Returning Flayed Shot for MM

Classes Hunter
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I’d really like to see Flayed Shot return to MM. I know we have Deathblow, but it isn’t the same. Deathblow is part of the issue where Blizzard has attached all of MM’s procs to Aimed Shot but that’s a topic for another thread.

Flayed Shot wasn’t just another button press, it was a decision. Did you need the bleed damage on a priority target? or did you want it on a non priority target in order for it to get the full bleed/proc chance? While Deathblow is just “if it happens it happens”; which isn’t interactive gameplay. Season 2 MM was almost entirely Aimed Shot spam for raiding and it felt abysmal.

Deathblow could be removed, and Flayed Shot could take the place of Chimera Shot on the tree.

Focused Aim could be swapped with Razor Fragments.

Killer Accuracy could be swapped with Precise Shots.

Bombardment could be put in Serpentstalker’s Trickery’s place.

And, Serpentstalker’s Trickery could be placed between Target Practice and Razor Fragments (formerly Focused Aim), or between Target Practice and Stead Focus.

This would give back Flayed Shot, remove Chimera Shot which is not currently ever taken, keep all of the moved nodes in the same tier of talents, and lets the right side of the MM tree focus on execute range damage up until Legacy of the Windrunners.

It’s also important to note that procs off the Flayed Shot bleed need to be kept high enough that there is at least a 110% procs per use on average to guarantee at least 1 Kill Shot per Flayed Shot.

3 Likes
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I agree with most except the removal of Chimaera Shot. Redesign it and make it a choice node with Rapid Fire to provide an option for a second gameplay style. I guess it doesnt have to be Chimaera, but man the old Chimera Shot was awesome.

I guess you could put Windburst, or Piercing Shot or literally anything here, but man… i really hate Rapid Fire.

But more to your point, i agree that tying everything to aimed shot is boring design and led us to some pretty boring hero talent trees as well.

I would be a little worried about the number of dots with this kind of build though. Personally, as an MM, i want my big shots to hit like a truck (sniper fantasy). Here, we would have dots from flayed, deathblow, Serpent Sting, and possibly Black Arrow, which will likely be the more popular talent tree. The power of these dots has to be removed elsewhere.

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Yeah, I would like Chimera Shot to be moved to the base Hunter tree to be honest, and have some synergy with Serpent Sting again, but I wanted to keep this suggestion to a simple change for adding Flayed Shot back.

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MM and BM are getting Black Arrow in the TWW which is basically Flayed shot. Wild how people are incapable of staying up to date. If it was up to me, Flayed Shot would replace Barrage - one of the most useless talents in our class tree that desperately needs a rework.

8 Likes
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Its not even close tho…? Black Arrow resets the CD of AS, but its not instant or anything, just a cd reduction. Flayed Shot was way more ‘‘punchy’’ the procs felt amazing to get, Black Arrow procs are not.

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I agree with Kerack, BA only resembles FS in that it resets something, and I personally find it being centered around AS infuriating.

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The aimed shot resets from black arrow and such wouldnt be a problem if they made the next cast instant
It’d give a bit of that old survival proc gameplay feel they promised would stay in marksman back in legion

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Well, do you want your procs to scale with your core CDs, or do you just want to cycle 60% uptime and 40% uptime regardless of said CDs?

So long as we’re taking Trueshot regardless, I much prefer Deathblow over Flayed Shot. It doesn’t unnecessarily take up a button, is better-scaling to allow for pressure and mobility in periods otherwise most constrained (such as Trueshot’s Aimed Shot spam), and is centered around things far more iconic to MM (Aimed Shot, Rapid Fire, and thereby Trueshot).

If anything, I’d just like to see Calling the Shots be a bit more competitive, and Trueshot itself revised to have a bit more space (and Focus) for things other than just Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire.

1 Like
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I definitely don’t like how much we spam Aimed Shot, but was Flayed Shot all that popular?

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It was the closest to the survival black arrow we’ve had since WoD, so i personally think it was the most fun covenant ability

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Flayed Shot/Deathblow do scale with Trueshot, thanks to Unerring Vision and crit damage on Kills Shot from the Hunter tree. But I also do not want MM to be just Trueshot damage, the way that Unholy DK have all of their damage in a burst window and are useless the rest of the time.

Deathblow does not scale better than Flayed Shot. It’s the same effect but one is trigged by a bleed you apply manually. If anything, Flayed Shot scales better because of Serrated Shots from the Hunter tree. The extra button doesn’t interfere with Trueshot because you just apply the bleed before going in on it. Flayed Shot is an instant that allows for more positioning/mobility, the same way you position between Aimed Shots with Arcane Shot. As far as iconic goes, I’m far less concerned with what has existed longer in the game than what follows the class fantasy. A Marksman using a precise maiming shot to open the target to a potentially fetal blow is very much in line with MM’s class fantasy.

I don’t disagree that Calling the Shots needs work, and I’d like that capstone to be an actual choice. Unfortunately, Calling the Shots is kinda just poor design. For Calling the Shots to be viable it would either need to have the CDR so powerful that Trueshot has so much uptime it is almost constant, or Trueshot would have to be so powerful on it’s own that we’d start leaning into the “all our damage is in Trueshot” thing I previously mentioned.

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That’s a random tack-on buff that affects literally everything… and nothing to do with Trueshot, respectively.

Yes, Flayed Shot scales better with Serrated Shot, sure, but its consequent Kill Shots (each of which hits as hard as Flayed Shot anyways) do not.

Deathblow allows for Kill Shots to, in effect, scale with Haste and Trueshot. With Razor Fragments, you’re then getting an extra 50% damage on the main target, and an extra quarter of that as a bleed to the target and 5 others. That’s hugely more powerful, and even scales better with Serrated Shots than Flayed Shots does at any more than a single target.

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It effects Kill Shot more because Kills Shot has higher crit damage than other abilities, it’s not rocket science.

I think you’re missing the point that it’s the same effect. Literally the exact same proc copy/pasted in lua. Deathblow DOES NOT scale better than Flayed Shot.

Flayed Shot’s bleed scales with Haste, it ticks faster (and procs KS more), this isn’t Classic. Granted, it will effectively have plateaus instead of a smooth curve, but it’s kind of negligible. I didn’t say remove Razor Fragments. I in fact suggested moving it in the MM tree in the original post.

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Which affects Deathblow far more by having a ton more Kill Shot procs during Trueshot than Flayed Shot would.

Both procs scale solely with Haste, but Deathblow (w/ Razor) effectively scales also with AiS/RF CDR and improvements to their casting speed, the effects of which hugely exceed Haste alone, and therefore far more so with any effects present only during buffs that increase AiS/RF CDR (Unerring Aim).

I didn’t say you had, but again: RF puts DB above Aimed Shot in priority, especially in UA builds. Deathblow thereby concentrates that Kill Shot damage in a far, far burstier manner than does Flayed Shot, which I find more iconic to a bursty sniper, despite costing no extra buttons nor additional lull/maintenance/prep-only GCDs to do all that, unlike Flayed Shot.

Tl;dr:
Flayed Shot is barely more concentrated in its proc contribution than Lock and Load is, but with added button bloat. I prefer something with a more burst variance / controllability, and with no added button bloat.

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I feel like you’re heavily under the impression that Deathblow provides more procs than Flayed Shot did. While that’s purely based on balancing of procs by Blizzard, it’s also explicitly not true. Lucky for you, I’m good at math, so let me explain.

Looking at simc’s DF S4 simulation of BiS gear, Aimed Shot is cast, on average, 61.4 times in a 6 minute fight; Rapid fire is cast 35.8.

With a proc rate of 15%, Aimed Shot averages at 9.21 procs of Deathblow per 6min fight.

With a proc rate of 25%, Rapid Fire averages at 8.95 procs of Deathblow per 6min fight.

Now… addition isn’t exactly how it should be combined because these are technically statistics, but it’s easier to just add them for simplicity’s sake for 18.16 procs per 6min fight. Adding them is actually generous to Deathblow, as is shown by the simc having 16.9 instances of Deathblow…

As a side: when you use Volley sub 20% it trigger Razor Fragments on your next Kill Shot, so Razor Fragments has a higher buff trigger average of 18.9 on simc.

Flayed Shot, however, is a little tougher to see in our current state of WoW. Going back to Shadowlands as a Venthyr, we are still able to use Flayed Shot, but my Hunter is far from BiS gear, since I stopped playing her when Blizzard largely started ignoring MM. Haste seems to be a sticking point for this conversation because of scaling, let me say that the simc has 4578 Hate, while my Hunter has 4102 Haste, and Flayed Shot is adjusted for level so people can level through Shadowlands (who would want to though, amarite?).

Flayed shot on base ticks 9 times over 18 seconds, scaled with my haste, it ticks every 1.6 seconds instead of every 2. On a 30sec cooldown, that’s 11 ticks per cast, and 132 ticks per 6min fight (11 ticks * 12 casts). With a proc rate of 15% per tick, Flayed Shot averages at 19.8 procs of Deathblow per 6min fight, with roughly 10% LESS haste.

I suspect with the same amount of haste as the simc, it would be a tick every 1.5 sec which is an extra proc every 30sec.

I would like to add: Kudos to Blizz for getting it so close though, they’re normally REALLY bad at this kind of math, and they came pretty close to a similar proc chance when re-implementing it. But, again, this can all be tuning adjustments, it seems like you’re getting hung up on the wrong stuff.

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Except that’s not remotely my “hang-up”.
My issue is with its profile (lack of controllability/burst density) and button bloat.

If I wanted majority coverage, then auto-shot procs would have sufficed.

If I want variable densities of procs in keeping with my core actions, then Deathblow is already a more attractive mechanic.

And I have no interest in a button-bloated midpoint over either of those ends.

That’s literally it.

And that’s coming from someone who maintained an alt specifically to play Venture Survival because I enjoyed it over Wild Spirits, Resonating Arrow, or Death Chakrams. (Though, admittedly, I preferred Korayn and Mechanikos soul binds.)

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I both agree and disagree with the button bloat. With Black Arrow, it certainly would feel redundant. To be honest though, as much as I loved SV back in the day, I won’t play MM if Dark Sentinel is the better option. Black Arrow in The War Within, if implemented the way they’re pitching, is a spit in the face of every MM Hunter, especially the Shadow Lash talent, but that’s a topic for a different thread. I just want to see the class feel better to play in a way that is thematic.

Explosive Shot is a better example of button bloat. As it’s just a button you press because “bigger number”. The reason I like Flayed Shot was because it had an aspect of choice regarding if and where to use it.

In reference to what you said about the “Bursty Sniper” class fantasy, that would be Power Shot, which was hugely dislike by many, including myself.

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It’s button bloat on MM if taking Salvo and/or in pure single-target. Otherwise, no, it’s not at all bloat. As a burst AoE tool, it’s worth holding here and there to maximize effective hits (not just casts) over a fight.

Flayed Shot, on the other hand? 90% of the time, you’re not about to hold that for AoE because it’s triggers are individually low-chance and its %uptime is so high.

It is less complex in itself than Explosive Shot and less rewards banking and preparation, even, than Deathblow. Its only lower bar is, again, auto-attack procs like AA.

Flayed Shot would need functional changes (shorter % uptime, perhaps a guaranteed proc at start, slower but higher chance tick rate, or enhanced chance but with a haste-scaled ICD, to give just enough time to play around without waste in managing it optimally) to be as leverageable as even Deathblow.

And I’d be cool with Dark Arrow doing all that instead, so long as our class capstones were amped to allow for Razor Fragments class-wide (Survival likely replacing BoP with that) and BM could, say, force a Kill Command on each Kill Shot, but I also don’t particularly see a need for that, either, so much as just a Dark Ranger keystone or capstone that’s more satisfying in its own GCD (say, an improved Wailing Arrow, with PL and Sen getting their free utility in turn).

Power Shot isn’t even relevant to a “bursty sniper” fantasy, let alone it’s be all and end all. The last time it was broadly taken it was a utility knockback linear AoE with middling damage. You may as well call Bursting Shot vital to a sniper fantasy.

If you’re referring to some brief-lived PvP talent instead, then likewise no, it has no bearing on what I mean by or would refer to within a “bursty sniper”, as I’m referring to PvE.

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The only time you’d not take Salvo is when you’re using those 3 points to get Windrunner’s Guidance. Your options ARE Salvo or pure single target…

I don’t disagree, I think you hit the nail on the head, but maybe for the wrong reasons. A slower proc rate to avoid getting back to back procs before you can use them is 100% something that I would like to see if Flayed Shot returned. I’d also love to see a front loaded proc; in Torgast that was actually a power that was very fun.

I’d much prefer an amped Wailing Arrow over returning Black arrow in a way that feels underwhelming and just adds to the “Must Aimed Shot” bloat.

No I’m referring to a time in WoD when even CD’s needed to rotate around using Power Shot because it had a % damage buff attached to it (like Death Chakram) and even though it kept up with SV just fine no one played it because it felt like garbage to play.

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You’re missing my point. The only bloat is in it not being combined into Salvo if you take both. And there’s another whole spec for whom Explosive Shot is pivotal.