A Look Back at Marksmanship Hunter in Dragonflight & War Within Wishlist - Editorial

Posted 2024/02/03 at 3:16 PM by TheAzortharion

Our Guide Writers have reviewed their specs throughout Dragonflight and share wishlists of what they'd like to see in the War Within. Check out all of our released editorials below.

Dragonflight Retrospectives & War Within Wishlists

Blood DKFrost DKUnholy DK

Havoc DHVengeance DH

Balance DruidFeral DruidGuardian Druid
Restoration Druid

Augmentation EvokerDevastation EvokerPreservation Evoker

BM HunterMM HunterSurvival Hunter

Arcane MageFire MageFrost Mage
Brewmaster Monk
Mistweaver MonkWindwalker Monk

Holy PaladinProtection PaladinRetribution Paladin

Discipline Priest
Holy PriestShadow Priest

Assassination RogueOutlaw RogueSubtlety Rogue

Elemental ShamanEnhancement Shaman
Restoration Shaman

Affliction WarlockDemonology WarlockDestruction Warlock

Marksmanship in DragonflightGameplayDPS Strengths and Weaknesses

Lowest single-target damage in the game.

While its AoE is good, it sacrifices a lot of single-target to do so (10-15%), and it doesn't have much to begin with. Other specs do more single-target, and lose only a few % to do similar AoE.

While its AoE is good, it is hard-capped, putting it out of contention in competitive Mythic+.

The spec has very poor survivability and non-existent group utility.

BombardmentUtility and Defensive WoesExhilarationSpirit MendIntimidationScatter Shotand 20-yard range.Mastery: Sniper TrainingFreezing TrapBinding ShotThe War Within Wishlist for Marksmanship HunterDPS and Utility for Viability

For all Hunter Specs: make Hunter's Mark work across the entire HP range and tune accordingly. A very simple boost to Hunter's very poor Mythic+ viability would be to buff it to 2% and make it apply on AoE, too.

Remove the minimum cap on AoE. It is simply unnecessary.

Remove or raise the AoE cap and nerf its AoE accordingly, to avoid encounters and situations where Marksmanship is completely unviable.

Improve Marksmanship's single target DPS. This is easy to do without touching AoE, as Trick Shots, its primary AoE mechanic, can be retuned accordingly.

Reduce the talent cost of going for AoE talents. It currently takes 5 points (Multi-Shot, Trick Shots, Bulletstorm, Salvo, Volley) to fully enable Marksmanship's AoE kit. Volley is currently run on single-target, but that is a feature of our current Set Bonus and not the norm. There are also some Talents which could be baseline, like Rapid Fire, Crack Shot, and Improved Steady Shot. My point is, there are many ways to make Marksmanship's talents more flexible.

Allow Marksmanship to, via Lone Wolf, choose to get certain pet utility without needing a pet. For example, being able to opt in to 10% Leech + Lust vs Max Health + Fortitude of the Bear, exactly like Beast Mastery and Survival.

Alternatively to the above, make Lone Wolf not mandatory by not locking Night Hunter behind it.

This goes for all Hunter specs, really: put Wailing Arrow in the Class Tree where it will not cost a ton of DPS to take, and remove its Cast Time, Travel Time, or both to make it a viable AoE stop/kick/silence.

Marksmanship currently has a decent Execute niche in Bullseye, but nothing active to pair it with. Consider having Deathblow not make Kill Shot available without restriction, and compensate with wishes #1 and #2 in the Gameplay section below, but make Kill Shot much stronger. In other words, shift more damage into execute and deepen this niche for single-target. Take lost AoE power into account, though, as Kill Shot fares poorly for AoE despite some attempts at making it not. Deadeye being baseline would also help a lot with both this and the Gameplay wishes below. There is room for Marksmanship to have a single-target execute niche and a burst AoE niche at the same time.

Gameplay and Quality of Life Wishes

Marksmanship spends a lot of time casting Steady Shot, which is only slightly better than casting nothing at all due to its extremely low damage and Focus generation. It would be nicer for Steady Shot to feel more impactful and relevant, or to phase it out and have the rotation be focused on more fun hard-hitters.

More big picture: Marksmanship is most fun when it is pressing its hard-hitters, but it currently spends a lot of time casting very weak spells. interspersed with hard-hitters. The spec would feel better if it had more substance and less filler. Half of Marksmanship's time spent is basically waiting for a cool spell to become available.

Remove the RNG stack generation of Precise Shots and buff it accordingly. Alternatively, rework the talent to be more interesting, like buffing the next non-Aimed Shot spell, encouraging combos of Aimed Shot+Rapid Fire.

Doing extra damage to high-HP targets (Careful Aim) is a far less useful and fun niche than execute. It also necessarily weakens Marksmanship massively at other, more relevant health decades (70-0) to prevent it being overtuned. Simply removing this talent and spreading its power would make Marksmanship both more viable and feel more effective more of the time. Alternatively, it could be made execute instead, although there is such a thing as too much execute if you also implement Kill Shot changes.

Comment by sarlagod, i miss legion marksman. dragonflight took everything fun about marksman's rotation and just removed it.Comment by VerantejaYou what change I would like?
Turn removed Aspects into Auras (like paladin auras)
This would give hunter some party value:
Few Examples
Aspect of the Fox: The hunter takes on the aspects of a fox, allowing your party and raid members to cast while moving for 6 seconds.
Aspect of the Pack: The hunter's group (including the hunter) takes on the characteristics of a pack of cheetahs, increasing all their movement speeds by 30%.
Aspect of the Dragonhawk: The hunter takes on the aspects of a dragonhawk, increasing ranged attack power by X and chance to dodge by 18%.

Right now hunter feels like they are giving nothing to the group contentComment by w3maniakIMO, MM needs a complete rework. They're very clunky and too slow in questing/solo play and content that's trivialized by gear (outdoor events like Superblooms) or Timewalking due to the slow rotation and slow resource generation.
We were also shafted a lot in returning abilities, why not bring back Windrunner artifact ability back in some form?

And, finally, get rid of the nonsense that looks like having a seizure - barrage and rapid fire. Especially RF as they "fixed" the part where you could change targets mid-cast, so if the target dies while it's used, you've lost a part of a rotation ability - I don't think any other spec has such hindrance.Comment by svingarmHaven't played MM for ages, major reason being it makes you play without a Pet and IMO, a "Hunter" isn't a Hunter without Pet. More like some lame Legolas wannabe Archer.

They might as well add a proper Range Physical DPS Class named Archer and move MM to that.Comment by Rainy89Haven't played MM for ages, major reason being it makes you play without a Pet and IMO, a "Hunter" isn't a Hunter without Pet. More like some lame Legolas wannabe Archer.

They might as well add a proper Range Physical DPS Class named Archer and move MM to that.Comment by PerjupivomMake survival please <3Comment by Kilgharrah96Haven't played MM for ages, major reason being it makes you play without a Pet and IMO, a "Hunter" isn't a Hunter without Pet. More like some lame Legolas wannabe Archer.

They might as well add a proper Range Physical DPS Class named Archer and move MM to that.Comment by ScaryfoxCall this missing the point; I used a pet anyway since my days of enjoying BM are over. So, I don't see some of the issues raised as avoidable. Oh, and I found that Wailing Arrow makes a sastifying interrupt, if you manage to time it correctly.Comment by SharpeneyeGreat article, but the wishlist only contains the bare minimums. Blizzard should think about (for all hunter spec):
- pet independent bloodlust;
- def cd / damage taken rework for hunters;
- real party utility besides bloodlust (like partywide pet buffs for example, choosable without pet for MM ofc);
- complete pet buff rework.Comment by boomslangaI'd like to see survival get reworked into a hybrid tank spec and MM have some additional utility options when not using a pet.Comment by AeadinMM prob one of my favorite specs. It annoys me so much when they just overtune BM, a spec that can jump and do 360s in the middle of their rotation, and undertune MM. They did the same thing in BFA.Comment by siatsVery irrelevant, but I miss double tap. I liked the class fantasy surrounding that. I stopped playing my mm main when I lost it.Comment by SarthoriusThe spec has very poor survivability and non-existent group utility.Marksmanship is also the only spec in the game to have no viable answer to 2-target cleave.Survival Hunters can run a Ferocity pet and have 10% Leech, giving them passable self-sustain. Beast Mastery Hunters have 7.5% more max health if they run a Tenacity Pet. Marksmanship gets none of these.Comment by TolajoI have played Marksmanship since Vanilla, and though many won't agree with me, this is my personal wishlist:

-As the article stated, make Lone Wolf optional without needing to sacrifice too much DPS. The lone archer and sniper archetype should coexist with the ranger with pet fantasy, and while I know people will min-max it to hell and back, at least try to keep them close.

-Hunter's Mark should have more utility, again, as stated in the article, letting it be active throughout the fight, perhaps with different effects at different percentages, would go a long way.

-This is going to raise a lot of flags considering how much mobility it required in fights, but I would love a talent of some kind that rewards standing still. I know you already have to stand still while casting Aimed Shot, but bringing back how Sniper Training used to be, or giving us an equivalent of the Circle of Power mages used to have, would go a long way to helping the static sniper fantasy.

-If Sentinel is going to be a Marksmanship hero talent tree, I'd like to see some interaction with the current sentinel owl ability. Sentinels are known for their relationship with owls, so incorporating that further would really help the feeling of being a sentinel. Also Searing Arrows, either as a passive buff or as an addition to Trueshot that gives your attacks some extra fire damage.

-If Dark Ranger is going to be a Marksmanship hero talent tree, I'd like to see Dark Minions make a return from WC3 as a temporary summon. Also, Black Arrow, either returning as it used to be or making it a toggle/buff

Comment by JahcupHmm guess the worst part is that even knowing all of MM flaws i still had hope for it to work. In my mind i was like this spec is so simple how hard can it be to balance that? oh boi was i wrongComment by clayford2236I would like the ability to play traditional MM with a pet.