Do you like the current focus management for BM/MM?

[Trapped]

I can't speak for the new survival as I have not played it, and never plan on it, but how do you feel about how focus management is in Legion for BM/MM? What I mean, is how do you like having 1 focus-generating ability as MM (Sidewinders) and for BM, you're basically relying on passive regen, with a little bit from Dire Beasts and AotW? I MUCH prefer the old style where you have a spammable focus generator and you control how much you want to pool before you use your focus spenders. With MM, you mash Sidewinders, and then you're given a good chunk of focus but you're left with limited options on what to do when you run out, thus leading to downtime. Same with BM, but you literally have no on-demand focus generators, which again, leads to downtime.

Do you like the downtime, or would you prefer the old focus generator mashing?

I'm at least hoping an Arcane Shot build for MM in 7.1.5 will be viable.

[Firebyrd]

I hate it. I loved the fast playstyle where I controlled my resource. Having no control over my focus and getting put back on the 1.5 sec GCD was a harsh double blow. I just love the 10+ seconds after BW where I get to do nothing but hit one KC, because sitting there doing nothing is just so fun, amiright?

[Happyducky]

I like the idea of the current hunter focus being similar to energy because I come from a rogue and monk background, but it honestly could be sped up a lot more. I personally hated the cast time of focus builders and just wish they'd iron out the slow feeling of the current iteration.

[Trapped]

I hate it. I loved the fast playstyle where I controlled my resource. Having no control over my focus and getting put back on the 1.5 sec GCD was a harsh double blow. I just love the 10+ seconds after BW where I get to do nothing but hit one KC, because sitting there doing nothing is just so fun, amiright?

Yeah, I like the old style where being a button masher (always spamming the next ability before it comes off CD) felt like I was in control and at an advantage over non-button mashers.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I like the old style where being a button masher (always spamming the next ability before it comes off CD) felt like I was in control and at an advantage over non-button mashers.

Totally agree this waiting around on regeneration and running around with autoshot is killing my love for the hunter, doesn't feel like I own the rotation and master it, it simply feels like I'm waiting on procs to do any thing that feels remotely rewarding.

Deliberate downtime or 'auto shots"in a 450 sec sim is 53 seconds... genuinely I feel that this is bad design...

[Azortharion]

Yeah, I like the old style where being a button masher (always spamming the next ability before it comes off CD) felt like I was in control and at an advantage over non-button mashers.

The way to "excel" at this formula is just to have a keyboard macro that spams the key you're holding down many times per second. Nothing skillful in that.

[Trapped]

The way to "excel" at this formula is just to have a keyboard macro that spams the key you're holding down many times per second. Nothing skillful in that.

I meant that I feel many players don't try to get abilities off as close to their CD/GCD as possible, by i.e. smashing the next ability repeatedly before its even ready to be used. I've asked guildies in the past, and many say that they only hit each ability once (1 keystroke). With the current focus management in Legion, there's not much you can take advantage of in that regard, since you're limited with what you can do with your focus.

[Lanrefni]

Nope,I still miss aspect dancing so as not to go oom. I miss Wrath era MM every day.

[Madwolf]

As a BM player I don't like not having focus generation on demand as in the past. There is too much waiting around for my Focus to be at an acceptable level to keep Kill Command available on every cooldown. Chimera Shot fits in the rotation very well. The issues are it's Focus generation isn't very high without two targets, which is simply an odd mechanic, and the damage it provides directly or with Focus generation isn't high enough to make it better than other choices.

[Kwaai]

I dislike the current system. Sidewinders is fun, in my opinion. Arcane Shot isn't. Low focus gen, low damage, spammed. Ugh.

BM is barely a spec. Granted there's some gameplay in maximizing Beast Cleave uptime, but other than that there's so little going on I can't stand it.

[chrewm]

I enjoy the current 7.1 MM focus management and game play. Not looking forward to the 7.1.5 changes (specifically the changes that make SW not best for every situation ultimately forcing me to change specs and bind additional abilities wah wah wah)

[TOM_RUS]

Current focus management is a worst hunters ever had in wow history.

[vapinarrow]

I miss the old steady shot with steady focus, where you chained 2 or 3 together to get the buff. I will say that the focus issue in 7.1 for MM goes away with high gear, you proc a lot more I'll have maybe 0 - 2 times where i run out of focus and dont have a procced SW waiting to hit during a raid boss encounter.

[Feyranna]

As BM, I definitely prefer the older system but I've gotten fairly used to it. BM has had many tiers where focus management was a big part of the spec so it doesn't bother me as much.

As MM with sidewinders I HATE...serious seething hatred for sidewinders, thematically, mechanically, all of it. BOOO!

On PTR with steady focus, I don't mind at all. Only issue I have with MM on PTR is the new Patient Sniper and Vulnerable turning the spec into a latency check. If it worked more along the lines of increasing by 50% or so at the end and a larger window of the largest buff (so good players would definitely still excel but it wouldn't be nearly as punishing for players on higher ping or just lower skill) I'd be switching MM in a heartbeat.

[Rakshata]

I've been playing BM since Wrath. I love the idea of fighting side by side with my pet, being a master of the wilds. I was hoping that as BM we'd become closer thematically with our pets... not turn them into skins where we just throw a whole jungle at our enemies.

But as for rotation and focus issues... BM hasn't really changed from WoD. We just don't have steady shot/old Cobra. Our only active focus regen is on a cooldown, which is the real limiter to our rotation and abilities. If we had that back, our focus would be a real mechanic instead of a waiting game. We'd actually be able to use more arcane/cobra shots as well, and the only real time where we aren't doing anything but auto attacking would be if we pooled focus for when we go BW.
But, I'd view that as a relative bandaid fix...

[Yizu]

I meant that I feel many players don't try to get abilities off as close to their CD/GCD as possible, by i.e. smashing the next ability repeatedly before its even ready to be used. I've asked guildies in the past, and many say that they only hit each ability once (1 keystroke). With the current focus management in Legion, there's not much you can take advantage of in that regard, since you're limited with what you can do with your focus.

You do know we have ability queuing since TBC? By default it is set to 400ms, button mashing has really no advantage over someone who doesnt do it as long as you do it .4 sec before your current ability/gcd ends. Its really bad to get used to it, especially now we have classes who has abilities that has charges with 0 gcd

[Trapped]

You do know we have ability queuing since TBC? By default it is set to 400ms, button mashing has really no advantage over someone who doesnt do it as long as you do it .4 sec before your current ability/gcd ends. Its really bad to get used to it, especially now we have classes who has abilities that has charges with 0 gcd

Right, but some people literally wait until the CD timer comes all the way around before they hit their next ability.

[Rakshata]

I decided to do a bit of math on our BM focus regen... no dps numbers, just perfect timing with the rotation.
For this study, I assumed two things:
one: base focus regen. Every second is 10 focus. This is affected by haste, but we're going to assume a naked vacuum for this so the numbers are a little easier.
Two: abilities take two seconds (the casting, and the GCD). This is obviously wrong, as it doesn't take a second to cast an instant spell, but it rounds the number up from less than a second. Plus, with the math given, this is in the game's favor.

Also, no other abilities are in use. No BW, no Aspect of the wild. AotW affects our focus regen as well, but it is a "burst" cooldown.
This study uses both dire frenzy and dire beast in separate calculations, over the same time frame (54 seconds, occurring after the same basic 4 second opener). These are the base rotations.

Over 54 seconds, the hunter specced with Dire Beast had 16 empty seconds. The hunter specced with Dire Frenzy had 12 empty seconds in the same time (but, had 14 empty seconds at 58 seconds).

Dire beast, if you manage to play it perfectly, is +1 focus/second. It's a 10% increase. Dire Frenzy, if you play it perfectly, is +1.1667 focus/second, an 11% increase. Dire beast has 10 cobra shots in that window, and dire frenzy has 11, which roughly matches their respective focus per second increases.

Even so, it is, according to my math, 22.2%-29.6% of our time that we spend just waiting for focus. Of course this is decreased with haste (theoretically), and talents like Dire Stable and chimaera shot. Dire stable theoretically doubles the focus per second from both abilities; making dire beast a 20% increase at 2 focus/second, and dire frenzy a 24.6% increase at 2.46 focus/second. This doesn't necessarily mean 24 cobra shots per minute from dire frenzy though.
There are 8 kill commands you can do in a minute. That means 240 focus per minute goes to the main attack. You can do 5 dire beasts, and 4 dire frenzies in that same minute.
Dire stable and beast generates 720 focus per minute (ignoring seconds of downtime). 480 focus is then left for cobra shots. That equals 12 cobra shots in one minute.
Dire Stable and frenzy generates 747.6 focus per minute (again, ignoring seconds of downtime). 507.6 focus is left for cobra shots. That is still 12 cobra shots per minute, though they will get an extra shot in the next minute.
We can use this same math for non-dire stable. Dire beast earns 660 focus per second base, and frenzy earns 670. That maths out to 10 cobra shots in a minute.
Chimaera shot can be cast 6.667 times per minute, and assuming it hits two targets every time, generates 133.334 focus per minute. Since it is exclusive with dire frenzy, this number can be added on to dire beast, stable or no. Making it 793-853 focus. After kill commands, that is 553-613 focus, meaning 13.8-15.3 cobra shots per minute.

So, lets instead assume that since everything is instant cast, the only time between activating abilities is the global cooldown. With dire beast, that is 25 seconds of activity. With dire frenzy, 24-25.
With Chimaera shot, it is 33.5-35 seconds of activity.

Obviously, none of those are a full minute of activity unless instant abilities take two seconds from activation through GCD. Even with Chimaera shot, there isn't a lot of activity. If you were somehow able to prevent cooldown alignment and get them perfectly despite GCD, you'd then have approximately 14 cobra shots to play with in a minute, which, in this same scenario, would still mean at least half a minute where you are doing nothing at all.


Making chimaera a baseline ability would be just a bandaid for a larger problem. BM has no true filler. For other classes, this blank space is filled with filler spells and abilities. An argument could be made that our "blank space" is just the same time casters spend casting their abilities, but the difference is that cast bars are interactive; they usually can't move when casting. We can dance around the entire field the whole fight and not lose a single bit of our dps, but that also means that the illusion that we are always doing something is gone. Our rotation is so limited because it is based entirely around cooldowns, and we have no way to affect our regen outside the cooldowns. If we had another way to affect it, say by giving back steady shot or the like, then we'd have filler that could make it so we are active the full minute, affect our regen so we could possibly do even more cobra shots, and have a tiny bit more complexity and choice to our rotation.
Can't believe I'm saying that I want Steady shot/old cobra shot back.


TL;DR: Our focus regen as BM is so limited by cooldowns that we can figure out the exact maximum of abilities we can use in a minute, and it leaves us with half a minute of doing nothing. (Not literally half a minute, more like a bunch of seconds in between actually doing things)

[Megotaku77]

The 7.1.5 MM focus isn't ideal from a play feeling, but it isn't out of line with other classes in the RDPS line. Here is an example of the MM Hunter casts for 7.1.5 and the Fire Mage:



If you include wait time (most MM Hunter will not have appreciable wait time, this is a robot making perfect, executive decisions for Patient Sniper), the 7.1.5 MM Hunter Rotation will be using Arcane Shot/Wait Time filler of 50.4% of active time.

This sounds egregious, but it's actually among the best in the entire ranged line-up. Fire Mage filler time (Fireball/Scorch) accounts for 49.5% of active time (seen above). Arcane Mage filler time (Arcane Blast) accounts for 57.0% of active time. Balance Druid (Solar Wrath/Lunar Strike) is at 62.2% of active time. Demonology (Demonbolt) is at 54.9% of active time. Elemental Shaman (Lightning Bolt) is a whopping 65.0% of active time. I didn't cherry-pick samples, I just went through the sims of the first ones I saw. Without running numbers, I went through every single "filler" spell in the RDPS line-up and no one is exempted from more than 50% of your active time doing a filler except BM. They spend 40% of their time doing nothing at all (not a joke, I've posted the graph in other threads).

MM also has 1 thing going for it none of the other RDPS except BM can say: their filler is instant cast. Moreover, according to the above graph we only spend 34.7% of our active time hard-casting. This is a pretty heavy blow to the argument that MM is "immobile" or "disproportionately penalized by movement". So with perspective thus gained by looking at how the other RDPS are faring there are 2 conclusions I can draw on how I feel about MM Hunter focus gains:

1) We have by far the most balanced filler to spender/CD time spent of any RDPS in the game.
2) We still get superior mobility to the other RDPS in terms of active rotation time excepting BM. In terms of DPS, I'm not so sure. Frost Mage, BM, and maybe S2M Shadow probably all have better mobile DPS. In terms of rotational time spent cast-locked, we're the 2nd best in the game.

So, it might not "feel" great, honestly returning Steady Shot with a 1.5s base cast time usable while moving would have absolutely no impact on when and how many buttons we would press in the course of a fight. So I'd say for now, I'm generally happy with MM Focus and only because I've seen how other ranged have it.

[zyx]

I currently play BM and I miss the old way of Surival with casting cobra shot to get focus.
This whole "Do nothing until your focus is high enough" is really annoying.