MM Hunters and why nobody cares

[Deleted]

Anyone knows how this spec peforms with high haste and all of the shiny haste-dependent gear like 2set, 4set, our Meta gem? The proc coefficients were quite high for Marksman on these items and permanent 25% haste buff is nothing too shabby.

I doubt it's going to be any gamebreaking as I have 23,3% haste unbuffed on my SV (itemlevel 538, all gear 2/2 including cloak) but im curious.

[Paulosio]

MM has one of the strongest openers of the Hunter specs. Even more so now that Readiness is gone. CA is amazingly strong when the boss has a decent health pool (like Lei Shen). I can often burst above mages and locks (before combust lol). But that of course is nothing more than hearsay. The spec is "fine." It's not the best, but it's not the trash the bandwagoners make it out to be.

So basically it's good for doing good dps on bosses that your guild can't kill yet (because a disproportionate ammount of your attempts are spent in the careful aim phase)?

[Larry01]

The spec is "fine." It's not the best, but it's not the trash the bandwagoners make it out to be.

Funny how everyone's perspective is different. "Fine" for you is clearly not fine for many others or the spec would be played more?
I dont konw if I am on the bandwagon of MM hate or anything but I know I do a great deal less in MM than I do as BM. 30 to 50k less in fact.
For cleave, multidot and aoe fights its even worse.

For me thats not really fine for the type of raiding I do.

[ATron52]

Funny how everyone's perspective is different. "Fine" for you is clearly not fine for many others or the spec would be played more?
I dont konw if I am on the bandwagon of MM hate or anything but I know I do a great deal less in MM than I do as BM. 30 to 50k less in fact.
For cleave, multidot and aoe fights its even worse.

For me thats not really fine for the type of raiding I do.

Everyone's experience will be different, but I've been main spec MM since patch 3.1. I enjoy the way it works now and having played it for years, it's second nature. Keeping Steady Focus up is easy now and requires no actual maintenance on my part - I'm used to using steady in pairs on occasion. I enjoy the fact that the opener is dynamic, giving you something different than just arcane spam that you do for the rest of the fight.

That being said, it is lower than BM and SV, but I feel that the 30-50k you've mentioned is greatly overestimated. In my current gear, MM sims to be about 8.1k less than BM. Grated, sims are not a great model for every day use and represent perfect performance and external factors, but it's nowhere near as severe as some people make it out to be.

On fights with a lot of AoE, like Horridon for example, I normally take TotH and Barrage and remain decently competitive with others. Not top, but noT bottom either. lower than SV and BM, but not low enough to be a hindrance to my raid group - if it were, I'd roll BM.

Now I'll admit that we're not a hardcore cutting edge guild - we're just now progressing into heroics, but I don't in anyway feel that the DPS difference between myself as MM and what I might do as BM is in any way holding us back in ToT, a raid that focuses more on proper execution of mechanics than extreme DPS checks.

To each their own.

[Deleted]

Everyone's experience will be different, but I've been main spec MM since patch 3.1. I enjoy the way it works now and having played it for years, it's second nature. Keeping Steady Focus up is easy now and requires no actual maintenance on my part - I'm used to using steady in pairs on occasion. I enjoy the fact that the opener is dynamic, giving you something different than just arcane spam that you do for the rest of the fight.

That being said, it is lower than BM and SV, but I feel that the 30-50k you've mentioned is greatly overestimated. In my current gear, MM sims to be about 8.1k less than BM. Grated, sims are not a great model for every day use and represent perfect performance and external factors, but it's nowhere near as severe as some people make it out to be.

On fights with a lot of AoE, like Horridon for example, I normally take TotH and Barrage and remain decently competitive with others. Not top, but noT bottom either. lower than SV and BM, but not low enough to be a hindrance to my raid group - if it were, I'd roll BM.

Now I'll admit that we're not a hardcore cutting edge guild - we're just now progressing into heroics, but I don't in anyway feel that the DPS difference between myself as MM and what I might do as BM is in any way holding us back in ToT, a raid that focuses more on proper execution of mechanics than extreme DPS checks.

To each their own.

Why play a dps class if you don't care about the damage? Are you afraid you won't do as well in the other two specs?

[ATron52]

Why play a dps class if you don't care about the damage? Are you afraid you won't do as well in the other two specs?

Long Answer
For some, the game isn't about min-maxing - I did that back in Lich King when we were server first Firefighter and One Light in Ulduar. The guild I'm in now is so much more different than that - we're a group of friends that have progressed through normal ToT and are working on heroics. We aren't cutting edge. We don't have the best players. We raid two night a week for 5 hours total. Me doing 10k more DPS isn't going to do anything to our progression. When most bosses are more about avoiding the bad stuff, being sure to interrupt the proper casts, and other such tasks, enrage timers are more than generous enough to progress.

I enjoy MM much more so than the relative cluster #&%$ that is the BM rotation when you have crows, fervor, and GT. SV isn't too bad most of the time. I play the spec I have the most fun in as long as it doesn't hinder progression - it's not. I've spent ample time in all the specs since MoP launched, trying them out. My hunter is my main, and I like to know as much about all three specs as I can. I've done some nights in ToT as BM, and while the damage I did was a bit better, I don't enjoy it. If I played BM main spec for a few week to really nail down the play style the way I have with MM, I'm sure I'd be even higher still. But, until we struggle to down adds in time or hit enrage timers, I'll stick with the spec I like best.

Short Answer
For funsies.

[WarBringerPT]

Long Answer
For some, the game isn't about min-maxing - I did that back in Lich King when we were server first Firefighter and One Light in Ulduar. The guild I'm in now is so much more different than that - we're a group of friends that have progressed through normal ToT and are working on heroics. We aren't cutting edge. We don't have the best players. We raid two night a week for 5 hours total. Me doing 10k more DPS isn't going to do anything to our progression. When most bosses are more about avoiding the bad stuff, being sure to interrupt the proper casts, and other such tasks, enrage timers are more than generous enough to progress.

I enjoy MM much more so than the relative cluster #&%$ that is the BM rotation when you have crows, fervor, and GT. SV isn't too bad most of the time. I play the spec I have the most fun in as long as it doesn't hinder progression - it's not. I've spent ample time in all the specs since MoP launched, trying them out. My hunter is my main, and I like to know as much about all three specs as I can. I've done some nights in ToT as BM, and while the damage I did was a bit better, I don't enjoy it. If I played BM main spec for a few week to really nail down the play style the way I have with MM, I'm sure I'd be even higher still. But, until we struggle to down adds in time or hit enrage timers, I'll stick with the spec I like best.

Short Answer
For funsies.

You do know you don't use crows anymore in bm right?
And if you think Bm "rotation" is a cluster #&%$, then what is the dual steadyshot stupidity in mm? Not only that, you have a spec only shot, that you should use only when it's instant (aimed shot). How fun is that.

[Serj Tankian]

Not completely true.

I've been playing around as MM because I'm bored and we're in ToT Farm mode. Aimed Shot is hardcasted over Arcane Shot for the first 20% of the fight and when you're under any kind of Haste effects (Rapid Fire, Bloodlust, the Haste buff on Primordius). I do agree that the duel Steady Shot is quite stupid though. But I've been play MM for a few weeks now, again; because I'm bored and it's a nice change from the constant BM/SV we've been playing all expansion so far.

Would honestly like to see them buff MM in 5.4. But I really doubt that is going to happen. So at least I have a little fun when we're doing farm content.

[ATron52]

You do know you don't use crows anymore in bm right?
And if you think Bm "rotation" is a cluster #&%$, then what is the dual steadyshot stupidity in mm? Not only that, you have a spec only shot, that you should use only when it's instant (aimed shot). How fun is that.

Forgive me, sire, I forgot that Blink Strikes is now king amongst BM.

As I mentioned in my first post, I don't find dual steady shot to be stuipd - I've been doing it for years now and it comes second nature. It may take a bit of time to get used to for someone new to the spec though. I actually catch myself dual casting cobra shot on accident in BM or SV when I'm not paying attention since it's so second nature. Aimed shot is still hard cast during careful aim giving it a bit of life. Depending upon what gear you're rocking, it may even be worth hard casting during large haste buffs like Heroism and Rapid Fire.

Aimed casting in the first 20% of a fight is fun to me. It's different than the standard Arcane spam with occasional Chimeras thrown in. You may hate it and your opinion is valid, but I see it as fun. Make me pay attention to what % the boss is at and adapt my shots to the circumstances at hand.

And seriously in my opinion, BM is a cluster F right now. BW, KC, GT, Fervor, and Focus Fire not taking into account readiness. And let's not ignore BM's opener that has had dozens of threads about how to properly open as BM. BM just feels clunky to me.

Compare that to a MM opener - SrS, Steady x2, Chimera on CD, Aimed spam, Steady to regain focus. Ignoring Chimera and SrS winds up being a 250 dps loss for my current gear, same with GT. So, is someone were lazy and wanted to only spam Steady and Aimed for the first 20%, ignoring all other shots, it's roughly a 500 DPS loss - well within the margin of error. At 79% you go back into standard priority of using everything on CD and using Arcane as the focus dump.

Who knows at this point how we'll end up in 5.4, but currently, I feel that MM provides a smoother play style that changes after the first 20%. I enjoy that aspect of it, I really do.

*Edited to Add:

As for BM always choosing BS over Crows, it's gear dependent. At some lower gear levels, AMoC and BS are virtually identical. Take two hunters, one with a 510 iLevel and one with a 530. For the 510, BS and AMoC will be virtually identical with AMoC most likely beating BS in sims by a tiny amount. Now do the same comparison on the 530 Hunter and BS will beat AMoC by 2k or so.

Lynx Rush is still garbage though...

[Larry01]

That being said, it is lower than BM and SV, but I feel that the 30-50k you've mentioned is greatly overestimated.

Actually its not overestimated at all. I am not reforged for MM, I havent played it for several years so I am horrid at the rotation/priority and it is a real 10k behind BM if not more when you make mistakes in the priority unlike how BM plays, I am highly skilled in the BM priority, add that all up and its very easy to beat myself by 30k.

I did appreciate you calling me a liar in such a nice way. However, next time perhaps you can not try and tell me that my own experiences with the two specs arent true seeing as your not me and do not know how I play?

Thanks.

[ATron52]

Actually its not overestimated at all. I am not reforged for MM, I havent played it for several years so I am horrid at the rotation/priority and it is a real 10k behind BM if not more when you make mistakes in the priority unlike how BM plays, I am highly skilled in the BM priority, add that all up and its very easy to beat myself by 30k.

I did appreciate you calling me a liar in such a nice way. However, next time perhaps you can not try and tell me that my own experiences with the two specs arent true seeing as your not me and do not know how I play?

Thanks.

I realize that your post was about your personal experiences, but I simply assumed you were exaggerating with that 30-50k nonsense. In equivalent gear, if you're that far behind as MM, you're just not playing the spec well. Heck, in full Heroic Thunderforged BiS they MM only sims out to be 11k less. The difference is smaller the lower ilevel your gear is. Yes, sims aren't a great representation, but they help give rough ideas in non-gimmick fights of what you *could* be doing.

As far as the liar nonsense, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or stir up negativity. As I said, I just assumed you had to have been joking / exaggerating if you're seeing that big of a difference. Even on fights with tons of adds, 30-50k would be pushing it if you've taken barrage and TotH, in my opinion. Either way, I wasn't trying to cause bad blood or anything. That's just a huge difference.

[GrieverXIII]

The difference in PvE between MM and the other specs is so small that anyone outside of the top5 guilds in their respective regions shouldn't care. If your guild is pressuring you to switch to another spec because they "believe" it is so much better, then you either need to educate them, or prove them wrong.

You'd be suprised how much people care about that kind of stuff even at the lower end of things, in both PvE and PvP and sadly trying to make them understand that at their level class balance is completly meaningless as nobody plays anywhere near its maximum potential is often like arguing with a brick wall.

- - - Updated - - -

The only change I think MM really needs is that RF applies SF. Getting those two Steady Shots in early is a pain :O

That and Multi-Shot proccing Piercing Shots, MM's aoe is really pathetic atm.

[Kurgosh]

The difference in PvE between MM and the other specs is so small that anyone outside of the top5 guilds in their respective regions shouldn't care. If your guild is pressuring you to switch to another spec because they "believe" it is so much better, then you either need to educate them, or prove them wrong.

Nonsense. Maybe the difference is only 5% (it's probably more), but even if your guild is struggling along in normal modes, you'll notice the difference that 5% DPS makes. Maybe not if it's just one person, but if it's all the DPS playing a suboptimal spec, it's going to add up. And yeah, you probably have mechanics issues to iron out that are more important, but why handicap yourself while doing so? How many people who have raided haven't seen a 1% boss wipe? Those are frustrating enough even if you don't have DPS who are playing a bad spec.

It absolutely does make a difference, and so it matters when one spec (my favorite, for the record, though I haven't been able to play it for serious raiding in far too long) lags seriously behind and has no place in serious team play.

[Charo]

Is MM really all that bad? I've been leaning towards MM this expansion (since the Aimed Shot glyph was released) over Surv and my damage isn't really that much different, if there are AOE adds to kill during a boss (like Tortos or Lei-Shin) of course survival has a much better AOE mechanic (though the recent buff to bombardment is nice!), and we have had a real reason to have a great AOE snare (while raiding) since Beth'tilac.

Here is my armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...bbuffet/simple

And while I'm not the best hunter in the world, I am pretty confident in my abilities to play one, and I just don't get the "MM is bad" thing.

[Beoren]

Is MM really all that bad? I've been leaning towards MM this expansion (since the Aimed Shot glyph was released) over Surv and my damage isn't really that much different, if there are AOE adds to kill during a boss (like Tortos or Lei-Shin) of course survival has a much better AOE mechanic (though the recent buff to bombardment is nice!), and we have had a real reason to have a great AOE snare (while raiding) since Beth'tilac.

Here is my armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...bbuffet/simple

And while I'm not the best hunter in the world, I am pretty confident in my abilities to play one, and I just don't get the "MM is bad" thing.

Its a weak spec, arguably the worse Ranged spec in the game, it has nothing to offer that the other hunters spec has - no cleave , no AOE, lower ST dmg....
i'd be happy to see all (or atleast two) of the hunter specs topping metter just like locks / mages have...

[Deleted]

Hi, I'm a dps warrior and I'd like to have a word with you.

[ATron52]

Nonsense. Maybe the difference is only 5% (it's probably more), but even if your guild is struggling along in normal modes, you'll notice the difference that 5% DPS makes. Maybe not if it's just one person, but if it's all the DPS playing a suboptimal spec, it's going to add up. And yeah, you probably have mechanics issues to iron out that are more important, but why handicap yourself while doing so? How many people who have raided haven't seen a 1% boss wipe? Those are frustrating enough even if you don't have DPS who are playing a bad spec.

It absolutely does make a difference, and so it matters when one spec (my favorite, for the record, though I haven't been able to play it for serious raiding in far too long) lags seriously behind and has no place in serious team play.

I just fundamentally do not agree with this idea. If you and your guild are wiping at 1% on normal modes, it's not a min/max issue - It's a mechanics issue. Sure, having a couple of people swap specs my get the raid a few % more DPS, but that's applying a bandaid to a gaping wound and will just people frustrated as they slam their head into the brick wall that would be heroics if they attempted them. No amount of spec changing, reforging, pre-potting, etc...is going to make up for poor performance. If everyone is performing their roles perfectly and you're hitting enrages, sure - have your arms warrior and MM hunter switch specs and you might be able to down it. Outside of a relatively extreme situation such as that though, being better players will pretty much always provide a bigger boost than having two people swap specs because #1) they do 10k more DPS and #2) people on the internet told you MM is dead.

Now, it's a different story when you start into heroics - the min/maxing aspect makes sense and is pretty much required. It's, for the most part, expected that if you're in a heroic progressing guild, you're a hardcore player. As such, you'll most likely want to do whatever you can to squeeze out the most DPS, so go ahead and roll BM and avoid MM like the plague. But, that's a completely different ideology just Guild XYV can't down normal Lei Shen so they ask their MM Hunter to swap to BM for the extra edge.

[Larry01]

I just fundamentally do not agree with this idea. If you and your guild are wiping at 1% on normal modes, it's not a min/max issue - It's a mechanics issue. Sure, having a couple of people swap specs my get the raid a few % more DPS, but that's applying a bandaid to a gaping wound and will just people frustrated as they slam their head into the brick wall that would be heroics if they attempted them.

I disagree with your disagreement.

Lets use Horridon for an example, if you do not get the first add down (this is a dps check) then you have 3 big adds destroying shit and aoeing and putting down all manner of crap that will wipe you.
If you have each dps in a 10 man playing a sub optimal spec (you say 5% I say MM is 10%+ behind but we will use 5%) You will never get past the fight period.

Mechanics will not matter at all if your 5 dps are all doing 25% to 50% less dps on the add... you just will not down the boss. There is no possible way no matter how good you are on mechanics. (well you can seriously out gear it to make up for people playing shit specs, but thats the only way)

Its the same with every fight, if your starting a raid instance for the first time or the 20th and your entire dps crew is doing 25%-50% less than they would normally do. Can you honestly sit here and pretend that you will be able to kill any boss even if you have perfect mechanics?

I really do not think you thought the matter through very well.

[jax]

Hi, I'm a dps warrior and I'd like to have a word with you.

??
He said:

Its a weak spec, arguably the worse Ranged spec in the game

OT:

Now, it's a different story when you start into heroics - the min/maxing aspect makes sense and is pretty much required. It's, for the most part, expected that if you're in a heroic progressing guild, you're a hardcore player. As such, you'll most likely want to do whatever you can to squeeze out the most DPS, so go ahead and roll BM and avoid MM like the plague. But, that's a completely different ideology just Guild XYV can't down normal Lei Shen so they ask their MM Hunter to swap to BM for the extra edge.

I do not know where this thinking comes from but it is flawed in the extreme. You are trying to just use MM in a vacum, while the point is MM it also extends to all specs and all classes. How can anyone be ok with playing a spec as a raider that does 10% less damage than another one they can use?

Its been pointed out how wrong this thought process is but lets break it down a bit more for ease in understanding...
Multiply the stupidity of a hunter going MM just because he wants to and thinks its "not as bad" with a dps warrior going arms, a mage frost, a rogue sub and a dk going uh and what you have is a raid that is three of things:

1. Not smart
2. not gonna down a boss
3. 1/12 normal mode progression until they out gear content

Take that same raid and move them to the appropriate specs and you will kill bosses. In lfr you are right, going MM wont be a big deal. In a guild that doesnt mind wiping all tier it wont matter either. No I do agree that you can play MM as long as the other 4 or 5 dps are doing 90% to 100% of their max dps and can carry you.

I either do not understand what your trying to say or there is a serious disconnect in what is actually needed for raiding.

[Littlepinch]

Well to be honest your over thinking it. He was talking about the 1 hunter in a group playing in a 10 man wont stop them from progressing through normals ( not all 5 dps ) and in that respect i think Atron is correct. since im in his same position. My group has had some 2% wipes but me changing spec isn't the fix for that. The group not being sloppy on mechanics however would be the fix. The second we have an attempt that's clean with mechanics is the time we down it. This is only my personal experience. I highly doubt you would ever see a raid filled with sub optimal specs ( if you did fire said raid leader lol ).