Just HOW bad is MM at the moment? (PvE)

[Deleted]

I'm bored out of my mind playing BM. The core rotation has worn thin on me, and it being propped up by the abundant cooldowns is tiresome. I haven't been brave enough to make a switch to MM though, as I'm relied on heavily for DPS in my guild and with our raid schedule being tight, don't want to hold up a night of progression. But I would like to try it, really.

How do you find single target and AoE damage compares to BM? Does Wild Quiver help much where AoE is required? Obviously it won't be challenging SV, but is it at least comparable to BM? How much of a drop are we talking about on single target nukes, assuming flawless rotation?

It's hard to find any answers elsewhere hence the post. Even the guide here hasn't been updated for MoP, and practically nobody is playing MM to make comparisons on logs or whatnot. Any insights?

[Solzan Nemesis]

Would not know, I only pvp MM. I have no plan to leave SV ever again. Though I said that about BM and look at me now I am SV, it was not easy and I made a 2nd BM only in both specs Hunter.

[Glurp]

Straight up AoE is better than BM (still worse than SV) and single target damage is about 5% behind BM when played correctly. Don't listen to people who say MM is 20k behind or some insane crap like that, they likely did 1 LFR not knowing how to play MM properly and assume it's terrible because of that. On the same note don't expect to just "play MM for a night" because your DPS will lack if you don't actually fully know what you're doing.

[Species]

Marks is quite far behind BM and Survival. Just look at WoL. On Heroic Elegon Marks is 80k behind BM. On Spirit Kings Marks is about 17k behind BM. Heroic Feng, Marks is about 18k behind BM. This has been the case throughout this tier. So when you say "Don't listen to people who say MM is 20k behind or some insane crap like that" I have no idea what numbers you are looking at. These logs are from +504 players with multiple heroics down. I doubt they will go into a heroic attempt with a spec they can't play properly. Also the number I used are from US/EU players.

[Glurp]

Marks is quite far behind BM and Survival. Just look at WoL. On Heroic Elegon Marks is 80k behind BM. On Spirit Kings Marks is about 17k behind BM. Heroic Feng, Marks is about 18k behind BM. This has been the case throughout this tier. So when you say "Don't listen to people who say MM is 20k behind or some insane crap like that" I have no idea what numbers you are looking at. These logs are from +504 players with multiple heroics down. I doubt they will go into a heroic attempt with a spec they can't play properly. Also the number I used are from US/EU players.

I personally hold a couple of top 10 ranks as marksman in fairly average gear and I know of other people who have played it just for a week or so to try it out or to get free ranks. Looking at top WoL parses is the stupidest way to compare specs and tells me you don't know shit all about anything so I'll just go ahead and ignore everything you have to say.

[Powell]

Straight up AoE is better than BM (still worse than SV) and single target damage is about 5% behind BM when played correctly. Don't listen to people who say MM is 20k behind or some insane crap like that, they likely did 1 LFR not knowing how to play MM properly and assume it's terrible because of that. On the same note don't expect to just "play MM for a night" because your DPS will lack if you don't actually fully know what you're doing.

People tend to exaggerate.
All 3 specs are reasonably close to eachother in a Patchwerk fight. BM > Surv > MM.

Unfortunately, those fights are very limited. Its easier to distribute your damage when it comes from multiple sources, on single target while managing sh*t around you. BM also has superior on demand damage inflation with BW.

That said, they all have their niche. For MM its easier to target swap, for Surv has far better AoE output and BM has far better damage control.
Hunters in general aren't doing extremely well, but make up for it with utility, control and mobility somewhat.
Most mobile ranged DPS means 100% uptime on damage. Traps, Misdirect means for great add control. Any buff from pet that the raid needs (+combat res, Bloodlust, etc.

Ultimately, i think Hunters need some number tweaking

[threads]

There's just no room for MM when there's two specs that already cover single and multi-target fights better.

[Nemesis003]

I personally hold a couple of top 10 ranks as marksman in fairly average gear and I know of other people who have played it just for a week or so to try it out or to get free ranks. Looking at top WoL parses is the stupidest way to compare specs and tells me you don't know shit all about anything so I'll just go ahead and ignore everything you have to say.

that is because the top players know the spec is a turd and will not hurt their raid by doing it on a heroic encounter. However many top players have tried the spec in LFR to see how big od a turd it is. If it wouldn't as bad as everyone says then even a small portion of the hunters in the top 100 guilds would play it. The fact is its not good enough to be viable for high end progression raiding.

[Warrada]

I dont expect any changes to Hunters till 5.2 is live, it seems that the tradition will prevail, we ll keep beeing the Band aid fixes class...


About something else, did GC announce that 'cool feature' he had mentioned on tweeter already?

[Conando]

This is one of the things that I see almost everywhere and it's flat out annoying. As mentioned, good players simply don't play bad specs or even to a degree bad classes.

It just seems like, in general, people seem to think that a lot of class/spec/talent differences are bigger than they actually are. I'm not saying they're irrelevant: in hardcore progression the DPS difference between a BM and MM hunter may be significant and the DPS difference between a BM hunter and a ret pally would definitely be significant.

But it seems like a lot of players tend to blow that out of proportion and get it in their heads that lagging behind everyone else by 30k is just fine because they play a bad class. The reality is that I've seen very few times where a player was genuinely skilled but rendered useless by his class. However, I can't count the number of times that I've had people who are simply bad at playing their class blame it on their class/spec being bad.

[Meleti]

MM is pretty rough. I did some bosses as MM the other day, and compared myself to our trial hunter (who's about 5 item levels behind me, so he does 5%ish less damage than I would).

Feng: 118k MM vs 120k SV, so about 8k behind
Garajal: 119k MM vs 121k BM, so around that same 8k behind
Elegon: 198k MM vs 205k SV, about the same gap %-wise.

I'm not the best hunter and I'm sure I made a ton of mistakes as MM. A better hunter might be able to close the gap between specs. Still, MM is significantly behind other specs.


And FWIW, comparing MM's AOE damage to BM is pointless because no one plays BM on a fight you have to AOE things on.

[Bullettime]

The problem with Marks is just that there's no real reason to play it. It takes a high level of gear to pull off, needs the 4pc, then runs into the problem of it having worse AoE than Surv though much better than Beast and worse single target than Beast with marginally better single target than Surv.

If you can dual spec to get the top single target and top AoE/mutli target DPS specs while both use the same exact reforging, then there isn't a real reason to play Marks, especially when you have Haste breakpoints and stuff to reforge around.

I wish they would redesign Careful Aim. The reverse execute sounds good on paper but when you're dancing with a chain of cooldowns at the start of the fight, you cut heavily into your Aimed Shot dump time, along with the effect being less and less potent as the rest of your raid gears and you blow through 20% faster.

[Static Transit]

The problem with Marks is just that there's no real reason to play it. It takes a high level of gear to pull off, needs the 4pc, then runs into the problem of it having worse AoE than Surv though much better than Beast and worse single target than Beast with marginally better single target than Surv.

If you can dual spec to get the top single target and top AoE/mutli target DPS specs while both use the same exact reforging, then there isn't a real reason to play Marks, especially when you have Haste breakpoints and stuff to reforge around.

I wish they would redesign Careful Aim. The reverse execute sounds good on paper but when you're dancing with a chain of cooldowns at the start of the fight, you cut heavily into your Aimed Shot dump time, along with the effect being less and less potent as the rest of your raid gears and you blow through 20% faster.

Even the single-target is a bit behind Surv.

[Magpai]

Marks is quite far behind BM and Survival. Just look at WoL. On Heroic Elegon Marks is 80k behind BM. On Spirit Kings Marks is about 17k behind BM. Heroic Feng, Marks is about 18k behind BM. This has been the case throughout this tier. So when you say "Don't listen to people who say MM is 20k behind or some insane crap like that" I have no idea what numbers you are looking at. These logs are from +504 players with multiple heroics down. I doubt they will go into a heroic attempt with a spec they can't play properly. Also the number I used are from US/EU players.

Comparing two specs by looking at the top parses in the world for those two specs is incredibly unwise, unless OP is expecting to be among the best in the world for both specs.

---------- Post added 2013-02-19 at 07:38 PM ----------

I wish they would redesign Careful Aim. The reverse execute sounds good on paper but when you're dancing with a chain of cooldowns at the start of the fight, you cut heavily into your Aimed Shot dump time, along with the effect being less and less potent as the rest of your raid gears and you blow through 20% faster.

A better geared raid will blow through the rest of the fight faster too though, so it balances out.

[Bullettime]

Comparing two specs by looking at the top parses in the world for those two specs is incredibly unwise, unless OP is expecting to be among the best in the world for both specs.

---------- Post added 2013-02-19 at 07:38 PM ----------



A better geared raid will blow through the rest of the fight faster too though, so it balances out.

Point was that due to heavy cooldown usage at the beginning of the fight and with the raid gearing up more, you basically don't get much of a Careful Aim time except for a small handful of Aimed Shots. By the time you get into the groove and start being able to fling them, the phase is ending.

Execute phases work at the end of the fight since it's a priority change with a quick usage of cooldowns if applicable. Hunters are managing quite a few short-moderate cooldowns at the start, making Careful Aim less effective. Careful Aim doesn't do much for you when by the time you finish the fight set up, the target is already sitting at 85% and you've only fired 2 Aimeds.

[Tehstool]

Marks is quite far behind BM and Survival. Just look at WoL. On Heroic Elegon Marks is 80k behind BM. On Spirit Kings Marks is about 17k behind BM. Heroic Feng, Marks is about 18k behind BM. This has been the case throughout this tier. So when you say "Don't listen to people who say MM is 20k behind or some insane crap like that" I have no idea what numbers you are looking at. These logs are from +504 players with multiple heroics down. I doubt they will go into a heroic attempt with a spec they can't play properly. Also the number I used are from US/EU players.

That is nothing more than statistical bias my friend. No good hunters play MM therefore if you just look at the logs (or raidbots) MM will seem worse than what it is in actuality. It is still pretty bad. It needs more buffs to be competitive.

---------- Post added 2013-02-19 at 07:48 PM ----------

Point was that due to heavy cooldown usage at the beginning of the fight and with the raid gearing up more, you basically don't get much of a Careful Aim time except for a small handful of Aimed Shots. By the time you get into the groove and start being able to fling them, the phase is ending.

Execute phases work at the end of the fight since it's a priority change with a quick usage of cooldowns if applicable. Hunters are managing quite a few short-moderate cooldowns at the start, making Careful Aim less effective. Careful Aim doesn't do much for you when by the time you finish the fight set up, the target is already sitting at 85% and you've only fired 2 Aimeds.

Yeah, the first 20% of the fight is usually the fastest due to everyone popping their CDs. They should really change it imo or have CA activate during the last 20% too. Which still probably wouldn't be enough because of everyone using their executes.

[Kilperch]

I've been MM since MoP launched. I spent 3 years playing BM and then 2 years playing SV after that. I just got really bored of both specs.

Numbers and WoL aside... MM is fun. I enjoy the spec. I think thats the most important thing.

[Okacz]

On a Patchwerk fight the SV and BM are relatively close, BM getting further ahead when the fight is shorter. MM is not way below, but still on a level that doesn't make it a viable choice at all. Would say, 5-10% less dps.

What matters as well is the fact that MM doesn't have any niche: SV has the best of hunters aoe and cleaves, BM has burst. Both are insanely mobile. MM is behind in mobility, doesn't have its niche (very poor AoE, weak Aimed Shot doesn't get you far on 80% phases) and is way more difficult to handle. Basically, it's a hell of an unrewarding spec.

[Deleted]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...Marks-buff-yay!

That's interesting.

[Justignoreme]

MM AoE isn't ridiculously poor it just isn't ridiculously op like SV/serpent spread, setting a trap, multishot/glaive toss can do 6 figure aoe damage, but nothing like the 300k+ I've seen from SV. No other class in the game comes even close to that though. MM is also not behind on mobility unless you are spec'd into powershot. Everything can be cast while moving, including Aimed shot with the glyph. It has strong burst as well, but only at the top end of a fight from careful aim.