11.1 brought a massive rework to MM as well as a change to Dark ranger.
With the 11.1 patch a old bug has popped up which cut shadow surge damage in half (this is exact same bug from 11.07) so should be easy to fix.
Another bug (or potentially its intended) withering fire 2ndary black arrows do not benefit from any damage amps such as razor fragments or precise shots. this leads to withering fire firing off 2 black arrows that hit for 110k which is weaker than an unbuffed arcane shot. this was not the case when withering fire auto fired, the arrows would benefit from damage amps. this has significantly hindered Dark Rangers viability. its now weaker than tww s1 release. looking at current logs its 98% sentinel even in heroic. It does not make sense to me that you had DR in a viable spot an literally undid everything from s1.
I need to stop visiting these forums, my blood pressure is going through the roof.
So much incompetence from a massive billion dollar company. How many times did they rework/change DR? How many times did MM get more than just minor changes? What exactly are they doing over there?
Halfway through the PTR cycle, the devs said that they corrected the bugs causing Black Arrow to do more damage then intended. It whent largely unnoticed.
At that point most people were having fun bombing around with prenerf BM.
Saying Dark Ranger felt bad versus live was dismissed because people who weren’t trying it said it was going to have a tactical nuke.
They should have left MM alone. They had a good thing going then some wannabe genius came into the room, scattered everything on the floor, and said “DO IT AGAIN!” and now we have a messy spec that feels weak and lame. I don’t want to play another class just to avoid Blizzard’s random desire to ruin my favorite class.
I understand the need for reworking withering fire. The fact that the big black arrows got sent off global while you’re casting your other main nukes presented major problems in terms of randomness. At least for pvp, this mechanic kind of limits how much damage black arrow, rapid fire, and aimed shot get to do on an individual level because you get to press trueshot and send them all at the same time. Other side of this coin is that if you don’t get very lucky on procs, it felt like wf just didn’t really do anything.
So again, I get it. It needed to change. But also it feels like they put 0 effort into the new withering fire. The rest of the DR tree does not just have damage mods or mechanics that you can buff to make up for the fact that the capstone doesn’t do anything. Black arrow is going to have to be even more of a tactical nuke with headshot and windrunner in order for it to be mathematically competitive, which imo gets you right back to a worse version of the same problem you started with.
To top this all off, dark ranger was the thing that got changed immediately before the 11.1.0 marks rework happened. Mere weeks between 11.0.7 launching with new dark ranger, 11.1.0 rework marks ptr came about, and it just blows my mind that the last thing you worked on is the thing that didn’t get integrated very well into the new spec.
Ya old withering fire was a balancing nightmare.
Current one just doesnt function (They can literally fix it, by having the 2ndary arrows inherit the buffs like razorfragments) currently withering fire does no damage. 2ndary arrows hit less than unempowered arcane shot. mindswell not even exist. the dot part also does no damage. i do like the new dark hound i feel it finally working is really nice. but withering fire really needs some juice. also for the love of god fix the freaking shadow surge damage being reduced by 50% that happened in 11.07 and again in 11.1
I think it would be cool if they replaced withering fire with readiness wailing arrow. Summons two shadow hounds or something for bm. Resets aimed/rf for marks.
That actually sounds accurate. Damage numbers aside, I felt MM from playability was at its peak in S1. The AOE, the single target, it all felt good. Now theyve made the tree impossible to get the things I easily had 2 weeks ago. I still cant talk on the numbers, but this new version is pure poop. I dont think Ive even seen that stupid eagle more than 1 or 2 times on a long fight. The only good thing was moving lust to the hunter itself
Personally, I really like DR’s play style over the redesigned PL. DR bought something new to the boring bm play style. It’s a bit more fast paced and makes Black Arrow a more exciting button to press, especially when the crit number appears!
I really wish DR is more competitive because I would ditch PL in a heartbeat, well PL for world content but DR for competitive ones. I welcome any design changes to boost DR to where PL currently is.