I’m not familiar enough with PvP to know what’s good and bad as I’m just starting to dip my toes in.
I really like Marksman Hunter as a spec and was a little disappointed to hear how underwhelming it is in PvP. I wanted to know what makes it so undesirable and if there’s any way to mitigate the problem.
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This will probably answer your questions:
https://www.wowhead.com/marksmanship-hunter-pvp-guide
Sucks, but hey - bm and surv are both competetive and fun. Play what u like though. I’m currently leveling a new hunter alt, specifically to have fun in pvp. I will probably spend most of my time in BM spec (I freaking love the class fantasy), but may have fun with survival too.
damage nerfs and clunky class design
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The spec is poorly designed dmg rotation and utility wise andddddd typically performs poorly in high-movement environments.
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But we pump!
Please don’t suggest this
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All of the damage design is tied to Aimed shot which is baseline a 2.5 sec cast. It pumps however it required you to stack vers and mastery to do so. Stacking haste to alleviate that means on anything wearing mail you no longer can do good damage.
So basically outside of trueshot, you try to pressure a melee, and inside of that 2.5 sec cast he will hit you with 2gcds everytime. You basically fall behind on everything due to constant lost gcds alone while also allowing the melee to hit you and have the option to pseudo cc harass as an interupt.
In addition the lengthy cast on it combined with Conc shots 6 sec duration means you only can use 2 abilities every conc shot. For some reason they allow in instant cast cobra shot from bm to extend conc, but you have to cast 1.5 sec steady shots to do the same for marksman. Which barely exist in the rotation and do nothing for damage.
As if this all isn’t silly enough in this meta MM is one of the squishiest specs in the game, so after you use a gap opener you’re required to then stand still for 2.5 sec to get off a subpar cast that most melee can actually ranged burst you just as hard, and that basically ends your kiting phase. That cast doesnt really give “bonus damage” to our instant cast resource so much as “allows it to do regular damage once or twice who knows.”
Add in trueshot really doesn’t increase your damage by that much compared to other 2 minute cds.
In addition to the rotational woes, it remains the only hunter spec without a full duration independent trapping setup as scatter and trap DR, the least mobility in a meta where melee can teleport around the map and squishy ranged needs constant positioning correcting to try to play around that.
I’m sure someone will come in and say “you shouldn’t have that, instant cast scatter into trap is still strong.” Even though there’s a few strong arguments to this, one infuriating thing not brought up enough is even if this was true, the cast length of your primary hardest hitting ability is 2.4 to 2.5 sec. Due to latency and the new 1.5s gcd for hunters you can’t actually get that cast off before scatter ends to land the trap. So outside of trueshot you have to either just cast 1 arcane shot for w/e damage between each cc or use dt Rf, which every spec in the game is waiting for to pseudo cc to make it go on cd and do no damage.
It plays like they designed it for an old school paced meta with low mobility melee, and then just designed everything else after to be mega mobile super saiyan ninja sharks.
The spec has never felt quite right after they started trying to shoe horn lone wolf in so that any attempts to play with utility lowers the damage we’re balanced around by a blanket 10%, removed the 1 sec gcd from a spec that requires constantly being proactive, and made the primary dps ability one of the longest casts in the game so we either kite and do nothing, or cast and let you catch us to then do more damage.
Tldr spec plays like a wheel with corners, and while hunters play best as kite gods the mechanics work out to be chasing a hunter = win win.
Remove FD leggo garbage mechanic, make it fully mobile with aimed/arcane changes, and design us to cull the melee from the ladders again pls blizz.
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The post above this is just a better read, but I’m not sure MM sucks as much as BM and Survival are just better. BM is probably easier to play and with similar or better damage. Survival is more fun, with better utility and similar damage.
I think Hunter specs are actually in a really good spot, but since all specs are DPS people will flock to the more interesting, fun, or slightly better specs.
Where druids have 4 viable specs all 4 specs are vastly different. Hunters have 2 ranged specs (BM & MM) and a melee spec. With BM being slightly better (or easier) BM gets the nod over MM
MM hunters have the lowest self healing out of every pvp spec.
arms warrior says hello. ooof. 
nah MM really just is awful, incredibly easy to shut down it’s dmg/doesn’t keep up with other specs
Even last season when I got r1 as MM I swear I was only there to scatter shot/ranged kick while vanguards banged people and mehh blasted ultranumb the second a mage came near him
You just don’t do much yourself though, have the easiest dmg to avoid in the world even when MM played kyrian
A spec that has awkward globals with absurdly predictable damage is just not going to be very good
4 Likes
fair enough you’d know a whole lot better than I would.
Basically think of how bad it is as a Destro lock trying to get off chaos bolts, but without the same defensives, and spammable CC.
Most of hunter’s innate survivability comes from the toolkit enabling you to kite players to avoid damage. Planting and casting doesn’t jive with that playstyle. You can do it, and it works against double caster teams just fine, but as soon as you are against 1-2 melee they will eat you for lunch if you try to stand there and pump dps.
if you’re new to the class…it is one of the best specs to learn via random BGs since it can dominate there, however in real terms the main problem MM has is keeping melee off of it since you will be shut down utterly once anyone gets to you. the spec cannot win vs any melee 1v1 and has really janky cc abilities, the mains ones being:
freezing trap: needs to be aimed at opponents feet, breaks on damage
scatter shot: short duration, breaks on damage
bursting shot: knockback, glitchy aiming prone to wasting your GCD
hi-explosive trap: knockback, needs to be aimed at opponents feet
concussive shot: ranged snare with a very short duration
disengage: great escape/desnare move and also off GCD but only every 20 sec
it’s a lot of nothing and takes practice and perhaps a decent internet connection to really be good at aiming the traps / timing the aimed shots. relies on having a solid team around it.
i’ve oftentimes considered going necrolord in 2s just for the shield.
strongest bit of the class is the ability to take down enemies at around 40% rapidly b/c of Double Tap, fast projectile speeds, and mixed magic/physical attacking types.
really the melee matchups kill MM. aside from that it can strongarm casters like no other due to its un-silenceable physical ranged damage, endless interrupting ability vs stationary targets, and the craven stratagem feign death leggo.
not the most experience player, just what i’ve noticed.
if they did this we would be insane, though, haha. would have to retune all the pvp damage and somehow remove steady shot. would be nice if trueshot let you mobile cast aimed, like how shamans etc. can.
in the end the only significant mechanical changes MM has received since classic are the addition of Focus (DPS limiter) and the removal of the deadzone. it’s one of the most archaic specs in the game.
MM is actually “ok”. You can still get above average ratings with it 2200+ if you really put effort into it. There’s no class out there that isn’t capable of at least 2200+ tbh. Now getting glad is a different thing.