what's the point of lock and load now?

[sololux]

So I just spent about an hour at a friends hose who has beta. Made a survival hunter and hit the dummies and ashran a bit. Lock and load seems sooo broken. When you get a proc it doesn't reset the CD that its currently in which means if u just hit a normal es and then get a lnl proc u have to wait the full duration of the CD to hit it again. Also ( my biggest peeve) is it doesn't reduce the focus cost by hardly anything! Even if I have stacks saved up I can't spam more than 2-3 before I'm focused starved like crazy. So if this is the final version my question is what's the point of a proc that basically has no beneficial rewards?

[Nnug]

The beneficial reward is being able to shoot off more ES's?

[sololux]

The beneficial reward is being able to shoot off more ES's?

So I get the benefit of focus starving myself after 2-3 es? I would be better off just firing one still and being able to maintain the rest of my shots properly..

[Deleted]

Burst, dump them during trinket procs and cooldowns, otherwise continue rotation.

[Glurp]

So you're saying that LnL is useless because you can't play exactly the same way you do now? Ok then.

[Azortharion]

Just don't use ES when LnL is up at all! You don't have to deal with it then.

[sololux]

So you're saying that LnL is useless because you can't play exactly the same way you do now? Ok then.

I'm saying its useless because it doesn't do anything different from what would happen in my rotation if it didn't even exist.

[Nnug]

Except that when ES is on cd you have to pool enough focus to spend your LnL charges?

[sololux]

Except that when ES is on cd you have to pool enough focus to spend your LnL charges?

With how often lnl procs your entire rotation would consist of only black arrow and explosive shot with as many cobras in between as you can.
It costs 75 focus to dump all 5 stacks and with more gear we will start getting more multistrike, which means more lnl procs more often, which means its only gonna multiply this problem.
Even then you can only hope to have enough spare focus to get an arcane shot/ serpent sting(whatever you would like to call it now) off and by the time we have a lot of multistrike u might as well kiss arcane shot/ serpent sting goodbye from that rotation at all

Unless you don't use the lnl procs in their entirety which brings me back to my original point and makes for a very unsatisfactory experience.

[timoseewho]

i'm with you, as it is now on the beta, it's pret awkward to play. i've abandoned it and just started liking MM haha

off topic, but anyone know where i can find a dummy to test without Careful Aim?

[DeicideUH]

Speaking only in theory, because I have no beta key, and even if i had, I'm a MM guy: to me it appears Blizzard wants you to pool LnL to dicharge as Burst. If you do not want to burst right now, then you spend 1-2 stacks of LnL whenever it's getting close to 5 stacks in order to keep yourself from wasting any procs, and then you spend the whole stack when you think it's time to burst.

About having 45 Focus free for a 5 LnL burst phase, I don't think it's a big deal. MM Hunters are used to having high focus cost shots. Just keep BA active to keep getting procs, spend a LnL charge to drop it to 4, recharge with Focusing Shot/Cobra Shot, and spend all the stacks (you'll probably have 5 stacks again by then).

In other words, LnL is a "new" Survival resource you pool up to spend as needed.

Also, I think you are not meant to use Explosive Shot without LnL, thought I guess using a sixth ExS after spending 5 LnL would be very bursty.

Again, this is all theoretical thinking, based on what appears to be Blizz' ideas for LnL. Don't know how smooth it actually plays in reality.

[sololux]

Yea I'm thinking that's what they want too, it just feels horrible not being able to use explosive every time it procs. Also its 75 focus for 5 stacks of lnl not 45.

[DeicideUH]

Yea I'm thinking that's what they want too, it just feels horrible not being able to use explosive every time it procs. Also its 75 focus for 5 stacks of lnl not 45.

Oops, you are right.

One thing that could help is something like this:

- Explosive Shot applies a stacking debuff ("On Fire") on target that lasts for 4s.
- When a target "On Fire" is hit by another Explosive Shot, the damage is increased by 5% per stack, and the Hunter is refunded 2 focus per stack.
- When target cumulates 5 stacks of "On Fire", next Explosive Shot that hits will benefit from the effect but consume the stack, ending it.

As such, if you suddenly unload 5 LnL Explosive Shots in a row on the same target:

- 1st ExS: 100% damage, costs 15 Focus, target gets 1 Stack of "On Fire"
- 2nd ExS: 105% damage, costs 15-3 = 12 Focus, target gets 2 Stacks of "On Fire"
- 3rd ExS: 110% damage, costs 15-6 = 9 Focus, target gets 3 Stacks of "On Fire"
- 4th ExS: 115% damage, costs 15-9 = 6 Focus, target gets 4 Stacks of "On Fire"
- 5th ExS: 120% damage, costs 15-12 = 3 Focus, target gets 5 Stacks of "On Fire"
- 6th ExS (out of LnL, will have a CD): 125% damage, costs 15-15 = 0 Focus, consumes all stacks of "On Fire" on target

Total Damage equals 6 normal ExS, plus 75%.
Total Focus cost: 45 Focus.

This would make chain casting Explosive Shot more interesting than casting it every 6s

[Arcanimus]

Oops, you are right.

One thing that could help is something like this:

- Explosive Shot applies a stacking debuff ("On Fire") on target that lasts for 4s.
- When a target "On Fire" is hit by another Explosive Shot, the damage is increased by 5% per stack, and the Hunter is refunded 2 focus per stack.
- When target cumulates 5 stacks of "On Fire", next Explosive Shot that hits will benefit from the effect but consume the stack, ending it.

As such, if you suddenly unload 5 LnL Explosive Shots in a row on the same target:

- 1st ExS: 100% damage, costs 15 Focus, target gets 1 Stack of "On Fire"
- 2nd ExS: 105% damage, costs 15-3 = 12 Focus, target gets 2 Stacks of "On Fire"
- 3rd ExS: 110% damage, costs 15-6 = 9 Focus, target gets 3 Stacks of "On Fire"
- 4th ExS: 115% damage, costs 15-9 = 6 Focus, target gets 4 Stacks of "On Fire"
- 5th ExS: 120% damage, costs 15-12 = 3 Focus, target gets 5 Stacks of "On Fire"
- 6th ExS (out of LnL, will have a CD): 125% damage, costs 15-15 = 0 Focus, consumes all stacks of "On Fire" on target

Total Damage equals 6 normal ExS, plus 75%.
Total Focus cost: 45 Focus.

This would make chain casting Explosive Shot more interesting than casting it every 6s

I would rather see a second button to unload all explosive charges at once, honestly. Playing with Focusing Shot and Fervor makes long streaks of ES manageable.

[Deleted]

You are forgetting that in PVE it would be major dps loss to keep even just one charge of lnl all the time, since you would never put explosive shot to cd and therefore losing many of those during fight. It's like using explosive shot only during lock and load on live. In pvp it's godlike to be able to shoot 5 explosive shot in a row to target while healer is busy sitting in trap.

[Raicky]

You are forgetting that in PVE it would be major dps loss to keep even just one charge of lnl all the time, since you would never put explosive shot to cd and therefore losing many of those during fight. It's like using explosive shot only during lock and load on live. In pvp it's godlike to be able to shoot 5 explosive shot in a row to target while healer is busy sitting in trap.

You're supposed to do that only when you have stupid high amounts of multistrike. If you stay at one stack all the time, you never put ES into cd so whenever you get a stack of LnL(which happens quite often enough to focus starve you,) you can fire it right away. That way you dont have downtime of not firing enough ES'es and you have the option of pooling damage for burst

[Dasani]

I dunno if it's broken or what but on beta right now it does less damage blowing all 5 charges at once than it does spacing them out and not overlapping them.

They always deal the exact same damage per tick, there is no damage being carried over from remaining ticks when you apply a new one and it doesn't extend the duration either, so it is kinda awkward to deal with atm. I think it would feel better if chaining them off together had no penalty. It makes having explosive shot last 3 seconds in WOD instead of the 2 seconds on live even worse to deal with this.

[Noctifer616]

I dunno if it's broken or what but on beta right now it does less damage blowing all 5 charges at once than it does spacing them out and not overlapping them.

They always deal the exact same damage per tick, there is no damage being carried over from remaining ticks

Broken on the Beta then. On live when a tick is lost due to firing another ES the damage from the lost tick is carried over the the next tick.

[eschatological]

That should definitely be bug reported if true. Any confirmation?

[Kissthebaby]

That should definitely be bug reported if true. Any confirmation?

I actually do have confirmation that the spec blows, and no one is going to test it because it blows so it won't get fixed. No one is even bringing up the fact how stupid a 18 second black arrow is and it now ticks every 3 seconds. Why is a 18 second dot on a 24 second cd still. Can we fix that please.