Cobra shot, huh?

[Kyocere]

The other day we were told only BM would use cobra shot.

Marks and Survival generally won't use Cobra Shot in PvE -- mobs don't change their armor. BM will use Cobra Shot in PvP and PvE.

Then today in the Dev chat they said something different.

Q. How are you trying to separate the play styles of the hunter specializations? What makes Cobra Shot feel different from Steady Shot?
A. Cobra Shot is ideal for Beast Mastery and Survival hunters because they don’t really have any other way of keeping Serpent Sting up (Cobra Shot extends Serpent Sting’s duration), and also for Survival because it is “Elemental” damage. It's also useful in PvP or in some other niche situations, say, when a creature is immune to physical damage. Now you have a solution.

Not sure if I missed something about this ability. Has it been changed since what were were told recently? Or is Blizzard simply contradicting themselves as usual?

[Shinshiva]

Note how he says MM and Surv won't use it for PvE

[Gps]

I think it makes more sense for Surv to use Cobra Shot more then BM since one of Survs mastery is elemental dmg.

[Sim]

Well the idea is that BM is going to have talents in the tree that enchant Cobra Shot which is why they're saying it is good for it.

Though they haven't really showed it in any of the tooltips anywhere on the talents what exactly is helping Cobra Shot out.

[Corby]

What reason, exactly, is there NOT to use Cobra Shot?

[Lysah]

It's a two second cast time for MM and SV.

[Stings]

MM Don't use it at all, Survival uses it for PvP only and BM use it for both PvP and PvE. What is there not to understand? The answer is even in your post.

[Neichus]

Well the idea is that BM is going to have talents in the tree that enchant Cobra Shot which is why they're saying it is good for it.

Though they haven't really showed it in any of the tooltips anywhere on the talents what exactly is helping Cobra Shot out.

I think the poster below you sums it up well: why not use it? It extends the duration of Serpent Sting and it does spell damage which is almost always superior (see Scourge Strike pre-nerf). I don't think Blizzard needs to go out of their way at all to prop up Cobra Shot for either Beast Mastery or Survival; instead they need to ensure that Marksmanship has a reason to use Steady Shot so it doesn't become entirely obsolete.

[Lysah]

I think the poster below you sums it up well: why not use it? It extends the duration of Serpent Sting and it does spell damage which is almost always superior (see Scourge Strike pre-nerf). I don't think Blizzard needs to go out of their way at all to prop up Cobra Shot for either Beast Mastery or Survival; instead they need to ensure that Marksmanship has a reason to use Steady Shot so it doesn't become entirely obsolete.

Ahem;

It's a two second cast time for MM and SV.

[ElAmigo]

why the hell would marksman use it to extend the duration of their serpent sting when their chimera shot resets it.....unless extending the duration cause chimera shot to do more damage which i highly doubt

[Lysah]

Chimera shot doesn't need serpent sting anymore, that part was removed. It's just another shot now...one that happens to refresh the timer on stings. Also, they're removing "damage per duration" per se. Instead, each DoT will tick per increment of time based on your haste, and refreshing it ill simply re-set the drop timer to it's original value, rather than refresh the debuff entirely. In this way, we can also clip serpent sting without wasting ticks.

Basically, serpent sting is nothing but a normal DoT/steady shot booster now.

[elcher]

currently Cobra Shot refreshes Serpent Sting up until Infinity if used, it does, however only have a crit multiplier of 1,7 and that as MM, where most people believe that the previous talent "mortal shots" has been baked in.

SO, CbS uses the spell crit table.

Thats why MM wont use it.

[Lysah]

I also expect there to be a cap on how many seconds cobra shot can add, but I guess we will see.

[Deleted]

SteadyShot: 2s casttime - physical damage, boosted by MM talents
CobraShot: 2s casttime - nature damage, boosted by BM talents / boosted by SV mastery, increases SerpentSting duration - MM still does this with ChimeraShot

Blizzard is trying to sell Coca Cola as Dr.Pepper Coke - its twice the same abilty but they are telling "here, shiny, new, works 100% different than the old stuff"

[Neichus]

Is the information on the website just inaccurate then Lysah? Both Cobra and Steady are listed as 1.5 second cast. Since I'm not in beta this is unfortunately all I have to work with.

[Lysah]

Is the information on the website just inaccurate then Lysah? Both Cobra and Steady are listed as 1.5 second cast. Since I'm not in beta this is unfortunately all I have to work with.

Me either, all I remember is the blues railing the two second base cast time of cobra shot repeatedly, and I don't recall that changing. I have no way of being sure, at the moment =/

[Corby]

It's a two second cast time for MM and SV.

Wowhead and Mmo-champ both have them listed as 1.5 second casts, but I'll take your word for it (given that the tooltips are a little... inconsistent (the bonus damage listed on Cobra is huge on Wowhead until you touch the slider bar, and then you can't get the first number back again); I don't have beta access so I can't check this myself). But even give that, would it be possible that an extra .5 second cast time would be worth keeping Serpent Sting up (as opposed to using multiple GCDs to keep it up manually)? Considering Noxious Stings for Surv., as well as Surv.s boosted elemental damage?

[edit] Damn, in the time it took me to look up the bits of this I wanted to verify half of what I'm saying has already been said.

[edit again] I guess my point here might be that Blizzard has changed their opinion on "who" should be using Cobra Shot, making Steady Shot into a MM skill at 81 and replacing it with a shot that's more of a flavor with BM and Surv (animals, uh... survival, instead of marksmanship).

[elcher]

I also expect there to be a cap on how many seconds cobra shot can add, but I guess we will see.

EJ has proven that there is none, you can prolong it as long as you like, although the timer wont go above 12 seconds

[Lysah]

EJ has proven that there is none, you can prolong it as long as you like, although the timer wont go above 12 seconds

It's only the beta.......I hope.

[Poppincaps]

iirc one of MM's mastery was to add ArPen or increase Physical damage, so they will still want to use SS in their rotation. Now it makes perfect sense to use Cobra shot for BM and SV, because the rotation is very sloppy without it. Plus BM will get talents to improve it and Surv will get their Elemental Damage mastery bonus to improve it as well. So, unless Blizz nerfs cobra for SV it would make more sense to use Cobra over Steady for SV. I am not in the beta though so I'm not really able to test it.