Just a fan wank thread: how I would've design MM Hunter.

[DeicideUH]

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Notice: This is just concept, don't take numbers seriously. Any numbers used are just examples, if this would ever be implemented, it would need to have a balance pass, of course.

For Marksmanship, I'd revamp the entire spec. When they announced the new Legion MM Hunter, I was hopeful it would incorporate several archer/sharpshooter/gunner/sniper aspects into its talent system. They should also include options that resemble the old Survival spec, using quick shots, special ammo, poisons and so on. As such, this design has the aim of allowing the player to mix several concepts depending on the choices of talents:

- The slow, precise, heavy hitting sniper
- The quick, fast, agile quick shooter
- Special ammo

Baseline Changes:
Aspect of the Cheetah has CD reduced to 90 seconds.
Lone Wolf Is now baseline.
Camouflage is now baseline.
Windburst: Fused with Piercing Shot and Revamped. It now is essentially Piercing Shot: consumes between 20 and 100 focus, 30s CD, heavy damage to target, half damage to enemies near target and in its path, but also creates the wind path that current Windburst applies.
Aimed Shot: Heavy damage (around 2.5x current Aimed Shot [without Vulnerable on target], to compensate changes to Vulnerability and Mastery), 50 focus, 2s cast. Applies Vulnerable to the target. Does not benefit from Vulnerable.
Vulnerable: Debuff on target, applied by Aimed Shot. Increases critical chance of Arcane Shot, Multishot and Marked Shot by 10% for 15 seconds, stacks up to five times. If Marked Shot critically hits, Vulnerable is removed from the target.
Arcane Shot and Multishot: As current, but Vulnerable increases their crit chance. Still have a chance do apply Hunter's Mark on targets hit.
Marked Shot: Heavy damage (around 150% damage of current Marked Shot). 30 focus. Attacks all Marked Targets. If the attack crits, remove the Vulnerable Stack from them. Several talents and Artifact traits would be changed to improve Marked Shot critical hits (see ahead).
Mastery: Still increases the range of your attacks, but no longer increases damage of all shots that cost focus. Instead, it increases base damage and critical damage of Marked Shot by 15% (further increased by Mastery).

Changes to Artifact traits:
Mark of the Windrunner: Windburst now applies VUlnerable to all targets hit.
Deadly Aim: Improves Aimed Shot crit chance (not damage) by 3/6/10%.
Precision: Improves Marked Shot critical damage (not chance) by 5/10/15%.
Marked For Death: Marked Shot critical hits have a 6/12/20% chance of not removing Vulnerability from the target.

Base rotation: You use Aimed Shots to stack Vulnerable in target, thus increasing the crit chance of Arcane Shot, Multishot and Marked Shot. Each of these shots have a special effect on a critical hit: respectively, additional Focus, Bombardment bonus or extra damage on crit. You must be careful to pool focus enough to use Windburst on CD, and Windburst uses will also improve your AoE by applying Vulnerable to all targets (see artifact traits bellow). Talents improve the rotation by changing or adding skills.

Talents:

Level 15
With Lone Wolf baseline, new talented Pet option. This is the "direct damage increase" option, it adds 3 ways to improve your single target damage.
Wild Companion: Allows you to summon and control a pet.
Black Arrow: Moved to this row. Steady Focus is Removed.
Careful Aim: Aimed Shot now have an extra 30% chance of Critically Hit. (Removed the "above 80% health" restriction, but restricted it to Aimed Shot only, as well as removing the bleeding effect)


Level 30
This level is a "rotation change" level, intended to allow different playstyles.
Explosive Shot: Replaces Aimed Shot. 50 focus, Instant cast, heavy fire damage. Half damage is caused immediately on hit, the other half over 6 seconds. Hitting the target repeatedly with Explosive Shot will recalculate the damage, adding the remaining total to the new DoT. (Callback to old Survival playstyle; you trade burst for sustained DPS)
Trick Shot: Aimed Shot can be cast while moving, deals 10% increased damage, and ricochets to up to three nearby Vulnerable targets, causing 50% damage and reapplying Vulnerability to them.
Kill Shot: Powerful shot. Instant. 15 seconds CD. Can only be cast on targets bellow 30% health. No reset mechanic.


Level 45
This is the mobility row.
Posthaste: No changes here.
Trailblazer: Passive. Your movement speed is increased by 30% anytime you do not attack for 3 seconds. Plus, no effect can reduce your movement speed bellow 80%.
Dash: Aspect of the Cheetah's CD reduced to 1 minute, its duration is increased by 3s, and it removes all movement penalties when cast.


Level 60
This is the "multitarget tier", with 3 options that can be used to alter your rotation.
Glaive Toss: Replaces both Arcane Shot and Multishot. 2 charges, 12s CD (reduced by Haste), gives 50 focus. This is actually a new version of Sidewinders. It uses the Sidewinders mechanics, causing vulnerability on all targets, but with Glaive Toss graphics. Also, the area is a wide line in front of you, instead of a cone, making it a little easier to no pull random stuff by accident, but reducing overall area covered.
Sentinel: As current, no changes.
Serpent Sting: Arcane Shot and Multishot now apply Serpent Sting on the target. This is the "no change in rotation" option in this tier. It's also a callback to old Survival playstyle.

Level 75
This is the CC tier.
Binding Shot: As current, no changes.
Bursting Trap: Uses the old glyphed Explosive Trap mechanics: a trap that knocks back all enemies near it. 30s CD.
Freezing Trap: As Survival's, but 30s CD. Replaces Wyvern Sting.


Level 90
This is the supplementary attack option.
Piercing Shot: A 1.5 cast shot that inflicts moderate damage immediately, then heavy bleeding damage over 20s. In addition, every time the damage ticks, the target receives Vulnerability, making it stack quickly. 1-minute CD, CD is reset if target dies while under the effect. In essence, it's a new, slightly more powerful version of A Murder of Crows, but instead of summoning crows, it's a shot that causes a big DoT on target. Targets bleeds profusely during effect.
Barrage: As is today, but back to old graphics (shoots only existing targets, instead of that barrage of lost arrows that makes the character looks very incompetent at sniping).
Incendiary Ammo: Your autoshots cause additional fire damage to the target and nearby enemies, but consume 3 focus per cast. Essentially, it's a new version of Volley, but with fire damage, and a cooler visual effect that makes more sense than magic arrows falling from the sky.


Level 100
Sniper's Instance: As long as you stand still for 3s, you get a 10% increase in damage and the range of your shots is increased by 10 yards. If you move, this bonus will endure for 6 seconds. (Reviving the old Mastery as a Talent).
Lock and Load: As is today. Your autoshots have a chance of making your next two Aimed Shots instant and free of charge.
True Shot: Close to what it is today: Aimed Shot and Arcane Shot put a stacking debuff on target, increasing damage of Aimed Shot and Arcane shot on it by 3% per stack, up to 5 stacks. Debuff endures for 10s and can only be maintained on a single target at a time. (Trick Shot fixed to have not remove nor apply the debuff when it ricochets to other targets).

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And here's how I'd change Survival:

Well, my opinion:

Pets: Give one special skill to each pet that doesn't have it. Distribute the mortal wounds, slow, damage reduction shield and so on to more pets, so each pet has something extra (also, it helps with Survival's Mastery).

-------------- SURVIVAL --------------
Baseline Changes:
- Raptor Strike cost reduced to 15 focus.
- Make Camouflage baseline
- Aspect of the Cheetah baseline CD reduced to 90 seconds.
- Aspect of the Turtle: Replaced with Aspect of the Fox: When activated, you have a 50% chance to evade attacks for 5 seconds. 2-minute CD.

Level 15
Animal Instincts: No changes (7.1 version).
Throwing Axes: Make them replace Raptor Strike. Abilities based on Raptor Strike (like Serpent Sting or the healing artifact trait) now proc off Throwing Axes.
Mok'nathal Tactics: Increase duration to 10 seconds.

Level 30
Murder of Crows: Moved up to level 100, in place of Spitting Cobra. Replaced with Spirit of Mongoose: Your Mongoose bites now stack up to 4.
Mortal Wounds: In addition to current effect, Mongoose Bite now extends Lacerate's duration on the target by 2 seconds (idea is to extend uptime of Lacerate, don't needing to cast it during Mongoose Fury phases).
Snake Hunter: Becomes a passive. Using Aspect of the Eagle now gives 3 stacks of Mongoose Bite.

Level 45:
All talents in this row are replaced. New ones:
Disengage: You gain Disengage as a new skill. Disengage also removes roots and other movement-penalty effects when cast.
Persistent Hunter: Harpoon now removes roots and other movement-penalty effects, and has its CD reduced to 16 seconds.
Master's Command: Same as PvP talent. You call your pet, removing all movement-penalties from it and your target, and making both immune to them for 4 seconds. 45s CD.

Level 60:
No changes.

Level 75:
No changes.

Level 90:
No changes to Ranger's Net.
Sticky Bomb: Take away the timer, make it throw enemies farther.
Aspect of the Predator: Camouflage can now be cast in combat. When cast in combat, Camouflage's duration is reduced to 6 seconds and it cannot be broken by damage taken, but its CD is increased to 3 minutes. The effect is removed by attacking or causing damage other than dots placed before the ability was activated.

Level 100
Spitting Cobra: Removed and replaced by A Murder of Crows.
Expert Trapper: No changes.
Aspect of the Beast: Give the DoT damage to all pet specs, in addition to other spec effects. For Ferocity pets, the additional effect is to improve chance of Flanking Strike to add a Mongoose Bite charge, making it thrice the normal chance defined by Mastery.

[Arrol]

I didn't expect i'd like someone else's ideas for how to change MM, especially since although i don't 100% love the current iteration, I do like how it plays mechanically and most of my issues are indeed thematic.

But damn, you did a pretty good job imo.

[SirreASDF]

Interesting MM suggestions for sure. Especially the "old survival playstyle".. It's been talked much about, and I'd be surprised if we didn't see something like that in the future. These suggestions are well thought out as well. As you said, some numbers needs tweaking though obviously.

Obviously this is from a PvE perspective though, would need some additional changes for PvP imo.. Such as Master's Call..

[DeicideUH]

Interesting MM suggestions for sure. Especially the "old survival playstyle".. It's been talked much about, and I'd be surprised if we didn't see something like that in the future. These suggestions are well thought out as well. As you said, some numbers needs tweaking though obviously.

Obviously this is from a PvE perspective though, would need some additional changes for PvP imo.. Such as Master's Call..

Yeah, I focused on PvE only. PvP balancing is very complicated and I don't want to delve into it.

- - - Updated - - -

I didn't expect i'd like someone else's ideas for how to change MM, especially since although i don't 100% love the current iteration, I do like how it plays mechanically and most of my issues are indeed thematic.

But damn, you did a pretty good job imo.

Thanks. I'd like to know what you didn't like.

I know there are some flaws in that design, like, for instance, the level 100 talent row being pretty lackluster (maybe it should be swapped to other level, but couldn't choose which one).

[cancerzinho]

i would tune careful aim and keep the bleeding, honestly, 30% crit sounds like a lot
loved the not a pet user baseline, sadly, it will (probably) never happen

[DeicideUH]

i would tune careful aim and keep the bleeding, honestly, 30% crit sounds like a lot
loved the not a pet user baseline, sadly, it will (probably) never happen

Yes, it needs tuning, but I don't think a X% crit increase for Aimed Shot would be too overpowered. Here's the reasons behind it:

- An X% Crit chance increase just translates into a plain X% damage increase in that skill over the duration of a fight. So, if the talent just added 30% damage to Aimed Shot, it would be, DPS-wise, the same (remember that AiS has no special effect on a Crit in this proposed version of MM). I chose crit chance just because getting crits is way cooler to the player than just having a DPS increase.

- The entire row is based on increasing single target damage. The pet talent just adds damage (via pet); the Black Arrow talent adds a DoT (and the taunting undead guardians), so the DoT can be balanced to be close to the pet option; and the Careful Aim talent is also just a plain single target DPS increase, so the Crit chance can also be balanced to be close to what you get from Black Arrow or the pet. Yes, 30% seems too much, maybe in a real situation it should be 20% or 18% or something else, the chosen number is just to give an idea of how it would work.

- I also chose this design based on the flaws of current live version of Careful Aim. In live version, it applies to more shots, increases crit chance by 20% plus Crit damage with a 30% DoT, but only against enemies above 80% health. And yet, it's the worst talent in the tier because it only makes a difference in fights like Odyn, in which the boss is always above 80% health. So, I figured that a plain 30% crit chance increase with no enemy health restriction wouldn't be so overpowered.