On my BM hunter it’s more focus for half the damage of cobra. Plus it doesn’t reduce any CDs like cobra… I’m not seeing the point of this other than to waste a hotkey?
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So you feel like you got unpruned.
Don’t use it as BM.
Nostalgia.
Just nostalgia.
PTR testing, mine seemed to crit slightly more often than Cobra (starter hunter) which made it slightly better for a while before actual spec systems were in place.
Imagine playing survival and having those spells just to tease you. It’s like blizz did it in spite
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To make you feel more connected to your class.
Do you feel it?
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I looked at the Icy Veins guide and for Beast Master their proposed rotation doesn’t mention arcane shot anywhere because cobra is better basically always. You probably won’t need it on your bar
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“Class flavor” or some BS. For some reason, Blizzard seems to think everyone having Steady Shot (though it’s still replaced by Cobra for BM, despite the two being completely different abilities) and Arcane Shot, even though only MM is supposed to use them, will make us feel more like “hunters” as a whole.
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It’s a magic shot. Armor is transparent to it.
Enemies that are more susceptible to arcane damage as opposed to physical damage, as well as pvp, obviously.
The reason it exists for BM is because Blizzard decided that core abilities learned from 1-10 should not be forgotten when choosing a specialization, a notion I 100% agree with.
In many if not most cases, those base abilities upgrade into a spec-specific variant at some point if the base ability is irrelevant to the spec at large.
BM is one of those - Steady Shot upgrades into Cobra Shot. The problem is that Steady Shot could actually serve a purpose for BM as a Focus-neutral filler, while Arcane Shot is wholly obviated by Cobra Shot.
Arcane Shot should upgrade into Cobra Shot and BM should retain Steady Shot so they have something to do during downtime.
For the record, Wing Clip is another great example - Hunter’s learn it before level 10, and at level 12, BM and MM Hunters upgrade it into Concussive Shot, while SV keeps it as is.
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Specifically for Steady upgrading into Cobra, that’s a legacy of back when Cobra Shot was an upgraded version of Steady Shot. Prior to Legion, Cobra Shot was literally a clone of Steady Shot, except it dealt nature damage and thus bypassed armor. Survival and BM got it, MM did not. For some reason, Blizzard has never seen fit to change that, despite Cobra Shot occupying the same rotational niche as Arcane Shot since Legion.
And as Adreaver points out, it would give something for BM to do during that horrendous downtime, even without focus regen on it. Being able to cast Steady for some auxiliary damage is definitely better, at least in my opinion, than simply standing there waiting for your other abilities to be usable. I generally hate rotations with noticeable downtime.
This is incorrect, it was a baseline ability in Cata and MoP, as was Steady Shot. BM/SV lost Steady and MM lost Cobra in WoD’s pruning.
It had value to even MM back then (albeit extremely limited value) due to the 3s Serpent Sting extension that was baked in at the time.
Sorry, my context is usually WoD, since I largely didn’t play my hunter during MoP (mained a warlock and a monk, depending on the tier, instead). I’m pretty sure it was spec-restricted in WoD at least.
The benefits (and curse) of playing almost exclusively Hunter for checks watch calendar geologic scale 15 years - I played every iteration of Hunter, and I remember everything we lost along the way.
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I’ve played it off and on. I remember having a pet run away on me in vanilla. I remember raiding BT and Hyjal on my hunter, back in the days of the /castsequence Steady Shot, !Auto Shot macros for casting a Steady between each auto (back when auto had a built-in invisible 0.5s “cast time”).
But I swapped to my DK in WotLK, warlock during ICC, DK and warlock in Cata, iirc (maybe some hunter in there, but I don’t remember), monk and then warlock in MoP, and finally my hunter once the 6.0 prepatch hit. I ran my hunter as my unquestionable main for the entirety of WoD, the only time I’ve had one “main” for an entire expansion (including vanilla).
The Legion came out, deleted RSV, replaced MM with an imposter with the same name, and largely demolished the gameplay of BM that I enjoyed, and Havoc came out, so I swapped to DH, then to warlock when it became clear that Momentum + Demon Blades was going to be the top build for at least the first raid tier.
I rarely stick in one place, but hunter and warlock are the ones I’ve played the most over the years.
Respect. I feel like I should stand up and salute.
The first thing I thought was: “How do you stand the pain?”
I’m gonna assume through superior coping skills, that donot involve small caged animals, sharp bits of iron, and fire.
When the Legion Pre-Patch hit, I’d been playing my Hunter going on three years.
I had no idea i’d played through two expansions. My brother gave me this game. And he would update it. He’d say, ‘I got you the new expac.’ I’d say thanks and wondered wth an ‘expac’ was, and was it another reason my abilities changed?
But after 2 years I’d gained a working knowledge of my chosen Class and Spec.
Finally I understood the answers I would get when I asked questions.
I wasn’t one, but I could at least recognize a good Hunter.
Then came the Legion pre-patch, and it zombified more MM Hunters than the Scourge ever did.
We made full frontal lobotomies look good.
My Hunter, my only character was effectively dead for two years.
And those that claimed MM as their spec for those years, and that it was good?
They never knew good.
Or knew the MM spec at all.
I was angered.
And I don’t remember everything.
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Well I drink a lot.
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I think it is a little silly to have Arcane shot. I’m happy with getting Kill Shot back and even Hunter’s Mark but it seems like they are giving AS just to have something (even if we never use it…) I’d love to hear a blue explanation behind us getting it.
Correct. It’s pointless.
Fun fact: Arcane Shot was better than Cobra Shot during the Beta, but then they buffed Cobra Shot because apparently we were never intended to use Arcane Shot -_-
It’s a base class ability that is essential for Hunter’s from 1-10 to feel like they have something to press. It doesn’t make sense to forget it as you level.
It has niche uses: Paladins with Blessing if Protection active take no damage from physical, so Cobra Shot is useless, but Arcane Shot still hits. There is also an anima power in Torghast that activates when dealing Arcane damage.
On thinking about this further, I’m actually reconsidering my stance on flip/flopping it with Steady Shot for BM.
If BM had Steady Shot they would be 100% GCD locked, same as MM, and it makes some degree of sense not to have two ranged weapon specs with the same pacing. BM being a bit slower gives free GCDs for Mend Pet, a lower APM requirement making it easier to manage pets, etc.