The Hunter class and all three Hunter specializations received a significant rework in the Beta for The War Within. Marksmanship's core mechanics remain the same, with the redesigned Talent Tree focusing on reshuffling talent orders, combinations, and build opportunities while adding some new talents.
Mechanical Changes
Below is a list of the core changes with the most significant impact on gameplay and building a Marksmanship Hunter.
There are also some non-Marksmanship-specific changes that nonetheless have a significant impact on how Marksmanship feels to play:
There are new talents, too, but they are either passive, rarely picked, or both. These include things like
Pistoletazos rápidos,
Coto de caza.
Gameplay Impact
Marksmanship is going to play essentially the same in The War Within. Remember that we are losing our much-beloved Dragonflight S3/S4 Tier Set, which caused us to not have to cast
Multidisparo to activate
Disparos trucados in our cooldowns. On AoE, a new button in
Tromba de Fuego rápido may be used occasionally, though it is currently a pretty expensive talent point investment with dubious power behind it.
If you liked the core of Marksmanship before, you will continue to like it, and vice versa.
Positive Changes
Alright, that covers the background. It's time to get opinionated.
Marksmanship Talent Tree Changes
- Disparos precisos granting 2 stacks of its effect flattens out some of Marksmanship's RNG and is a subtle, but good change.
- I personally like having the option of both Anticipar los disparos and Visión infalible, ensuring no trade-off on Disparo certero's power with a shorter cooldown. Opinions are divided on this one in the community, however, with many feeling that it makes the Talent Tree too expensive. More on that in the "Concerns & Feedback" section.
- Lobo solitario being a smaller gain (or rather, a smaller loss when you inevitably have to drop it just to use basic utility) is a step in the right direction, but one of the most pervasive bits of feedback in the community is that Lobo solitario isn't where we'd like it yet.
- Tromba de Fuego rápido is cool and powerful, but expensive.
- While opinions are a tad divided, the removal of Chakram is probably a good thing if its power can be put into Marksmanship's own kit.
- The removal of Trampa de acero is good, as almost nobody enjoyed that filler button.
There is not a ton more to say here. These changes are good, but they're not fantastic. There's nothing to be extremely hyped about, with none of Marksmanship's pervasive core issues addressed. Which brings us to..
Survivability
These changes are not Marksmanship-specific as they affect our Class Talent Tree. Still, Marksmanship has long been known as the least survivable Hunter spec, so I'd say that these benefits are especially good for Marksmanship.
Here is a breakdown of Marksmanship's survivability tools in The War Within.
Hunters have historically hit a limit on high Mythic+ keys long before most classes, and this should be significantly improved by having much more access to our strongest defensive. Being able to cover more oneshot mechanics on our own means much less handholding required by the team, and an increase in Marksmanship's stock for Mythic+.
Concerns & Feedback
This section will be longer, and a tad more complicated. "Concerns & Feedback" encompasses not just what the rework did, but also what it
didn't do.
Lone Wolf & Utility
Lobo solitario is now a must-have talent for DPS, with significant and unnecessary drawbacks in terms of utility. This seems unwarranted, as Marksmanship has nothing unique going for it in terms of utility or survivability. The reworked
Intimidación now allows us to use our pet stun without having a pet active. Steps are being made in the right direction and there is still time to implement another, big one.
The most egregious example in actual gameplay is having to Bloodlust in Mythic+, which predominantly consists of AoE. Since pets deal no AoE damage, this is exactly where
Lobo solitario shines, and having a pet out is the weakest. Unfortunately, because
Lobo solitario has a significant ramp-up time after you dismiss your pet, even if you manage to perfectly summon a pet, and pre-cast its dismissal, you are still losing damage during your most powerful and exciting part of a pull - particularly as Marksmanship - the burst window.
And that's if you perfectly manage a cheesy precast without losing uptime on the pull.
Retirar mascota is a 3-second cast that does not scale with Haste.
If 'clunky' was ever a term with real meaning and substance, it is when used to describe the slog it is to try and bring what should be baseline Hunter utility to your Mythic+ party in Bloodlust. Despite their "nerf" to
Lobo solitario, it is still 3-4% DPS loss to have a pet out on AoE, which is most of Mythic+. If the goal was to make it less painful or even numerically tolerable to run a pet and have your utility, this change does not do enough for Mythic+ where the lack of utility is felt the most. In raid, having a pet out to get some Leech is far more acceptable - provided of course that it is a pure single-target fight.
My favourite solution to this is the ability to swap between different pet-related bonuses via "stances". Perhaps
Lobo solitario could be a 3-way choice node, perhaps you just get a stance bar that lets you pick the pet utility you want at a similar cost to Beast Mastery and Survival. There is no reason that Marksmanship's utility should be locked behind such clunky gameplay as: Summon Pet > Activate Bloodlust/Master's Call > Dismiss Pet > Wait for
Lobo solitario to reach full power > Repeat in 10 minutes' time if you're unfortunate enough to be the group's only Lust.
Expensive Talent Builds
The Marksmanship Talent Tree is
expensive, particularly if you want AoE options. Previously, we've talked about how Hunter specs tend to incur a huge single-target DPS loss in order to do acceptable AoE damage. This remains the case in The War Within, but it gets worse.
No matter how many single-target talents we sacrifice, we cannot create a build with every AoE mechanic.There are several reasons for this, and I think re-evaluating this list should be a high priority for Blizzard before launch, second only to
Lobo solitario's utility woes:
- Tromba is a useless Talent and only serves to lead us to Tromba de Fuego rápido, but Tromba de Fuego rápido is seldom worth picking precisely because it's a 2-point investment. It is also puzzlingly locked behind Afinar la puntería which has dubious value for the Mythic+ scenarios where Tromba/Tromba de Fuego rápido are supposed to be enticing options. Suggestion: Remove Tromba, replace it with Tromba de Fuego rápido, and swap the positions of Afinar la puntería and Pistoletazos rápidos in the Talent Tree.
- Disparo firme mejorado and Tirador de primera are fundamental passives to Marksmanship's design, and them being talents only serves to make the tree needlessly more expensive, while robbing the tree of cooler and more interesting options. Suggestion: Make them baseline.
- Coto de caza is a neat talent for enhancing the short-term burst that Marksmanship is known for, partly making up for the loss of Chakram's 45-second burst, but is too expensive for its modest power. Suggestion: Merge it into Salva.
- Legado de los Brisaveloz and Puntería enfocada are needless and weak 2-pointers with powerful, borderline-mandatory options locked behind them in Flecha lastimera and Gran salva. Suggestion: Make them 1-pointers.
- While Marksmanship loves Disparo certero, 4 points of talents to bring it to full power seems needlessly expensive. Having to spec into our main cooldown is bad enough (relatively common, so fair enough), but all of its juice, including the part that enables our tier set to not be a complete joke during it (though, it's still a joke), requires a talent point investment: Enfoque auténtico de Garra de Águila, Anticipar los disparos, and Visión infalible. Anticipar los disparos is an example of a good talent - we do not always care for a lower Disparo certero cooldown, depending on the fight. But Enfoque auténtico de Garra de Águila and Visión infalible are not just mandatory for power, but also gameplay reasons. Suggestion: Anticipar los disparos would be a more interesting capstone, with Visión infalible and Enfoque auténtico de Garra de Águila made baseline.
- Multidisparo is useless without Disparos trucados, and anything that makes Multidisparo more powerful is locked behind Disparos trucados anyway. A 2-point investment just to obtain the most fundamental AoE mechanic of the spec seems needlessly steep. Suggestion: Merge Disparos trucados into Multidisparo.
The Loss of the Dragonflight Season 3/4 Tier Set Gameplay
The Dragonflight Tier Set of Season 3 (and then 4) has been one of the most successful and popular tier sets in recent memory.
A quick reminder of the relevant things it did:
Trick Shots causes Rapid Fire to launch a Volley for 6 sec, dealing 100% of normal damage.It fixed two of Marksmanship's most significant drawbacks, rotationally and numerically:
- It enabled unhampered 2-target cleave during cooldowns, and decent 2-target cleave outside of them.
- It made the AoE Disparo certero Rotation far more satisfying by eliminating the need for constant Multidisparo weaving that caused constant resource capping.
It is probably too late to hope for a redesign of the War Within Season 1 Tier Set, nor can Blizzard be expected to do the same great set bonus every season, but there are several ways in which the practical effects of the Tier Set could be made baseline, or part of our talent tree. If the suggestions above are implemented and AoE builds become more flexible, the tier set - or a similar effect - could be implemented. For instance,
Visión infalible could have a choice node alternative that activates
Disparos trucados for the duration of
Disparo certero. This would be very similar to the much-liked
Instintos salvajes/
Frenesí sangriento choice node for Beast Mastery, which offers an increasingly powerful cooldown on one hand, or a passively AoE'ing one on the other.
Final Thoughts
Most of the significant, positive changes for Marksmanship in The War Within are related to survivability, and not Marksmanship-specific. The Talent Tree Rework for Marksmanship did do some good, but seemed to miss the mark on the most important issues plaguing Marksmanship, and introduced a new one by making the Talent Tree extremely expensive.
But, I think these problems can be addressed with relatively little work on Blizzard's end, save perhaps for a redesign to
Lobo solitario. I have focused on feedback and suggestions that I think are reasonable to expect/want at this stage in the Beta cycle.
