Hello,
I wanted to use this space to address Marks, specifically Dark Ranger marks in competitive PvP since the 11.0.5 rework. Marks dropped from a healthy 5-6% participation rate in ranked shuffle/3s, to just under 1% in both brackets alongside the rework, and it hasn’t gotten any better as BM has been nerfed.
The core of the problem, I believe, is withering fire. Rapidfire, aimed shot, and black arrow cannot ever be tuned in such a way where they are independently impactful and threatening outside of trueshot, because rapidfire and aimed shot proc off global black arrows inside of trueshot. If rf/aimed did their previous damage values now, you’d encounter lots of situations where the hunter accidentally/randomly globals something when it gets lucky and procs black arrow on its first three casts in trueshot. The other side of this coin, as you see now, is that marks hunter really just isn’t ever threatening, and only ever becomes slightly threatening when it gets extremely lucky and procs black arrow at the right time in its burst.
This is not a design worth devoting any more resources to as it pertains to PvP, in my opinion. The overall design and tuning of the spec before the rework was very close to the best it’s ever been, in terms of being competitive but also balanced and having counters.
Proposed changes, some of these will also carry over into PvE, but i believe you’ll find that the changes will also be necessary there if you dig more into PvE logs:
- Remove bell tolls from the DR tree. Black arrow is already coded to perform the function of bell tolls. You don’t actually even have to take the bell tolls talent in order for black arrow to be useable above 80 and below 20. Replace it with overwatch from the old DR tree.
- Add a choice node to withering fire that performs a similar function to the old withering fire.
- Nerf withering fire by 75% or more in PvP for marks and/or bm such that it’s always a bad decision to take in PvP.
- (optional, less important, but still worth mentioning) Consider adding more marks-friendly options as choice nodes against dark hounds and crows. Increase the proc rate of bleak arrows and ebon bowstring for marks. Soul drinker and phantom pain are poor talent choices overall and could stand to be replaced with anything else.
I think that a combination of these changes will shift damage back into the right places while providing a hedge against the possibility of erratic oneshots. With these mechanics back in place, the spec will be much healthier and easier to balance via knob-turning as the expansion goes on. If it’s left alone, i’m afraid that there won’t ever be a healthy middle between random oneshots that nobody wants to play against, and a does-nothing spec that nobody wants to play or play with.
Thanks for reading, and I hope some of this gets taken into consideration. Cheers.