Patch 5.4 MM Hunter?

[ReklessJonez]

Just want to know if anyone has been testing MM on the PTR? Would like some feedback? Will it be viable? and if not why?

[Deleted]

It has always been viable. It is considerably lower than the other two.
MM won't still isn't competitive though, you wanna go for a haste breakpoint to hardcast Aimed but you will miss out on all those WQ procs rendering your Mastery useless.

TL : DR; The buff alone to Aimed is not enough, as long as WQ won't proc during Aimed hardcasts.

[timoseewho]

This is my opinion on MM, it's always been viable, but if you really wanna get the most out of your Hunter, you wanna be BM/SV for that ever bit more dps. I think MM is also a less desirable spec because you're trying to hit breakpoints to make it so you can hardcast AiS, and at the same time, making you less mobile, just doesn't make sense to me. You're digging yourself your own grave in a sense when trying to optimize for MM.

[Adaon]

This is my opinion on MM, it's always been viable, but if you really wanna get the most out of your Hunter, you wanna be BM/SV for that ever bit more dps. I think MM is also a less desirable spec because you're trying to hit breakpoints to make it so you can hardcast AiS, and at the same time, making you less mobile, just doesn't make sense to me. You're digging yourself your own grave in a sense when trying to optimize for MM.

That you seem unaware of glyph of Aimed Shot, which makes it castable while moving, would seem to indicate that you haven't tested MM and thus aren't really providing the OP with any recent or relevant information.

I've done some testing of it, but not extensive. The 4-pc is still very clunky for it. It still probably is behind BM, although by how much is in flux. The haste breakpoints aren't really that hard to hit given how much haste is on gear now. It's quite possible that you could spend most of your time using Aimed over Arcane in 5.4.

There's been so little testing of MM and it's questionable how optimal simcraft, et al treat it so it's hard to try say where it is at. If it is close enough that how well you play it compared to BM matters, it may not be important if BM is, e.g. 5% higher.

[timoseewho]

That you seem unaware of glyph of Aimed Shot, which makes it castable while moving, would seem to indicate that you haven't tested MM and thus aren't really providing the OP with any recent or relevant information.

I've done some testing of it, but not extensive. The 4-pc is still very clunky for it. It still probably is behind BM, although by how much is in flux. The haste breakpoints aren't really that hard to hit given how much haste is on gear now. It's quite possible that you could spend most of your time using Aimed over Arcane in 5.4.

There's been so little testing of MM and it's questionable how optimal simcraft, et al treat it so it's hard to try say where it is at. If it is close enough that how well you play it compared to BM matters, it may not be important if BM is, e.g. 5% higher.

Lol wow o ya I totally forgot about that glyph, I only played around with it during the intro tier><.

[ReklessJonez]

That you seem unaware of glyph of Aimed Shot, which makes it castable while moving, would seem to indicate that you haven't tested MM and thus aren't really providing the OP with any recent or relevant information.

I've done some testing of it, but not extensive. The 4-pc is still very clunky for it. It still probably is behind BM, although by how much is in flux. The haste breakpoints aren't really that hard to hit given how much haste is on gear now. It's quite possible that you could spend most of your time using Aimed over Arcane in 5.4.

There's been so little testing of MM and it's questionable how optimal simcraft, et al treat it so it's hard to try say where it is at. If it is close enough that how well you play it compared to BM matters, it may not be important if BM is, e.g. 5% higher.

what would the hast breakpoint be for MM any way. I'm pushing 12k haste rating on PTR. Even my Power Shot is starting to look nice with an under 2 sec cast time (1.6). with out any procs or CD's. Just 10% attck spd which is always in raid. I've been dummy testing all week with MM and I'm pretty sure PS and ToTh are better than GT and Direbeast. Correct me if I'm wrong. Just want to know what you guys know. Plus even if the BM spec is 5% higher... how many "No Path Available" bugs before they even out? ya know

[Deleted]

Just tryed the current ptr with the updates for you MM ppl (Dont understand you but what ever).
Did 100 Million damage, both BM and SV does about 12K MORE dps the MM. And yes thats with 100% crit on all steadys and aimshots, lovely isent it.

[threads]

Clunky spec is clunky. BM/Surv til revamp.

[Adaon]

what would the hast breakpoint be for MM any way. I'm pushing 12k haste rating on PTR. Even my Power Shot is starting to look nice with an under 2 sec cast time (1.6). with out any procs or CD's. Just 10% attck spd which is always in raid. I've been dummy testing all week with MM and I'm pretty sure PS and ToTh are better than GT and Direbeast. Correct me if I'm wrong. Just want to know what you guys know. Plus even if the BM spec is 5% higher... how many "No Path Available" bugs before they even out? ya know

We'll have to wait and see what the final numbers are before saying what the inflection point is. The stronger Aimed Shot winds up being, the higher its cast time can be before swapping to it over Arcane. Right now Lokrick, who I think does the SimCraft stuff for hunters, still has some optimization to do for the MM profile. http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t130382-...da_edition/p4/ His post on this page shows that the more he tweaks the MM profile, the closer it the closer it gets to BM/SV, and there's still more to be done. Without it fully optimized, it looks somewhere between 3.5-4% behind BM. With some work, it's possible they could be quite close indeed.

[Deleted]

what would the hast breakpoint be for MM any way. I'm pushing 12k haste rating on PTR. Even my Power Shot is starting to look nice with an under 2 sec cast time (1.6). with out any procs or CD's. Just 10% attck spd which is always in raid. I've been dummy testing all week with MM and I'm pretty sure PS and ToTh are better than GT and Direbeast. Correct me if I'm wrong. Just want to know what you guys know. Plus even if the BM spec is 5% higher... how many "No Path Available" bugs before they even out? ya know

With the latest buff to AiS it is worth harcasting it pretty much always, as long as you are casting it below 1.6 sec. PS will never overtake GT, not in current gear nor in BiS gear, and ToTH makes no sense on an AiS hardcast build. Also in FD there's no way to make the site to only cast AS during TotH proccs, while in SimC it could be possible.

The problem is that every time they buff MM it looks appealing, but they also buff the other 2 specs so it all remains the same. Also there are only 4 single target bosses out there in SoO, being one of them Immersus which is horrible for MM,as it was megaera, so all in all, there's no room for MM.

[Deleted]

what i read in this thread: "MM is viable, but it is several % behind BM/SV and it cant compete" ... yea.

i quite like MM and it's sad it's not viable.

[Deleted]

I'm going to play MM for the SoO normal clear in the first week to see how it performs.

I have a vague belief that it may perform at higher gear levels without the tier set.
If you are going to Hardcast Aimed it will bring your 4 set Aimed close to the global cooldown, if it is less than the gcd then it really is fucked and I will certainly roll with HC Warforged > tier.

[Deleted]

I'm going to play MM for the SoO normal clear in the first week to see how it performs.

I have a vague belief that it may perform at higher gear levels without the tier set.
If you are going to Hardcast Aimed it will bring your 4 set Aimed close to the global cooldown, if it is less than the gcd then it really is fucked and I will certainly roll with HC Warforged > tier.

on current gear the 4 set puts your AiS waaay under the GCD, 0.7xx sec at around 12k haste.

About giving it a try, you should do on the few bosses that are ST or close to it, but for more than half bosses you will be miles behind of what you could do as SV or BM.

Immerseus sucks as mm, CA phases being short enough to not be able to cast 2 ais on him.
Fallen protectors is a boss where depending on your strat you could try it.
Sha of pride: there are several AoE burst phases, and you will lag behind as MM
Norushen. mostly an ST fight, but adds spawn no and then. If they live long enough, SV should pull ahead.
Galakras is a fight with a major component of AoE, where BM will shine
Iron juggernaut is one of the few completely ST fights,good for MM
Dark shaman has a ~1 min cleave phase of 4 targets, BM is way better than anything.
Nazgrim is an add fight, so SV should pull ahead
Malkorok is 100% ST, a good fight to test MM
spoils is AoE cleave most of it, bad for MM
Thok is mostly ST, you can try
Blackfuse is mostly ST too
Paragons is a ST fight for hunters, aside from padding metters. MM will be like megaera, many short CA phases, shorter and shorter the more u practice the boss.
Garrosh is an add fight, were you need to balance AoE and ST. MM will lag behind too fast.

So all in all theres 4 fights where MM has a change to compete agains SV and BM, theres 8 fights were you should be dead last on DPS as MM if your teammates are any good.

[FLANOFETT]

aimed shot hitting for 450% weapon damage sounds prettty nice

[Libertarian]

Even if marks is on the same level as all 3 specs, it will be worse.

[Fluttershy]

MM should lose arcane shot, and just be expected to use aimed shot whenever above 50focus(and chimera on cooldown) and rebalance steady/chim/aimed damage output.

Would make it slightly more flavorful.

[Fatticus Snackimus]

TL : DR; The buff alone to Aimed is not enough, as long as WQ won't proc during Aimed hardcasts.

What % of haste would make AiS hardcast viable with the T16 4p?

[Adaon]

What % of haste would make AiS hardcast viable with the T16 4p?

Given how much they have buffed Aimed, it probably will replace Arcane as the focus dump more or less all the time. It was already viable to swap to it around the 1.6 cast time, which is reachable now.

The 4p is terrible. On live right now, it is not uncommon for me to have a 1.4 - 1.6 Aimed Shot cast time (haven't looked of late). Even at that point, half-cast time is already under the GCD. I imagine with the haste levels in T16, not to mention Hero and Rapid Fire uptime, that Aimed Shot will already be consistently <1.3. The proc then will give you ~.6 cast time, which is ludicrously below the GCD, such that most of the savings is completely wasted. Without a change, I'm guessing any MM sim will show that Warforged off-tier focusing on haste after the 2p would be the way to go.

[ATron52]

My results from FemaleDwarf for my mediocrely geared (520) hunter. Take these results with a grain of salt!

I have been mainspec MM since back in early Wrath. I've messed around with BM and SV both, but MM is where my heart lies. From what I'm seeing, it's looking like right off the bat it's nearly identical using either Aimed or Arcane when 5.4 drops. That's on my current hunter with a 528 weapon and full crit reforges (only 5300 haste). Reforging and gemming for haste instead of crit yields a tiny (.18%) increase - well within the margin of error. What's more is that by the time I get a 553 normal SoO weapon, Powershot should be even or actually overtaking Glaive Toss in most circumstances.

To elaborate, in my 520 gear (no meta or cloak yet) FemaleDwarf has me just a hair over 150k with my standard rotation of hardcast Aimed during careful aim and any major haste boost like Hero and Rapid Fire, using AMoC, Dire Beast, and Glaive Toss. In a variety of situations, including my exact same spec and gear and PTR settings turned on, I'm boosted to just over 156k.

Summary of My Results
Live (Crit Heavy): 150,494
PTR Arcane (Crit Heavy): 156,201
PTR Arcane (Haste Heavy): 156,247
PTR Aimed (Crit Heavy): 156,088
PTR Aimed (Haste Heavy): 156,372

The biggest difference in the PTR results is between and Aimed crit build and an Aimed haste build, but the difference isn't even .2%. The gap grows slowly as gear increases, with a full BiS set having haste about 1% better than crit according the the sim. Sims tend to have a tough time figuring out haste though, and I believe that a haste heavy build will suit the MM play style more, even if it ended up being 1% behind. Haste will ultimately let you target swap more effectively with an Aimed hardcast, not to mention speeding up Barrage on any AoE encounters where it's worth taking.

For context of the future of MM compared to SV and BM, I did some basic sims with near / at BIS gear including the 2pc and 4pc t16 Bonuses:

MM Crit: 334,314
MM Haste: 336,905
BM Crit: 346,994
BM Haste: 347,272
SV Crit: 342,556
SV Haste: 341,449

With a haste BM build being only 10.3k (2.9%) behind a BM haste build, and 5.7k (1.7%) behind a SV crit build, I'm happy with where we are. While I would love for MM to see a little more love, we'll be much better off compared to BM and SV on single target fights than we are this tier. Too bad our AoE is lackluster compared to them, meaning that MM will only be hardcore progression viable on probably 4 fights this upcoming tier (Please, do NOT turn this into a "MM isn't viable for anything!" thread - there have been enough of those). For everyone else though, I'd say that if you like MM, t16 is shaping up to be better and better for us compared to t14 and t15.

TL;DR

• MM crit and haste builds are very close to each other, letting either of them be viable gearing options.
• Depending on your gear, switching to Aimed over Arcane may be beneficial to you the moment 5.4 drops.
• As your gear increases, especially weapon damage, Powershot will eventually beat Glaive Toss.
• MM is closer to BM (2.9% behind) and SV (1.7% behind) in 5.4 than it has been all xpac.
• We're still behind on AoE encounters - Barrage and TotH / Multi-shot spam *can* help.