Originally Posted by
DeicideUH
That's because you are playing with 4-set piece, and I'm mostly doing PvP/solo content and very little raiding. So, for me, Aimed Shot has cast-time, and if there was another tier in WoD, it would return to a cast-time for you as well, since that's the base form of the ability.
And Aimed Shot (and Chimaera Shot) do a lot of damage on live. Just compare:
- Aimed Shot: live (500% dmg) vs Legion (185% dmg). Even with Vulnerability or Patient Sniper, Aimed Shot damage in Legion doesn't compare with its former self.
- Chimaera Shot: live (660% magic dmg) vs not existing anymore
- Kill Shot: live (785% dmg) vs not existing anymore
- Marked Shot: Legion (225% dmg)
MM in Legion feels really weak.
I like Piercing Shot. It's one of the few talents that feel right for a sniper. It consuming all focus doesn't bother me at all. However, it doesn't compensate the feeling that you are just shooting blanks the rest of the time.
Sidewinders just kills the fantasy of the spec. I mean, you can't even define what are those things you are firing.
And beyond that, sidewinders makes the spec feel even less with its former self. Other classes I've played in PTR, like Ret pally, mage specs or Enh Shaman still feel like themselves, but MM is shaping up to be something ill-defined. In an expansion that defined "class fantasy" as one of its goals, they did a very poor job with MM.
Less defense I can handle. Everyone lost something, but we lost too much compared to others. I could handle losing traps, mobility or defensive cooldowns, but all three of them is a big too much. If we are being considered "casters" now, then we are still at a loss. As an example, my arcane mage in PTR can still sheep people, blink, backwards-blink, Ice himself, create a shield to soak damage or turn invisible, and I'm not counting talents. MM hunter has Exhilaration, Aspect of the Turtle, Disengage and Bursting Shot. Our main defense (mobility) is gone, our 2-charge Deterrence is gone, our traps are gone.
If it were up to me, I'd make the following changes to MM:
- Aimed shot back to doing big damage. Now applies Vulnerability, but doesn't benefit from it.
- Arcane shot damage reduced. Benefits from Vulnerability, but it never becomes better than Aimed Shot.
- Arcane shot and Multishot still apply Hunter's Mark.
- Marked Shot becomes our big-damage rotational shot. Can only be shot at targets with a Hunter's Mark. Benefits hugely from Vulnerability, but consumes the stack on the target.
- Lone Wolf is baseline.
- Lvl 15 Talent row: a talent to get pet back; one to cast Aimed Shot while moving and giving it a bonus crit chance, and a new version of Exotic Munitions that alters Aimed Shot instead of autoshots.
- Level 45 Talent row: Dash also makes AotC remove effects that limite movement and reduces its CD to 1 minute.
- Level 100: Sidewinders benefit from vulnerability, and apply Hunter's Mark instead of Vulnerability; Trick Shot improves AiS base damage by 15% always (instead of applying a buff to do that against a single target).
Other talents would need to be changed as well, but since this is just a wishful list, I'm not going to think too deep about it.