I very dislike Sidewinders

[minath]

I didn't like it too much when it was introduced, but at this point i really hope they don't nerf it out of our build, because spamming arcane shot is cancer.

[Kiea]

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.

But has the goal of MM not been to move away from the animals and aspects theme, and more towards that of a marksman or a ranger?

[Smog]

But has the goal of MM not been to move away from the animals and aspects theme, and more towards that of a marksman or a ranger?

Moreso than the other specs, but definitely not entirely. MM still has Cheetah, Turtle, Pets and all of their bells and whistles, Eagle Eye, Wyvern Shot, Murder of Crows, Sentinel is a bird animation, Black Arrow summons a zombie-animal-thing. Hell, even the talent to remove your pet is called Lone Wolf.

Removing the animal identity entirely from MM is clearly not the goal. They're just less animal centric than Survival or BM.

[UncleColumbo]

Sidewinders was awkward for me at first too, but gaining 50 focus instantly is pretty damn awesome.

[Jarlhen]

It just feels like the rotation and everything is weird without them. On one hand I can't fit anything else into the rotation (like black arrow), on the other I can't take anything out either. It's pretty evident that the talents have not been thought through very carefully. They're... weird.

[Prokne]

Moreso than the other specs, but definitely not entirely. MM still has Cheetah, Turtle, Pets and all of their bells and whistles, Eagle Eye, Wyvern Shot, Murder of Crows, Sentinel is a bird animation, Black Arrow summons a zombie-animal-thing. Hell, even the talent to remove your pet is called Lone Wolf.

Removing the animal identity entirely from MM is clearly not the goal. They're just less animal centric than Survival or BM.

I think it may have been at the beginning since they specifically removed chimera shot from MM because it was "animal based" even though it wasn't. Then they kept Murder of Crows (which should be BM), added sidewinders (which are snakes and totally animal based), changed deterrence to turtle (for no reason) and kept Wyvern shot (should have made a freezing arrow IMO). Sentinel is based off of the WC3 Night Elf hunter unit and isn't really animal based except the unit used owls to scout. I would say that is ok as well as Lone Wolf because it's just a common saying along with Eagle Eye.

However, besides not belonging in the MM spec fantasy, sidewinders is just not pleasant to use. I can't tell what it is going to hit, can't really see where it went, and can't see when it hits because it takes way too long to get to the target. I also hate the sound it makes. The ability is just off putting no matter what it actually accomplishes. It would probably be better if it was weaving arrows that moved faster and were bigger, or maybe just one arrow that curves around.

I actually really like Piercing Shot right now because it is a big hitting shot (which feels sort of like Kill Shot when the mob is at low health) and can be lined up to hit many targets. And if you don't take sidewinders, you get to keep multishot and you can spam that when there is lots of AoE instead of sidewinders every several seconds with only barrage to fill in AoE when it is off CD.

The people who redid MM really did not do a good job. They tried to mash together two specs (MM and old Surv) and ended up with a bunch of talents that don;t really work together and a class that doesn't have a core fantasy. It was supposed to be the ranger class, have lone wolf baseline, and no pet abilities. Which means they really didn't need to do much besides add a replacement for Chimera shot (which Piercing shot does), and add some Surv abilities like explosive shot and black arrow as options.

It could have been like this:
Steady shot for focus
Black Arrow as a dot (replaces Marked shot as something to do in the rotation)
Big shot like piercing or Explosive for cleave as lvl 100 talents with the Aimed shot cleave
Aimed shot as focus dump.
Lone Wolf baseline (or at least put it in a tier where the other choices are not desirable)

You could add procs like MMM or LnL to make the rotation more random. It does not need the extra randomness of waiting for hunters mark procs.

[threads]

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.

what's funny is MM was already perfect as a "sniper" in HFC. baseline careful aim. instant aimed shots. kill shot.

i'd much rather have the old MM as a baseline kit to work with than spamming noodle arcanes or snakes and waiting for auto shot procs.

[Prokne]

what's funny is MM was already perfect as a "sniper" in HFC. baseline careful aim. instant aimed shots. kill shot.

i'd much rather have the old MM as a baseline kit to work with than spamming noodle arcanes or snakes and waiting for auto shot procs.

The only thing I can think of is that MM has been like this for a long time with the only real impediment to "sniper" spec being the pet. The only changes since Wrath have been back and forth on instant aimed shot, take out arcane shot, and add kill shot. I have seen people say MM was hard or broken during Cata or MoP but the only thing that made it difficult was deciding when to cast aimed shot and that wasn't very hard to figure out (or for some reason people didn't like casting two steady shots in a row but in Wrath the rotation with mana had you do 2-3 in between big shot CDs). So I think they just wanted to change things for the sake of change and to keep some of the survival stuff after the unnecessary change to melee.

Hunter specs would have been different enough if BM had lots of strong pets (like it does now although since I don't play BM I don't know how if it plays well), MM was the no pet archer spec like it was with Lone Wolf, and Surv with a pet, traps and dots (since it was more of a dot spec with Serpent sting and Black arrow). That would have been at least as different as other ranged DPS only classes.