Category Archives: marksmanship

marksmanship

Seein' Results

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An interesting thing I’ve noticed is that Marksmanship has given be a definite DPS boost in heroics but not so much in raids. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it’s all the buffs my pet gets. Or maybe I still just stink at anything that isn’t BM. =P

Either way, I definitely tied my current Beast Master DPS high score in OS25 yesterday. 4900 again, on that one drake that makes everyone’s numbers go crazy.

My Sarth+1 Drake numbers were well below most of the other hunters’ despite the fact that I was the only one with my pet still alive at the end of it all (all the other hunter pets died very early on in the fight. It’s my BM instincts, I guess?) Although I think a lot of that can be attributed to how the other hunters spent the bulk of their time Volleying adds, the simple truth of the matter remains that I have fallen rather viciously behind in terms of gear and I keep winding up in PuG raids with Ulduar-geared hunters who are going EoV-farming to sell the bracers or whatever. This can make it difficult to use other hunters as a yardstick so I have to use myself as a benchmark, and it’s not always easy to remember how I’ve performed in the past. But it was 3600 or so on Sarth as MM which is pretty similar to what I get as BM. (Sarth isn’t exactly a good benchmark fight because of all the stuff you’re doing, but hey.)

I’m still trying to get into Naxx to go play with Patchwerk. I tried to get into a Naxx PuG that was going on yesterday morning but they wanted a shadow priest. So I went and did a bunch of heroics which is when I realized that my heroics results as Marksmanship were quite better than they were as both BM and SV. Verrrrry interesting /strokes chin

Also found out that the second I spec’d MM, suddenly every other hunter I heroics’d with was also MM. It kept making me sad that my Trueshot Aura was going to waste because there were two of us with it. I miss Ferocious Inspiration…

marksmanship, screenshots

Raid Buffed

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RaidBuffed

43% crit. Almost 6000 Attack Power. Can you imagine that when Call of the Wild and Mirror of Truth proc’d? I was laughing like a maniac.

Marksmanship really is a very fun spec, for me anyways. I know there was a time when disliking Marksmanship purely-on-principle was in vogue for some reason (interestingly, Survival was more likely to be seen as “cool and edgy” and all that, at least among the places I frequented), and I think you can still see remnants of that dislike today, but I find it to be an ill-deserved reputation. It easily out-does Survival on Pike’s Personal Fun-o-meter so far.

marksmanship, specs

Initial Marksman Musings

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  • 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.

marksmanship, specs

Marksman Week is Go For Launch

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I am now officially specced 7/57/7. All I’ve really had time to do so far is some dailies and a little bit of time on the training dummies to de-rustify my rotation.

Things I have noticed so far:

1.) The Marksman rotation feels like you are pressing more buttons despite the fact that in theory, Survival is the one pressing the most buttons. Probably because the Survival buttons tend to be on longer cooldowns.

2.) Questing is hilarious; my pet is better at holding aggro as an MM pet than an SV pet for some reason I can’t ascertain (or maybe it’s just my mind…), a Chimera + Aimed will kill almost all mobs (sometimes I don’t have time to even use Aimed), and Rapid Recuperation is like a dip into AotV without having to use AotV. I’ve had less downtime doing dailies as MM than as any other spec thus far. (Interestingly, Beast Master is the spec where kill-em-all quests take the longest amount of time to do– I’m not killing things nearly as fast and thus I am in Viper much more often.)

I’m actually sort of worried about this week not being a good week for this test; I work evenings Wednesday through Saturday this week which means I have… uh, just tonight and tomorrow to try to get into all the raids I want to test. And tonight is limited because there are already a few I am locked out of. >.> We’ll see how things go.

beast mastery, marksmanship, respec, specs

Spec'ing Back… for now.

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After spending a good few levels and over a week as a Beast Mastery hunter, I’ve returned to Marks. What do I miss the most from the BM tree? Believe it or not, probably Improved Mend Pet. I hate it when poor Tux contracts a disease or something and I can’t do anything to help him out. I also miss Intimidation, and of course, Serpents’ Swiftness and “The Big Red Button”. But I’ve found myself wishing for IMP back more than anything else.

Thoughts on returning to Marks: I thought for sure “Oh, my poor pet won’t be able to hold aggro anymore”, but actually he’s still an aggro-holding machine, possibly even more than he was as BM. I believe that this is thanks to two things: Improved Hunter’s Mark, which gives him a melee boost, and Go For the Throat, which gives him more focus and more chances to use Growl. These are two things that a normal 41/20/0 build would probably have, but mine didn’t because of lack of talent points, and it made a big difference. I also think my Trueshot Aura helps out a little, but obviously it’s not going to make up for the lack of a Beast Mastery build in the pet-power department.

Tux is back to doing about 35% of my total DPS instead of 45-50%. That’s still a considerable amount of damage. I really feel that a marksman hunter cannot and should not underestimate the power of his or her pet.

Overall going back to Marks sort of feels like “going home” to me, but that’s just because I was “raised Marks”, so I’m comfortable with it. I really enjoyed the time I spent as BM and I definitely plan on returning to it and playing with it even more once I get some more talent points. Next up, though, is Survival! I’ve been wanting to try that one out for a long time.

Anyways, one last thing: thanks to one of my jobs, I am going to be WoW-less for the next eight days starting tomorrow. I will have my laptop with me, (because I’m a geek with three computers), but my poor laptop isn’t capable of running WoW. Fortunately I will still have internet access, and thus I will still be able to read all my favorite blogs and also try and make a few posts for my two or three readers to enjoy. I have a couple ideas for things I would like to write about. =D