How I'm feeling about the state of hunters atm.

[Gelderan 1]

First off welcome! Glad to have you here. 

 

I haven't had a chance to re-sim us yet since the buffs don't go live until Tuesday. Afterwards I believe we will have this.

 

MM still top, competitive with other high DPS classes.

BM and SV slightly below, but still competitive.

Thanks for the welcome!  

Untill level 100, I think that BM will still be less damage than SV.  Of course, the sim-craft that I've seen is talking about level 100, but I'm really looking at now.  I plan to level as SV as long as I can.  I think that at 100 my beloved SV will be well below BM or MM. mostly because of the talent that increases pet damage.

 I was smoking the MM hunter and the BM guy wasn't even on the top 10 in the flex I did last night.  I averaged 6-8k dps depending on the fight and I'm in 557 ilvl gear (4 warforged off ordos with the 4 piece tier bonus).  My thoughts are this though, the only reason I was able to do better than them is the 4 piece bonus.  I have the warforged chest from Ordos, but I dont want to drop the 4 piece due to the pretty large buff in damage.  Being able to rain down up to 12 (on Thok I think I chained L&L procs) back to back explosive shots boosted my damage.  If I went dry for a bit on L&L, I would start falling down slowly in dps.  This was definitely true on Spoils with a couple of oopsy black arrow casts :P

[Iridar 80]

Had a couple of raids as MM with Steady Focus / Stampede / Barrage. 

So far rotation feels very clunky, delaying Chimera / Barrage for a 1-2 seconds is common while I'm casting two steadies in the row.

 

But my biggest gripe is that MM has virtually no "immediate" damage except for chimera. So even when I need to do just a little bit of damage to a weak target, I have zero options. I don't quite understand why they had to remove arcane shot from us. That would like taking Overpower from Arms warriors. Oh, wait...

 

I'm also trying to figure out if "rotation" is once again possible. During the beginning of cataclysm there indeed was a rotation: you would cast, depending on haste/tier pieces, 4-5 steady shots, 2-3 arcane shots, and one chimera shot, and that was "the basic cycle" you were repeating over and over. 

 

RIght now our shot priority is very predictable, there are virtually no variables, at least when Steady Focus is chosen over thrill of the hunt. 

Edited October 18, 2014 by Iridar

[Iridar 80]

After a week of adjustment I have to say I came to really like the new marksman. After I switched Steady Focus to Thrill of the Hunt and Barrage to Glaive Throw, all the clunkiness has evaporated, and now I'm able to keep the rotation most of the time. The problem with immediate damage remains, though. 

 

I simply adore the new high damaging Aimed and Chimera. I use TellMeWhen addon to play epic "boom" sounds when I cast Aimed and Chimera. With our new powerful mastery that actually matters, the powerful in sound and effect long casts, I really feel like a true sniper. This is the type of gameplay I wanted since forever on my hunter, and WoW just couldn't provide it, so I had to get this elsewhere, like in playing Star Wars The Old Republic - snipers are made pretty well there. 

 

Removal of meaningless Piercing Shots means that Chimera and Aimed do more direct damage, which is good. 

 

I really like now everything they did, so now I'm left with just few concerns: 

• Hunter Tier 17 is ugly. Why does every hunter tier has to be ugly? Tier 12 was OK, I guess, but other 16 are awful. I'm tired of having to wear A10 all the time. I don't even like purple! The set bonuses seem OP as hell though.
• No immediate damage. I wish they would give us Arcane Shot back, but clearly indicate that constantly using it as focus dump is DPS loss. We just need something to use when we know we won't be able to get a 2+ second cast off, and chimera is on cooldown. It would also smoothen the rotation a bit. Maybe make it a weak 10-15 focus spamshot called "snap shot" instead of Arcane Shot. 
• Lone Wolf. While I'm looking forward to having EVEN MORE damage on aimed and chimera, and finally be rid of that furry fluffy mutt, I'm concerned that Lone Wolf invalidates many talent and glyph choices, so we're pigeonholed in few same choices. 

Edited October 24, 2014 by Iridar

[Orthios 271]

 

After a week of adjustment I have to say I came to really like the new marksman. After I switched Steady Focus to Thrill of the Hunt and Barrage to Glaive Throw, all the clunkiness has evaporated, and now I'm able to keep the rotation most of the time. The problem with immediate damage remains, though. 

Barrage still does a decent amount more damage than glaive toss though, so you're trading damage for smoothness there.

 

 

Removal of meaningless Piercing Shots means that Chimera and Aimed do more direct damage, which is good. 

Piercing Shots was doing ~7% of my damage before the patch, which is a considerable amount given how much we had at that point.  IMO, giving us either Piercing Shot or Master Marksman procs back would complete the spec.

 

• Lone Wolf. While I'm looking forward to having EVEN MORE damage on aimed and chimera, and finally be rid of that furry fluffy mutt, I'm concerned that Lone Wolf invalidates many talent and glyph choices, so we're pigeonholed in few same choices. 

You do lose out on quite a few talent and non-talent abilities from Lone Wolf, so you trade survivability for damage output.  Spirit Bond, Intimidation, and Blink Strikes are all rendered useless with Lone Wolf.

[Iridar 80]

Barrage still does a decent amount more damage than glaive toss though, so you're trading damage for smoothness there.

 

Piercing Shots was doing ~7% of my damage before the patch, which is a considerable amount given how much we had at that point.  IMO, giving us either Piercing Shot or Master Marksman procs back would complete the spec.

 

As indicated by this post, Barrage sims barely better (40 dps more) than GT in T16M gear. And even if Barrage was considerably better than GT, and it is at least in AOE situations, I feel like it's better to have a rotation with lower ceiling, but higher floor. I'd rather use GT and make less mistakes than have Barrage ruin my rotation, resulting in even less DPS.

 

Normally I prefer higher skill, higher reward types, but right now I'm coming back after a long break, and running Mythic content while being geared considerably worse than the rest of the raid, so I'm under double stress here. 

 

Maybe I'll switch to Barrage later, but that doesn't seem likely unless it's massively better than other options, or has its cost lowered, or we get a higher focus cap. 

 

 

Piercing Shots was doing ~7% of my damage before the patch, which is a considerable amount given how much we had at that point.  IMO, giving us either Piercing Shot or Master Marksman procs back would complete the spec.

 

They removed piercing shots, and then they buffed all other shots and pets in the latest hotfix. I'd say direct damage is better than an uncontrollable DoT that barely does anything while not pumping direct damage into a boss. 

[Atrais 38]

 

As indicated by this post, Barrage sims barely better (40 dps more) than GT in T16M gear. And even if Barrage was considerably better than GT, and it is at least in AOE situations, I feel like it's better to have a rotation with lower ceiling, but higher floor. I'd rather use GT and make less mistakes than have Barrage ruin my rotation, resulting in even less DPS.

 

I agree that for pure ST fights, GT and Barrage are neck-and-neck and GT may be preferable for its low Focus cost, but at least 10/14 fights this tier have adds that can be cleaved with Barrage, making it much more valuable (IMO) overall.  The only fights I have even considered GT on were IJ and Malk.

 

Oh, and we do get a higher Focus cap in WoD, for what its worth.

EDIT - Also consider that if you take TotH, Barrage has a 36% chance to proc it, compared to GT's 6%.  That's a decent chance at making your next 3 Aimed Shots cost 30 focus each.  Not saying that entirely makes up for its expense, but it certainly help.

Edited October 24, 2014 by Atrais

[Iridar 80]

Oh, and we do get a higher Focus cap in WoD, for what its worth.

 

Oh, do we? That's nice to know. What'll it be, a glyph? Like for warriors and rogues?

[Atrais 38]

Oh, do we? That's nice to know. What'll it be, a glyph? Like for warriors and rogues?

 

It's a perk