Is MM Terrible?

[Girthmonster]

Hi,

So my hunter is about to hit 90. I am very familiar with, and just generally enjoy the way MM plays. Is it really that terrible of a spec to play?

That said, If i were to abandon MM, i'd probably go survival. would that be the smart way to go?

Thanks

[Twistedklown]

Right now MM is pretty far behind BM and SV in raiding. MM is still great for PvP though. SV is a lot easier to play now than it was in previous expansions, easier to manage. It may come down to personal preference for your choice between SV and BM. Personally I like BM over SV, but that's probably because I'm more comfortable with BM. I out dps SV hunters with similar or higher gear than me, as BM.

I just hope they really fix MM for WoD though. I love MM over the other 2 specs, and miss playing it for PvE.

[Jeremypwnz]

Terrible? No. Competitive? No.

It's "okay" but it's not great.

Imo, if BM was a 10/10, MM is a 7/10.

[Tehterokkar]

MM is slightly behind both BM and SV. But the rotation can be whacky compared to the other 2 since your spender(at least in higher gear levels where AiS is the primary focus dump) takes half of your focus bar.

It also lacks in AoE/Cleave, which is pretty much the reason people go with SV and/or BM as their Spec of choice.

Another thing is, MM scales with your weapon a lot better. So if your weapon is behind your avg. iLvl, SV/BM are much better choices. However if your weapon is above your avg iLvl(like, getting a 522 weapon from ToT at 510 ilvl), then MM catches up with other specs.

[Girthmonster]

I guess I just liked the idea of hunters being kickass ranged blast away dps. And MM seemed to be that. While SV and BM incorporated a lot of other stuff that wasn't reallllllly that.

Surv seems rather complicated. Or am I going crazy?

[eixx]

It's not that bad. I have been playing it in raid for 3 weeks now, and it fun atlest

[Mancowski]

None of the specs are so bad that wont work, but some specs are not as powerful. MM is probably around 80% of BM, just a guess.


Play the spec you like, and if you can beat people in better gear and in optimal spec, that means you that much better with the class.


We just need some patchwerk style fights so some specs can shine when they haven't in a whole expansion. I don't even care if they cause the top 10 guilds to stack classes, they will do that anyway if their tactics call for it. I just want a fight where threat is something to watch, and single target dps means something. Just tune the fight to work with the minimum dps the sub-optimal specs pull.

[Daetur]

It's not so far behind that you can't or shouldn't play it for non-progression raiding. Unless you're with a group pushing for progression, play what you enjoy most.

A good way of thinking of it is this: if BM and Surv. have a maximum potential of 100%, and MM is 80%, but you only play BM at 80% of its potential because you're not as comfortable with it, play MM.

[Deleted]

no its not "terrible" OP but it probably isnt a good choice if you do heroic progression

also inb4 Okay comes and destroys this thread

[Azortharion]

None of the specs are so bad that wont work, but some specs are not as powerful. MM is probably around 80% of BM, just a guess.

Yeah, single-target, which is very few fights in SoO.

MM AoE is horseshit, though. Unless you really -really- really like MM and don't really care much for your performance in raids, don't go MM.

[Kissthebaby]

He's not going to do heroic progression guys let's be honest, he's prob going to do some lfr and flex And if this is the case I'd play what ever spec you want. If you want to play marksman then play it. I have a feeling mm will be more viable next expansion too so it would be nice to get used to it if you like the spec the best

[Tolaez]

MM AoE is horseshit, though. Unless you really -really- really like MM and don't really care much for your performance in raids, don't go MM.

This is an exaggeration. MM is not nearly as bad as people lead you to believe.

Please see this thread for a detailed discussion: (Cant post links..) [mmo-champ] /threads/1457355-How-is-marksmanship

You'd think when a top 3 US Hunter says that Marks is competitive, and uses it to progress on 3 end tier bosses, you'd believe him, or at least do some research to find out for yourself.

So no, it is not the truth. Marks has been competitive since the start of this patch.

Under certain circumstances (above average weapon, no AoC, etc.) MM can be competitive and perform well in raids.

[Azortharion]

This is an exaggeration. MM is not nearly as bad as people lead you to believe.

Please see this thread for a detailed discussion: (Cant post links..) [mmo-champ] /threads/1457355-How-is-marksmanship



Under certain circumstances (above average weapon, no AoC, etc.) MM can be competitive and perform well in raids.

Just because Conjor said Marks is competitive doesn't mean that it is.

Conjor going MM didn't help out the raid in any way, he could just as easily/beneficially have been BM/SV.

The weapon iLvl bs is irrelevant, it still does awful AoE/cleave and sub-par single target (and you're not progressing on bosses where MM has a place in such a situation, e.g. you won't be on Garrosh HC progression with 560 iLvl and a 580 weapon or something.

[Deleted]

This is an exaggeration. MM is not nearly as bad as people lead you to believe.

Please see this thread for a detailed discussion: (Cant post links..) [mmo-champ] /threads/1457355-How-is-marksmanship



Under certain circumstances (above average weapon, no AoC, etc.) MM can be competitive and perform well in raids.

That is practically useless information though. Yes, Marks "may" (and I'm not even completely convinced that it is definitive) outperform the other two specs if you have no version of AoC (Unlikely considering you can run LFR/Flex and heroic) and a heroic wf weapon with 560 ilvl. Even if this is the case, the only real fights you are going to see a noticeable difference using MM on is juggernaut/Malk/Klaxxi. And lets be honest, at this stage in the tier you will not be in this scenario anyway. Conjors argument was practically 'I beat my other hunters as MM, and MM was good for me in this very specific situation so this means it's competitive' in a nutshell. So please don't believe that the spec is actually competitive because it really isn't. The OP can play whatever he likes as it's probably an alt for lfr/flex, so play what you enjoy, but to anyone seriously thinking about progressing in SoO in a way that will benefit their raid the most should not go Marksman.

[Nemesiz]

This is an exaggeration. MM is not nearly as bad as people lead you to believe.

Please see this thread for a detailed discussion: (Cant post links..) http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...s-marksmanship

That thread was a pretty good read. Ty.

[Daetur]

Well, according to Raidbots, MM is dead last.

I'd only it for arenas because it's all burst damage. Surprised as to why Blizzard never noticed how far behind the other 2 specs it was and made more changes then simply a small buff to Chimera Shot.

To be fair, Raidbots needs to be taken with a grain of salt because it's only looking at top player parses, and there is not a lot of data from top-tier players for even somewhat under-performing specs, causing those specs to often appear lower than is truly an accurate measure of their maximum possible throughput.

[Azortharion]

MM is also the bottom average DPS spec of ALL specs on ProRaiders.

RaidBots is kind of useless, only takes WoL data and people are transferring to WarcraftLogs en masse - ProRaiders does both.

[Libertarian]

If Survival, BM and Marks were all exactly even in terms of single target and aoe, Marks would still be the worst spec.

[Tolaez]

Just because Conjor said Marks is competitive doesn't mean that it is.

No offence, but just because you say marks isn't competitive, doesn't mean it isn't.

I am only 11/14 heroic.. but I did my research about the issue and I felt that I was constantly mislead about how "non-competitive" MM is. Here is some empirical evidence:

This is my sim as BM:
DPS DPS(e) DPS Error DPS Range DPR
355450.9 355450.9 248.51 / 0.07% 20573 / 5.8% 12902.0

This is my sim as MM:
DPS DPS(e) DPS Error DPS Range DPR
364259.1 364259.1 231.53 / 0.06% 19529 / 5.4% 18902.3

To protect myself from an ad hominem attack:
* I understand that sims are not the end all answer, but the fact that they sim so close (MM actually simming higher) shows that MM isn't as dreadful as the masses state in single target.
* I understand I am reforged for crit / haste, not haste / mastery, and my current setup favors MM over BM

As for the whole "MM is bad at AOE" argument... If your raid needs more AoE, it might be worth switching to a better AoE spec (BM/SURV), but to say MM is not viable at all just because it has bad aoe is simply misleading. Although there are a few pure single target fights.. AoE isn't that important in fights like Norushen, Sha, Shaman, General, Malk, Siege, which all have adds, but missing aoe dps isn't USUALLY the problem for these fights.

I will admit that in most cases, BM does pull ahead of MM in both aoe and single target... but to go as far as to say playing MM is "Not helping the raid at all", or "don't care about progressing" is an exaggeration. For any class, there will always be a spec that does top dps. Just because the others specs are not top dps, doesn't automatically make them non-viable for progression. What percent difference in dps defines non-viable? If it is 5%, that would mean MM IS VIABLE.

This is the equivalent of saying "Oh.. warlocks are (<5%) better than hunters at single target and AoE, so hunters are just not viable for progression raiding .. Hunters are ok in flex and lfr, but any serious progression guild should not bring hunters" .. ludicrous.

[MurphyLaw]

I guess I just liked the idea of hunters being kickass ranged blast away dps.

Hang tight for warlords and lone wolf