I’d like to open up some dialogue about the current state of affairs of Marksman hunter.
On PTR, MM has gone through a pretty massive overhaul as far as it’s talents and functionality. It has received a pretty massive rework that has effectively shifted the use of Pets/Lone Wolf to now the use of EITS(Eye in the sky) as our pet functionality. While this seems to be widely taken negatively, to the put that Blizzard has even reverted the pet change to appease them, ultimately I believe the change is good.
HOWEVER; The talents? Are pretty rough. A lot of things don’t make sense, and it continues to push us deeper in the red. I’ve tested the spec on PTR, and I like that it’s a little faster paced then what it used to be but it still centers around Precise Shots pretty heavily, leaving us with little to no room for alternate builds or any real freedom within the spec. Even within the singular way that the spec can be played, Blizzard went so far as to NERF Precise Shots which then in turn disabled the ability to use Trueshot at it’s peak. Now during trueshot, you have to stop what you’re doing to use Steady Shot in order to continue. Thus taking the max length of Trueshot and reducing that down as well since you are unable to get as many precise shot charged Multi/Arcane shots off.
Beyond this, it’s frustrating that AOE is capped at 5. In a version of the game where 8+ mobs are CONSTANTLY being pulled, where other classes soft cap at 8, why is MM hardcapped at 5? I know Light Ammo wasn’t everyone’s favorite thing, and I know that Trick Shots is widely disliked, but why the change here? This doesn’t make any real sense either, as MM’s damage profile is already weak and hardcapping it makes it weaker.
I’m not a professional tester by any means, and I know a lot of people can list off all the reasons this rework sucks. I find the rework to be slightly faster paced, which makes me like it to some degree. But I think that it does nothing for play style, does nothing for viability, and does nothing for the ability for the spec to be able to do higher damage. If anything it actively works to lower everything about it.
As hunters, we need to seriously stop coping with the idea that everything is fine. The reality? THIS ISN’T FINE. We need to bring to attention all of the issues, OUTSIDE of the discord, and try and get some of these things fixed. If you truly believe this iteration of MM is great and doesn’t have flaws, or very minimal ones at that, then have at it. But the numbers, the way it plays, the caps, the limitations all say otherwise.
Blizzard: Seriously is this the best you can do for MM after years of it being bottom of the barrel in terms of Single Target dps? You limited and destroyed the ONE thing it was good at: High burst AOE damage. Who’s to take a Marksman hunter now? Please stop looking at class population as an indication of acceptance. It isn’t. It doesn’t perform well. Look at the guide writers comments. Look at the discord where LEGITIMATE players are trying this stuff out. Please stop basing changes on the comments and opinions of those who’s highest level of content is world quests and +2-4 keys. This spec CANNOT keep up in high level keys in comparison to other specs. I mean look at Enhancement as an example. Enhancement, in live, can easily maintain 3million+ HIGH HITTING in aoe. It can maintain 1.5m in single target HIGH HITTING. Yet Marksman can do that only within the trueshot window, and after that the damage is abysmal. Why? Why? Why?
2 weeks to end of PTR. I hope that something major changes to put us even within relevancy before the release of the patch. As it stands, if not then it’ll be another few months of MM hunters being laughed at when they queue for a M+ or raid