PTR. Marked Shot with Piercing/Trick?

[c313]

Trying to figure this out. After the opener is done and we're doing the basic rotation. Should I cast Marked Shot as soon as I get a Marking Targets proc? Or do I ignore it until I have enough focus for some Aimed Shot dumps?

Just feels odd. Like I finished doing my Aimed Shots. Spamming Arcane, Marking Targets proc at 40 focus. I Marked Shot and start building focus again, then another Marking Targets proc at 40 focus, cast Marked Shot and back to spamming Arcane, .. and at 50 focus another Marking Targets proc.

Or do I just waist Marking Target procs and only use Marked Shot to apply Vulnerable and start doing Aimed Shots?

[Azortharion]

Marked Shot does no damage. MM 7.1.5 is about getting as many Vuln-Aimeds out as possibly by banking focus for Vuln windows.

[Megotaku77]

Marked Shot does no damage. MM 7.1.5 is about getting as many Vuln-Aimeds out as possibly by banking focus for Vuln windows.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that amount to pool to 50 focus, pop an AS before Aimed (for Patient Sniper) and then do 2 Aimed outside of Hero?

[Deleted]

@Megatoku77 I think youre question, situation is kind of incomplete but i dont think even including passive regeneration during the casts if you only pool to 50 you wont have enough focus to fire two consecutive aimeds. Besides how do you mean to pool focus, by just waiting? After getting vuln from firing marked shot, + GCD delay +cast time of aimed shot * 2 you would need a ton of haste to have a chance to fire an arcane shot before aimeds into the vuln window.

Given the situation above "getting a marking target -> Marked Shot proc while still at low focus" I think youre basicly at 2 choices:
1. Use Marked shot fast but requiring you to cast Arcane Shot at least once more during vulnerable, thus allowing a maximum of 1 Aimed Shot during vulnerable. (With patient sniper preferebly fired off during last second of vuln.)
-> This guarantees your'e wasting vulnerable for at least one aimed shot.
2. Keep pooling focus by firing more Arcane shots till focus close to cap, potentially wasting additional marking target procs, then firing Marked shot followed by two aimeds shots. After which focus is empty, requiring to use several GCS on arcane shot and hoping for a new marking target proc in the meantime.
-> guaranteed two aimeds but possibly wasting a marking proc, potentially not getting a new proc during the "regeneration phase".

Without having proc probability data for marking so far I can only say that it worked quite reliably as in Method 2. (without a ton of haste) only rarely not getting a marking proc and always having 2 aimeds per vuln window.

[Deleted]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that amount to pool to 50 focus, pop an AS before Aimed (for Patient Sniper) and then do 2 Aimed outside of Hero?

Pretty much.

[Megotaku77]

@MelkorX
Should clarify, I meant 50 focus after Marked, so 80 focus.

80 - 30 (marked) = 50. 1.5s GCD from Marked = 15 base focus (65 focus total). Arcane Shot 1.5s GCD = 20 base focus (10/s + 5; 80 total). Aimed Shot + 2s GCD (80 - 50 + 10/s = 50 focus total). Aimed Shot. Vulnerable ends. The math doesn't account for haste, but since Focus regen, GCD reduction and cast time reduction scale close enough to linearly it should hold up in the rest of the rotation regardless of haste.

Vulnerable window (6s) with the above rotation):
1.5 Marked GCD + 1.5 Arcane Shot GCD + 2s Aimed Shot Cast + 2s Aimed Shot cast = 7s. With 14.2% haste (very difficult not to already have) this rotation guarantees the last second of Aimed Shot in the maximum DPS window assuming no latency issues.

[Deleted]

What about Piercing Shot? Is it supposed to be used at the end of the Vulnerable window?

And what about MM AoE? I'm quite worried about it now that Marked Shot has lost all its potential :S. Imagine an encounter like Dragons of Nighmare or another one with similar mechanic, will we go Sidewinders and play as we used to but with such a nerfed Marked Shot?

[Madh4tter]

What about Piercing Shot? Is it supposed to be used at the end of the Vulnerable window?

And what about MM AoE? I'm quite worried about it now that Marked Shot has lost all its potential :S. Imagine an encounter like Dragons of Nighmare or another one with similar mechanic, will we go Sidewinders and play as we used to but with such a nerfed Marked Shot?

Just means we are worse at burst aoe, annoying but that's what they want.

[Deleted]

We are still way better than most, if not all other classes atspread-burst AoE though (if we want to).
Right now, our AoE is over the top, our ST is abysmal
7.1.5 is trying to find the middle ground.

An example that showcases our AoE would be the experience I had in Karazhan this week.

After Nightbane we wen't to "Mr.Horseman" but forgot to pull the smith-trash group first, since we didn't want to go around we pulled them together with the boss.
I used my cooldowns, did my AoE stuff and died after their fire-debuff-thingy killed me (everything was pretty chaotic)
I had 3.000.000 DPS, I died after a mere ~17 seconds or so and the other DDs were barely able to get in front of me for that encounter because "Mr.Horseman" only has so much HP.

The marked shot nerf is obviously hurting us there, but getting ST buffed like that, while still having the AoE capabilities to do this kind of damage even if the targets are spread out and more than 30 yards away from each other would be OP.
I'm not even sure if our AoE in general gets weaker, I'm pretty sure only spread-cleave is affected by this.

[Noogai131]

3m DPS is 17 seconds is good AoE, but it's not the best.

It's got nothing on the Demon Hunter or WW Monk bursting 5m dps on trash.

[Deleted]

Or surv hunter with harpoon legendary and few butcheries / and caltrops + ruby - Probably some of highest aoe burst.

[Deleted]

3m DPS is 17 seconds is good AoE, but it's not the best.

It's got nothing on the Demon Hunter or WW Monk bursting 5m dps on trash.

The difference is that you can do this kind of damage against targets that are not on top of each other and as soon as they spawn, which is what burst AoE is all about.

Though I don't even know how you could casually say that they deal 5m. I mean, MM could too, it just depends on the amount of adds. The reason why the other 2 DDs didn't catch up is, after all, because I did like most of the damage to the adds before they were even in range for melees.

[GT4]

@MelkorX
Should clarify, I meant 50 focus after Marked, so 80 focus.

80 - 30 (marked) = 50. 1.5s GCD from Marked = 15 base focus (65 focus total). Arcane Shot 1.5s GCD = 20 base focus (10/s + 5; 80 total). Aimed Shot + 2s GCD (80 - 50 + 10/s = 50 focus total). Aimed Shot. Vulnerable ends. The math doesn't account for haste, but since Focus regen, GCD reduction and cast time reduction scale close enough to linearly it should hold up in the rest of the rotation regardless of haste.

Vulnerable window (6s) with the above rotation):
1.5 Marked GCD + 1.5 Arcane Shot GCD + 2s Aimed Shot Cast + 2s Aimed Shot cast = 7s. With 14.2% haste (very difficult not to already have) this rotation guarantees the last second of Aimed Shot in the maximum DPS window assuming no latency issues.

Your haste figure is wrong.

Haste is calculated as Time/(1+Haste), not Time*(1-Haste).

You'd need 16.67% haste which is 6250 rating on PTR, probably a bit more to account for latency.

In theory there's another haste threshold at 25% haste (9375 rating) allowing you to fit in three aimed shots but that might not be very practical. Edit: You'd actually need 33.3...% haste (12500 rating) to do this, otherwise you don't have enough focus to do the 3rd aimed shot in time. Edit2: Seems like you actually need 42% haste for 3 aimed shots now that I've fixed my sheet.

[Maxie]

I guess the MM ring will be basically useless next patch? For single target I mean, not that it's great on live but it's the only dps legendary I have.

[Holovik]

I guess the MM ring will be basically useless next patch? For single target I mean, not that it's great on live but it's the only dps legendary I have.

Hopefully they rework it if that's the case. On live I have gotten some pretty lucky 4+ streaks and it really does boost your dmg, especially if TS is active. On AOE packs its just insane when you get a few procs.

[GT4]

In case anybody is interested, here's a a quick sheet I made that should help you with planning your rotations for vulnerability windows:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Just make a copy or download the sheet. In the first row you can change your base haste, whether you have trueshot/bloodlust up and how much focus you use windburst/marked shot with. In the rows below you can choose which shots to use in which order and you'll see on the right how much vulnerability time and focus you'll have left after using that shot. If an aimed shot cannot be used immediately after the previous shot, it'll automatically delay the aimed shot until enough focus is available.

Edit: There's a small issue with focus if you overcap during aimed shot cast, I'll fix this once I get to it (probably in an hour or so).

Edit 2: Fixed.

[Madh4tter]

I guess the MM ring will be basically useless next patch? For single target I mean, not that it's great on live but it's the only dps legendary I have.

Marked shots still refresh vulnerable which increases aimed shot dmg.

[GT4]

Marked shots still refresh vulnerable which increases aimed shot dmg.

That's not necessarily positive with the new patient sniper talent. If you're already having vulnerability up for all aimed shots without overcapping focus, refreshing vulnerability early will actually cost you damage.

[Megotaku77]

Your haste figure is wrong.

Haste is calculated as Time/(1+Haste), not Time*(1-Haste).

You'd need 16.67% haste which is 6250 rating on PTR, probably a bit more to account for latency.

In theory there's another haste threshold at 25% haste (9375 rating) allowing you to fit in three aimed shots but that might not be very practical. Edit: You'd actually need 33.3...% haste (12500 rating) to do this, otherwise you don't have enough focus to do the 3rd aimed shot in time. Edit2: Seems like you actually need 42% haste for 3 aimed shots now that I've fixed my sheet.

Thanks for correcting my math. That's extremely interesting though, I'm wondering if I'll even meet that haste cap when accessories are buffed. I cannot meet that haste cap on live currently and I'm ilvl 882. If that's the math, 6250 haste required for that rotation which I believe is the absolute top-end DPS outside of Hero/Lust then Blizzard just nerfed vulnerability duration to avoid a middling haste softcap breakpoint only to institute a new middling haste softcap breakpoint.

[Magnagarde]

Their entire concept of "We want you to equip a weapon right off the bat if it is higher ilvl because stats shouldn't influence you not to equip a 10+ ilvls higher item!" falls appart with the MM spec because Mastery/Haste is going to be the winning combination.

Instead of just looking for mastery and just balancing out the ratio inbetween the other traits as we are doing right now, you now have pretty much mandatory haste values which you will need to meet if you want to reach the ceiling. In other words, unless you get a piece of equipment with Mastery/Haste, you will still be making tradeoffs by equiping lower ilvl equipment.

I've said all of this because that is what will define how much use of AS you can make within a vulnerable window.