While PvE Marksman always was my favorite spec (and BM the least favored), since MoP arrived i have really grown a slight hatred towards MM.
The gameplay/rotation feels horribly bad, especially with certain talent selections... i will just list my issues with MM and hope you fellow hunters can help or post your own opinions:
- Steady Focus buff often leads to a high amount of excess focus, especially in combo with Dire Beast/TotH/Fervor and Rapid Fire/Heroism.
- Maintaining a 20 second buffs feels like a chore, boring and does not feel "like a Hunter" at all, plus annoying to delay an important ability because you need 2 SShots back-to-back.
- The huge amount of focus gain means i cast very few Steady Shots, meaning i get very very few instant Aimed Shot procs.
- Since MM only has 1 signature shot (chimera) that costs focus, you are forced to do a lot of Arcane Shot spamming (aimed shot is usually free).
- Since TotH is bad for single target (and gives even more Arcane Shot spam), taking DB/Fervor causes even more "focus bloat" where i have to spam Arcane Shot all day long, with very few Steady/Instant Aimed Shots.
- I greatly dislike hard casting Aimed Shot during the Careful Aim phase in boss fights - feels horribly wrong to disable my autoattack and cast like a mage.
- Feels kinda forced to bring the Tallstrider pet, due to it's AoE Sunder Armor and the fact a lot of MM's damage (especially AoE) is physical.
- There is TOO MUCH Arcane Shot spam, due to how much focus MM can generate with Steady Focus+talents+haste buffs.
- Because Arcane Shot is spammed so much (due to very high focus generation), very few Steady Shots are actually cast - almost no instant Aimed Shot stacks.
- Marksman has (imo) the worst AoE in the game - very reliant on high critical % to proc bombardment, most of the time my Bombardment buff will drop if i try to refresh Steady Focus, and if i don't refresh SFocus i might get Focus starved and then my Bombardment buff drops. Simply horrible AoE.
- Thrill of the Hunt feels absolutely horrible for single target MM, but it is extremely good for AoE MM - since single target is usually the most important, i have to skip TotH and make my MM's AoE feel even more crippled.
- For some reason the Binding Arrow only has 30 yards of range, and (kinda off topic) Wyvern Sting only has 35 yards - annoying to run closer to the target just to use a simple CC spell.
These are just some of the issues i can remember at the moment.
While the issues are numerous, i think blizzard could fix most of these with simple tweaks/changes.
However, right now i just want to see do any of you fellow hunters feel these frustrations or have suggestions how to aleviate these issues (aside from never playing MM again)?