Does anyone else dislike how MM's pve gameplay/rotation feels?

[Aleksej89]

While PvE Marksman always was my favorite spec (and BM the least favored), since MoP arrived i have really grown a slight hatred towards MM.
The gameplay/rotation feels horribly bad, especially with certain talent selections... i will just list my issues with MM and hope you fellow hunters can help or post your own opinions:

- Steady Focus buff often leads to a high amount of excess focus, especially in combo with Dire Beast/TotH/Fervor and Rapid Fire/Heroism.
- Maintaining a 20 second buffs feels like a chore, boring and does not feel "like a Hunter" at all, plus annoying to delay an important ability because you need 2 SShots back-to-back.
- The huge amount of focus gain means i cast very few Steady Shots, meaning i get very very few instant Aimed Shot procs.
- Since MM only has 1 signature shot (chimera) that costs focus, you are forced to do a lot of Arcane Shot spamming (aimed shot is usually free).
- Since TotH is bad for single target (and gives even more Arcane Shot spam), taking DB/Fervor causes even more "focus bloat" where i have to spam Arcane Shot all day long, with very few Steady/Instant Aimed Shots.
- I greatly dislike hard casting Aimed Shot during the Careful Aim phase in boss fights - feels horribly wrong to disable my autoattack and cast like a mage.
- Feels kinda forced to bring the Tallstrider pet, due to it's AoE Sunder Armor and the fact a lot of MM's damage (especially AoE) is physical.
- There is TOO MUCH Arcane Shot spam, due to how much focus MM can generate with Steady Focus+talents+haste buffs.
- Because Arcane Shot is spammed so much (due to very high focus generation), very few Steady Shots are actually cast - almost no instant Aimed Shot stacks.
- Marksman has (imo) the worst AoE in the game - very reliant on high critical % to proc bombardment, most of the time my Bombardment buff will drop if i try to refresh Steady Focus, and if i don't refresh SFocus i might get Focus starved and then my Bombardment buff drops. Simply horrible AoE.
- Thrill of the Hunt feels absolutely horrible for single target MM, but it is extremely good for AoE MM - since single target is usually the most important, i have to skip TotH and make my MM's AoE feel even more crippled.
- For some reason the Binding Arrow only has 30 yards of range, and (kinda off topic) Wyvern Sting only has 35 yards - annoying to run closer to the target just to use a simple CC spell.

These are just some of the issues i can remember at the moment.
While the issues are numerous, i think blizzard could fix most of these with simple tweaks/changes.
However, right now i just want to see do any of you fellow hunters feel these frustrations or have suggestions how to aleviate these issues (aside from never playing MM again)?

[Namarus]

You complain that we spam arcane too much so not enough steady shots, then you complain that we have to do too many steady shots to maintain steady focus...

Change your talents depending on the fights, that way you won't have ToTH when you are doing single target.

[Ninjeff]

- Steady Focus - Used to have to renew the buff every 10 secs. If marks was your favorite spec to play before mop, this should be much easier for you to do because it was increased to 20 secs which i found really easy to keep the buff up with.

- Very few aimed shot procs? - Once again master marksman was changed and you only need to stack it 3x instead of 5x which mean more aimed shot procs than before.

- Hard casting Aimed shots - Okay, I really dont believe at this point you even played MM before mop. You should always be hard casting aimed shots during careful aim phase and under enough haste benefits to reduce the cast time to something like 1.41 secs (though dont quote me on that exact number). This would also reduce the amount of arcane shots you are spamming and help manage focus due to aimed shot costing 50 focus. Also with the new glyph (aimed shot on the move) it makes hard casting aimed shot easy to do and not get interrupted by some mechanics.

-Bombardment was just buffed too, and while marks cant quite compete with aoe from other specs, i dont feel its that bad.

-Overall - You seem to be a little confused and contradict yourself sometimes too. "very very few instant Aimed Shot procs" --> "(aimed shot is usually free)". Marks has played like this for a long time and to me it seems like you just didnt play marks before mop or didnt play the spec correctly. I found MM much easier to play now with steady focus change, aimed shot glyph, and careful aim increased back to 80% + .

I feel like MM is the most fun and most rewarding spec for hunters right now. It's not the top dps spec which i think should be changed, but by rewarding i mean it has the highest skill cap out of our three specs, which i think makes it the most fun spec. Most of the things you said you dislike doing are things that MM hunters have been doing for a long time, not just since mop. I wish MM got a damage buff so that it would be slightly ahead of BM on single target fights and then life would be grand. BM with blink strikes just feels so damn, hmm whats the word, Noobish with your pet doing 50% of your damage now and having one less cd to manage just about anyone can pick up a bm hunter and do good damage without even practicing much. Blizzard please buff MM so we can play a more skillful spec as our highest damage spec, im bored with BM now. TY

[Prokne]

- Since MM only has 1 signature shot (chimera) that costs focus, you are forced to do a lot of Arcane Shot spamming (aimed shot is usually free).

MM has 2 signature shots: Chimera and Aimed shot, 3 if you count steady shot. You should use aimed more and you wont have the AS spam. I only use AS to fill in GCDs between other abilities.

Besides having a pet and too many pet abilities, the only thing I dont like about MM is the mastery. Wild quiver was never really a very interesting talent and not very "marksman." How are you supposed to have good accuracy if you are just shooting stupid fast? MM mastery should increase piercing shots which works with its signature shots like Surv's mastery does.

[Jeremypwnz]

I've been having some fun as MM for today's farm content (all normal modes) and I just focus dump Aimed Shot with 1.6 cast time. I feel it's almost TOO easy to keep up the Steady Focus buff, maybe because I focus dump with Aimed Shot. Besides, the buff lasts 20 seconds, this is heavenly for us, as the buff used to last only 10.

Bombardment lasts ~5 seconds, 2 Steady Shots ~= 2.5-3 seconds. You pretty much have 2-2.5 seconds to Multishot, and given enough targets, you should crit without a problem. I just hate spamming Multishot without Bombardment up yet and I use 80 focus on 2 Multishots.

I actually feel that MM is the only spec that is different among the 3 specs, which is most of the reason I enjoy playing it. I play BM/Survival damn near exactly the same, which isn't fun at all.

[Glurp]

- Steady Focus buff often leads to a high amount of excess focus, especially in combo with Dire Beast/TotH/Fervor and Rapid Fire/Heroism.

That's a L2P issue. It's clear that this is a new spec to you so you need to learn to manage focus differently then you do with BM/SV. You shouldn't be able to play a spec perfectly after playing it for 10 minutes.

- Maintaining a 20 second buffs feels like a chore, boring and does not feel "like a Hunter" at all, plus annoying to delay an important ability because you need 2 SShots back-to-back.

Not sure what you mean. Sounds like you're just complaining for the sake of complaining.

- The huge amount of focus gain means i cast very few Steady Shots, meaning i get very very few instant Aimed Shot procs.

Steady Shot is a focus generator. It's made to generate focus. It serves no imporant purpose aside from Focus Regen and Steady Focus buff. Fire! procs are a bonus.

- Since MM only has 1 signature shot (chimera) that costs focus, you are forced to do a lot of Arcane Shot spamming (aimed shot is usually free).

Same as previous point. Arcane shot is a focus dump. You use it to manage focus. If you have too much focus you press it more, what a surprise!!!!

- Since TotH is bad for single target (and gives even more Arcane Shot spam), taking DB/Fervor causes even more "focus bloat" where i have to spam Arcane Shot all day long, with very few Steady/Instant Aimed Shots.

Every talent choice for that tier is based around Focus regen. As I pointed out earlier Arcane Shot is a focus dump. Obviously you'll press Arcane Shot to spend excess focus.

- I greatly dislike hard casting Aimed Shot during the Careful Aim phase in boss fights - feels horribly wrong to disable my autoattack and cast like a mage.

I don't have a problem with casting Aimed Shot during CA, but I do have a problem with Aimed Shot costing half our focus pool. It should cost 30 focus.

- Feels kinda forced to bring the Tallstrider pet, due to it's AoE Sunder Armor and the fact a lot of MM's damage (especially AoE) is physical.

All specs have this. I agree that Tailstrider debuff needs a nerf.

- There is TOO MUCH Arcane Shot spam, due to how much focus MM can generate with Steady Focus+talents+haste buffs.

I wear you said this a few points up. Arcane Shot is a focus dump. You use it to spend focus. I don't see an issue.

- Because Arcane Shot is spammed so much (due to very high focus generation), very few Steady Shots are actually cast - almost no instant Aimed Shot stacks.

I feel you said the exact same thing with different wording a few points up....

- Marksman has (imo) the worst AoE in the game - very reliant on high critical % to proc bombardment, most of the time my Bombardment buff will drop if i try to refresh Steady Focus, and if i don't refresh SFocus i might get Focus starved and then my Bombardment buff drops. Simply horrible AoE.

Agree that Bombardment needs a duration increase however saying MM has the worst AoE or is "crit dependent" is just pointing fingers at the wrong things.

- Thrill of the Hunt feels absolutely horrible for single target MM, but it is extremely good for AoE MM - since single target is usually the most important, i have to skip TotH and make my MM's AoE feel even more crippled.

Fervor has provided more Focus than TotH since their implementation. There is almost no reason you should take TotH unless you're purposely trying to cripple yourself in order to aid your argument about MM being bad with more stupid reasoning.

- For some reason the Binding Arrow only has 30 yards of range, and (kinda off topic) Wyvern Sting only has 35 yards - annoying to run closer to the target just to use a simple CC spell.

From memory there are no instant CCs with a 40 yard range in the game with the exception to using PoM Polymorph, which involves using a 1 minute cooldown talent.

[Gestopft]

Since Steady Focus is now 20 sec, avoiding focus capping is easier, although I often will during RF. Remember that you don't ALWAYS have to cast Steady Shot in pairs. Sometimes you can just cast a single to balance focus/prepare for a Chimera CD and get your pair in later (while still maintaining the buff of course)

I like MM, except for Readiness (which applies to all specs). If offensive abilities were taken off of Readiness (and RF doubled in length to compensate) I would personally find the rotation in a good place. I think BM and SV feel "spammier" than MM, because a) AiS during haste effects and b) frequently pairing SS. I feel like you have to practice/plan a bit more to play it well.

What I most dislike is the CA phase, because of the frequency of encounters in which a damage buff/debuff is granted after or partway through that critical damage phase.

[Deleted]

It's actually a dps loss to hardcast aimed shot outside of careful aim, even during rapid fire or bloodlust and it's only a small dps increase to hardcast it during careful aim. Aimed shot doesn't hit as hard as it used to in cataclysm, you can even not bother hardcasting it at all and still get around the same burst at the start.

[Deleted]

You are probably really bad at MM, I am high level raiding in MM and beating most BM hunters in single target, the rotation requires knowledge and is not button trashing like crazy anything unecessary cast and you will lower your dps, CA hardcasting provides another level of skill because it requires you to adapt to a changing rotation. Just learn to adapt as osme people posted above you are whining for the sake of whining on some points and I am never focus capped for more than a second and you have plenty of hard hitting abilities to dump focus on. Don't forget the rotation doesn not say every steady shot cast should be paired you pair it only to keep the buff up and cast single SS to keep focus at the adequate level.

[Kutartwo]

Something that has always bothered me was the fact you needed to cast steady shot twice. Because of this, its kind of 'hard-coded' in me to always do this, and makes it hard to break my habit when I switch to surv or something. /facepalming myself after casting cobra shot twice happens more often than I'd like.
Honestly I'd like to see something different to apply that buff, like use it as part of the old steady aim (sorry can't remember the name off hand), where the increased attack power (haste in this case though) is applied for standing still for 6 secs. Using steady shot x 2 feels clunky and makes it mandatory to cast back to back, which really makes casting 1 feel redundant.

[TJ]

I kind of liked MM in Cata, haven't tried it this expac. Always agree with hardcasting Aimed Shot feeling stupid, it is so clunky and annoying. Survival, on the other hand, has and always will be my favourite spec. Tried it for a bit this expansion and really enjoyed it. BM has always been my least favourite spec and is even more boring in PvP now because of the Blink Strike change to passive.