Marksman Hunter Rework Suggestion

Classes Hunter
1

I have been playing around with some of the talents in Shadowlands and come to realise that one of the biggest problem with choosing anything other then the cookie cutter spec (and venthyr) is that you are spending way too much time casting Aimed Shot. So I have made some suggestions to blizzard for 9.1. The post is more for fun, just getting some ideas out there. The goal of the “new” spec is to increase dps a little bit in single target and change up how damage is dealt. Also trying to fit in Presise Shots in Trueshot window.

Current Aimed Shot

35 Focus 40 yd range
2.5 sec cast 12 sec recharge
2 Charges
A powerful aimed shot that deals (247.8% of Attack power) Physical damage.

New Aimed Shot

35 Focus 40 yd range
2.5 cast
14 sec recharge
2 Charges
A powerful aimed shot that deals (270% of Attack power) Physical damage.

New Aimed Shot has a longer CD and more damage to compensate. The goal is to keep the overall dps the same but reduce the time in rotation a marksman hunter uses to cast aimed shot. Also bigger aimed shot feels better. I think this is a good change for pvp too.

Current Presise Shots

Aimed Shot causes your next 1-2 Arcane Shots or Multi-Shots to deal 75% more damage.]

New Precise Shots

Aimed Shot and Piercing Shot causes your next Arcane Shot or Multi-Shot to deal 75% more damage. Stacking up to 2 times.

Goal here is to remove the RNG aspect of Precise Shot and make it feel more like a resource you are gaining and spending.

New ability Piercing Shot

25 Focus 40 yd range
Instant
16 sec Cooldown
You fire a shot penetrating the targets armor dealing (120% of Attack power) Physical damage and causing the target to bleed for (50% of Attack power) over 6 seconds.

New ability Aspect of the Fox or Aspect of the Iron Hawk

Aimed Shot is now castable while moving for 8 seconds.

1.5 minute cooldown.

Aspect of the Iron Hawk

For 10 seconds, all physical damage dealt leaves a stacking debuff making the target bleed for 20% of the damage done.

Marksman is the only of the 3 specs without its own unique aspect so I added 2 suggestions.

Current Trueshot

Reduces the cooldown of your Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire by 60%, and causes Aimed Shot to cast 50% faster for 15 sec.

While Trueshot is active, you generate 50% additional Focus.

New Trueshot

Reduces the cooldown of your Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire by 50%, and causes Aimed Shot to cast 50% faster for 15 sec.

While Trueshot is active, you generate 50% additional Focus.

Small nerf to Trueshot to compensate for the Aimed Shot changes. Currently Aimed Shot has a 5 second cooldown in Trueshot. But to compensate for the damage increase the cooldown reduction of Trueshot has been reduced. This will make Aimed Shot a 7 second cooldown during Trueshot.

Talents

Talent 1/3 A Murder of Crows

A Murder of Crows moved to Row 6.

Replaced by the current Chimera Shot from row 4.

This makes Chimera Shot have more of a chance getting picked for certain fights and scenarios. Master marksman for 5 target AoE, Chimera for Cleave and Serpent Sting for 3 target cleave and or PvP. Numbers may have to be tuned.

Talent 2/1 Careful Aim

Careful Aim made baseline

Aimed Shot deals 30% bonus damage to targets above 80% health.

Replaced by new talent Deadly Trickery.

Kill shot now works with Trick Shots.

Makes the choice between 3 different AoE abilities working in 3 different ways.
Adds some extra AoE synergy for Kill Shot.

OR

Talent 2/2 Barrage (Removed)

Replaced by new talent: Deadly Trickery

I feel like Barrage is never picked but also I believe that Careful Aim should be baseline.

Talent 3/3 Camouflage

Now a baseline ability (for all 3 specs).

I havent really thought of a good utility or abilty for all 3 specs but feel like Camouflage should be baseline as it is often picked and has become a big part of the hunter identity.

Talent 4/3

Chimera Shot moved to row 1.

Replaced by Dead Eye. (Redesigned)

Kill shot has 2 charges and Kill Shot also reduces the cast time of your next Aimed Shot by 30%

Row 4 will now be all about quicker casting through Steady Shot (haste), Rapid Fire or Kill Shot. Also adds more Venthyr synergy.

Talent 6/2 Dead Eye.

Replaced by A Murder of Crows. (Redesigned)

Summons a flock of crows to attack your target, dealing (23% of Attack power) * 16) Physical damage over 15 sec. Every 3 seconds or if the targets dies the flock jumps to the lowest health target within 15 yards and the cooldown of A Murder of Crows is reduced by 4 seconds.

You now choose between 2 1-minute cooldowns. Like the other 2 talents A Murder of Crows has indirect cleave potential through resetting the ability on switching of target.

PvP talents changes.

Hunters feel really killable this expansion without the legendary effect of Strategem and 2-3 defensive pvp talents. I have suggested some changes that will make it easier to pick offensive pvp talents and other legendaries.

Roar of sacrifice made baseline. Makes this small defensive baseline for all 3 hunter specs. I would tune the ability a bit making it easier to play around for fire mages who get really crushed by this ability. One example would make it last 10 seconds instead of 12 or increasing cooldown by 30 seconds so that if you use it after combust and not during you wont have it for next combust.

Scatter Shot made baseline. You pick this talent every game without question. It locks the slot for marksman hunters. While for BM and SV only the roar slot feels locked.

New PvP talent for Marksman.

Stopping Power

Last 15 seconds
45 sec CD.

Your next Piercing shot now causes all physical attacks from the hunter to ignore 40% of the targets armor for 8 seconds.

2

What I’d do with MM is very simple honestly:

Baseline focus 120.

Get rid of arcane shot and precise shots.

Aimed shot is now castable while moving. Damage increased slightly. No charges, no cooldown. Costs 40 focus. Causes mortal wounds for 6 seconds.

Rapid fire changed to old chimaera shot, with a twist: It’s a powerful shot that deals high damage on 12 second cd and hits up to two targets in close vicinity, one shot dealing nature damage, the other dealing frost damage. Generates 40 focus.

Steady shot focus generation slightly increased, unchanged otherwise.

Trueshot redesigned: Increases your haste by 40% for 12 seconds and the cost of your aimed shots is reduced by 50%. During trueshot you gain the full benefit of your mastery, regardless of movement.

Mastery: Master marksman. After standing still for 3 seconds or more, gain sniper’s focus, increasing the damage of your abilities by x and their range by y amount. Lasts 5 seconds. Standing still refreshes the duration of the mastery while it is active.

Multi-shot: Focus cost reduced, unchanged otherwise. Still enables trick shots when hitting more than 3 people.

Hunting horn (new): You blow into the hunting horn, granting you and your raid or party members the effects of bloodlust. Causes sated for 10 minutes after use.

Row 4 talents redesigned. Now, a dedicated aoe row:
Talent 1: Volley. Replaces trick shots. Rain volley onto the targeted area, dealing x amount of damage and causing your aimed shot to always grant trick shots when hitting the targets in the area. Lasts 6 seconds, 45 second cooldown.
Talent 2: Explosive shot. Replaces chimaera shot. 12 second cooldown. Fire an explosive shot onto the target that explodes in 1 second or when the target dies, dealing high damage to all targets within 6 yards of the target. Generates 40 focus.
Talent 3: Barrage. 20 second cooldown, works more or less the same as it does now. Damage buffed to be on par with others.

Thats it.

3

This is the marksman I personally dont like. Ending up just casting Aimed Shot is in my mind kind of boring and it also locks Aimed Shot out from hitting more than a Frostbolt. I do like changing Rapid Fire to an instant shot instead. The animation is just silly (twice as silly with Double Tap).

This is kind of cool but I would keep the range at all times and just have the damage increase be on the 2 second stand still. The scary part about this talent is that Hunter is relies on moving around to kite for PvP and LOS is the Hunters biggest enemy right now for Aimed Shot (if not kyrian) . If I am facing a melee class like Monk or Warrior I have to move all the time with theyr endless gapclosers (Monk more than Warrior) and would never have the passive on. But if the Mastery was strong enough I can see it working.

Makes sense to just have the ability baseline. Like the name, and the sound of a hunting horn would be much cooler than what it currently is. I feel like ferocity pets should bring something other to the table than just BL. Maby some offensive utility or even damage increase. Im not sure on the numbers of rolling with a pet or not, but if having a Tenacity or Cunning pet is less dps on single target than Lone Wolf, a good addition would be having Ferocity pets be on par with Lone Wolf talent in single target damage.

Replacing Trick Shots will kill Hunter AoE damage outside of CD window. The delay on Explosive Shot is good for timing your burst both in M+ and PvP.

Unrelating to your post I think one of the biggest over reactions from blizzard was nerfing the damage of the second Aimed Shot when using Double Tap. Paladins have Avenging Wrath of global (biggest damage CD in the game) but we cant have big Aimed Shots that are really easy to play around. I think a better solution for Blizzard would be to just make Double Tap break Camo so the enemy always sees when you have used it.

4

Actually, this is almost a carbon-copy of WoD marksmanship hunter. And aimed shot hit -hard-. You could 2-3 shot clothies with it, if you had stacked loads of mastery.

Yep thats how it did in WoD.

Oh, I think pets need overall a massive overhaul. I’d give them their own talent tree, like back in the day.

Afaik this was a typo, I meant multi shot, not trickshots.

If you wanna see how MM was during WoD (peak), here’s some footage.

5

I’d rather get rid of Rapid Fire completely than touch Aimed Shot (it just looks too absurd for an ARCHER to go FULL AUTO), and just buff up Steady Shot and Multishot to compensate.

Also, while I don’t mind how trick shots work when in GROUP, when you have a tank… but when doing stuff in the overworld, trick shots is the CLUNKIEST DESIGN there is, probably in the whole game. ESPECIALLY since your pet can’t really tank more than 1 mob - even if you misdirect aggro to it, it will just DIE IN SECONDS because Mend Pet doesn’t do nearly enough healing these days… unless you’re a BM who can have Clefthoof (which is a perfect tank ferocity pet, but EXOTIC - and fugly)

I’d love to just get beefier multishots when doing AoE, and or have Explosive shot on smaller CD and baseline, like it used to work in the olde days (if I remember right, old survival Explosive shot Exploded 3 times over ~6 seconds for AoE damage)

6

I agree so much with the Rapid Fire. It looks super dumb. The problem for Marksman will become damage on the move without Rapid Fire. Changing it to an instant shot or something would be one solution. Another solution would be to just reducing the channel time and amount of bullets fired but keeping the same focus gain. I think 3 bullets/arrows over 2 seconds would look much cleaner and having Double Tap just increase the damage and focus gain by 100%.

7

If Steady Shot is beefed up along with Multishot, you won’t miss anything. The only thing you cannot cast on the move is Aimed Shot (and Sniper Shot, but that’s a meme talent).

The idea behind Aimed Shot was to sacrifice your movement for a drastic increase in damage and precision (crit chance). But they’ve long since crippled it SO MUCH for PvP reasons that they had to buff up all the other abilities in our kit to compensate, and Aimed Shot lost both the purpose, mechanics and the flavor.
Now it barely deals more damage than your instant Arcane Shots, at least when they’re beefed up with Precise Shots procs.

1 Like
8

They should remove the dead talents from the tree and put in some of the old rsv talents to see if it appeases the moaners.

9

I do quite enjoy current MM, only problem I see is survivability and not so high scaling currently, what I mean by this is that It’s hard to do much out of the box with current MM, we could have went for a minute cd trueshot but they nerf that legendary before 9.0.5 came out, and all MM builds feel the same unless you pick venthyr for different rotation right now.

10

The fix for MM is to revert it to how it was in Legion (or at least close to it). There was no reason to radically change the spec, like it was done in BFA which carried on to SL. MM Legion was excellent.

That and get old ranged SV back.

12

That could actually be an interesting concept for a new class or something. Like Gunslinger, can only use guns or crossbows, dualwields them, doesn’t have a pet, his more fast paced than MM with only instant abilities, but shorter range than MM/BM.

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