I quite like Marksmanship, and I’ve been using it since the start of BFA. However, I’ve recently switched to Beastmastery because I felt I had to. I want to go back to Marksmanship in Shadowlands, but there are some things I would like to see change which feel much better about Beastmastery.
Cleave
Beastmastery is much better here, taking Marksmanship to a dungeon makes you feel like you’re a burden. This might be brought better in line with the new cleave cap and changes to things like Barrage. I hope it gets sorted so both specs are decent options.
Movement
The big issue here is Aimed Shot. It really feels awful to have to interrupt it to dodge mechanics and it’s a big damage loss. It would be nice to be able to cast it while moving, even if it progresses slower then, so you aren’t totally useless on movement heavy fights.
Self-heal
Only having the one self-heal on a long cooldown is often an issue, one that Beastmastery does not need to contend with. Would be nice to have more. Which brings me to the next part…
Exotic pets
Shadowlands is supposed to be more about class identity and not spec anyway, and having more pets isn’t overpowered for Marksmanship since having any pet is a damage loss. But being able to use Spirit Beasts to have access to another heal would be really nice. Also purple manasabers are the best.
Hunter’s Mark
Almost forgot about this one! Please remove it. It is nothing but a nuisance to maintain. If having a mark is a must I would prefer if it passively applied to your Aimed Shot targets. Encourages staying on one target but one less annoying button/CGD to spend.
MM is literally the second strongest DPS spec on the move in the game. People really overestimate the DPS loss from movement it’s insane. You can completely play around movement with 2 charges. MM is such an easy spec to play it’s good that it has at least SOME thought required to min/max movement.
Currently something like 70% of the time you can move completely freely, and only 30% of the time spent casting aimed shot. That’s not a huge penalty for moving at all.
Agree on hunters mark though, if it’s on the GCD it’s going to be absolutely awful.
Will be solved in Shadowland, everyone gonna get a cap “exept some classes that is imited by their gameplay already”
Only Aimed Shot is need to stand by, we got enought mobility, we are fine with that
The most important part is more that the pet heal for insane healing, survival passive heal for insane healing too meanwhile as Marksmanship we don’t have anything special for us…
I agree on that point it must change.
I’ve made a full topic on that, it’s clear that the Hunter Mark must no longer boost the damage but keep the usefull utility
Discussion here :
As Marksmanship, pet is used to sacrifice DPS in order to get utility pet.
Badly what they forget is we got the same dps “calculated/balanced” then Beast Mastery / Survival in BFA.
Compared to Beastmastery there’s a lack of mobility, whether it’s better than some other class is irrelevant when looking at Marksmanship vs. Beastmastery. “I almost finished my cast but I have to move now to avoid mechanics” is going to be continue to be an annoyance, and a factor in choosing between the two specs.
