However, I’m not sure what you were looking at on Wowhead. It’s best to find these things via the talent calculator, as there are a number of spells in the database that have since been discarded. The talent calculator shows the current spell allocation for each class/spec.
Specifically, here’s the current iteration of the mastery:
It’s possible we might still see some fairly smallish changes close to the line. MM’s mastery during the BfA beta wasn’t fixed until, iirc, a week before the infamous “we ran out of time, we’re just doing tuning from now on” post.
Maybe in PvP. In PvE, CS was almost exclusively used just to refresh Serpent Sting, and all that really did was make Serpent Sting something you basically never had to pay attention to (much like SV, with its SrS application built into Arcane Shot, and before that extended by Cobra Shot).
We have an interaction right now, Precise Shots, but the issue is that it isn’t very impactful. It’s simply boosting the damage of abilities we’d be casting anyway. The only impact on our decision-making is that it discourages us from double-casting Aimed Shot.
Eh? Master Marksman is just pure passive damage in SL. Are you thinking of the now-discarded next-cast-is-free BfA version?
If memory serves, CS was used off CD every time, not just for the refresh on CS, but also the chunk of SS damage it would do in a single pop for PvE. I think there was a time when you wanted to NOT cast it when the CD was up to maximize SS ticks, but I want to say that got patched out with the advent of the whole burst situation. Whatever the case, I was just using that as an example of baseline abilities that had rewarding interactions.
Not MaMa, I meant Precise Shots but didn’t go back and edit. The extent of our synergy is only that, and I GUESS you could count Trick Shots in there, but that’s obviously for specific scenarios. I’m just saying… There isn’t a whole lot of interaction in our kit, and it feels half-baked to just press a button to do damage with no reason to, for example, “press this a couple times to make this other thing hit harder.” I’d really like to get back to the classic builder/spender config. I’m not sure why Blizz moved away from that to begin with.
I realize this isn’t the case with every spec, but it seems like many of them have middle-ish length damage CDs that are shortened by other skill interactions. Why don’t we have those? Or make middle CD damage ability talents (like Explosive Shot, for example) have a baked-in “Steady Shot reduces CD by .5 seconds” or whatever? Because right now, we’re like two-ish small changes from not needing a resource bar at all: Remove AiS charges and give it a static CD, and give Arc and MS the same shared static CD, then make Precise Shots procs allow two Arc or MS in a row and do a small amount more damage. Steady becomes filler during CD windows. I’m not saying I want that, it’s just where we are with this bizarro not-really-building-but-always-spending setup.
Kind of explains it as I started to look at MM during the late alpha/beta for BfA but despite the changes from Legion, it wasn’t for me so…kind of just left it there.
Yeah, that’s what I was looking at.
The Aura buff says Focus Spending abilities, along with the spell categories/aura modifiers point towards things such as Rapid Fire and Steady Shot not being included.
Or is it just something that’s off when I look at the page?
Oh, I don’t mean it was only use to refresh SrS, I mean SrS was the only sting used in PvE. And adding a burst of damage to an ability that already hit light a freight train was just a perk, the main “benefit” for MM was not having to maintain SrS manually.
Maybe simply a disagreement about what constitutes “rewarding”, but I don’t really consider that a worthwhile “interaction”. Sure, it provided a bit more damage, but interactions are most worthwhile, imo, when they alter how you play.
Hot Streak has you cast an ability you otherwise wouldn’t. Barbed Shot alters the recharge interval of Bestial Wrath, and thus causes you to strategize around the CDR as well as the Frenzy refreshes. Brain Freeze enables Flurry, but Flurry also enables Ice Lance (or shatter combos with Glacial Spike instead). Mind Flay triggers free usable-while-channeling Mind Blasts that then lean into Devouring Plague. Backdraft is a fixed reduction in cast time, meaning you want to time it where you can use as many of its charges as possible on Chaos Bolt (the cast with the longest cast time) and thus the most to gain from the reduction. Flame Shock resets Lava Burst and makes it instant.
All of these are examples of interactions that change how we play. Precise Shots sorta does, but only slightly. Old Chimaera Shot didn’t, because we cast it on CD for the damage anyway. The refresh and bonus damage were just auxiliary flush, extra damage that might as well be passive.
I want interactions that force us to make decisions, or that change decisions we’d otherwise be making. Dead Eye does that, though imperfectly. Lethal Shots does that. Steady Focus does that. Lock and Load sorta does that (the trigger isn’t something we’re doing, but it does shuffle the rotation when it happens).
That’s one of the reasons I’d like to see Precise Shots simply deleted. It’s not interesting, and it causes a lot of issues with the base rotation due to the time commitment required for it. Bake Lock and Load in baseline instead, that at least requires us to react to it.
As far as I’m recalling, most don’t have that, actually. Every class has a CD that’s between 2m and 4m, excepting a couple edge cases like Arms that are on 90s instead. Some of them also have secondary CDs (ex. Pillar of Frost). A select few of those CDs (both major and auxiliary) are reduced in CD by natural gameplay (Bestial Wrath, Holy Words, Adrenaline Rush). Some additional have talents that can enable that sort of rotational reduction (Anger Management, Surge of Power, Icecap, Kindling, probably a few others I’m forgetting).
But having a secondary cooldown isn’t really common, nor is having a means of reducing the CD of it, especially baseline.
I mean, the issue on the beta atm is that we’re spending too much time building that we cannot execute all of the spending we want to do. Especially with Dead Eye. If you take both Flayed and Dead Eye, you’re always either casting AiS, or desperately scrambling to get enough focus to be able to do so before you cap AiS charges. It’s frenetic and very far from fun.
I would argue the perk was not having to burn a GCD to refresh the dot, not the damage. Though again, just using that as an example. I do agree that things that have more meaningful interactions are more rewarding to press. Bear in mind that most of my opinions come from a PvP perspective, where ChS synergy was actually fantastic.
Yes to all of the interactions you mentioned. MM has zero of those right now if not talented into, say, Steady Focus. That’s kind of a crap talent from a playability standpoint, though.
I didn’t specify baseline CD interaction. All of the things you mentioned are exactly what MM is lacking. We just press buttons when they’re off CD. It’s literally just “press this when off CD to do damage.” It gets a little spicier when you realize you can’t actually use your damage procs and heavy hitters during your long dmg CD. That’s why I’m saying that, even if you have to talent into a middle length CD (example: Explosive Shot)… uh, as an aside, I consider something middle length in the 30-1:30 range, so we’re on the same page nomenclature-wise… Anyway, if you talent into something middle length, it would be nice if it had a baked in interaction to our kit, instead of, again, just “press this to do damage when off CD.” I want “press these things to make this other thing happen sooner, or hit harder” or whatever.
I’m not sure I suggested that.
So, yeah. We’re fighting the losing battle of capping AiS charges constantly, made worse by our damage CD, and worse still by potential talent/cov newb traps. It’s not a classic builder/spender setup. I think the spec felt so much better when you had two shortish damage ability CDs, one focus dump, and one focus generator. We both agree about the silliness of RF as a generator. But anyway, this gets back to my original point: Is this every going to change to something that feels good, or are we constantly going to be arguing minutia about how things COULD work but never will? Honestly it feels like the latter.
I used to be optimistic, checking on SL beta every week and following changes. But now i’m extremely pessimistic, I don’t think MM will get a rework anytime soon, excluding some basic tuning via damage auras.
We’re stuck with the crappy BFA MM experience, but worse, because no azerite traits that made crappy spells better.