Patch 11.0.5 Marksmanship Hunter Changes in Review
Patch 11.0.5 represents a significant change to Marksmanship, particularly those who enjoyed playing its Dark Ranger Hero Talent. For Dark Ranger especially, it feels like a more fully fleshed-out implementation of Blizzard's vision for the Hero Talent, as the we one we got on launch felt very lackluster in terms of visual and gameplay impact.
There are also some changes to Marksmanship's baseline. Some talents have been made baseline, removed, moved, swapped places, or buffed, and a crucial Tier Set bug has been fixed.
Marksmanship Tree Changes
- Deathblow - Now a baseline Hunter talent and slots into the space of the always-picked Deathblow. It is essentially a strong single-target talent point for free, but it has significant synergy with the forthcoming Dark Ranger changes as well.
- Steady Focus - Historically one of the most hated Marksmanship Talents - it now only requires a single Steady Shot to activate and maintain, significantly reducing its negative effect on our rotation.
- Improved Steady Shot - This effect is now baseline and the Talent now increases Steady Shot's Focus generation to 20. This Talent was long seen as being something that needed to be baseline all along, so I am happy with this change.
- Pin Cushion - This new talent is a choice node alongside the buffed Improved Steady Shot and packs far more power and relevance into Steady Shot.
- Eagletalon's True Focus - This Talent has been removed, with its effects aside from the Trueshot extension made baseline.
Precise Shot - Now a singular "Shot" baseline and only grants one stack, but at 43% more power. This is a substantial nerf to Multi-Shot on AoE, though it does feel good on single-target. - Rapid Fire Barrage - AoE Damage component increased by 33%. Current projections are that this will not be enough to make the Talent viable, as it is still a 2-point investment.
- Trueshot - Now reduces Aimed Shot's Focus cost baseline.
- Wailing Arrow - No longer consumes Trick Shots. It never benefitted from it, but since early Alpha, it has been consuming the buff for no reason. This has finally been fixed. It also now benefits from Hydra's Bite.
Most of these changes are positive, though I will detail some of my qualms with them in a later section. Two Talents have been made baseline, which will aid our very expensive and limited Talent Tree options, particularly when making AoE builds, and the new Talent
Pin Cushion does a lot to make
Steady Shot a more exciting filler. As I write this, I have no simulations or objective talent comparisons for the new Patch, but I would be surprised if this is not the strongest choice in most scenarios, especially since
Precise Shot now being 1-stack lets us
Aimed Shot more aggressively, and
Aimed Shots also feed more
Deathblow procs.
Dark Ranger Hero Tree Changes
There are more changes than are listed here, but if I have not listed them, it is because they are simply background damage that do not interact with or synergize with our gameplay in any way, but for quick reference;
Shadow Surge,
Phantom Pain,
Banshee's Mark, and
Bleak Powder.
- Black Arrow is no longer a standalone ability, but instead replaces Kill Shot entirely. It deals heavy Shadow damage and applies a 10-second shadow damage DoT. Thanks to the new The Bell Tolls, these can be used not just below 20% HP, but also above 80% HP. Additionally, thanks to the now-Hunter-baseline Deathblow, our Kill Shot reset procs will now turn into Black Arrow procs, usable on any target regardless of HP.
- Soul Drinker - A redesigned version of Grave Reaper. Now gives a 10% chance to generate a Deathblow proc when a target dies while affected by Black Arrow. This Talent is hilariously underpowered compared to its choice node competitor, Shadow Hounds. Even if the chance was 100%, it would very likely be worse. It is essentially dead on arrival with its current design, which is a shame. Even with the potential for AoE Black Arrows, we are just not generating enough Arrows (and deaths with them) to get much use from this node.
- Withering Fire has been redesigned; while Trueshot is active, any Deathblow procs generated will automatically trigger Black Arrow, and two extra Black Arrows that hit up to 2 additional targets for 50% effectiveness. This is an insane amount of extra power during our cooldowns, and also introduces much-needed cleave/AoE usefulness to the previously very single-target-oriented Dark Ranger Tree. It also prevents GCD-bloat in our already busy Trueshot Rotation by automatically firing the Black Arrow proc that we would otherwise need to take a GCD to cast.
- Ebon Bowstring causes Black Arrow itself to have a significant chance of generating further Black Arrow procs, leading to possibilities of multiple back-to-back Black Arrow's.
- Bleak Arrows grants our Auto-Shots an 8% chance of generating Black Arrow procs. It also makes our Auto-Shots deal Shadow damage, which effectively increases our auto-shot damage by ~43%, since non-Physical damage is not reduced by Armor.
Sentinel Hero Tree Changes
- Lunar Storm had its visuals updated and now looks like it follows the target around, when the actual effect remains a static puddle on the ground. This feels a bit like a cruel bit of placebo, and has made many Hunters think that their prayers regarding the very annoying Lunar Storm mechanic have been answered. Unfortunately, they haven't, and Lunar Storm still loses a ton of value in Mythic+, and on fights with targets that move occasionally, which is almost all of them.
The Good, The Bugged, and The Bad
The Good
Dark Ranger now has a far more significant gameplay- and visual impact on the spec, and its major weakness in AoE damage has been significantly remedied, though hard numbers will tell if it is enough to beat Sentinel for Mythic+ scenarios, which is currently dominant. It is worth noting that on top of all these exciting changes, it did lose the boring, but powerful
Overshadow node.
The main practical changes I am excited for are:
- Steady Shot is now a more exciting button to press, and we are forced to press it less often thanks to Steady Focus only requiring 1 cast, and Pin Cushion also causing it to reduce our Aimed Shot cooldown.
- The spec has been shifted away from weaker fillers like Arcane Shot and Steady Shot and into our hard-hitters like Aimed Shot, and, especially in the case of Dark Ranger, Kill Shot (aka, Black Arrow).
- The thematic and visual upgrades to Dark Ranger are significant. Shadow-damage Auto-Shots, crows attacking our target, it feels like the original thematic vision for Dark Ranger has finally been realized.
The Bugged
The Hunter Discord maintains an
excellent Bugs Spreadsheet that users (and Blizzard) can peruse to see every bug plaguing all Hunter specs on both Live and PTR.
Below, I will list and comment on relevant bugs that directly relate to the Patch 11.0.5 changes, in order of personal priority, so that they may hopefully be changed before Patch 11.0.5 launches. Most of them pertain to
Withering Fire's current implementation being, honestly, a little half-baked, with lots of important interactions and core functionality either missing or working inconsistently. This capstone could be absolutely amazing, but some attention is needed from Blizzard to make it as good as it could be.
- The Black Arrow fired from Withering Fire passive does not trigger Bleak Powder. The whole feature of Withering Fire is that your Black Arrow's are getting autofired during Trueshot, but this interaction not working essentially punishes that feature and vastly reduces AoE burst. Another concern is how this is intended to interact when it is fixed; if Aimed Shot procs Deathblow, and Trick Shots is active for it, and this procs Withering Fire, will Trick Shots be considered to be active for the resulting Black Arrow considering that it would've been instantly consumed by the Aimed Shot that triggered it? I think yes, since otherwise, Volley becomes obscenely powerful since its Trick Shots is not consumed.
- The extra Black Arrows fired from Withering Fire are not "smart-targeting", meaning that they will often hit targets already affected by Black Arrow. Not only does this feel terrible, but it is also a significant loss of power that is completely down to RNG.
- The Phantom Pain passive does not trigger from Wailing Arrow, despite Wailing essentially being an Aimed Shot replacement. All logic dictates that this should work, and it is a significant loss of power that it doesn't.
- The extra Black Arrows fired from Withering Fire often fail to fire, especially on a single-target. It is a dice roll if you get 1, 2, or 3 Black Arrows fired, when you'd always expect 3. It is possible that the intention is that the extra Arrows only fire when there are multiple targets up, but then it is still a bug that it is inconsistently firing extras on a single target.
- The Black Arrow fired from Withering Fire does not proc the Murder of Crows from Banshee's Mark.
- The Black Arrows fired from Withering Fire do not proc Razor Fragments consistently. There seems to be no obvious pattern to which of the 3 Black Arrows gets affected. Sometimes it is one, sometimes two, sometimes three, completely at random.
- Razor Fragments benefits Black Arrow inconsistently. The spreadsheet above explains it the best.
These are a lot of heavy-impact bugs that I desperately hope to see fixed quickly. I worry for the future where these go unfixed until the next minor patch like this.
The Bad
Most of the changes are good, with only a few of the changes having negative consequences for some aspects of gameplay. With that said, most of the things that are "bad" about Marksmanship in Patch 11.0.5 are about changes that
didn't happen or get addressed:
- Several Dark Ranger nodes are very undertuned, or just dead on arrival.
Phantom Pain simply does not do enough damage for the low number of AoE Black Arrows (i.e, not many) we have, and will likely never be picked. - Banshee's Mark's damage is simply too low. Either the damage could be increased, or its proc rate be tied to all ticks of Black Arrow, not just the initial. It is not a choice node, so we will always pick it, but it really is more for flavor (and it is very tasty) than actual damage.
- Soul Drinker just seems mechanically dead compared to Shadow Hounds. Even if its 10% proc chance was increased to 100%, we are simply not generating enough AoE Black Arrows to warrant the choice. This issue is further exacerbated (though would simultaneously not be remedied) by a variety of bugs causing extra Black Arrows from Black Arrow to not apply, or to get wasted. See the Bugs section above!
Multi-Shot is too expensive, and with
Precise Shot dropping down to a single stack, its average cost has gone up significantly with no remedy in sight. The
Precise Shot change has hit the mark for single-target, but has left
Multi-Shot as being downright unsatisfying to use since it is so expensive, and its Focus cost is competing with the extra
Aimed Shots offered by
Pin Cushion. Adding
Multi-Shot to the
Crack Shot talent is one possible remedy, but that leaves us not using our exciting new
Pin Cushion Talent that is, let us be honest, far more interesting and fun than either
Improved Steady Shot or
Crack Shot.
Multi-Shot's base Focus cost was changed to 30 from 20 during the Beta. I always found that change mysterious, but acceptable - now it is very troublesome.
Chimaera Shot remains useless, even for the exact scenario it was made for: 2-target scenarios. If it simply applied
Trick Shots, it would be almost perfect for this purpose.
Sentinel needs some love, as it was effectively nerfed by the change to
Eagletalon's True Focus, with
Trueshot being shortened.
Lunar Storm being ground-targeted on a short internal cooldown that is tied to our main nuke makes for some toxic gameplay incentives: We are currently holding our
Rapid Fire constantly for bosses that move, and even when we do this, encounter mechanics and the reality of Mythic+ often force the tank (who cannot see the
Lunar Storm!) to leave it anyway. We are left helpless to watch as we lose a ton of direct damage from the Storm, as well as the 10% damage it grants other abilities, and there is nothing we or the Tank can realistically do about it. It would be easy to make it stick to the target, and, if need be (which I doubt), adjust its numbers.
Wailing Arrow not Trick Shotting is a major blow to its AoE prospects, and just continues to make it feel bad when we do use
Wailing Arrow to pick up more single-target in AoE fights. There is a significant RNG element to when you get
Wailing Arrow interactions on a fight, and if those happen to line up with a fight's AoE moments, such as on
Broodtwister Ovi'nax, you get, excuse my French, completely screwed by getting this proc that is meant to be exciting, because you'd rather have had a normal
Aimed Shot that could cleave. It would be easy to allow
Wailing Arrows to
Trick Shots and adjust the numbers accordingly. I think almost every Marksmanship Hunter would prefer to play
Wailing Arrow in Mythic+ as well, but its lack of
Trick Shots makes it unviable compared to
Salvo - a very boring capstone that we simply macro into Volley and pretend doesn't exist.
Rapid Fire Barrage was one of the most exciting things about the new Marksmanship Tree when it was announced on Alpha/Beta. We have yet to spec it once. Despite its buff, 2 talent points is simply far too much to invest for it. Much like
Chimaera Shot, even when you give it the perfect scenario, constant 5-target AoE, it is still not picked. The extra Rapid Fires also do not ricochet unless you are also specced into
Trick Shots, so it does not even serve a purpose as a "Burst AoE" option that is independent of the rest of our AoE kit (which is notoriously expensive, both in terms of points and single-target DPS lost, while certain other specs get to do full single-target and AoE damage, often at the same time).
Fundamental Hunter Problems
- Hunter's Mark is still nearly worthless in Mythic+, and it bars Hunter from being desirable for Mythic+ unless it happens to get the luck of the draw with numbers tuning. Even with an AoE stop and stronger defenses in The War Within, Hunter is considered by beloved tier list creators and actual statistics alike to be the worst class in the game for Mythic+. Yes, worse than Warlocks, too, if you ask Archon right now. This is not a Marksmanship-specific issue, either. Hunter's Mark should be stronger, or ideally, redesigned completely. We have group-wide Attack Power, Spell Power, Versatility, and Mastery buffs. All 3 Hunter specs, especially Marksmanship, are built around Critical Strike being especially high-value. Why not give Hunter a 2-3% Crit raid-wide buff?
- Please let Marksmanship Bloodlust without having to summon a pet. Better yet, let Marksmanship Hunters choose the pet family ability that they want with a "stance" bar of sorts when Lone Wolf is picked. Even after its nerf from 10% to 5%, Lone Wolf remains completely mandatory for virtually all non-solo PvE content. It isn't actually a "choice" to pick for 1% DPS, it is closer to 4% in most scenarios.
- Kill Zone remains an extremely weak capstone, and is almost never picked. PvE presents no opportunities to use LoS capabilities, and even if it did sometimes, it would still not be ahead to push this capstone ahead of far more bland, but numerically powerful talents like Serpentstalker's Trickery. Volley is a much-loved ability and it is a shame that its capstone is both so weak and uninteresting. Perhaps this capstone could give us the benefits of the old Dragonflight Season 3/4 Tier Set, Hunter Marksmanship 10.2 Class Set 2pc. This would be worthy of a capstone and introduces a much-loved playstyle that also remedies Marksmanship's biggest weakness; its ability to do respectable single-target damage while AoE'ing. WarcraftLogs' Statistics for Boss Damage on Broodtwister Ovi'nax tells the story fairly well. Note that Frost Death Knight is simultaneously one of the best boss damage specs on this fight, while being one of the best overall AoE DPS specs on the fight too. All at the same time, in the same build, in the same rotation.
Conclusion & TL;DR
The Patch 11.0.5 Changes for Marksmanship are broadly good, and Marksmanship is going to be a more fun and likely numerically more effective spec in any case going into the Patch, though this is largely contingent on the myriad of bugs getting fixed.
I do not like to baselessly speculate on the relative numbers differences between the Hero Talents in general, but with how much more thematic and gameplay-impacting Dark Ranger will be compared to Sentinel, it should be no surpise that I
hope that Dark Ranger will be the best for everything, until Sentinel can get a similar treatment.
Patch Day Update
Writing this a few days after writing the rest of the article, I can report that Dark Ranger is currently numerically too far behind to be considered for most content. The loss of
Overshadow was significant, and while everything written about Dark Ranger's gameplay remains true, I am sad to report that the numbers are not currently there for the more competitive players. I still encourage you to try out the gameplay, and I hope that Blizzard will see the numerical discrepancy between Dark Ranger and Sentinel and react accordingly. Dark Ranger should AT LEAST be the choice for one of the two major PvE disciplines, with how much effort has been put into it and how good the gameplay is.
Patch Day Update #2 - October 23rd
Writing this after a day or so of the patch being out, we've learned that the Dark Ranger from PTR and on simulations is not the one we ended up with on live. The bugs mentioned in the article were not fixed - and a whole host of other bugs are also in. We are currently in a Wild West of Dark Ranger's power being difficult to evaluate, and will know more about its relative strength in the coming days.
