MM Spec - What Happend?

[Dracodraco]

That's a whole lot of words for "It's the same thing if you ignore everything that's different". You literally tried to draw an equivalency between Black Arrow, a 30-sec CD DoT, to Focus Fire, a stacking haste buff. Not only are they clearly entirely different on paper, the usages are also not even close. Black Arrow is used on cooldown with a chance to proc Lock and Load. Focus Fire always has an entire section in any BM guide devoted to its proper usage. I can't even fucking stress how mind boggling it is that you would try to call THOSE abilities the same thing.

They *are* similiar though. As said earlier, just because BM has a section devoted to focus fire doesn't mean it isn't simple to use with a weakaura - you use it roughly every half minute and then do nothing about it. Same as black arrow. It's just a boost-button you hit twice a minute.

It's even more of an insult to rationality to call the pet, which can only attack one target and is the vehicle for Kill Command and Frenzy stacks, the same thing as DoTs which are ranged and apply to multiple targets. Once again, an entirely different mechanic that is controlled in an entirely different manner yet you try to call them the same.

The pet has always been a glorified dot. If you can't see that, then that's fine, but saying that it isn't is fucking hilarious. It acts the exact same way as a dot that can only be up on one target. You pick something to attack, and the pet will stick to it without a care for what you yourself are doing. It doesn't care about your LOS, and you have to do nothing to keep up the passive damage from it's attacks.
Many dots in the game generate resources for the owner - shadow word pain can generate stacks for devouring plague right now, for example. Or lava shock can generate stacks for lava bursts. So yea, that our pet-dot can generate stacks for focus fire is *again* in line with calling it a "DOT". The only marginal difference is that you can only cast kill command on the target you've got dotted up, which I guess is sort of original, but then again, it's not actually something that makes the spec feel different at all.

And if you were mashing multishot to AoE as a BM hunter, you were doing it wrong. You use multishot once per three seconds to refresh Beast Cleave. Any more is a massive waste of focus. Survival mashed Multi-Shot since Serpent Sting did 1 tick of damage upon application (although that was "fixed" in 6.2, which broke the whole spec for a year). Even on the same abilities you have mechanics that work differently between the specs. If survival were tuned properly and thus viable at all in 6.2, you would use Multi-Shot to apply Serpent Sting to groups of enemies while as BM you would use it to maintain Beast Cleave. I'm sure it's an easy task for you to generalise enough to make those "exactly the same thing" easily enough though, given your efforts so far.

Good luck getting enough focus with either spec to keep spamming multishot. I'd urge you to go play both specs and see how frequently both actually uses multishot to get a feel for how "different" their AOE rotation is. Spoiler alert: For both it's essentially going to be an absolute shitton of MS-CS-MS-CS-MS-CS-CS in order to maintain enough focus to even be able to hit the multishot. Using multishot once per tree seconds is the "norm" for both specs, with survival not being *punished* if you decide to fire more than one off after each other.

Hell, you could go a step further and just say "All specs have a signature ability and use a resource". It's not that much further from what you are saying and you can even apply it to just about any spec in the game.

http://www.icy-veins.com/wow/beast-m...owns-abilities
http://www.icy-veins.com/wow/surviva...owns-abilities

The only common things are the use of Cobra Shot as a generator and Arcane Shot as a dump. Everything else is different: Survival has Serpent Sting, Black Arrow and Explosive Shot (+ LnL) and BM has Kill Command, Focus Fire and Bestial Wrath. It's almost as if the Hunter class builds on a core design (building & spending focus) with additional core abilites from each spec to result in different playstyles. And all the false equivalencies in the world won't change the fact that Live BM and Live SV play very differently and specialise at different things.

Many specs do feel extremely similiar, and have gotten changed over time because of it. Take a look at rogues, for example. They're probably the other class that was the most "homogenized", with all their specs having similiar buttons.

In any case, there's no real point arguing; Things are changing. But suffice to say, we have to very different opinions of what is "different" that I've picked up on. Let me recap:


To you:

Abilities that deliver damage in a different mechanic that you have no real control over is a "difference". EG, Explosive shot and Kill command are different, despite both being on 6 second CDs, both being so powerful that they must be hit on cooldown, and both being the main nuke of the specs.

Abilities that causes a passive damage increase in a different way that you can't feel (black arrows DOT damage and Focus Fires haste increase) are different, despite being on similiar cooldowns.

To me:

The fact that I don't have to play BM to learn how to play it because everything lines up exactly the same as survival (or vice versa) makes the specs too similiar to me. I don't care how the damage is delivered - DoT, instant, passive buff, it's all just damage in the end. As long as every button has to be hit at the same interval, they are too similiar.

In essence; You think that giving the same shit a different name and a different way of dealing the damage makes an ability different. I don't. I think giving the abilities different interactions, frequencies, and power makes them different. Taking KC and making it do it's damage in 4 ticks over 1.5 seconds is not different. Taking the pet and making the auto-attack damage come from your passive dot from autoshot instead is not different.

The only differences are lock and load and beastial wrath/kill shot. And that's too fucking similiar to prove a challenge.

[Kjarl Grimblood]

MM doesn't have poor aoe, what crack are you on?

The only reason it's poor aoe is because

you aren't stacking mastery
you don't use sidewinders properly to mark everything (proper target selection) in the room
you simply aren't using the right talents
you simply aren't pressing barrage

It sounds to me simply lot of things to take care of for doing some aoe dmg.

[Bepples]

MM doesn't have poor aoe, what crack are you on?

The only reason it's poor aoe is because

you aren't stacking mastery
you don't use sidewinders properly to mark everything (proper target selection) in the room
you simply aren't using the right talents
you simply aren't pressing barrage

I'm going to bold the important part that you missed since apparently your reading comprehension isn't too great:

It's so pointless how people give these hypotheticals when defending Legion design in general we can just look to the situation on live. I keep hearing that "All the specs were the same on live so it had to change!". Really? Do BM hunters get Sniper Training and Aimed Shot? Do MM hunters get Explosive Shot and Black Arrow? Do SV hunters get Kill Command and Bestial Wrath? There are clear differences between the specs on live:

- BM is mobile and pet-focused, with good AoE and burst
- MM is less-mobile and archer-focused, with poor AoE but excellent single target and burst
- SV is mobile and archer-focused, with good AoE and poor burst, but good sustained damage (well, in theory) with DoTs

This sort of sweeping class design including cutting abilities and funcitonality left and right to ensure "class fantasy" is just misguided. Homogenisation isn't nearly as big of an issue as people make it out to be and by trying to solve it Blizzard has brought up a whole list of new, worse, and more immediate problems.

The post even said that SV is archer-focused when you know that is obviously no longer true.

I normally would have been less condescending in this post but you took a derisive tone so I am simply returning the favour.

And once again we have an essay from Dracodraco full to the brim with false equivalencies trying to defend a doomed argument.

They *are* similiar though. As said earlier, just because BM has a section devoted to focus fire doesn't mean it isn't simple to use with a weakaura - you use it roughly every half minute and then do nothing about it. Same as black arrow. It's just a boost-button you hit twice a minute.

I guess this makes it the exact same as Slice and Dice for rogues. I mean, never mind the fact that Slice and Dice gives melee haste and uses combo points to modify the duration: it's also a damage boost that you use about every half minute. Or am I just giving you more ideas at this point?

Focus Fire and Black Arrow are about as different as abilities get.

Black arrow is a dot with a 20-second duration and a 24-second cooldown, doing shadow damage over time and giving a 20% chance at a Lock and Load buff on each tick, as well as resetting the CD when it is dispelled.

Focus Fire is a buff that consumes your pet's Frenzy stacks, giving +6% attack speed, +8% attack power, and +8 pet focus for each stack for 20 seconds. Frenzy itself has a maximum of 5 stacks and lasts 30 seconds, proccing from 40% of pet basic attacks and providing +4% attack speed to the pet.

The abilities literally do not have any commonalities. You keep saying that they both have the same cooldown, but Focus Fire doesn't even HAVE a cooldown and its usage is far more dynamic than Black Arrow. Having a WeakAura that tells you when to use it and when you save it does not make the mechanic any less different from Black Arrow.

The pet has always been a glorified dot. If you can't see that, then that's fine, but saying that it isn't is fucking hilarious. It acts the exact same way as a dot that can only be up on one target. You pick something to attack, and the pet will stick to it without a care for what you yourself are doing. It doesn't care about your LOS, and you have to do nothing to keep up the passive damage from it's attacks.
Many dots in the game generate resources for the owner - shadow word pain can generate stacks for devouring plague right now, for example. Or lava shock can generate stacks for lava bursts. So yea, that our pet-dot can generate stacks for focus fire is *again* in line with calling it a "DOT". The only marginal difference is that you can only cast kill command on the target you've got dotted up, which I guess is sort of original, but then again, it's not actually something that makes the spec feel different at all.

And as we know, DoT's also have their own AI, pathing, abilities, and specs. Each DoT brings a unique utility to the raid based on its family and there are all sorts of different families of DoTs in the game, and you have to go out and tame whichever one suits the raid. DoTs can battle rez or provide raid buffs. They can even tank for you! You can name your DoTs and give your DoTs movement commands. DoTs can break CCs on you with Master's Call, which causes the DoT to run back to its owner. Be careful though, because sometimes your DoTs die and you have to fucking rez the DoT. Other than that, DoTs don't have durations at all! Unfortunately, they also cannot go on more than one target at a time.

Did you know that DoTs once had happiness and your DoT had to be fed to keep its happiness level up otherwise it would do less damage? In Vanilla WoW DoTs would even run away if they got too sad and you had to keep their loyalty level at a maximum (always be at "best friend" level with your DoT!). I miss when you could control your DoT for 1 minute. I DON'T miss accidentally keeping your DoT on Aggressive which makes it just attack everything in the area. Now the noob hunters just keep their DoT's growl on so it always pulls off the tank.

Fucking hell, at this point you can call players themselves DoTs as well. They do damage over time and sometimes proc damage buffs. Raid bosses are DoTs. All mobs are DoTs. Environmental effects. You name it: if it does damage and time still happens to be passing, it's a DoT!

Is this "fucking hilarious" enough for you yet?

Good luck getting enough focus with either spec to keep spamming multishot. I'd urge you to go play both specs and see how frequently both actually uses multishot to get a feel for how "different" their AOE rotation is. Spoiler alert: For both it's essentially going to be an absolute shitton of MS-CS-MS-CS-MS-CS-CS in order to maintain enough focus to even be able to hit the multishot. Using multishot once per tree seconds is the "norm" for both specs, with survival not being *punished* if you decide to fire more than one off after each other.

So never mind the fact that Multi-Shot does entirely different things for BM and SV: For BM it makes your pet start cleaving the mobs for a short period of time while SV applied Serpent Sting to all the targets, making it just a helpful multi-dotting tool (As we know, the BM "DoT" can only attack one target, but I'm sure multidotting still just doesn't count as a difference between BM and SV). As per usual, the BM AoE relies on the pet while the SV AoE relies on the hunter (specifically, a DoT. Oh, wait, sorry, pets ARE dots, aren't they?). BM AoE is physical damage, SV is nature damage (and in case you haven't noticed, there is a mechanic called "armor" in the game which is kind of important). Before 6.2, SV would always see a benefit to using Multi-Shot as Serpent Sting did a tick upon the application, after 6.2 this was nerfed which made SV strictly use Multi-Shot to simply apply Serpent Sting to groups (well, if SV were at all played in PvE after the disaster that was 6.2 anyway). BM used it strictly to refresh Beast Cleave.

So even on one of the few common abilities between the specs, you have playstyle differences. Hell, even Arcane Shot grants Serpent Sting so it would be used to multidot far-separated targets, something that you would never worry about as BM. Sure, they are still similar. After all, they are the same ability. But what I'm showing here is that even the core hunter abilities (Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot) have key differences between the specs. The only one that is truly the same is Cobra Shot.

Many specs do feel extremely similiar, and have gotten changed over time because of it. Take a look at rogues, for example. They're probably the other class that was the most "homogenized", with all their specs having similiar buttons.

I must admit, I have not played a rogue outside some Sublety on a 100 boost, so I don't really know enough about Rogues to make that judgement. I did look at their class guides, though. It does seem that Assassination has an entirely different ability set while the ability set of Combat and Sublety are similar (with the real difference being in the AoE area, and Sublety's focus on the stealth mechanics).

The point I was making is that you are continually generalising, further and further every time. If you generalise enough, you can draw an equivalency between literally anything. There's no point at putting things at such a high level when the important question is whether or not the specs play differently in game. Answer: Yes, they do.. BM has to worry about pets, Survival doesn't. Survival has to worry about DoTs, BM doesn't. BM has Kill Command, Focus Fire, Beast Cleave, and Bestial Wrath. SV has Explosive Shot, Black Arrow, Lock and Load, and Serpent Sting. Like I said in my first post here: BM is mobile and pet focused, SV is mobile and archer focus (a design that simply no longer exists in Legion).

All the warlock specs can also be called similar if you generalise just as much, but there are clear playstyle differences. Affliction focuses on DoTs, Demonology is more AoE focused, Destruction is more single-target focused (DO NOTE I have not played a warlock since early Cataclysm so I don't know specifics here).

Abilities that deliver damage in a different mechanic that you have no real control over is a "difference". EG, Explosive shot and Kill command are different, despite both being on 6 second CDs, both being so powerful that they must be hit on cooldown, and both being the main nuke of the specs.

I'll be perfectly honest: ES and KC do not have a great number of differences (certainly not to the degree of BA and FF). They do have enough to make a playstyle difference, though. ES costs a lot less focus and has the Lock and Load mechanic, and also comes from the hunter (again - archer focused v.s. pet focused). If they are truly too similar, maybe they could re-add the AoE component to ES that was there when it was first added to the game in 3.0.

Abilities that causes a passive damage increase in a different way that you can't feel (black arrows DOT damage and Focus Fires haste increase) are different, despite being on similiar cooldowns.

Been over this: they are not even remotely the same. Also, this generalisation is so broad that it can apply to just about everything in the game. I don't see why Blessing of Kings or Arcane Intellect don't also fit under this description.

The fact that I don't have to play BM to learn how to play it because everything lines up exactly the same as survival (or vice versa) makes the specs too similiar to me. I don't care how the damage is delivered - DoT, instant, passive buff, it's all just damage in the end. As long as every button has to be hit at the same interval, they are too similiar.

It's almost as if the hunter specs are extremely simple and easy to learn (an issue that is becoming WORSE in Legion with all the changes, not better). And, once again, an extremely broad generalisation that can apply to almost anything.

In essence; You think that giving the same shit a different name and a different way of dealing the damage makes an ability different. I don't. I think giving the abilities different interactions, frequencies, and power makes them different. Taking KC and making it do it's damage in 4 ticks over 1.5 seconds is not different. Taking the pet and making the auto-attack damage come from your passive dot from autoshot instead is not different.

Lock and Load is certainly a frequency difference. The fact that it comes from the hunter and not the pet is also an interaction difference. Don't believe me? Try to do Imperator and then kill shot something on the other side of the room, then tell me that it just works the same as explosive shot (RIP Master's Call).

The only differences are lock and load and beastial wrath/kill shot. And that's too fucking similiar to prove a challenge.

And BW alone is a pretty significant difference. Maybe if they gave Survival the cooldown in 6.0 they fucking said they were going to give, it would have a little more flavour. I'm sure you will just say it's the same thing as Bestial Wrath REGARDLESS of what it does or how often it's used because "it's a COOLDOWN that gives a DAMAGE BOOST!"

[Donkeywing]

I'm not surprised you're downplaying/simplifying ff considering you did it so many times to so many hunter abilities, but trying to simplify ff is particularly hilarious since so many hunters just fucked it up. It's not as simple and similar as you're making it out to be.

Even if you think the specs are too smiliar (not an opinion I instantly disagree with actually) the current extent of the revamp was entirely unnecessary to make the specs feel alot more different.

[Deleted]

It sounds to me simply lot of things to take care of for doing some aoe dmg.

It's no more than the other specs do to do aoe. Timing abilities, having correct stats and pressing buttons.

Not to mention you could also use true aura for big aoe cleave burst, that's not really recommended, unless you like padding.

[Dracodraco]

I guess this makes it the exact same as Slice and Dice for rogues. I mean, never mind the fact that Slice and Dice gives melee haste and uses combo points to modify the duration: it's also a damage boost that you use about every half minute. Or am I just giving you more ideas at this point?

Focus Fire and Black Arrow are about as different as abilities get.

Black arrow is a dot with a 20-second duration and a 24-second cooldown, doing shadow damage over time and giving a 20% chance at a Lock and Load buff on each tick, as well as resetting the CD when it is dispelled.

Focus Fire is a buff that consumes your pet's Frenzy stacks, giving +6% attack speed, +8% attack power, and +8 pet focus for each stack for 20 seconds. Frenzy itself has a maximum of 5 stacks and lasts 30 seconds, proccing from 40% of pet basic attacks and providing +4% attack speed to the pet.

The abilities literally do not have any commonalities. You keep saying that they both have the same cooldown, but Focus Fire doesn't even HAVE a cooldown and its usage is far more dynamic than Black Arrow. Having a WeakAura that tells you when to use it and when you save it does not make the mechanic any less different from Black Arrow.

I said that they have roughly the same cooldown of half a minute, because focus fire (back in BRF) was usually used every half-minute. But I'll restate again:
I don't really care what way the abilities boost your damage. If it's a button that I'm just going to hit every half minute that doesn't really impact anything else, the abilities are similiar. Slice and Dice is not similiar to focus fire, because for a rogue you have a choise between multiple finishers and you have to decide the ability you use depending on the remaining duration, and how many CP you expect to get (so you know if you can delay the use). Focus fire is just hit everytime the weakaura says it's optimal to hit it (which is roughly every half minute).

And as we know, DoT's also have their own AI, pathing, abilities, and specs. Each DoT brings a unique utility to the raid based on its family and there are all sorts of different families of DoTs in the game, and you have to go out and tame whichever one suits the raid. DoTs can battle rez or provide raid buffs. They can even tank for you! You can name your DoTs and give your DoTs movement commands. DoTs can break CCs on you with Master's Call, which causes the DoT to run back to its owner. Be careful though, because sometimes your DoTs die and you have to fucking rez the DoT. Other than that, DoTs don't have durations at all! Unfortunately, they also cannot go on more than one target at a time.

Did you know that DoTs once had happiness and your DoT had to be fed to keep its happiness level up otherwise it would do less damage? In Vanilla WoW DoTs would even run away if they got too sad and you had to keep their loyalty level at a maximum (always be at "best friend" level with your DoT!). I miss when you could control your DoT for 1 minute. I DON'T miss accidentally keeping your DoT on Aggressive which makes it just attack everything in the area. Now the noob hunters just keep their DoT's growl on so it always pulls off the tank.

Fucking hell, at this point you can call players themselves DoTs as well. They do damage over time and sometimes proc damage buffs. Raid bosses are DoTs. All mobs are DoTs. Environmental effects. You name it: if it does damage and time still happens to be passing, it's a DoT!

Is this "fucking hilarious" enough for you yet?

Yea, see, here's the thing: All of those things are irrelevant. Let's take it from the top:

AI, pathing, abilities and specs are all irrelevant to how *the spec plays*, because in a raiding setting, you set the spec once (ferocity) and turn everything else off or on, and then never touch it again outside of fringe cases like Animus. I can come up with exactly *one* boss this entire expansion where any of those four points have mattered in any way - Hanz and Franz, where the pet pathing would mess up if you attacked the one who stood on the left instantly (and that was an issue with the platform as other classes had similiar issues with abilities). It was fixed by attacking the guy on the right first. Everything else? Toggle Dash on autocast so your pet will keep up when it needs to move, make sure it actually hits with it's focus spender, and you're done.

Picking a pet for a buff is irrelevant. It does not change how the pet works, nor does it change how the spec itself plays. Any pet will do. What it *did* do was force a raiding hunter to go out and tame like 20 different pets to put in stables incase someone didn't show to the raid, then HS to get the right buff.

Pets can't tank in a raid, anymore than a dot can. They might be able to tank in zones where things don't oneshot you, but that doesn't really affect how the spec plays in either case anyway.

Naming a pet? Doesn't change how the spec plays. Telling your pet to position? I mean, if you're super serious about it, I guess you *could* move it slightly closer to a boss before the pull to get the uptime .1 second higher. Still doesn't seem like something that'd make it significantly different from throwing on a dot, though.

Where have you used master's call in recent times in a raid setting? Genuinely curious. I know there's atleast one boss where it was (marginally) usefull in the past two expansions, but then again, I wouldn't call a fringe use of an ability something that *changes the playstyle of the class*.

And actually, yea, DoTs can die - they run out and you have to reapply them, so that one actually works fairly well. Ressing your pet is essentially the same as reapplying the DoT (but then again, when has your pet last died?).

As for the one target thing, I'm *fairly sure* that was the one thing I said set them apart in any significant way.

You then go on a tirade about features that have been pruned in previous expansions, and again, *does not change how the spec actually plays*.

Looking through this, I think it's fairly clear where we're missing each other, and I'll try to elaborate -

You are speaking about class immersion and changes that *look* different, and list a bunch of things that have zero impact on the *playstyle* of the spec. Essentially, what you're talking about is entirely different from what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the actual feel of playing the spec in a high end setting - I don't care about the animations. I don't care about the immersion of the spec. I care that pushing the buttons feel like we're doing the exact same stuff over every spec, giving no variety, because the buttons by large *has the same outcome and cooldown*.

So never mind the fact that Multi-Shot does entirely different things for BM and SV: For BM it makes your pet start cleaving the mobs for a short period of time while SV applied Serpent Sting to all the targets, making it just a helpful multi-dotting tool (As we know, the BM "DoT" can only attack one target, but I'm sure multidotting still just doesn't count as a difference between BM and SV). As per usual, the BM AoE relies on the pet while the SV AoE relies on the hunter (specifically, a DoT. Oh, wait, sorry, pets ARE dots, aren't they?). BM AoE is physical damage, SV is nature damage (and in case you haven't noticed, there is a mechanic called "armor" in the game which is kind of important). Before 6.2, SV would always see a benefit to using Multi-Shot as Serpent Sting did a tick upon the application, after 6.2 this was nerfed which made SV strictly use Multi-Shot to simply apply Serpent Sting to groups (well, if SV were at all played in PvE after the disaster that was 6.2 anyway). BM used it strictly to refresh Beast Cleave.

I'm fairly sure I already conceded that Surv seemed like it might be the ideal hunter choise for a spec that was good at multidotting/cleaving things, especially back in the first tier of MOP where Serpent sting was buffed to an extreme degree. If they'd gone with that, I'd be a lot happier. Instead they gave us cleave through first overpowered Beastcleave in SoO, and after that, MM's Chimera shot in WOD.

Brushing aside the fact that I've already told you in a previous post that the one thing setting the pet-"DOT" aside from normal dots is the 1 target restriction (which you seem to keep mentioning), this again proves that we're talking about different things.
You seem to think that because Surv's damage originates from Multishots and Serpent Stings (and a big part of it is nature damage), it is any different from BM's multishots and beast cleave. It's not. Both specs do the exact same thing - hit multishot to aoe.

Again, I'll elaborate a bit:
Armor is irrelevant because abilities are tuned around armor being a thing. When was the last time you saw someone say "No, you want to use [Insert Elemental ability here] Instead of [Insert Physical ability here] on [Insert boss here] because it has so much armor that [Elemental ability] starts doing more damage than [physical ability]!" ? I haven't actually seen that discussion since armor penetration was removed.

You again seem to hang on the fact that "BM only cast Multishot to keep BC up!", but as I've already said, due to focus constraints, surv *could* unleash a volley of multishots if you wanted to for less drawback than BM, but in all likelihood, you're running a super tight MS-CS-MS-CS-MS-CS cycle that'll drain your focus unless you luck out on TOTH procs (that both specs can get, at which point BM will weave in KC instead of a CS, and Surv would indeed hit an extra MS) if you're aoeing for extended periods of time.

I must admit, I have not played a rogue outside some Sublety on a 100 boost, so I don't really know enough about Rogues to make that judgement. I did look at their class guides, though. It does seem that Assassination has an entirely different ability set while the ability set of Combat and Sublety are similar (with the real difference being in the AoE area, and Sublety's focus on the stealth mechanics).

I've not played it enough to know the details either, but suffice to say it's the complaint I've heard many rogues give when they quit the class - it's boring that their specs play the same way.

The point I was making is that you are continually generalising, further and further every time. If you generalise enough, you can draw an equivalency between literally anything. There's no point at putting things at such a high level when the important question is whether or not the specs play differently in game. Answer: Yes, they do.. BM has to worry about pets, Survival doesn't. Survival has to worry about DoTs, BM doesn't. BM has Kill Command, Focus Fire, Beast Cleave, and Bestial Wrath. SV has Explosive Shot, Black Arrow, Lock and Load, and Serpent Sting. Like I said in my first post here: BM is mobile and pet focused, SV is mobile and archer focus (a design that simply no longer exists in Legion).

All the warlock specs can also be called similar if you generalise just as much, but there are clear playstyle differences. Affliction focuses on DoTs, Demonology is more AoE focused, Destruction is more single-target focused (DO NOTE I have not played a warlock since early Cataclysm so I don't know specifics here).

And I don't think you generalise enough - you put way too much value on differences that has zero actual impact on the spec. A lot of the things you mention just isn't a *spec* difference, it's an aesthetic that has little to no gameplay impact. Things such as Pet focus vs Archer focus is irrelevant to me - the overlaying feature of "Both are mobile" takes far higher priority than "BM dmg is delivered by the pet, Surv by the hunter". The pet is irrelevant to me; I don't need to control it, I don't need to care about it. You used to a few expansions ago, but not any longer. Now it's just there for aesthetics sake.
Likewise, Surv has had periods where it cared about DoTs. This tier is a great example, with the Archimonde trinket allowing you to multidot BA's through resets of the cooldown, leading to more LnL procs and a tight rotation trying to keep up BA on multiple targets (which in turn keeps up Serpent sting on multiple targets, as you need AS or MS shots to reset the BA cooldown), while spending all your LnL charges without overcapping on anything.
That's exactly what I wished for ever since they made Serpent sting actually do damage for surv in the opening tier of MOP - Surv had become a fully fledged DOT specs on multi-target fights.
The playstyle the trinket opens is *super* different from BM, because instead of relying on the same buttons, focus bleed mechanics and general feel of playing, you have been converted to a full-time DOT class that relies on tons of procs (with cooldowns being only a "failsafe" for if you got fucked and had NO procs, rather than the normal wait time between using abilities) and utilising all the procs to do damage without wasting them - with focus regeneration being pretty much entirely irrelevant on a 3-target fight like HHC, because you spend so much time hitting procs that you only really need to CS for the BA focus.

It's just too bad it was super-underpowered, and I'd much have preferred them to take this route for the future of the spec rather than the atrocity we have now - a ranged based super-proc heavy toxin/poison/trap DoT/Cleave spec. It'd have been a lot more fitting alongside the two other legion specs that way.

I'll be perfectly honest: ES and KC do not have a great number of differences (certainly not to the degree of BA and FF). They do have enough to make a playstyle difference, though. ES costs a lot less focus and has the Lock and Load mechanic, and also comes from the hunter (again - archer focused v.s. pet focused). If they are truly too similar, maybe they could re-add the AoE component to ES that was there when it was first added to the game in 3.0.

Lock and Load is the only meaningful difference between the two. As I've said, I don't think archer focused vs pet focused should even be a consideration, it's gameplay versus aesthetics. Likewise, I've touched on it, but the focus-difference is offset by BM having a far more focus positive playstyle due to random focus procs and BW, so eh.
As stated above, I liked the idea of a cleave / DOT based Surv hunter, leaving the other two specs as the stationary sniper for singletarget (MM), and the mobile-and-versatile pet reliant beast master (that can do AOE on a lower scale, but with the main strength being mobility+singletarget). I'd think an actually exploding ES would have fit right in with the multidot/cleave style that has been implied for a few expansions, and as said, I'm sad they didn't decide to explore it.

Been over this: they are not even remotely the same. Also, this generalisation is so broad that it can apply to just about everything in the game. I don't see why Blessing of Kings or Arcane Intellect don't also fit under this description.

Difference between BoK/AI versus BA/FF is that they are not rotational abilities used during combat :P.

It's almost as if the hunter specs are extremely simple and easy to learn (an issue that is becoming WORSE in Legion with all the changes, not better). And, once again, an extremely broad generalisation that can apply to almost anything.

I'm not saying I like any of the changes towards simplicity come legion, and yea, it's probably easier to pick up a hunter and do decently at it than many other classes right now. That said, notice how I'm including MM in the statement I made - back then, it was the same shit as BM/surv (AS as the same focus bleed etc; The major difference between MM, Surv and BM was that Chim shot had a longer CD, and that's about it). They've done a great job of changing MM to be an entirely different spec than the other two while maintaining the core mechanics. I wouldn't be able to argue that Aimed shot and Arcane shot are in any way similiar, despite both being focus bleeds, nor Chim shot and KC/ES because of the cleave component that requires retargetting on a lot of mobs due to hitboxes (and the benefit of possibly delaying the shot to get a double-hit in).

Lock and Load is certainly a frequency difference. The fact that it comes from the hunter and not the pet is also an interaction difference. Don't believe me? Try to do Imperator and then kill shot something on the other side of the room, then tell me that it just works the same as explosive shot (RIP Master's Call).

Kill shot and Explosive shot would do the exact same thing. Spend a while flying across the room, then do their damage. ES might fizzle out before it does the full damage if the add is *extremely* close to dying when you hit the button, though. Are you arguing that you'd be doing less damage if both were done over an interval? Because if that's the case, I'd say that's irrelevant - the add died. You might overkill it with KS aswell, who knows. On a target that isn't about to die, there's no difference.
Did you mean Kill command? Because there's an argument to be made that KC would probably hit faster than an across-the-room ES, but in all honesty, that's really not something that impacts how I play - which is the entire point.

And BW alone is a pretty significant difference. Maybe if they gave Survival the cooldown in 6.0 they fucking said they were going to give, it would have a little more flavour. I'm sure you will just say it's the same thing as Bestial Wrath REGARDLESS of what it does or how often it's used because "it's a COOLDOWN that gives a DAMAGE BOOST!"

That depends entirely on the cooldown they'd have implemented in fairness. If the CD was a 1 minute interval that reduced your focus cost significantly allowing you to spam focus bleeders more, then yea, I probably would. If it was a 1 minute interval that removed the cooldown of BA and made it apply both BA and Serpent Sting, I probably wouldn't.

I'm not surprised you're downplaying/simplifying ff considering you did it so many times to so many hunter abilities, but trying to simplify ff is particularly hilarious since so many hunters just fucked it up. It's not as simple and similar as you're making it out to be.

Even if you think the specs are too smiliar (not an opinion I instantly disagree with actually) the current extent of the revamp was entirely unnecessary to make the specs feel alot more different.

Lets be fair, the vast majority of people that fucked FF up were the ones who refused to use the WA, and thus kept trying to go "on instinct" when it was almost impossible to keep up with without help.

I do agree that the revamp we've had was unnecessary, and I'd personally add "Fucking terrible" to that aswell. Melee was already super bloated and now they've added *two* melee specs on top of it, while seemingly doing their best to make it terrible to bring melee (decreased camera vision + bosses that still punish melee harsher than ranged). If they keep it up, they're going to have to give every single melee a gamebreaking mechanic that's *required* to make a boss "doable", such as AOE grips, in the next expansion.

[Deleted]

Im not gonna go into the argument of specs being to similar or not since it depends to much on the exact situations how far things are more or less the same and actually doesnt matter to much to me.

I find the new specs underwhelming since i don't care about another melee spec and am disappointed about BM now having downtime (while it has always felt a bit sad how much of the dmg was basicly passive). And MM just not feeling flexible and rewarding, new mastery is boring as fu... (though im fine with aimed being a cast and generator being the faster shot). I found current MM against single target very boring but quite good and more rewarding(CA, KS, Split CS timings) against those with adds (which is a main reason it was good for hfc.)

Mostly for Dracodracos point of Focus Fire being boring due to Weak Auras, its entirely ridciulous since you could argue that all abilitites in the game on any spec just get used whenever the appropriate weak aura lights up with some consideration given to encounter timers. If you judge that as being the same its not worth choosing any spec over another, or playing the game in general.

[Deleted]

Mostly for Dracodracos point of Focus Fire being boring due to Weak Auras, its entirely ridciulous since you could argue that all abilitites in the game on any spec just get used whenever the appropriate weak aura lights up with some consideration given to encounter timers. If you judge that as being the same its not worth choosing any spec over another, or playing the game in general.

I think he has a point though, I doubt anyone who eyeballed it could expect better results than someone using a WA for it. It's kinda silly that people complain about "how easy X is to play now" when, at the same time, the first thing everyone is looking for are ways to make the spec easier through mods. Since FF turned out to be pretty much just another "hit whenever it's glowing" the ability didn't really end up changing anything in terms of gameplay compared to how SV or MM does it.

having different ways to generate resources or to spend them (fast/slow, over time/instantly) has a much bigger impact on how a spec plays out. And in that regard, all 3 speccs where pretty much the same.

[FelPlague]

Ok i have not level'd to 110, but as 100 on PTR I'm having a lot more AoE dps as MM than BM. Especially on dungeons where packs dont last long and you have time to recharge Sentinel stacks and open with piercing shot with 100 focus. Obviously my data is empirical from personal testing so don't take me too seriously. Does this change that much with 110 + artifacts? Someone posted here about Hati boosting aoe by 60%... that real?

- - - Updated - - -



Are you sure piercing shot interacts with vulnerable? "Vulnerable: Damage taken from Marked Shot and Aimed Shot increased by 25%. Lasts 0. Stacks up to 3 times.".

"hati also benefits from beastial wrath, beast cleave, and preforms kill command" - damage increase+ aoe addition
"when you use multishot, titanstrike has a chance to do aoe daamge at both hati, and your pets location" good aoe damage on multishot
"increased damage on beastcleave"30%

so yeah BM gets alot of aoe with their artifact... 2 golden traits, and a 3/3 30% buff, can become 60% if lucky

MM has its ability that just right out does massive single target damage, 20 second cooldown, 20 focus, 1.5 sec cast... 800% PHSYICAL DAMAGE!

when hitting target under 20% gain a stack, up to 30, lasts 6 seconds... increasing crit by 3% per stack... so hitting a boss, under 20% this turns to 90% crit.... yeah...

also another gold trait, aimed shot has a chance to do 6 extra wind arrows at your target

[Prokne]

I'm just going to say that Legion MM is totally unrecognizable as MM from any other expansion. The only thing I see that is MM is aimed shot. Everyone will have to learn an entirely new class to play MM (and Surv, BM not sure b/c I never play BM). IMO this is a problem. Instead of identifying characteristic abilities with the specs (for MM this would be aimed and chimera, maybe kill shot), and adding some new ability that fits in with those other abilities or replaces them with something for different situations, they threw everything out to give us the MM/Surv/Dark Ranger hunter that does everything not so well and nothing jives with the other.

They should have looked at Cata/MoP MM and done that with some new talents like mentioned above. Hardcast MM - Chimera, steady, aimed, kill shot below 30% (and no refreshing) and put master marksman back in to mix up the rotation. MM is supposed to be about taking aim with big shots that do a lot of damage and Legion MM is all spammy and instant shots except for aimed, which IMO is totally wrong for MM spec fantasy.

[Thursley]

...They should have looked at Cata/MoP MM and done that with some new talents like mentioned above. Hardcast MM - Chimera, steady, aimed, kill shot below 30% (and no refreshing) and put master marksman back in to mix up the rotation. MM is supposed to be about taking aim with big shots that do a lot of damage and Legion MM is all spammy and instant shots except for aimed, which IMO is totally wrong for MM spec fantasy.

Since the implementation of focus as a resource, all 3 specs have basically been: focus-generating shot with cast time, moderate damage focus dump shot, high damage shot with short CD. Add in kill shot for all 3 until WOD (press a free button twice every 10 seconds when the enemy is low on HP, not exciting), and maybe 1-2 other abilities that you hit a bit less often, usually depending on talents, and a haste/damage cooldown. What about that system is so appealing? In Legion all 3 specs have unique focus-generating profiles and high-damage abilities, sufficiently different focus dump abilities, and overall different playstyles. It's good that the specs are largely unrecognizable from what they were in the past, because what they were in the past was homogeneous and stale. I'm glad blizzard thinks they can do better, and cares enough to make the big changes that were necessary to achieve it. Whether they actually HAVE achieved it is a different story and I'll reserve judgment until I'm raiding in Legion, but for now I'm glad they're taking the chance.

Also, I'm not sure who decided MM was "supposed" to be attacking slowly with big damage, as I don't think the spec has been anything even remotely close to that since what, burning crusade? But even so, you can approximate that playstyle with talents like sidewinders (no spamming arcane shot) or piercing shot (dump all your focus at once for big damage). Likewise Patient Sniper makes you do a ton of damage during the vulnerable debuff, but you have to play around that window instead of just ramping up to moderately higher damage. Maybe it's not going to be the perfect spec you want but you have some options to work with.

[Dracodraco]

Thursley, Marksman *has* been "Big hits and burst" ever since the Focus revamp (as prokne mentions, Hardcast-Aimed was slightly stronger than the more spammy and easier to play version of MM that most people played in Cata during the first tier), it's just that since Cata, we've had almost no tiers where MM was dominant, so you might not have noticed:

T11 - MM dominant on singletarget fights (such as Chim/Atramedes/Nefarian), Surv on multi target fights. Surv dominated for a few weeks where you could activate both aspects at once through a bug (due to gaining insane mobility) on most singletarget fights aswell.

T12 (Firelands) - MM dominant, with Surv being *maybe* played for AOE fights (seeds on ragnaros, beth'tilac if slows weren't an issue for spiderlings).

T13 (Dragon soul) - Hunters benched the entire fucking tier. After the mid-tier buffs, Surv dominant, MM/BM not touched on any fight.

T14 (Mop's first) - BM mostly dominant. No real use of MM, some use of Surv after the mid-tier buffs to serpent sting.

T15 (ToT) - BM dominant.

T16 (SoO) - BM dominant.

In all reality, MM has only really seen dominance during Firelands and HFC, and it was the "Hard hitting shots with big buildup"-spec both times. Any other tier it's seen uses, it also remained the sniper-style hunter.
The tiers where it has been entirely left behind by the other two specs have usually been the ones where it had more "spammy" playstyles that felt too similiar to the other specs (such as DS).
So yea, if it doesn't feel like that anymore, it's a clear deviation from what they've been trying to do. I mean fuck, their mastery through this expansion has even been named "Sniper Training". A sniper is someone that takes a while to line up the perfect shot and then does devastating damage with it.

[Thursley]

Is hardcasting Aimed Shot rather than using Arcane all it takes to qualify as "big hits and high burst" in previous expansions? We WILL be hardcasting Aimed Shot in Legion, plus not able to move while winding it up, again in line with the sniper theme so by that definition blizzard clearly is moving at least a little in that direction, while Prokne is complaining that they're doing the opposite, which is the part that doesn't make sense to me. In my mind the bar for a "big hits and high burst" spec would be a lot farther out than what you're describing (like, if blizzard was pushing the super slow 3.5 second aimed shots from way back when, if I remember correctly), so Legion seems like a minor or even mostly lateral move in that regard. Note that I don't have a big preference either way, I think both could be engaging playstyles if done well.

[Dracodraco]

When you compare it to the alternatives, then yea, MM is "big hit high burst" - I don't think many (if any) abilities used rotationally has a longer cast time than aimed shot (unless it has some kind of mechanic that's supposed to make it shorter - such as Arcane blast+charges right now, or backdraft-chaosbolts for destro locks). Especially compared to the other three specs this has usually also been the case.

I think we may have misunderstood each other, as I thought you were saying that they were straying away from the "sniper" theme, while in reality, they're very much trying to keep it alive - that was the point I was trying to make (that, and attempt to provide a bit of backstory for how the spec worked when it was most dominant through the past few years).

There is sadly some extent to which specs just stop being raid viable anymore, so we can't go as far out on the spectrum as 3.5 second cast times - it'd be way too punishing, damage would come way too late to count as "burst" (by the time your Aimed shot hits once, classes with instants already hit three times due to traveltime), and it'd probably feel too rigid in any encounter that forces you to move around.

[Thursley]

Right, I agree that they're moving back a bit more toward the "sniper" theme through more emphasis on aimed shot and somewhat limited mobility, which is generally consistent with what MM has historically been more about. I just think there's still a big gap between what we're getting in Legion and the extreme end of the spectrum which hasn't been around since roughly the TBC era, and that's what I think of when people talk about wanting the big hits, slow playstyle. But either way it's certainly true that MM is farther in that direction compared to BM and SV.

Mostly I'm just happy the specs look a lot more distinct, and the talents offered give a lot of good options for altering playstyle (as long as blizzard does a good job balancing them).