Are the new hunter specs fun?

[xalenthas]

Why are you guys only casting 1 aimed shot before marked shot? I can fit two before I have to cast Marked Shot... on a 640 boosted hunter. How come?

All comes down to haste - remember you need to fire the marked shot whilst the debuff is still up too, else its a fairly heavy damage penalty.

[Deleted]

Fun = subjective

imo
BM - No
MM - Yes-ish
SV - Very Yes (if you're ok with melee)

[Deleted]

BM = Without the artifact it feels kinda bareboned, but its a decent enough spec.

MM= Without the artifact it has some downtime issues I'm not a massive fan of, at least if you're using sidewinders (why the hell do they have to be top dps...)

SV = Just golden IMO, I love it far more than I thought I would, they do have alot of selfhealing and DPS tied into their artifact, but they still work just fine without it and I'm having a blast.

[Kwaai]

Why are you guys only casting 1 aimed shot before marked shot? I can fit two before I have to cast Marked Shot... on a 640 boosted hunter. How come?

There's usually no need to cut it that close. Consider:

Spell -- Time finished -- Focus at start -- Focus at end
SW -- 0 -- 150 -- 150
AiS -- 3.5 -- 150 -- 100
AiS -- 5.5 -- 100 -- 70
MS -- 5.5 -- 70 -- 40 (Vulnerable had 0.5 sec)
AiS -- 9.0 -- 75 -- 45 (focus starved for 0.5 sec)
Vulnerable ends -- 11.5
AiS -- 11.5 -- 50 -- 20

Haste makes it better because you're focus starved for half a second (which is what makes the 4th AiS and Vuln falling off to occur at the same time). However, you need to finish casting the first AiS while focus capped, and any movement, lag, or player error can ruin the first MS (which is very bad). Consider the alternative:

SW -- 0 -- 150 -- 150
AiS -- 3.5 -- 150 -- 100
MS -- 3.5 -- 100 -- 70 (Vulnerable had 2.5 sec)
AiS -- 7.0 - 105 -- 55
AiS -- 9.0 -- 55 -- 25
Vulnerable ends -- 9.5

You're in no danger of losing a Vulnerable buffed Marked Shot and you have more wiggle room for the MS in the first Vulnerable and the final AiS in the second Vulnerable. You're also never focus starved during the sequence, which makes it feel smoother. Another benefit is that you use Marking Targets sooner, which means you're won't waste a proc if it happens in the 3.5 to 5.5 sec window.

During haste procs it's obviously advisable to SW>AiS>AiS>MS>AiS>AiS, however.

[Torais]

I don't like the new changes at all.

Survival is more interesting than I expected but ironically is one of the squishiest melees I have seen in PvP and that is coming from someone that hit Hero of the Alliance on a frigging DK.

The other two are a disaster. BM is virtually the same as before only with traps and anything fun ripped out. MM is even worst with pointless busy-work nailed on to your rotation to do even mediocre damage. Oh and again with your traps and fun elements mostly carved out too.

I'll be sticking to my Mage or DK this time around. I don't know what exactly Blizzard have against Hunters but this is the worst class revamp I have seen since I started playing in 2004.

[Marmot]

After a couple weeks, MM seems okay, but only really works nicely with sidewinders, maybe a third charge or a shorter cooldown would be nice. BM is better than I thought it was, as long as you don't try to spam the fuck out of cobra shot. Survival feels great to play, but the results dps wise are lackluster compared to the other two specs.

[Miadra]

They have taken a fun, diverse, effectively mobile class and made it garbage. Since they seem to have such a huge hunter hatred over at Blizz the last couple of years, I am just pretty much done with the game. Getting pruned is one thing, begin gutted is another.

[Bepples]

My guess is you have zero experience making videos while playing.

BM is mindless as hell to play. That doesnt mean that if you are focussing completely on something else you wont make mistakes with it.
BM is the talent spec for those who are either new to raiding or dont want to play anything that requires planning etc. Which is perfectly fine.

Fade outs to different footage mid-sentence...yep, that's definitely him playing while talking! /s

BM has a lot of cooldown management that MM doesn't have. 5 cooldowns, each with nuances that you have to keep in mind. So while the core rotation is VERY simple, there is a large cooldown management layer that absolutely will separate good BM hunters from average. It also has focus management in the form of cobra shot usage: this is the part Preach failed at while saying that there is no focus management.So don't try to sell me this bullshit about how BM is for people who want a spec that takes 0 attention and skill, because that's exactly what b-rate players like Preach say and the fact that he was playing it so awfully while bragging about how easy it is shows that it's nonsense.

Since you guys gave trouble with reading comprehension and I can already hear the "but BM isn't hard at all! are you saying it's hard? you baddie" whining from a mile away, I'll re-iterate for the billionth time since you didn't catch it all those other times it's been said and unfortunately there is no crayon font to make it more approachable for you: no one is saying that BM is a hard spec. We are using relative terms here. BM is an easy spec to play. So is Marksman. That second part seems to be something people are unwilling to admit: there is is prevalent belief that BM is significantly easier and more dumbed down than Marksman, which always relies on ignoring everything but the core rotation. Yes, MM's core rotation is more complex than BM's (once again, relative term: MM's core rotation is more complex relative to BM's core rotation, but it is not very complex itself). BM's cooldown management is more complex than MM's (and again: relative term). If BM were "mindless as hell to play", you would see 0 difference between average and good BM players. Yet that's not the case. A BM hunter who can properly manage their cooldowns will roast a player like Preach who says "it's impossible to fail" while somehow failing in every way possible.

And that makes Preach's video straight-up misinformation, and there is nothing wrong about calling that out.

[iddqd]

I would like to love SV but i cant... the talents dont really fit, they dont work together. "Press this button when it is off cooldown to do damage, then this button when it is off cooldown, then this, then this." Rather boring, no element of surprise. Mongoose bite charges dont really regenerate from abilities, at least for me, they just regenerate after time, which takes an eternity.

[DaHomieG]

Love the new Survival and MM. My hunters main spec was always BM, but its ruined now.

[Irian]

Beast Mastery is a dumpster fire. This is somewhat alleviated with the relic but in general...just bad design honestly. I don't feel like there's anything fun to be had in this spec, even thinking about it from others' perspectives. I could be wrong, or maybe I didn't give it enough of a try, but it feels like a genuine bastardization of the old hunter.

Marksman and Survival on the other hand I've really enjoyed. Take this as a grain of salt as I've only seriously played hunter in the Firelands patch, but...both specs have been interesting and cool in some way.
Ignore what the above poster said about Marksman in PvP, at the moment it's doing pretty awesome at both 100 and 110, it just isn't ridiculous like in WoD. You're basically a bowmage who uses kiting and looks for opportunities to sneak in an aimed shot, and utilizes a spray of other small sources of damage in the meantime. It feels good, the damage is good and it's not the same as old Marks but that doesn't mean it's bad by any means, just a bit of a re-imagining.
Survival is really simple and straightforward in the best of ways. You're medium-mobility, medium-utility, high-burst melee with a lot of tools and tricks for both PvE and PvP. It's a spec that really rewards you for knowing exactly when to use what and in that way it's a perfect example of a low-floor, high-ceiling class done right.

[Xeerah]

Actually I think BM and MM are sort of in the same spot...

As MM u got Marked(1), Aimed(2), Sidewinders(3)
And you use 1 and 3 to keep Vulnerability up.
So what you are doing is: 3 -> x-times 2 -> 1 -> x-times 2 /repeat
Or if no procc: 3 -> x-times 2 -> 3 -> x-times 2 /repeat
Thats it more or less.

In BM you got DB(1), Cobra(2), Chimera(3), Kill Command(4)
4 on CD > 1 on CD and then casting 2 or 3 depending on your focus and if 3 is on cooldown

(Keep in mind that this is simplified by not looking at cooldowns and stuff like BestialWrath where you dont use DB when BW is coming of cooldown, but its just MM rotation of 3 buttons depending on proccs and BM pressing 4 buttons while looking at cooldowns/proccs and your focus so you dont starve/cap)

Personally I find BM more appealing thanks to the "moving while casting"
Fuck AimedShot...

As it is now either spec is not really complex.