[MARKSMANSHIP]Legion Alpha Discussion

[Trictagon]

Wrong, always LnL.

You dont use Steady focus? I don't have enough focus to cast 3aimed+1marked in one patient sniper buff without it (outside of hero or trueshot, unless i need haste somewhere, or do marked before aimed while always starting at full focus, and letting patient sniper fall off, possibly losing an aimed shot in its duration?). Sidewinders itself applies patient sniper, and a single sidewinders cast grants the steady focus buff (including crit % for aimed from artifact).

I find myself doing sidewinders->aimed3x->marked as opposed to marked->aimed3x, just to make sure i extend patient sniper for 100% uptime (since its 8s duration, sidewinders 12s minus haste% recharge). All 4 shots are +150% buffed with Steady Focus, does the sim account for this?

Btw I hope they bring back the patient sniper+sidewinders+trick shot combo, while still letting us use barrage. That synergy was fun in dungeons before they moved stuff around.

If you want to do high damage specifically to bosses, I recommend running mythic+ halls of valor until you get an 840+ horn of valor. Trueshot w/50% crit dmg trait+horn of valor was giving me > 1mil marked shot crits. After a boss you can just switch the trinket out for a stat stick, then switch back to horn for next boss, and repeat. I recommend not doing mythic, as it will lock you for the week and you won't even get loot from mythic+ until weekly reset; however, mythic+ will yield loot indefinitely as long as you haven't done regular mythic, as well as give you an 850-860+ item every 12 hours in your class hall cache (next one is 7 hours from this post).

[kaminaris]

there can be ALOT more complexity to MM than BM will ever have

You surely jest

Effectively managing a pet on multi target fights is alone harder that whole marksmanship rotation.
MM just don't have any choices now, you follow priority list and thats it. If you still disagree then i challenge you this: write rotation for both specs and account for viable talent sets.

[Azortharion]

You dont use Steady focus? I don't have enough focus to cast 3aimed+1marked in one patient sniper buff without it (outside of hero or trueshot, unless i need haste somewhere, or do marked before aimed while always starting at full focus, and letting patient sniper fall off, possibly losing an aimed shot in its duration?). Sidewinders itself applies patient sniper, and a single sidewinders cast grants the steady focus buff (including crit % for aimed from artifact).

I find myself doing sidewinders->aimed3x->marked as opposed to marked->aimed3x, just to make sure i extend patient sniper for 100% uptime (since its 8s duration, sidewinders 12s minus haste% recharge). All 4 shots are +150% buffed with Steady Focus, does the sim account for this?

Btw I hope they bring back the patient sniper+sidewinders+trick shot combo, while still letting us use barrage. That synergy was fun in dungeons before they moved stuff around.

If you want to do high damage specifically to bosses, I recommend running mythic+ halls of valor until you get an 840+ horn of valor. Trueshot w/50% crit dmg trait+horn of valor was giving me > 1mil marked shot crits. After a boss you can just switch the trinket out for a stat stick, then switch back to horn for next boss, and repeat. I recommend not doing mythic, as it will lock you for the week and you won't even get loot from mythic+ until weekly reset; however, mythic+ will yield loot indefinitely as long as you haven't done regular mythic, as well as give you an 850-860+ item every 12 hours in your class hall cache (next one is 7 hours from this post).

No, besides there being way more improvement for LnL than SF in the APL, LnL beats SF without any of these.

- - - Updated - - -

You surely jest

Effectively managing a pet on multi target fights is alone harder that whole marksmanship rotation.

You use Kill Command with a /petattack macro to switch your pet around. If KC is on cd you can tap the same bind to reposition for Multi-Shot/Beast Cleave. It's not as difficult as you wanna make it out to be.

[Nakauri]

Steady Focus is actually fairly effective in AoE, though with the current state of the APL you don't see this until about 8 sustained targets or shorter fights.
For example, here's 60 seconds against 6 targets (the RNG spread is due to the short length, running at 25k it.). Obviously, Lock and Load still has better priority target output, and the APL has not been adapted for an AoE rotation yet. Similarly, it's still missing a few talents to really tweak some of the Marked Shot uptime. So, while it doesn't have the whole picture, it does show where the talent might find use.



There's a quick start guide for SimC in the MM thread located in my signature, if anyone wanted to mosey over there and start working on implementing calls for things like Multi-Shot and to work in certain talents (like Steady Focus) better than they currently are.
Keep in mind that for Marksmanship, Multi-Shot regenerates focus based on the targets it hits. This alone might hurt Steady Focus' effectiveness and use.

[Deleted]

Effectively managing a pet on multi target fights is alone harder that whole marksmanship rotation.

pull your head out of bm's a**, you aint talking straight.

[kaminaris]

It's not as difficult as you wanna make it out to be.

It's not difficult as i said before: Yesterday, 06:19 PM

Nothing, i never said its hard, i said its simply harder than MM.

The only spec I can admit is hard is current (live) Demo Lock. Some may disagree but it was the only one for me which i spent most time trying to figure out how to play it properly.

I used to play BM a lot even if it wasn't relevant on raids, i simply need to use a brain whenever i should do a switch:
does my pet will make it before add will die?
should i just interrupt him to make him come closer to start cleaving?
correctly positioning pet and maintaining beast cleave on aoe

MM just doesn't have such dilemmas. On live sniper training had me use brain, now its just gone.
On legion whenever i switch to MM it bores me quite fast.

Forgot to mention but there are 2 bugs that are driving me crazy on BM, first one is that if add uses stealth it sometimes bugs my pet so i can't use kill command until i dismiss my pet and summon him again. Its pretty rare but it does happen, putting him on passive and then making him assist doesn't always work, he is just standing in one place like a rock. Second one is that hati doesn't always follow commands, pulling one mob, switching to another results in hati still clinging to first one while wolf has switched long ago. I hope its either beta thing or they will fix it before legion launches.

Funny enough on live i have a lot more problems with for example cat than raptor.

By the way, anyone done SiM comparison between BM and MM with bis gear?

[Koochulu]

Main reason (in beta) I quest with a pet even though I'm MM specc'd ... them elites, they hurt ...

Same here. Tried lone wolf at first but pet makes it SOOO much easier.

[Akta]

so, is it confirmed that lone wolf is the default talent?

[Darth Belichick]

People who say dealing with a pet never dealt with playing BM in TBC when avoidance didn't exist. Pets getting 2 shot for days. As Azor mentioned, a simple /petattack macro is all you need. Hell, with the less abilities you should have more room for keybinds for your pet.

[shade3891]

I use Lone wolf for dungeons and use a pet while questing. Its easy enough to find a rest spot before entering a dungeon.

[Freerunz]

del (10 characters)

[Deleted]

Same here. Tried lone wolf at first but pet makes it SOOO much easier.

Black Arrow has been a pretty good tank for me while leveling. Only need to kite for like 3 seconds for the time where it has run out and is still on CD

[Bepples]

Blizzard's general ineptitude in addressing balance issues and processing player feedback would be funny if it didn't signal the imminent trashing of our class. The same developers who think focus is irrelevant to GCD-capped specs, RPPM is totally deterministic, a 150% damage buff is reasonable while the base abilities being buffed need to be nerfed, and immobility on Aimed Shot is equivalent to Sniper Training strike again; the duration of Vulnerability from Patient Sniper has been reduced to 6 seconds, down from 8.

This is so obviously a decision made by someone who took a cursory glance at the data and saw that the vast majority of hunters were picking Patient Sniper and that it had the best DPS value and concluded that it needed to be nerfed to bring it in line with the other talents. Little did they know that the real reason for those observations is because Vulnerability's base design is utter trash in both its effectiveness and appeal. Having a 10+ second ramp-up to a 75% damage boost is both less effective than a 150% damage boost that can be kept up all the time and also less attractive. Ramp up times are not fun. It also requires less skill since instead of having to fit as many Aimed Shot casts in the damage window as possible, you simply have to not fall asleep and never switch targets (not that the former requires much skill in the first place).

Celestalon and co. would have realised this had they read a single post out of the 15 or so pages of feedback on the discussion forums. Patient sniper was the only viable option and it was the only thing making this disaster of a spec even close to playable. The clear option was to make it baseline and think of another talent instead (maybe something which addresses our mobility issues, for example; it really doesn't matter what they pick since they stated that there is no reason to the talent layout anymore because they don't even want people switching talents regularly anymore (let's not even mention that that sentiment defeats the entire purpose of the MoP+ talent system)). Instead, they went for the easy option and nerfed Patient Sniper. It is STILL the preferred talent of that tier, by a large margin. A nerfed Patient Sniper is still vastly better than the base system; they've just taken the 1 valid playstyle of MM and made it even more unbearable.

If you guys held any notion that they actually listened to any of the feedback you have been giving, please discard them now. This is just like when we said they should nerf Vulnerability instead of Aimed Shot's based damage and they did EXACTLY what we asked them not to do. And don't expect Celestalon to admit fault when shit inevitably hits the fan. He didn't admit he was wrong about shamans or even survival hunters on WoD launch even though despite his "you're OP and you don't know it" claims they had to dish out massive emergency buffs to save those specs (and others).

That doesn't mean you shouldn't continue voicing your concerns on the official forums, of course. It still needs to be made clear that there is 0 faith to be had in the current design team to get anything right at all in class design. It seems like the only times something actually turns out well is by accident. Like I said in an earlier post here, maybe we can hope for Blizzard to realise that they made some EXTREMELY bad hires in late 2013 and onwards and that those people hired need to be replaced.

[shade3891]

I dont expect to be heard by the deafs.
Im post on mmo because wel all share the same passion for the game. And you guys/girls are happy to respond. So back on topic: what do you think of the (again) shifted talents

[Deleted]

Can't even log in properly to test the new setup. PTR servers and new wave of beta invites broke the realms

[Deleted]

I dont expect to be heard by the deafs.
Im post on mmo because wel all share the same passion for the game. And you guys/girls are happy to respond. So back on topic: what do you think of the (again) shifted talents

I took a quick glimpse yesterday and as someone who doesn't main hunter I thought they were much better than the last iteration.

[Not talking about but tuning!] The trees look pretty good and sensical now. Tuning probably still needs to happen, but it looks good in terms of gameplay choices.

[Deleted]

Atm marksmanship is really broken, i mean lets ignore the dps numbers shall we, assuming those will be fixed, 'assuming'...

To begin the idea of they spec should revolve around aimed shot being the core spender no? 50 focus, cant cast while moving and non instant....leads you to believe that it should be an event, when aimed shot goes off, shit dies. But sadly thats not the case atm..

Im hoping that they realise that marked shot shouldnt deal more damage than aimed shot (nor the same). Overall i stongly believe the removal of Kill Shot and Chimeara shot was unnecessary, but we all know how that argument leads to nowhere. Also whenever i cast an arcane or multishot at max focus i start to question how anything about this spec makes any sence...

Does anyone else agree with me here?, this is all my opinion on how Marksmanship feels atm and I feel very dissapointed overall on how the spec is turning out.

[Nythiz]

Atm marksmanship is really broken, i mean lets ignore the dps numbers shall we, assuming those will be fixed, 'assuming'...

Ok...

To begin the idea of they spec should revolve around aimed shot being the core spender no? 50 focus, cant cast while moving and non instant....leads you to believe that it should be an event, when aimed shot goes off, shit dies. But sadly thats not the case atm..

Im hoping that they realise that marked shot shouldnt deal more damage than aimed shot (nor the same).

Errr..... " i mean lets ignore the dps numbers shall we, assuming those will be fixed," is what you said right ?

Anyway.
Aimed Shot doesn't have to be a "major event" or anything. But it should have significant more impact than both the builder (arcane); and marked shot, which functions as a debuff. So I agree on that part that Aimed Shot needs more umph than Marked Shot does.

As for having to stand still and it not being instant. I hate losing our mobility just as much as the next guy and IMO it's one of the aspects that makes hunters fun as ranged class; but it's not the end of the world, casters have been doing fine with having to stand still to cast, we'll be fine as well.

Overall i stongly believe the removal of Kill Shot and Chimeara shot was unnecessary

Well I like their idea of shifting Chimeara shot to the BM spec, but a substitute would have indeed been nice. Something like Headshot/Piercing Shot would be a nice filler on a medium long cooldown. That way you have your builder, you have your debuff ability, you have your general spender, and you have to make sure you have enough focus and a GCD ready for when your big hitter comes off cooldown.

Does anyone else agree with me here?, this is all my opinion on how Marksmanship feels atm and I feel very dissapointed overall on how the spec is turning out.

It doesn't feel bad per se. If the rotation is going to work as it should (with aimed taking a clear preference over marked shot). There are a few things that annoy me with the spec though:

1) As mentioned. The spec feels like it's missing an ability. Not to make it overly complex, but to add a cooldown you need/want to use whenever it is ready. Like chimaera shot now.

2) Marked Shot has too much precedence. It's like blizzard is proud of creating this ability and they want you to use it as much as possible. But the ability itself should warrant it's use primarily by the debuff/buff it provides rather than it's damage.

As for talents; I find them mostly to be very messy for some reason. There are too many rows where the choice is very much an illusion and a certain talent is "always" going to be chosen almost purely for mechanical reasons.
Blizzard said they don't want the choices to be: "If X then A, if Y than B, otherwise C"-style; but frankly I don't think you can avoid it. (E.g. Barrage will always be superior to crows in your general AoE scenario).

Anyway from the top

T15) I somehow still feel that making Lone Wolf baseline and adding a pet option here would make a lot more sense (in other words, you don't have a pet unless you talent for it).
That way you can balance the line by having the pet as bonus damage on one talent and making 2 talents give extra damage to those that don't want it. I feel like that would make more sense.
You could put Black Arrow here as a half-half alternative (providing DoT damage and a guardian) and something like Careful Aim or True Aim in the last slot.

T30)
Could be a tree focused a bit more around your focus spending. LnL and Steady Focus made some kind of sense in this tree (latter should work with sidewinders tbh). Not sure about third talent.

T45) Very unbalanced. The talents aren't bad, but Posthaste is so much better than the other two in virtually every perceivable aspect, that it's silly. Dash is tied to a long cooldown and is still providing less benefit than Posthaste which is tied to disengage.

T60) Patient Sniper is not really suited as a talent. This seems like it should be baseline, as it actually creates dynamic gameplay, where the default is rather stale and lacking some depth. The way you play with Patient Sniper seems like how the vulnerability system should be designed in the first place, with windows of opportunity instead of slow, very non-interactive ramp up.
Sentinel.... I don't know. It seems like it can be really good for like dungeons where you need that instant hunter's mark into marked shot, but it feels a bit out of it's league nearly everywhere possible in this talent tree.

T75) This is the talent line I probably like best. Because there is choice and there is a good situation or reason to take one over another without limiting your gameplay TOO much.

T90) This line isn't too bad either. I'm not sure how volley will play out, but I always thought the Barrage / Crows line was pretty decent. I just hope they make sure that barrage is only good with 2+ or even 3+ targets.

T100) I quite like all these talents, though I feel Sidewinders is a bit on the dominant side here. Maybe because the Sidewinder + Patient Sniper combo is a really solid one to have.
My biggest peeve here is actually the Sidewinder ability and the way it completely ruins the class fantasy. This is the marksman tree, where pinpoint precision, careful aim and wit allow you to place big hits on vulnerable parts of the enemy; and then comes this talent where you shoot a buttload of missiles everywhere. Who the hell thought this was a good class fantasy concept to add; jeez, couldn't they have thought of anything better. At least make it arrows instead of missiles.

[Bepples]

Ok...

As for having to stand still and it not being instant. I hate losing our mobility just as much as the next guy and IMO it's one of the aspects that makes hunters fun as ranged class; but it's not the end of the world, casters have been doing fine with having to stand still to cast, we'll be fine as well.

I don't give a shit whether or not we'll be fine without mobility. We shouldn't be losing one of the best and most unique aspects of our spec for no good reason.

- - - Updated - - -

I took a quick glimpse yesterday and as someone who doesn't main hunter

I could have guessed this based on your conclusion.

Isn't it great to have so many people from other classes briefly drop in on hunters and saying "everything looks good!" without understanding ANY of the core issues? *cough* Mikepreachwow

[Deleted]

Isn't it great to have so many people from other classes briefly drop in on hunters and saying "everything looks good!" without understanding ANY of the core issues? *cough* Mikepreachwow

Keep your pants on. I just gave my impression and I explicitly noted that I am not speaking as a hunte main. No reason to react like an asshole.