[Feedback] Marksman Hunter

#1 - Jan. 14, 2016, 9:45 a.m.

Hey!

Played through the Artifact quest line, then got stuck at flighpath when trying to get to a new zone, oh well.. But anyways.

The spec feels different, that's for sure, but even with the little testing I had through the Artifact quest, I was able to point out a massive flaw in the spec's design.

Marksman Mastery increases the range of our shots, which would imply we should be as far back as possible in some scenarios. However it seems contradicted by the fact that Arcane Shot has such a slow travel time, by the time it reaches the target from +40 yards, GCD would already be over and you would be casting your next shot.

Therefore we have no way of knowing whether or not that Arcane Shot applies Hunter's Mark, and so the choice for next ability becomes either Aimed Shot or another Arcane Shot(in a simplified scenario), with another Arcane Shot we risk overwriting Hunter's Mark if the 1st AS applied HM, and if we don't already have 3 stacks of Vulnerability, Aimed Shot would do less damage overall and be partly wasted.

This needs 1 of 2 changes;
1) Make Hunter's Mark apply the moment you fire the shot, making the next shot you use easier to decide
2) Increase the travel speed of Arcane Shot by a massive amount(same as Aimed Shot in WoD currently)

Other than that, looking forward to Beast Mastery testing in the future.

Celestalon

Game Designer

#72 - Feb. 13, 2016, 9:07 a.m.

Hey Marksmanship Hunters. You've given tons of constructive feedback, which we appreciate, and are using to continue iterating on things. Please keep it coming, and know that we are listening.

The next build will include several significant changes based on testing, and your valuable feedback. This includes highlights such as Multi-Shot becoming a Focus-generator for Marksmanship, and applying Hunter's Mark to either all or none of its targets (instead of randomly rolling against each target individually), Marked Shot hitting all marked targets, a much longer Vulnerable duration, and a few talent revisions.

We look forward to you all getting to try out that build, and hearing your feedback based on it! Thanks!

Celestalon

Game Designer

#76 - Feb. 13, 2016, 10:34 a.m.

02/13/2016 02:07 AMPosted by Kennyloggins
Random side note, any news on fixing the bug where Vulnerability, Marked for Death (artifact trait), and True Aim are attributed to only one hunter? There's also a bug where you can only cast Marked Shot 6s after Hunter's Mark is triggered, even though the Hunter's Mark debuff lasts 12s. Admittedly #1 isn't a huge deal for testing gameplay (though it feels bad to do so much less DPS when you're not the only hunter), but #2 affects how you play quite a bit. Fixing these would be the cherry-on-top.

I believe every one of those is fixed for the next build. Also, you'll probably appreciate that Hunter's Mark is now applied on cast of Arcane/Multi, rather than on land.

Celestalon

Game Designer

#100 - Feb. 20, 2016, 4:32 a.m.

02/19/2016 06:58 PMPosted by Jademcian
Hunter's Mark application via Arcane:
http://i.imgur.com/OW1qUj3.jpg
Via Multi:
http://i.imgur.com/Q4UwTom.jpg
The prior iteration for comparison:
http://i.imgur.com/2pUrTwk.jpg

I don't think this is quite intentional. Also, keep in mind that the higher frequency of Mark's after 1 cast greatly reduces the extra benefit on Trueshot, which currently increases the frequency of Mark application.

Would be happy to see this frozen between 2-4 arcanes, with Trueshot dropping it to 1-2. Or whatever revamp you're working on regarding Marks and Trueshot.
Is it possible these were tied to the duration of Vulnerable, so while the duration for it was low (prior build) so too were the numbers required to proc Mark? Thus, when the duration was tripled to 30s so were the value ranges on the Mark procs. If true, I don't like that at all - those outliers are far too wild. It's currently described as, "Approximately 6 procs per minute." One way or another, 1-1-1-1-1 versus 16-1-11-2 and 1-12-14-13 are not good directions in my opinion.
Maybe consider something to make the manipulation of Hunter's Mark more player controllable.

edit; and a comment about explosive shot. You'll probably find most people will stand in melee range to simplify this into a click-click rather than a timed reactivation from range. Also I'm not sure 'slow moving' correctly describes 'crazy rocket'... :)

(Warning, more under-the-hood techy talk, safe to ignore, not important to playing the game or performing well!)

I appreciate the in-depth testing of this. Unfortunately, I think your testing method was missing that it's RPPM now, not a % chance. The count of shots between procs isn't relevant anymore, instead the time between procs is. And since you likely alternated between spamming a bunch of shots in a row (which you wouldn't do in practice due to wasting Focus) and stopping to take notes, you got wildly varying results. The proc rate is 6*Haste RPPM (with Unlucky Streak Prevention) now. With 20% Haste, this'll work out to about 1 proc every ~7.7 sec. The Unlucky Streak Prevention will start ramping up the proc rate after about 16sec, with no droughts of longer than 24sec.* With Vulnerable lasting 30sec, this will ensure 100% uptime is possible, with a ton of slush. A Mark every ~7.7sec on average will provide a reasonable frequency of Marked Shot usage as well.

*16sec and 24sec are estimates based on my memory of the Unlucky Streak Prevention logic, which I don't have in front of me at this moment. Don't hang me if those are off by a bit!

Celestalon

Game Designer

#105 - Feb. 20, 2016, 7:01 a.m.

02/19/2016 08:43 PMPosted by Jademcian
Regarding breaks for notes, this was per GCD. No gaps. So each one of those numbers represents the GCD of one spell: 1-1-15-3, for instance, would've been Arcane x1, Marked x1, Arcane x1, Marked x1, Arcane x15, Marked x1, Arcane x3, Marked x1. One hand for the button, one hand for writing the number. True enough, though, this would not account for gaps in time present from Aimed Shot cast times, so maybe that would affect things a bit. Yeah I sat there doing that, shush :)

I've done similar things in the past. :)

Yes, the Aimed Shots you're doing in-between (along with any other talented abilities on cooldowns, such as Head Shot, Barrage, or Explosive Shot, etc.) will fill time, which drastically affects things, cutting that 1-1-15-3 to actually 1-1-5-2 in practice, with that 5 being broken up by a couple other shots in between, thereby avoiding any long string of Arcane Shots.

02/19/2016 08:52 PMPosted by Maudance
So the speculations about hunters mark being RPPM now were correct... Not happy about this. What if you got your proc on the boss right before a bunch of AoE fodder spawned, now you can't do your cleave because the RPPM timer has just started ramping up? RPPM is the worst kind of rng there is, it is uncontrollable and unpredictable. With 50% proc you at least could reasonably expect a proc after four arcane shots at most.

This is a misunderstanding of how RPPM works. The only ramping proc chance is Unlucky Streak Prevention, which only kicks in if you've gotten a long string of bad luck, not normal gameplay. It's a time-based proc chance. RPPM is *more* consistent that a comparable simple % chance.

Also, the "before" in Jademcian's data is not the 50% proc chance. That's the prior version, which was a much higher-overall ramping proc chance, when Vulnerability/Marked Shot was a previous design. A 50% proc chance is not "four arcane shots at most"; you'd commonly see way more failed procs in a row than that.

Kaivax

Community Manager

#126 - Feb. 26, 2016, 7:35 p.m.

Locking this thread.

Please continue to discuss this spec in our new Legion Class Feedback forum.

Thank you!