Cataclysm Classic - MM performance

Classes Hunter
1

I’m just curious about this.
Cataclysm MM Hunter Steady Shot vs Cobra: https://i.imgur.com/eFfrmoI.png

Tooltip say 110% weapon damage + 451 for Steady Shot and 100% weapon damage + 393 for Cobra Shot.

Same target, same gear/stats, same number of shots, same crit %, yet Cobra Shot is doing approx. 32% more damage compared to Steady Shot with glyph.

My guess is that Steady Shot damage is reduced by armor while Cobra Shot is not affected since it deals Nature damage, but that’s even more reason for having questions about this.

Why does the glyph not increase damage of the Steady Shot by higher value to be on par with Cobra Shot?
Does Steady Shot scale better with attack power compared to Cobra or will always do less damage even with better gear?
In case they scale the same and Cobra will always do more damage due to armor, why MM hunter can’t use Cobra instead of Steady Shot to maintain the 15% haste, and stacks of Ready, Set, Aim… ?

It just seems incredibly stupid to be forced to use Steady Shot when Cobra Shot is doing more damage.

  • Edit:

I’ve found old discussion from retail CATA era about this on gamefaqs, and it apparently was like this back then as well.

Am I the only one who think this is wrong and should be changed though?

It make sense for Survival to deal more damage with Cobra due to their mastery, why does MM hunter dependent on Steady Shot deal more damage with Cobra though?

2

Do not play the hunter , this is not allow for you , because the pet must always

3

While I appreciate that someone did respond to this topic, I had hopes for constructive discussion about why are hunter specs the way they are in CATA, not some troll disguised as dark iron dwarf who spew out across random topics that everyone would better not play hunter class at all. :neutral_face:

2 Likes
4

As far as I can remember, cobra wasn’t really intended for MM.
Like even on live now, so dragonflight, SV still ‘can’ use arcane shot and steady shot but we need to equip a range weapon and can not use anything else than…
Cobra is purely BM now I think, as it was sort of intended.

You answered it yourself I think: steady gives you extra benefits, like keeping up the haste. So it was a trade of.
Steady was better as MM even if the damage was lower.

BM had benefits from cobra. Also the name: it’s a shot named after a snake… BM all over it.
That SV used cobra was more a side effect. But yes: it was good for SV when we were still ranged.

It’s been ages for me, I played it when it was current, havent been in the current Cata at all.

5

And yet even though it’s not intended for MM, Cobra still does more damage compared to Steady Shot.

Point is that even with haste from Steady Shot, MM is nowhere near BM efficiency let alone being on par with Survival. That’s the issue I have with hunter abilities and spec balance.

6

Don’t think balance was even back than, no.

Not arguing there. I only tried to respond, to the best of my memory, that steady gave MM some extra effects and was better for a MM than cobra wich did more damage in itself.

For current Cata balancing: they could either give those MM effects to cobra, or buff steady…
Not going into that mess, because I have no idea how current Cata is.

7

I was not playing CATA back then when it was retail WoW, that’s why I’m playing WoW Classic now, and learning about original CATA only from internet archives.

I just wonder since after all the changes that Classic went trough, why they keep those aspects of the game like spec balance to be same as in original CATA, along with everything that is wrong about it.

8

That puzzles me actually. I first assumed they would update classic versions, in the sense that they would keep the same abilities and talents etc, but balance them out better than they did the first time around.

From what I hear that is not the case.
Seems strange to me, keeping the mistakes and bad designs.
Especially since most can be solved with some number tweaking.

Like in the question at hand: no need to change anything, steady can keep giving MM those benefits, while cobra does not. Just increase the damage…

Can’t help you there, I f8nd it odd and a wasted opportunity if they didn’t re-balance it first.

2 Likes
9

Make sure to post this at the classic cata forum as well.
Even if it’s also a specific hunter question of course.

More people there will know how the classic balancing was done, or not done…

1 Like
10

I did, but it quickly fell into oblivion without single response. That’s why I asked here in Hunter class specific discussion.
Seems like people don’t care about neither MM Hunter, Fury Warrior or Feral Druid in CATA Classic discussions, and talk only about tank or healer balance.

11

The basic sentiment in those earlier expansions has always been: as a hunter you spec either MM or BM, whatever is the better spec at the moment.
Usually it wasn’t survival.

I was one of those few hunters who always specced Survival, no matter what. I was that weird hunter who always kited adds and even oftanked that ranged boss at Gruul… I lived longer than the other hunters, but I’m quite sure I did less damage than them.

Most other hunters swapped between MM and BM more often.
Not counting those who stayed with one spec out of personal preference, even if it performed less.

12

Well, Cobra Shot deals decent damage, even for MM.

That said…

Depending on your choice of talents etc., Steady Shot deals similar damage to that of Cobra Shot, and it also provides several other benefits as well, which leans into how the spec is meant to be played, based on design.

Aside from the base design and functionality of Steady Shot, you have the following perks available through talent choices:

Improved Steady Shot
Talent
Requires Hunter
When you Steady Shot twice in a row, your ranged attack speed will be increased by 15% for 8 sec.

Piercing Shots
Talent
Requires Hunter
Your critical Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 30% of the damage dealt over 8 sec.

Master Marksman
Talent
Requires Hunter
You have a 60% chance when you Steady Shot to gain the Master Marksman effect, lasting 30 sec. After reaching 5 stacks, your next Aimed Shot’s cast time and focus cost are reduced by 100% for 10 sec.
(Proc chance: 60%)

You do have a few other talents that improve Steady Shot in some way, but those also affect Cobra Shot, so not worth mentioning those here. Marksmanship also doesn’t need Cobra Shot to maintain uptime on Serpent Sting, as you get that via Chimera Shot.

In addition to the above, you also have a Prime glyph which increases the damage of Steady Shot. There’s no glyph that improves Cobra Shot.

Glyph of Steady Shot
Requires Hunter
Increases the damage dealt by Steady Shot by 10%.

In summary:

For Marksmanship, the talents and glyph mentioned above are all considered prefered options when it comes to dealing damage. Those put together, they definitely make Steady Shot a better choice over Cobra Shot.

If you don’t like the gameplay involving the talent Improved Steady Shot, having to maintain the haste buff, you can skip it. Steady Shot would still be the better choice for Marksmanship.

1 Like
13

I’m well aware that Steady Shot is only viable option for MM hunter.

Not sure why you described MM talents that utilize Stead Shot, since I mentioned those in my first post.
I do appreciate any opinion on this topic, It’s just that I didn’t asked for explanation on which one is best choice in current state of the game, and your response is like teaching me something I already know, which is bit awkward.

What I was trying to do, is to point out how absurd it seems that Cobra Shot does more damage in recommended MM talent build and glyphs compared to Steady Shot, and how “poorly” does MM perform compared to SV or even BM spec.
It’s not that I demand to have Steady Shot replaced with Cobra for MM. I just would like to see MM spec to receive slight boost to be more on par with SV, and have discussion on how such thing could be reasonably achieved.

Even Trueshot Aura does not give MM spec any value, since it does not stack with other buff of the same effect like Abomination’s Might.

It’s clear that those abilities are poorly balanced, and Steady Shot damage is too low even with glyph since Cobra is doing more damage even without all the SV talents that further strengthen Cobra Shot. And it’s not by 5% nor 10%. it’s over 30% more damage for Cobra in this specific case where I tested with exact same environment for both abilities.

14

In the OP, you complained about the damage of Steady Shot vs Cobra Shot, and proceeded to compare tooltips. You also mentioned testing using the 2 abilities, checking the damage each ability dealt on individual hits.

In short, there’s damage gained from the contribution of using Steady Shot as MM, damage which isn’t directly baked into the individual hits of Steady Shot casts themselves. Damage which makes Steady Shot a more powerful option for MM, over Cobra Shot.

You seem to argue that MM is behind SV in damage, which it is. But your argument that it’s because Steady Shot deals less damage than Cobra Shot, isn’t really the way to go about it…

That said, you now also mentioned this:

…which is fair.

In your original post, you did not mention this.

Well, you sort of did.

Anyway. In your original post, you seemed to be arguing that Cobra Shot allows you to deal more damage as MM, than you would using Steady Shot, which isn’t the case.

If this wasn’t what you were saying, fair enough. Though, that wasn’t apparent from your OP.

15

I might have not used correct words or phrases in my first post. English is not my native language, and I apologize for causing confusion.

I just observed that MM does more damage with Cobra Shot compared to Steady Shot, alternating only between those two abilities, not using anything else, and thought that it seems wrong to be like that, and since Steady Shot already have glyph that is insufficient to bring that ability’s damage to same level as Cobra Shot, hypothetically if Cobra completely replaced Steady Shot even for MM, once learned at level 81, with all MM talents proc from Cobra as well, it would boost MM performance.
There is undoubtedly a better solution to this issue, since it does not make sense to have two different abilities in rotation to refresh Serpent Sting. I just thought of it as one of the possibility.

I never meant it as “if I would use Cobra Shot instead of Steady Shot as it is in standard rotation, completely forsaking all the MM talents procs, MM would do more damage” because it’s quite obviously untrue.

Another thing I’m curious about is how exactly were MM abilities adjusted in CATA to compensate for removal of ArPen stat.

Also, you mentioned that

I never said that MM is lacking in DPS compared to SV because of Steady Shot is doing less damage than Cobra.
Still, if Improved Steady Shot talent would have besides the haste buff from two consecutive shots also passive effect that would make Steady Shot to ignore armor, it would certainly not hurt MM performance. I’m not sure how much it would affect PvP though.

That’s however reason why I’ve made this topic. To discuss about the possibilities, what could improve the performance of MM hunter without breaking everything else.

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