- Extremely variable DPS. Anywhere from “Gosh, this I do this on the training dummies as Beast Master” to “HOLY MOTHER OF MEDIVH I ALMOST BROKE 5K”, all in the same raid.
- Very possible to beat better-geared Survival hunters at the DPS race. Cause I did it today in VoA25.
- Is overall giving me slightly better numbers than Survival did. I don’t know why. I still don’t know what I did wrong when I was SV. o.O
- Is fun. Mwahaha. Billions of cooldowns, plus toys like Rapid Fire + Readiness, and did I mention I hate re-applying Serpent Sting? I hate it. I dunno why. If you are a Marksman you don’t have to. Ever. It’s bliss. Oh and I can strafe around again and I don’t have to worry about standing still anymore! /glee
Depending on how long you have been reading this blog and/or how attentive you’ve been, you may already know by now that Tawyn leveled Marksman until level, oh, 58 or so. Granted, I did it because I had no idea what talent points were and everybody told me “Go Marksman, go Marksman”, so I did. Pretty sure I had points in Improved Concussive Shot and everything. Anyways, I enjoyed it and I was used to it and I sort of always had a soft spot for it, and I imagine it’s partly because of that, that making the switch to Marksman isn’t nearly as hard as making the switch to Survival was. It feels rather natural and full-circle, in a way.
Honestly I have a confession to make; I have long wished for a viable Marks/Beast Master hybrid build. It just seems like the pinnacle of hunter-ness to me; taking a bunch of talents that augment both the hunter and pet equally. The idea of something like this really excited me back in WotLK Beta but I saw it tested a few times and it never lived up to a “pure” spec. And so, I don’t know if I will ever get my wish, so I am destined to bounce around between BM and MM, it seems.
In other news, I’m trying to decide which of mine/my friends’ “Alt Guilds” to stick my main in while I wait around for a new “Real Guild”. I’m torn between < The Ice Stone Has Melted > and < Slack Jawed Daffodils >, though the former has the larger vote on Twitter at the moment. Hrmmm.
Welcome home, dear. We’ve saved a vial of chimera’s venom just for you. 🙂
Even as MM you better stand still as long as you can. Reason? Auto-shot contributes up to 30% of MM’s DPS 😛
I’m not good at doing it…yet….but pro MM hunters can stutter run. If u have an autoshot cast bar, you can move the stop for 0.5 seconds so you fire autoshot and then move again.
It’s another thing to look at though so it’s better to stay on the spot and shoot, that way you get more steadies in too.
Your results are suprising though. SV should vary more due to random RNG procs on things like lock and load while MM should be much more consistent. I think with your gear an equally skilled MM/SV hunter would find SV a tad higher overall on average plus also bringing replenishment!
– For no other reason than the timing.
I’m glad you like playing Marksman. Of the hunters in my guild 2 of them have decided to have MM as their off spec and they’re starting to convince me to throw more points that way. Thank goodness for dual spec.
Also, it is 5:45 in the morning and I’ve been up since 3. Forgive me if this makes no sense, but at this point rutabaga internal combustion super finch.
I too am somewhat surprised at the report of extremely variable DPS. However some context would help with assessing this. DPS can vary depending on what sort of protections are in place (eg the bone armour on mobs in the military quarter) plus whether you have to move around a lot or can stand still. As was pointed out, we definitely can run-and-gun but Auto Shot still makes up 20-30% of our DPS.
Aimed Shot is a heavy hitter in our arsenal but it’s effectiveness can be mitigated if you don’t have much Armour Penetration so that can factor in to your varying DPS results.
Also Pike, you have the Kill Shot glyph which will impact DPS consistency. In long boss fights where sub-20% health is still a fairly big chunk of health you’ll be getting off more Kill Shots, whereas in shorter fights it’s almost an irrelevant glyph, so more Kill Shots will boost your DPS output. I chose to run with Hawk rather than KS as I currently tend to think it’s more across-the-board useful.
And yes, not having to manually watch for and refresh Serpent Sting is worth the spec in itself.
Back in 2005 MM was the only really viable spec and even when the other specs improved it was still my first love. I’ve lost interest in my hunter in the last 12 months or so but you might have persuaded me to pick her up again 🙂
Doooo eeeet. The only name I can think of that would be more epic would be (the latter may be too long though.) Hell, I’d transfer the nelf hunter I have over ther just so I could be in that guild lol.
I love marksman for the sole reason (well not the sole reason) that it’s damage is more reliable than survival. If you get an unlucky streak where Lock and Load never procs, survival’s damage is going to suck, the same in heavy movement fights where you don’t get the chance for sniper training to kick in. The only thing that limits Marksman is our mana pool but as long as there’s a JoW and replenishment, the damage can keep coming.
its your gear unless ya have top end raiding gear m will pull ahead of survival every time
@ Nakana – I’ve heard the other way around actually >.>
Pike, just leaving a little friendly note here. I’ve been pretty grumpy with WoW as of late. I have no idea why. It could be the “doom and gloom” feeling that comes with an upcoming patch. It could be my gradual shift away from 3-4 hours, 3x week raiding that is starting to put more pressure on me than I’d like to admit. On top of it all, it has been hurting my ability to blog in a positive and interesting manner.
Amidst it all, I’ve really got to hand you credit. Of all the bloggers out there, I feel that yours is a situation that I can really connect with. A pure dps class, infatuated with a single spec, raiding for the sake of self-gratification rather than progression, in the midst of numerous transitions in-game and irl, all in a single blog that always remains top notch. I surely hope you continue to do your thing, because it’s the type of thing I could (and want) to see myself do.
And major props for this series of experiments. I’d rather cancel my subscription than force myself into anything other than Frost =/. It’s a remarkably fun read.
In my experience, MM will out-DPS (if only by a bit) an equally geared Surv hunter. However, Surv is preferable by many raiding guilds for the replenishment.
I’ve been debating on which spec to do for my duel spec (have to keep BM as one of course), and now I’m not sure. I was going to go SV, but you’ve convinced me at least to check out MM again.
MM surprised me, too, when I went from pulling 800-ish DPS to 1.5k-1.8k, sometimes over 2.1k if I remembered my big cooldowns. … And then I started to wonder why my guild didn’t have more MM hunters.
I don’t play my hunter nearly enough. Enjoy and good luck!
not sure if you know this or anyone told you, but silencing shot is off the gcd, so macro it to some of your other abilities to get a (minor) dps increase.
I’m not good at doing it…yet….but pro MM hunters can stutter run. If u have an autoshot cast bar, you can move the stop for 0.5 seconds so you fire autoshot and then move again.
I love doing this. Quartz’s swing timer is invaluable in doing this.
Glad to see your feelings on it. I am finding MM myself much more enjoyable than previously thought. Seems to be alot more work, but that’s the fun part of it. Miss the explosions, but meh.
Please also note that I still have a survivial spec as my “primary” spec and find it very beneficial to switch depending on the fight or if we are just doing trash.
Aww… you reminded me when I first started out and hit level 10, and my friend told me to pick between BM and MM, and I went for MM with full blown Improved Concussion Shot. (Hey, anything to keep the mob at a shooting distance was good!) It wasn’t until I was mid-30s when another friend respecced me into BM.
On another note, you should realize that you’d still miss out on dps if you don’t stand still. Autoshot is good!