The MM nerfs are completely unwarranted because MM is simply a spec that’s punished less in the learning phase.
We can mess up movement. We can trip over things, we can then easily pick it right back up - and because of our fundamental design and damage profile (that Blizz decided to give us), we can recover fairly easily.
Essentially, as long as we’re not letting Aimed Shot cap on charges, we’re not capping on focus, we can just always catch right back up like we never skipped a beat.
When the other classes get more familiar with the encounters, we’ll begin making our way down the list – which we’re already not on top of anyway.
In either event, this nerf was heavy handed, uncalled for, and will not be reversed once we’re at the bottom of the list – when other classes become more comfortable with the mechanics.
I think that logs played a part - and obviously a part in the UH changes as well.
Sims play a role in determining dps potential. As player : encounter familiarity go up, each and every class will get closer and closer to their sims.
Some classes are less-penalized during this “learning phase” than others. For example:
MM has to move during aimed shot - no problem, cast a steady shot or dump and arcane shot while repositioning. As long as your Aimed Shot charges didn’t cap during that reposition, you only lost the dps of one global cool down (a Steady Shot, which is marginal), and then you were able to pick up with your Aimed shot right where you left off.
Destro is similar to MM, in the sense that as long as they didn’t cap their embers, they only lose that one global, and however much time is spent repositioning. I think Destro buffs are warranted, and potentially they will need more.
Arcane, for example, would be a spec that loses the most from this - but similarly, they have a lot to gain as familiarity goes up, those players will get much closer to their sims at a very rapid rate.
In either event, I don’t think the MM nerfs were warranted from a pve perspective. And if you add up the PVP nerfs MM took, including blanket 10% reduction to Aimed, double tap nerf, and this on top of it, it was a lot. Will we still wipe the floor with undergeared randoms in BG’s? Yes. While they still complain on the forums? Yes. This doesn’t fix the core issue, which isn’t even technically something that needed fixed. The damage profile that Blizzard baked into MM is what’s causing these nerfs. And eventually, if the nerfs continue, it will be what causes MM to be a bottom-tier spec.
our damage profile is front loaded and its mostly because of wild spirits burst that this happens every 2 minutes, as kyrian ive never broken 13k dps on a decent sized pull but my dps is more sustain and less bursty since i have RA every 1 min over ws every 2. and the overall dps of the dungeon is always about the same as other specs/classes. we are not straight up dominating everyone. once ws gets fixed and they keep blank nerfing marksmans kit we will be back to bfa tier.
The nerf is too minor to even care. Aimed Shot and Arcane Shot together are about half our damage, so 5% nerf to them is about 2.5% overall dps nerf. Not really a big deal. MM is still the best Hunter spec, and near the top of all classes since DKs and Druids also got nerfed.
It’s less that they weren’t warranted, and more just that they’re the wrong nerfs. Wild Spirits is the issue, not MM base damage, and WS is mostly just an issue in AoE. These nerfs have several issues:
They affect ST more than AoE, and AoE is where MM is overtuned.
They are to base spells, and thus affect all MM hunters, when only NF MM was really an issue.
Since Resonating Arrow MM depends more directly on ability damage (the benefit of RA is proportional to ability base damage, while WS damage is not based on the damage of Aimed Shot), this actually makes WS better in comparison to RA, making the balance between the two worse.
It was at best about a 2-2.5% nerf.
Really, what they should have done is apply a reduction in damage to secondary targets of WS, and maybe a reduction in the base damage of WS for MM.
See, this is the thing - people get hung up on those once-per-two-minute pulls where, when the stars align, MM can pull high numbers. Or they get hung up on Marks bursting out of the gate, 9k on a pack. You can’t tell me that UH can’t keep up, you can’t tell me that feral or boomie can’t keep up. No one even talks about Fire Mages - who i’ve seen pull > 30k dps on a pack - sustained. While I may have bursted 17k for the first 10 sec, my damage scaled back to resonable very quickly.
In either event, I disagree. When things die fast, MM looks really good. When things sustain, MM gets right back into the mix with the rest of the relatively strong specs.
Sure, but burst AoE is what actually matters. Moofzy likes to say that sustained AoE doesn’t exist. In M+, when you make those big make-it-or-break-it pulls, the burst AoE is what matters. Doesn’t matter if you’re pulling normie damage on the prior and next pull, what matters is that you halve how long that super dangerous pull is alive.
That is where MM excels, with WS. I’ve peaked over 20k on AoE, and I’m not even super-uber Keystone Master geared. Trying to discount that because our sustained is much more equitable is entirely missing the point about why burst is so vital.
I get what you’re saying, and certainly not trying to discount that at all – there are other classes performing similarly, if not better, however. If burst cleave is the issue, why wasn’t this discussed and talked about / tuned on the beta. And what I mean by that is - this is going to be an ongoing thing for MM – the cleave burst is going to be too high, and this nerf also takes away from our sustained single target as well…why wasn’t the damage profile shifted around. Why are we so front-loaded in such a manner that stacking MM just makes certain things ridiculously easy. It’s a failed design with no fix other than making it a bottom-tier spec in multiple scenarios…or just letting it be. This isn’t just an MM problem, however – it’s also an UH DK problem, a Fire Mage problem (albeit moreso tied to their legendary), and I’m sure other specs are as well. When issues like this have existed in the past, they’ve been allowed to exist - because people invested time into those specs (lol 8.3 / 9.0 Fire Mages, BFA DH, and some others).
I’m not saying a 5% nerf is the end of the world…or the sky is falling…I’m saying this is going to continue to be an issue - without fundamental damage profile changes…which sounds like it’s too late to even be an option.
Fact is – MM is either going to be super strong at cleave (they are a cleave class lol [Thanks Blizz…we didn’t ask for this]), or they’re just going to be bottom-tier, based on the damage profile that Blizzard blessed us with.
It was. Blizzard ignored it, like they ignored so many of the balancing issues. They put basically zero effort into balance between covenants and between specs in a class during the beta.
That’s exactly my beef. That’s why I woulda preferred to see WS simply do reduced damage to secondary targets, similar to Beast Cleave and Trick Shots (or using square root scaling for secondary targets, like many AoEs). It reigns it in a bit in AoE, while still retaining the exemplary AoE burst niche, and wouldn’t have touched single-target at all.
The Fire leggo is also an issue, yep. That said, their leggo is a proc, while Wild Spirits is simply a flat cooldown that we can literally plan dungeon routes around.
Also, UDK ate a pretty serious nerf in this same round of tuning, much more significant than us (Discord says it was ~8% for them, ouchy).
Yep, the nerf didn’t actually address the problem. We’re still amazeballs at AoE, and our ST, while good, wasn’t exactly game-breaking. We’re just better, as a class, at handling learning encounters, because we’re less sensitive to movement.
