I very dislike Sidewinders

[Tyze]

I can't stand having that in my rotation, this may eat me up later but I prefer the RNG with Arcane Shot and applying Marked Shot when it's avaliable

[Lyraat]

I prefer the RNG

You found the correct spec to play. They should rename Marksman to Ranger, which is how most people think of it. That way, its abbreviation will match its gameplay; RNG forever.

[Okacz]

I dislike this spell too. It serves as a weird "fix" to all the MM problems, like RNG and focus generation, which should have been fixed within the spec itself, not with a single talent. Sidewinders right now are pretty much mandatory if you don't want to completly suck, and thus lock more interesting talent choices of the tier. So we are stuck with a weird spell that has a stupid animation and puts the spec on autopilot.

For me, they should just replace Arcane Shot with good old Steady Shot, and we're done.

[Pandragon]

I dislike this spell too. It serves as a weird "fix" to all the MM problems, like RNG and focus generation, which should have been fixed within the spec itself, not with a single talent. Sidewinders right now are pretty much mandatory if you don't want to completly suck, and thus lock more interesting talent choices of the tier. So we are stuck with a weird spell that has a stupid animation and puts the spec on autopilot.

For me, they should just replace Arcane Shot with good old Steady Shot, and we're done.

yeah cause a 1.5 second casted ability is sooo much more interesting. it would be better to make Arcane Shot/Sidewinders always apply Hunters Mark. make Marked Shot castable all the time, maybe with a short cd. Then sidewinders can be used to apply hunters mark on multiple targets for aoe, instead of being the mandatory replacement for arcane shot. Also dropping hunters to a 1 sec gcd.

[Yizu]

yeah cause a 1.5 second casted ability is sooo much more interesting. it would be better to make Arcane Shot/Sidewinders always apply Hunters Mark. make Marked Shot castable all the time, maybe with a short cd. Then sidewinders can be used to apply hunters mark on multiple targets for aoe, instead of being the mandatory replacement for arcane shot. Also dropping hunters to a 1 sec gcd.

sounds more boring than what it is now lol

[Hhavok]

I can't stand having that in my rotation, this may eat me up later but I prefer the RNG with Arcane Shot and applying Marked Shot when it's avaliable

Agreed. I've been trying to make it work without Sidewinders, and toying around with sentinel for some on-demand marked shots/vulnerability generation. You may not get the 150% from sniper that way, but you know you'll have 3 stacks of vulnerability up every time your hunter's mark procs for a marked shot. I'm hoping non-sidewinders will feel decent at 110.

[Deleted]

MM does feel a little weird. Which is why I'm seriously considering going MS Beast Mastery in Legion.

[Tyze]

Well. I'm skipping Sidewinders and going for Piercing Shot, it's much more fun..

Piercing Shot could affect vulnerable or something (?)

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MM does feel a little weird. Which is why I'm seriously considering going MS Beast Mastery in Legion.

I hope BM is close with MM on dps, so we can choose atleast :P

[Deleted]

Well. I'm skipping Sidewinders and going for Piercing Shot, it's much more fun..

Piercing Shot could affect vulnerable or something (?)

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I hope BM is close with MM on dps, so we can choose atleast :P

From what people are suggesting it may well be quite abit better on AoE / cleave fights. I've heard people suggesting that BM could well outperform MM on anything which isn't pure single target.

[NicoWolf]

When I first started looking at Sidewinders, I didn't like it. When I saw it in actual play, it grew on me. The idea, at its core, is not a bad idea. A cone AoE attack that highlights all affected targets with Hunter's Mark if proc'd and boom, Marked Shot for massive damage. It's more controlled than Barrage and because it serves as both an AoE ability and ST, it has a versatility that our other abilities lack.

The recharge time is not so bad, and it will only get better as we acquire more haste and scaling steps in.

The damage isn't bad either.

Now for the issues:

• DEAR GOD WHO APPROVED THE ANIMATION FOR SIDEWINDERS? I want that person drawn and quartered now. Seriously, weaving green pods? This is supposed to be the "ideal" marksman fantasy look? In whose universe do marksmen fire baby shit green whirling weaving pods?
  
• Why 2 charges, a recharge time AND a CD? It seems counterintuitive to design a spec based around ONE ability that forces moments of downtime when auto attack is your only source of damage (for up to 5 seconds)
  
• Why should Sidewinders be dependent on auto attacks in debuffing a target with Hunter's Mark? Shouldn't Arcane Shot/Multi/Sidewinders proc' the mark themselves? It seems an unneeded extra step, especially since auto attacks do nothing else. I shouldn't have my opening rotation hit with my weakest possible attack in hopes that my next attack's primary function will activate to enable the following attack to actually work. Secondly, if I'm misdirecting, that first crucial shot should generate a lot of threat and I'm seeing a lot of threat control problems.
  
• Having Sidewinders give a massive burst of focus is nice, but with the downtime that exists between shot availability and focus pooling, its seems more important that our focus generation be either faster or our shots cost less. You should never stop pushing buttons because every second you're not, your DPS is dropping.

Overall, I like the idea of Sidewinders, but the execution needs work. Its not unplayable and the other abilities are simply not good enough to offset the utility of how the design of the spec works right now. The other issues I have with the spec have nothing to do with Sidewinders and I have a lot of issues with the spec.

[Feanoro]

Sidewinders is a result of the same process that gave us WoD SV:

1) Have idea to revamp spec. (MM building vulnerabilities, WoD SV using multistrike to get LnL charges)

2) Ignore all feedback from beta testers, they'll see the "vision" soon enough.

3) Get close to release. Realize beta testers were right, spec will be a trainwreck. (Fun fact, WoD beta SV would have gotten worse with more gear.)

4) Do NOT publicly admit 3 at all costs! Blizzard PR is that they are perfect!

5) Come up with half-assed solution. (Sidewinders completely bypasses the ramp up. Revert WoD SV to partial MoP SV.)


If anything, Sidewinders shows the MM problems aren't quite as bad as WoD SV, so hopefully they can refine it and address the problems. God knows we don't need a second melee spec...

[Thursley]

When I first started looking at Sidewinders, I didn't like it. When I saw it in actual play, it grew on me. The idea, at its core, is not a bad idea. A cone AoE attack that highlights all affected targets with Hunter's Mark if proc'd and boom, Marked Shot for massive damage. It's more controlled than Barrage and because it serves as both an AoE ability and ST, it has a versatility that our other abilities lack.

The recharge time is not so bad, and it will only get better as we acquire more haste and scaling steps in.

The damage isn't bad either.

Now for the issues:

• DEAR GOD WHO APPROVED THE ANIMATION FOR SIDEWINDERS? I want that person drawn and quartered now. Seriously, weaving green pods? This is supposed to be the "ideal" marksman fantasy look? In whose universe do marksmen fire baby shit green whirling weaving pods?
  
• Why 2 charges, a recharge time AND a CD? It seems counterintuitive to design a spec based around ONE ability that forces moments of downtime when auto attack is your only source of damage (for up to 5 seconds)
  
• Why should Sidewinders be dependent on auto attacks in debuffing a target with Hunter's Mark? Shouldn't Arcane Shot/Multi/Sidewinders proc' the mark themselves? It seems an unneeded extra step, especially since auto attacks do nothing else. I shouldn't have my opening rotation hit with my weakest possible attack in hopes that my next attack's primary function will activate to enable the following attack to actually work. Secondly, if I'm misdirecting, that first crucial shot should generate a lot of threat and I'm seeing a lot of threat control problems.
  
• Having Sidewinders give a massive burst of focus is nice, but with the downtime that exists between shot availability and focus pooling, its seems more important that our focus generation be either faster or our shots cost less. You should never stop pushing buttons because every second you're not, your DPS is dropping.

Overall, I like the idea of Sidewinders, but the execution needs work. Its not unplayable and the other abilities are simply not good enough to offset the utility of how the design of the spec works right now. The other issues I have with the spec have nothing to do with Sidewinders and I have a lot of issues with the spec.

Your issue is that you're misidentifying the core aspect of the talent. You say its core is "a cone AoE attack that highlights all affected targets with Hunter's Mark if proc'd and boom, Marked Shot for massive damage." What you just described is the core of multi-shot (apart from the cone part, but that's relatively minor), not Sidewinders. The core of Sidewinders is what makes it DIFFERENT from multi-shot, which is the large burst of focus at the cost of a cooldown/charge system. If you get rid of that all you have is a buffed multi-shot, which is pitifully uninteresting for a level 100 talent, especially when we already have a passive talent on that row. Also I'm not sure you've taken a close enough look at MM abilities if you think Sidewinders is more versatile because it is both an AOE and ST ability. Marked Shot, Barrage, Volley, Piercing Shot, Explosive Shot, and Sentinel all do that, and even Aimed Shot can do that with the Trick Shot talent. A Murder of Crows is basically the only ability that's strictly ST only, and there are no abilities you would use in AOE but not ST.

As for your specific concerns:

1) The animation is pretty dumb, agreed.
2) I'm not sure what alternative you're proposing here. Do you want sidewinders to just have no cooldown? As I said above, that's just multi-shot with more damage that also applies Vulnerable. The cooldown (and charges as a QOL feature so you don't have to use the ability as soon as it comes up) is what actually makes it something unique. There's no chance that gets changed.
3) How do you want this to work? Sidewinders just has an X RPPM chance to proc Hunter's Mark? That was okay for arcane shot/multi-shot but it's awful for Sidewinders, because you want to know whether or not Sidewinders will proc Hunter's Mark before you use it due to the cooldown. It's also not fair to call auto-shot the "weakest possible attack" in your rotation because it isn't a rotational ability, as it doesn't take the place of using any other shot. Misdirection lasts 8 seconds, it doesn't matter that your auto-shot is the first attack to land because it will immediately be followed up by a much more damaging shot anyway.
4) This statement is simply not correct; your DPS is not dropping every second you stop pushing buttons when using Sidewinders, and that is by design (even more, it IS the design). If you prefer a playstyle where that statement is true, you should play something other than Sidewinders. If you want to argue that you have to play sidewinders because it's the best, fine, but that's a different discussion.

Sidewinders is a result of the same process that gave us WoD SV:

1) Have idea to revamp spec. (MM building vulnerabilities, WoD SV using multistrike to get LnL charges)

2) Ignore all feedback from beta testers, they'll see the "vision" soon enough.

3) Get close to release. Realize beta testers were right, spec will be a trainwreck. (Fun fact, WoD beta SV would have gotten worse with more gear.)

4) Do NOT publicly admit 3 at all costs! Blizzard PR is that they are perfect!

5) Come up with half-assed solution. (Sidewinders completely bypasses the ramp up. Revert WoD SV to partial MoP SV.)


If anything, Sidewinders shows the MM problems aren't quite as bad as WoD SV, so hopefully they can refine it and address the problems. God knows we don't need a second melee spec...

Sidewinders doesn't bypass ramp up. If that's your big concern it's Patient Sniper you should be upset about, not Sidewinders.

[wooters]

I can't stand having that in my rotation, this may eat me up later but I prefer the RNG with Arcane Shot and applying Marked Shot when it's avaliable

what bugs me is...what do the name sidewinder has in common with a fantasy game. nothing...is the answer there. its a god damn air-to-air missile on fighter planes. So my question here is: Why are the developers so incredible thick

[Aldare]

A suggestions I had in mind was that Arcane Shot / Multishot always applies Hunter's Mark, and Marked Shot is given a cooldown that can perhaps be reset or lowered from casting Aimed Shots. Marked Shot and Sidewinders both apply Vulnerable with X stacks. Instead of the number of stacks determining how much Aimed Shot damage is increased, the damage increase is always a flat %. Whenever you hit a Vulnerable target with Aimed Shot it consumes a stack of Vulnerable on the target. If Trick Shot is taken it will bounce to all vulnerable targets and consume a stack from each for bonus damage on all targets.

Something along those lines I think would be cool. It takes away the whole waiting for Autos to proc something, but instead brings in a proc that you can feel like you are actively pursuing by hitting aimed shot. Just my 2 cents.

[Kwaai]

1) Have idea to revamp spec. (MM building vulnerabilities, WoD SV using multistrike to get LnL charges)

...

If anything, Sidewinders shows the MM problems aren't quite as bad as WoD SV, so hopefully they can refine it and address the problems. God knows we don't need a second melee spec...

First, WoD SV liked multistrike because of Serpent Sting, not Black Arrow.

Second, there's nothing horribly broken about MM, and it's certainly not a lost cause. If Patient Sniper was baseline and if Arcane Shot wasn't shit the spec would be great. I hated Sidewinders at first, but it's been a few weeks and I quite like it now.

[Thursley]

A suggestions I had in mind was that Arcane Shot / Multishot always applies Hunter's Mark, and Marked Shot is given a cooldown that can perhaps be reset or lowered from casting Aimed Shots. Marked Shot and Sidewinders both apply Vulnerable with X stacks. Instead of the number of stacks determining how much Aimed Shot damage is increased, the damage increase is always a flat %. Whenever you hit a Vulnerable target with Aimed Shot it consumes a stack of Vulnerable on the target. If Trick Shot is taken it will bounce to all vulnerable targets and consume a stack from each for bonus damage on all targets.

Something along those lines I think would be cool. It takes away the whole waiting for Autos to proc something, but instead brings in a proc that you can feel like you are actively pursuing by hitting aimed shot. Just my 2 cents.

If Arcane/Multi-shot always apply Hunter's Mark and Marked Shot has a cooldown why do you need Hunter's Mark at all? Wouldn't it just be up all the time in practice? It seems like Marked Shot would just end up similar to WOD's Chimaera shot, an ability that you hit on a short cooldown, except now it hits more than just 2 targets. As for the Vulnerable thing I'm not sure what that accomplishes. Some number of Aimed Shots after you use Marked Shot or Sidewinders do more damage? That's just a slightly simplified version of what you can currently get from Patient Sniper (next x aimed shots whenever you cast them, instead of next 6 seconds). The baseline version of Vulnerable is intended to add a ramp up time, which is the opposite of the Patient Sniper version.

[Sencha]

what bugs me is...what do the name sidewinder has in common with a fantasy game. nothing...is the answer there. its a god damn air-to-air missile on fighter planes. So my question here is: Why are the developers so incredible thick

This.

They constantly bring the poor excuse of sniper class fantasy for every bullshit they create for MM and at the same time they design a spell that throws green rockets in front of you...

And yes the gameplay design around sidewinders is not engaging.

[Smog]

what bugs me is...what do the name sidewinder has in common with a fantasy game. nothing...is the answer there. its a god damn air-to-air missile on fighter planes. So my question here is: Why are the developers so incredible thick

This.

They constantly bring the poor excuse of sniper class fantasy for every bullshit they create for MM and at the same time they design a spell that throws green rockets in front of you...

And yes the gameplay design around sidewinders is not engaging.

You both realize that the sidewinder is also a snake, so named for its movement patterns of s-shaped curves, akin to how the Sidewinders ability travels?

Hunters kind of have an animal theme, remember? Aspects? Pets? The whole ranger fantasy?

I'm not saying it doesn't take some inspiration from the missiles, in that is obviously a ranged projectile attack, but you act as if it has no basis in the core identity of the class. Hunters can literally fire a (talented) rocket, and engineering is part of the WoW fantasy. It isn't out of place any way you look at it.

[Feanoro]

Sidewinders doesn't bypass ramp up.

Sidewinders applies Vulnerability, bypassing Hunter's Mark. It was added much later than Patient Sniper in a poor response to concerns about Hunter's Mark on RPPM.

First, WoD SV liked multistrike because of Serpent Sting, not Black Arrow.

That's nice. I specifically described WoD beta, which used multistrike to store up LnL charges, and compared the design process for it and Legion.


At no point did I say anything like "the spec is horrible" or any sky is falling nonsense. I said current MM is an interesting idea that has been poorly implemented. The fact that SW/PS is damn near mandatory is a flaw, but one we can live with.

[Bladeweaver]

Im ok with sidewinders, i just wish it were a weaving arcane/elemental airborne shot instead of snakes on the ground. The snakes makes it pretty primal in theme