that is changing us more and more into turrets, throwing lone wolf into a talent position again, whatever the case may be, usually it is not a direction I like.

To clarify, I had really been enjoying MM on the Alpha, I am just hoping they don't fuck it up more, as tends to happen.

[Bepples]

See, I actually identify aspects of the hunter class I like that aren't pathetic crutches that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

You have to love this logic. Being able to move while DPSing is a "pathetic crutch".

Maybe you're the one who should play another class since you're so incapable of accepting change.

See, the difference is that there are way more standstill turret specs in the game, some of which have very small compensations during movement periods. Hunters are the only ones that can really say they can do full DPS (or nearly close to it) while moving. Even if other ranged specs do more DPS than us on a Patchwerk fight, hunters quickly become competitive on fights with movement (i.e. most fights).

So if hunter's become a mobile class with lower damage, people like you have the choice of playing a different class if you want to stand still and tunnel against one target for an entire fight. Whereas if hunters become another caster (like what they are turning Marksman into), people like me have NO choice. Survival is becoming melee and BM is nowhere near as competitive (and has strong boss positioning requirements anyway). So what class do you suggest I switch to if I want to have 100% ranged mobility?

Therefore, I'll reiterate my previous point: Go play a mage since that's the playstyle you clearly desire.

And why should I accept change if it is largely negative?

As long as they balance the spec fairly around the lack of mobility I think it's a good change overall. There's a lot riding on them getting it right though, because that mobility has been the clear design direction for the class for the last 3 years or so, and abandoning it now would be very frustrating if they don't make up for it.

How can it possibly be a good change since we are going from just 3 fully mobile range specs in the game to 1? That's an extremely negative change, even moreso for an expansion which is apparently all about reinforcing unique spec identities. What is there unique about a ranged spec that can't move much but does a lot of single-target damage? Boomkins do that. All the mage specs do that. Elemental shamans (when Blizzard decides to actually tune them appropriately) do that. The warlock specs do that. Shadow priests do that. Why the hell do we need another one, especially at the expense of a mobile ranged spec (which, again, we only have 3).

I'll say it every post here if I have to: Why don't you people who want a standstill turret spec go play one of the numerous standstill turret specs that already exist? Why do you insist on turning one of the only alternatives into just another one of the usual ranged specs?

BM is 100% mobile tho, you can play it with one hand even, so, why complain

I would play BM if:

a) It had a playstyle as good as the current BM playstyle, and
b) It were as competitive as MM

Neither are true.

The design of BM in Legion is pure shit for reasons that have been talked about time and time again on the other feedback forums. Not having an active focus generator is shit. There is too much downtime. You are too reliant on that awful extra pet from the artifact which has exceptionally shitty AI and little to no control from the player.

In previous raid tiers (even in early T17) you could play any of the 3 specs and do competitive DPS, even if one was usually better. This has not been true since BRF released. BRF and HFC have had just one spec choice (BM and MM respectively) and picking any of the other options is nothing short of gimping your DPS and forfeiting your raid spot.

See, I would actually accept MM (begrudgingly) if there were competitive alternate options, but there aren't. Survival remaining as a ranged spec would alleviate the issue but instead they turned it into a (crappy) melee spec for no good reason at all.

[Ifritlol]

I am sure that BM will play just fine with reasonable amount of haste. On PvP realms you have 6% haste which is low low. Azor in his Botanist test video had 49% haste. That would bring KC and ChS to, what, 4.5 and 6 sec CD? And you'll have 15 focus per sec instead of 10.6. We will have to wait for another damage tuning patch.

And another thing, Hati is no problem to control, he is just a clone of your pet. They fixed bug when he was not following /petcommands now. So the only problem remaining is that stupid 2min debuff when Hati dies and you can resummon him.

IF BM and MM will have even DPS I think that BM will be pretty good progression spec. You get 100% mobility, 1 button AoE that don't rely on debuff, 2 min burst and 2 min Aspect of Cheetah (LOL).

There is still hope guys!

[Garfurion]

I am sure that BM will play just fine with reasonable amount of haste.

This is the main problem with BM. The whole focus management system is designed to scale with both Haste and Crit and we have over 42% of our talent choices wasted on tuning a single parameter: average focus regen per minute. They could just replace 3 talent rows with just a single slider or dial going from "Boring & Frustating" to "ABC (Always Be Casting) aka Play how a hunter has played since Vanilla".

[Deleted]

And why should I accept change if it is largely negative?

....for you.

Why do others have to accept your preferred playstyle?
It doesn't matter if Mage/Warlock/whatever specc you name uses casting times too, it's still a totally different class and spec that plays differently.

Not everyone embraced the 100% mobility change either. You are free to change your class if you don't like it, just as much as anyone else.

I prefer less mobility over more turret damage myself, as long as they manage to do that, I'm happier than before - and I doubt I'm the only one seeing it like that.

[Sencha]

This is the main problem with BM. The whole focus management system is designed to scale with both Haste and Crit and we have over 42% of our talent choices wasted on tuning a single parameter: average focus regen per minute. They could just replace 3 talent rows with just a single slider or dial going from "Boring & Frustating" to "ABC (Always Be Casting) aka Play how a hunter has played since Vanilla".

The main problem with BM is the no-brain gameplay. The biggest difficulty will be not to fall asleep during raids.

But this is a thread about MM.

[Bepples]

....for you.


Why do others have to accept your preferred playstyle?

It doesn't matter if Mage/Warlock/whatever specc you name uses casting times too, it's still a totally different class and spec that plays differently.

Losing mobility is objectively a negative change. You can argue that it's not because we will get more damage but that doesn't hold up for two reasons:

1. We have to actually make sure that we do competitive damage. If we lose all our mobility and we still aren't the highest/one of the highest, and there are specs above us with the same or more mobility, then it's all for naught: we lost our distinguishing trait and kept sub-par damage anyway. It remains to be seen how this turns out since tuning is on going, but let me remind you that we are still getting repeatedly nerfed, build after build.

2. Even if we did gain a lot of damage: like I said a billion times already Blizzard is effectively reducing the variety of viable play styles. We already have a ton of specs that do great single target/good cleave with low mobility. The other casters really don't play that differently to alpha MM, but they play quite a bit differently to live MM.

Neither of those are subjective. Do you think it's not possible that MM might do less damage than the other classes anyway? Do you think they aren't reducing the number of mobile ranged DPS specs in the game by making one of them immobile and one of them melee?

It's also not just my preferred playstyle. A large amount of raiding hunters picked the class for their high mobility (although admittedly a larger amount of them probably picked it because it was easy to play), and the general nerfing of our mobility has already pissed off plenty of people; go take a look at the Legion feedback forums.

And the negative change doesn't just come from our core rotation. We can't do PvP nearly as well since we don't have traps any more. To have ANY CC we have to talent out of Binding Shot which isn't really an option. Speaking of which, we also have to make a choice between Camouflage and Binding Shot now. We are significantly weaker against melee since we now do about half our DPS or less when kiting and, again, we don't have Ice Trap to slow multiple people at once any more. There are just too many objective NERFS to say that the Marksman changes are only subjectively worse.

Not everyone embraced the 100% mobility change either.

You're right. Only about 95% of hunters embraced the mobility change and 5% complained because they thought they were in a special elite club because they knew how to stutter-step.

Seriously, go google "hunter auto shot while moving" and read some of the old forum threads. Hunters were so massively in favour of the change that pretending that there was any significant opposition is just being disingenuous. Why would any class actively want to be LESS mobile?

You are free to change your class if you don't like it, just as much as anyone else.

What class do you suggest I switch to for ranged mobility?

Oh, that's right: ALL the other fucking ranged specs are standstill turrets. Some of the USED to have at least some movement filler (e.g. lightning bolt while moving) but Blizzard took all that away too. So I'm actually NOT free to change my class if I don't like the playstyle change to standstill turret because all the other ranged classes are standstill turrets too.

Seriously, what a stupid thing to say. "Don't like that our class is changing to playstyle X? Go pick a different class, from a selection of classes that all share playstyle X!".

[sololux]

I love all these guys saying " its your opinion that less mobility is a bad thing".. Shit goes both ways.. It's "your opinion" has well that " less mobility is a good thing". Get your head out of your ass.... We can't help that for the last 8 years hunters have been designed to be highly mobile. That was blizzards doing. You can't blame people for being pissed because all of a sudden the things that attracted to, and kept them playing, this class are getting completely shredded. It's like everyone says everyone else's opinion is wrong and their opinions are always right. This is why as a whole we need options not limits. With high mobility you can still choose to stand completely still to satisfy your epeen.

[Deleted]

I love all these guys saying " its your opinion that less mobility is a bad thing".. Shit goes both ways.. It's "your opinion" has well that " less mobility is a good thing". Get your head out of your ass.... We can't help that for the last 8 years hunters have been designed to be highly mobile. That was blizzards doing. You can't blame people for being pissed because all of a sudden the things that attracted to, and kept them playing, this class are getting completely shredded. It's like everyone says everyone else's opinion is wrong and their opinions are always right. This is why as a whole we need options not limits. With high mobility you can still choose to stand completely still to satisfy your epeen.

First of all, yes, that shit goes both ways, which is why I brought it up in the first place... there is no objective "truth" about that matter like he made it out to be.

Hunter was mobile throughout all expansions even though they had turret skills, what exactly is stopping them now?

Aimed shot had 3s+ cast time (classic)
Steady shot didn't allow you to move (BC)
Aimed shot didn't allow you to move (BC)
Aimed shot Arcane shot were instant but on a 6-10s CD and the most used spell / GCD was a 2s cast, steady shot. (wotlk)

etc. etc.
Yet in these 3 expansions, we were the most mobile class in the game.
Yet they were still able to kite adds and do mechanics on their own.

Get your shit together, just because you can't jump around like a flipping retard while doing your rotation, doesn't mean you'll become the least mobile and the world isn't falling apart either.
It's a skill to do your rotation without suffering much of a DPS loss when you need to move, that's it, that didn't change, that won't change. There is absolutely nothing you gain from having 100% mobility gameplay wise other than an easier class to play.

With high mobility you can still choose to stand completely still to satisfy your epeen.

This will just leave us with the best out of both options. *I* prefer high hitting spells/skills with less mobility, than less DPS overall with high mobility. If I can have both, then that's just unfair compared to other classes.
Does that mean I should pick another class just because dude A says so? No, because as I said, they still play differently, have a different feel to them, do different things and have a different theme.

[sololux]

Hunter was mobile throughout all expansions even though they had turret skills, what exactly is stopping them now?

Aimed shot had 3s+ cast time (classic)
Steady shot didn't allow you to move (BC)
Aimed shot didn't allow you to move (BC)
Aimed shot Arcane shot were instant but on a 6-10s CD and the most used spell / GCD was a 2s cast, steady shot. (wotlk)

etc. etc.
Yet in these 3 expansions, we were the most mobile class in the game.
Yet they were still able to kite adds and do mechanics on their own.

Get your shit together, just because you can't jump around like a flipping retard while doing your rotation, doesn't mean you'll become the least or mobile and the world isn't falling apart either.
It's a skill to do your rotation without suffering much of a DPS loss when you need to move, that's it, that didn't change, that won't change. There is absolutely nothing you gain from having 100% mobility gameplay wise other than an easier class to play.



This will just leave us with the best out of both options. *I* prefer high hitting spells/skills with less mobility, than less DPS overall with high mobility. If I can have both, then that's just unfair compared to other classes.
Does that mean I should pick another class just because dude A says so? No, because as I said, they still play differently, have a different feel to them, do different things and have a different theme.

Never did I say anything about becoming the most or least mobile or the highest or lowest DPS? I simply stated you can't blame people for getting pissed because your limiting them rather than giving them the options they have had since 2008( the end of BC).. Just because you like the turret style doesn't mean Jack. Your actually the minority in this argument.

[Deleted]

Never did I say anything about becoming the most or least mobile or the highest or lowest DPS? I simply stated you can't blame people for getting pissed because your limiting them rather than giving them the options they have had since 2008( the end of BC).. Just because you like the turret style doesn't mean Jack. Your actually the minority in this argument.

I never blamed anyone here either.

He ordered people that disagreed with his freaking *opinion* to play a different class, I said that he might as well do so himself, maybe I should've said that he should stop playing instead?

And the bolded part is rather cute, because it's totally not influenced by your biased opinion right? He is arguing against multiple users in this forum not just me... get lost.
I don't even disagree with him fully, I just disagree about the scope/overall impact.

You're right. Only about 95% of hunters embraced the mobility change and 5% complained because they thought they were in a special elite club because they knew how to stutter-step.

Seriously, go google "hunter auto shot while moving" and read some of the old forum threads. Hunters were so massively in favour of the change that pretending that there was any significant opposition is just being disingenuous. Why would any class actively want to be LESS mobile?

Because of balance reasons. This discussion came up in many different MMOs... the most recent one would be FFXIV.

Bards had high DPS high mobility and were the best of the best.
Bards damage got reduced, gear improved and people learned how to do X even though their mobility was only a fraction of what a bard had.
Bards became the weakest DPS class by far, because why wouldn't they, mobile and damage? that's unfair when BLMs are that much of a turret that during every second they move, they lose (no way around that) to the point where they might end up doing 40% of the damage due to losing buffs/debuffs for ~20 seconds.
Bards got a new stance that allowed them to add +% dmg to all their skills, but every skill has now a cast time.
Every bard uses that stance because overall, mobility is "meh" and damage is king. (doesn't mean they don't switch out of it, but that's because that stance stops autoattacks)

So as long as we don't become "BLM", it seems fine to me, or at least adaptable.

It's a matter of how mobile we need to be and how mobile we actually are once we get to know our spec/gear/fights better.
That being said, I can actually agree with FpicEail that the change to Windburst is a letdown, not destroying like he's preaching (by the sound of it), but yeah, a letdown... it involved planning/playing around something, losing that means you need to think less about something.
Just like 100% mobility is just as bad in my opinion.

[sololux]

All three hunter specs are 100% mobile on live currently with no issues. It's hard for me to side with this 100% mobility is OP argument when everything is fine right now with it.

[Rooskie1993]

How is hunter now with the lone wolf nerf?

[construkt]

How is hunter now with the lone wolf nerf?

You still end up taking it unless you're 100% single target tunneling.

[Bepples]

I never blamed anyone here either.

He ordered people that disagreed with his freaking *opinion* to play a different class, I said that he might as well do so himself, maybe I should've said that he should stop playing instead?

And the bolded part is rather cute, because it's totally not influenced by your biased opinion right? He is arguing against multiple users in this forum not just me... get lost.
I don't even disagree with him fully, I just disagree about the scope/overall impact.

Yes, people who want a ranged class with 0 mobility and long casts with high damage should go play a mage instead. Why play a hunter and demand that hunters turn into mages? People who want to play a caster have plenty of options. People who want a fast-paced mobile archer have less and less options.

And he wasn't arguing that no one likes the turret style, he was arguing that a minority of people like the turret style. I would argue this as well since Aimed Shot while moving is one of the most requested features on the official Marksman feedback threads. Hell, we have Aimed Shot while moving right now on live as well as a 4-set that makes it instant...why should we go back to having a long cast time which is cancelled by movement? This is a giant step backwards. Give us WoD Sniper training back if you think we really need a movement restriction because even that is better than immobile Aimed Shot. Hell, gives us an instant-cast focus dump that does a bit less damage per focus than Aimed Shot: this is how it was done in late Cataclysm. Anything but turning us into casters.

Because of balance reasons. This discussion came up in many different MMOs... the most recent one would be FFXIV.

Bards had high DPS high mobility and were the best of the best.
Bards damage got reduced, gear improved and people learned how to do X even though their mobility was only a fraction of what a bard had.
Bards became the weakest DPS class by far, because why wouldn't they, mobile and damage? that's unfair when BLMs are that much of a turret that during every second they move, they lose (no way around that) to the point where they might end up doing 40% of the damage due to losing buffs/debuffs for ~20 seconds.
Bards got a new stance that allowed them to add +% dmg to all their skills, but every skill has now a cast time.
Every bard uses that stance because overall, mobility is "meh" and damage is king. (doesn't mean they don't switch out of it, but that's because that stance stops autoattacks)

So as long as we don't become "BLM", it seems fine to me, or at least adaptable.

It's a matter of how mobile we need to be and how mobile we actually are once we get to know our spec/gear/fights better.
That being said, I can actually agree with FpicEail that the change to Windburst is a letdown, not destroying like he's preaching (by the sound of it), but yeah, a letdown... it involved planning/playing around something, losing that means you need to think less about something.
Just like 100% mobility is just as bad in my opinion.

I actually talked about Bards earlier as a perfect example of mobility/damage compromising gone badly. The idea behind Wanderer's Minuet was to allow the (few) people who wanted a more caster-like bard to play with that song while people who wanted a more mobile archer could just play without it. Instead, Minuet is now the focus of the entire spec; the new core abilities added in Heavensward require it and the damage penalty for not having it is so great that you are instead encouraged to just stand still all the time and keep the minuet up. Sniper Training is a far better movement compromise than Wanderer's Minuet and I don't even like that too much.

See: mobility needs to be a competitive option and you cannot act like it isn't possible without it being overpowered because this is the core design of hunters on live since early Cataclysm. Hunters do lower Patchwerk-fight DPS than other classes: the current sims for 735 Mythic put us at 17th. However, in practise we catch up to the other classes in real raid situations because we can do most of our DPS while moving and they can't, yet we still don't overtake them. That is exactly how it should be and it is exactly how it has been for 5 years now. Why is it suddenly an urgent issue that needs to be fixed? This reminds me of how we had 10-man raiding on the highest difficulty for 6 years but suddenly we needed to can it because it wasn't ever good or something, or how we had flying for 7 years but suddenly we needed to can it because it "ruined immersion". Is that the current philosophy of the dev team? Throw out good features of the game for the sake of change?

- - - Updated - - -

All three hunter specs are 100% mobile on live currently with no issues. It's hard for me to side with this 100% mobility is OP argument when everything is fine right now with it.

I wouldn't call Marksman 100% mobile because there is a DPS loss associated with moving (Sniper Training). BM is a bit tricky because while there is no movement penalty, there is a penalty associated with a sudden change in target positioning (switching target or target teleport) due to pet travel time, but I guess that's not really a mobility issue. Survival on live is truly 100% mobile, too bad it is both undertuned and has a playstyle that is totally incompatible with both the legendary ring and HFC boss design, but at least we got some use out of it in Highmaul....

But you're mostly right. I would say day 1 of true full mobility for hunters would be November 27th 2012: Patch 5.1, which enabled Steady Shot while moving, although Marksman would still have a standstill Aimed Shot until WoD (but it had an alternate focus dump Arcane Shot which did less damage but was instant, and it was actually behind the other two specs for most of that time anyway). So we've had full mobility (or close to it) for about 3 years, and close to full mobility for even longer before that. Suddenly it's not fair and we need to turn into casters? I don't buy it.

[Rooskie1993]

You still end up taking it unless you're 100% single target tunneling.

I guess that's because you don't use aimed shot at all now right? so true aim is useless.

[Bepples]

I guess that's because you don't use aimed shot at all now right? so true aim is useless.

Not true. Aimed Shot is still a core part of our rotation and True Aim buffs Marked Shot/Arcane Shot as well.

[Donkeywing]

See: mobility needs to be a competitive option and you cannot act like it isn't possible without it being overpowered because this is the core design of hunters on live since early Cataclysm. Hunters do lower Patchwerk-fight DPS than other classes: the current sims for 735 Mythic put us at 17th. However, in practise we catch up to the other classes in real raid situations because we can do most of our DPS while moving and they can't, yet we still don't overtake them. That is exactly how it should be and it is exactly how it has been for 5 years now.

That's not how it works and not how it should be either. Mobility is a dps strength. If we did weaker dmg because of mobility, it would be a handicap. We didnt do weaker dmg because of mobility in wod, I dont care what the sims say. Besides, plenty of ''patchwork'' fights where we placed high on if not 1st (during progress times) including gruul, fel lord and the butcher.
I would actually say that because of this mentality that hunters should do less dmg cause of mobility (which is the popular opinion) its actually a good thing its gone for one of our specs. Not sole reasoning, of course, but everytime I see that bullshit, it triggers me a little inside.

In any case even though I definitely agree with some of what you're saying, I think you're pinning too much on mobility alone, going too hard at it. A spec can still be niche, fun, special whatever you wanna call it, without mobility. Having said that, I do think MM has too few hunter abilities - I think that would be a more interesting discussion, but thats just me.