That’s what I initially thought, but after theorycrafting it out some more, I disagree.
At 50% Haste from Trueshot and otherwise unhasted, we’d be at the GCD floor, Aimed Shot would be 1.67s, Steady Shot would be 1.17s, we’d only get an extra 2.5 Focus/second (37.5 Focus over the duration), and Rapid Fire would be back to a 20s CD (unless you baked in the CDR from Rapid Fire separately).
Running the same sequence with 50% Haste, standard Focus costs, and Rapid Fire down to 6 seconds:
You replace 3x Arcane Shots for 3x Steady Shots, you get the same number of Aimed Shots and Rapid Fires, and you exit Trueshot with 34.1 Focus, enough to burn two Precise Shots charges your next 2 GCDs, before having to chain cast a few Steady Shots. It also largely solves the issue, but you do have to completely ignore Precise Shots during Trueshot, and ignoring the flashing button generally feels bad IMO. Whether that’s an indictment of Trueshot or Precise Shots (or both) is up for debate.
In my initial suggestion for swapping to haste, I actually suggested it also reduce the GCD floor to 0.5 or 0.6s, similar to Adrenaline Rush reducing the GCD for rogues. At 0.5s, a 40% haste Trueshot (which would match what ye olde Rapid Fire was) would tolerate up to 33.3% additional haste before we hit the floor.
The main thing I’m going for is, if it’s pure haste (and assuming we avoid GCD flooring), if it makes sense in the normal rotation, it automatically makes sense in the hasted rotation. Precise Shots still gets used, Steady Shot still gets used, everything still gets used. You wouldn’t want to double-tap Aimed Shot any more than normal, and you wouldn’t be able to (as in your sequence), because I’m proposing the haste instead of the CDR and cast speed increase, not in addition to.
Edit: correction, a 0.5s GCD would tolerate 114.3% additional haste. 50% haste does not floor us, because the GCD floor right now is already 0.75s, not 1.0s. Been that way since Legion. Even without reducing the floor (so the existing 0.75s floor) and with 50% haste, that still leaves room for 33.3% additional, meaning even lust wouldn’t be wasted (though lust plus basically any haste from gear _would). At 40%, you could have Trueshot (40%), Lust (30%), and up to 9.9% haste from gear before GCD capping instacasts (1.5 / (1.4*1.3*1.0989) = 0.75).
The idea is that people without access can reply on the Hunter forum and we can get their feedback heard on the Beta forum as well, since developers rarely if ever visit the Class forums.
I looked over it… perhaps I missed it – did you suggest a reduction in the cast time of Aimed Shot? I mean the AS cast time alone kills most of the enjoyment I take from the spec. I can feel myself aging while it casts. (Currently in the beta, running with the upgraded Honor gear.)
No, I guess I wouldn’t feel as bad about it. I also see where you suggest adding Careful Aim into AS (for 1st shot). I’m currently missing this bonus dmg. as I’m running Explosive Shot. Anyway, adjusting dmg. upward would be fine.
Adreaver hit the nail on the head, the issue isn’t really the cast time full stop, it’s the cast time for a fairly weak reward. Chaos Bolt doesn’t feel bad to cast, and it’s at a 3.0s base cast time. Heck, even Pyroblast, with it’s 4.5s base cast time, doesn’t really feel bad provided it’s buffed by Pyroclasm. So the issue with AiS is the ratio of damage to cast time, not the cast time alone.
Still, I regard Precise Shots as also at fault here. The Aimed->Arcane combo hits all at once, so all of the damage Precise Shots is providing to that first Arcane has to come at the cost of both AiS and ArS base damage.
I can see that this isn’t what Razzia meant but, at least for me, a spec like MM will never feel fun to play. No matter how big the numbers are.
I detest abilities with a cast time or a channel time. Which is also the reason for why I stay away from classes/specs where that is part of the gameplay.
And that’s fine, no spec can be all things to all people. I can acknowledge that BM is a well designed spec with a few flaws, but the basic paradigm of buffing a pet and having that as your primary source of damage is antithetical to me.
I encourage people to comment in that thread with BM and SV feedback, I am far less well versed on the issues those specs face.
For me it is the cast time. It has to do to the number of times I get interrupted and have to cancel due to encounter mechanics, or else can’t even get Aimed off because the mob is already dead. Opening with Aimed against open world mobs repeatedly is also fairly tedious. Making it hit harder doesn’t help these situations.
I don’t hate it. It’s an okay playstyle. I just don’t like that I’m personally forced into it because I dislike BM’s playstyle even more and Survival…
This is also a big part of why I’m so against the arguments where people say that “we should just opt for merging MM with the old RSV”.
Those two never had the same base themes/fantasies. They were designed with different types of gameplay in mind. The act of merging them together would just upset both those who prefer the style of MM as well as those who prefer RSV.
I can agree with this. BM does indeed have it’s issues. And personally, I very much prefer to focus on gameplay that involves the ranged weapon itself rather than pets. At least when taking into account how BM focuses on them.
I will head into the one you posted on this forum. I did get beta access a while back but it does not extend to my US account so…
Yeah. “SoO Surv was the most perfect spec ever created” sums up my philosophy.
I’ve always mained the spec I felt was the most fun each expansion, but since MSV became a thing my choices have been narrowed down to 2.
Back to Aimed Shot - maybe Streamline will make it feel better. I’ve also liked the idea of making Sniper Shot a PVE rotational ability, a long-cast long-distance heavy hitter but only used on opening pulls and then once per minute thereafter. Having to delay a long cast because of boss mechanics is hard to swallow on a mainline ability like Aimed and its 10 sec CD, much less so on 1+ minute CDs. Then Aimed could justify a base 2 second cast time without sacrificing the classic Marks opener.
To be fair, that’s why multiple specs exist. Old RSV would have slaked your needs rather well, imo, since the only cast it had was 1.5s Steady Shots, which were used rather less frequently than MM today as well. Most of the rotation was instacast Explosive Shots, plus Black Arrow, Serpent Sting (before it was folded in as a passive application on Arcane Shot), and Arcane Shot.
Same boat.
Basically, having multiple specs is good, and they should play substantially differently. I think sometimes people make the mistake of assuming they every spec should be fun to them, but that’s not really true. As long as each player can find at least one spec in the game they enjoy, and each spec can find a respectable portion of the player base that enjoys it (pst MSV, you not doing this, bro), the spec system is doing its job.
It only sorta does. The cast speed haste from it is somewhat noticeable, but it doesn’t really “pop” like you might think it would. It makes that one Aimed cast a decent bit faster, but it’s just cutting the base cast time down to the same as Steady Shot (interestingly enough, Steady Shot’s 1.75s is exactly 70% of Aimed Shot’s 2.5s). And since it only occurs every 20s, with no haste effect on that cooldown, it’s not as impactful as you might imagine.
Oh, and it causes you to hit the GCD floor during Trueshot, so your Streamline-hasted AiS casts will cast faster than the GCD cycles. Suuuuper fun.
That was actually changed in Cata to Cobra Shot. But yeah, the cast itself was there with that ability as well.
They didn’t make Cobra Shot instant cast until Legion. Although, they could still make it into a Focus generator for RSV(if returned) despite it no longer having a cast time.
In it’s most basic core, yep.
Couldn’t agree more.
Again, I agree.
With the added note of:
Despite MSVs current level of popularity, I’m indifferent to whether it stays or not. There are players that like it and it has a thematically fitting niche(of being focused on melee) even though it’s not necessarily tied to the history of the class itself.
More or less. I’m sharply critical of the need for it in the first place, though. Shadow was rather in the same boat, the insanity drain mechanic chased a lot of people away from the spec, but it certainly had its core of advocates. Ultimately, they ditched it, because it wasn’t really justifying taking up that spec slot, and then threw in a talent for those peeps that still want the old system.
MSV can’t be as cleanly excised, unfortunately. However, I would definitely not be opposed to RSV being restored as a 4th spec instead, and/or having MSV’s core kit and gameplay moved somewhere else (like, for example, that empty 3rd spec slot for DHs), even if it had a bit of a different theme.
It was there for us in WoD as well. What changed was that Cobra Shot no longer refreshed Serpent Sting as, SrS was automatically applied by Arcane Shot anyway.
That in itself was IMO not the best change, but yeah…Cobra Shot was still part of the spec, up until they deleted all of it in favor of MSV.
I mean…“need” is one thing.
My standpoint is basically: If they had gone for the 4th spec route from the start, going into Legion, noone would’ve cared. Except those who would argue for their classes to get a 4th spec as well, ofc. But in the scope of the hunter class, all these arguments and discussions that have occured since the change, the divide amongst parts of the hunter community, would have never existed.
Again, whether something is “needed” or not, is one thing. But if you ask me about whether adding more playstyle options to players, whether that is a bad thing or not, I would strongly argue NOT. Especially so in the modern days, based on the narrow/focused nature of how specs are designed.
The act of picking a Spec, is for many players a case of how you identify with your chosen class. It’s not solely about numbers, even though those tend to have a big impact on Spec choices for some players.
Same boat.