Midnight Patch 12.0.5 OverviewMarksmanship Hunter Guide
Marksmanship's Patch 12.0.5 Rework Issues
Marksmanship's Patch 12.0.5 rework is one of the most unpopular changes to a Hunter spec that I have seen in ~12 years of writing guides for and being involved in the Hunter community every single day.
The Numbers
Marksmanship had a roaring start to Season 1, with a Aspect of the Hydra-based Sentinel build being very potent for several key raid fights, enough to catch a modest nerf early in the Season. One of the biggest question marks in the early season was whether Aspect of the Hydra would continue to be allowed to interact very positively with Sentinel/Spotter's Mark mechanics, which had an amazing impact, allowing Aspect of the Hydra to do good AoE damage. So good, in fact, that despite being "marketed" as the 2-target cleave counterpart to Trick Shots, which historically and unpopularly does not allow Marksmanship to cleave on 2 targets, it was actually better than Trick Shots for up to 6-target AoE, enough to make it the choice in every single situation.
Marksmanship arguably had a nerf coming, with it being essential to several key raid fights of the tier. It was one of the best specs in the game for virtually all of the hard fights like Lightblinded Vanguard, Crown of the Cosmos, Belo'ren, and Midnight Falls, in large part due to this ultra-efficient, low-target cleave, which it could turn into increased single-target damage via Lunar Storm and Bulletstorm.
All of that's to say, Marksmanship arguably had a nerf coming, one that would selectively hit it where it could afford to be hit: low-target cleave scenarios and funnel.
Instead, what we got is a significant rework that has essentially destroyed the spec's viability in all content that doesn't very specifically suit its niche.
Here is a quick, rough breakdown of the "before and after" of Marksmanship:
It went from being a middle-of-the-pack Mythic+ spec, to one of the worst in the game. It should go without saying that nerfing a spec while it is merely middle-of-the-pack, while buffing specs that are already at the very top, is confusing and frustrating to behold.
Its single-target stayed about the same, somewhere near the bottom.
Its Belo'ren Egg Damage performance, one of the big burst single-target checks of the season, went from "very good" to somewhere near the bottom. One caveat of this Statistic is that it also counts P1 boss damage, so it is not a perfect analogue. Still, comparing top logs to pre-patch top logs, the loss is around 15% in this department.
Its Lightblinded Vanguard 2-3-target cleave performance went from being the best in the game to pretty decent. This is what I mean by its niche. It is the only scenario where Marksmanship is still a half-decent spec. Meanwhile, Augmentation Evoker, which was about as good as Marksmanship before, remains about as good as Marksmanship was before (taking a small nerf since it no longer has OP Marksmanship Hunters to buff). Meanwhile, Augmentation remains in the Mythic+ meta and is just all-around one of the best specs across the whole raid.
One of the most frustrating parts is that it would have been very easy to selectively nerf Marksmanship where it was overpowered, such as by nerfing Hydra, or neutering its positive interactions with the Sentinel kit. Then, Marksmanship would still have been bad single-target, middle-of-the-pack in Mythic+, and it would have gone from being best-in-the-game on 2-3 raid fights, to just being "very good". All of this would have been less effort and fewer work hours at Blizzard than what we actually got.
The Gameplay
Several long paragraphs could be written about each and every one of the issues I am about to list, but I want the article to be read and understood by non-Hunters as well, so I will keep it to bullet points.
Explosive Shot is virtually never used due to being undertuned. Even with a 3 talent-point investment, it does maybe 1% of our damage. Most of its value is just in the Shrapnel Shot Talent.
On paper, our single-target was buffed slightly. In practice, the Headshot debuff is responsible for so much of Dark Ranger power that its single-target is garbage wherever it matters, because the Headshot debuff attaches to your target, which is forced to change on Belo'ren Egg Phases, Midnight Falls intermissions, Alleria target swaps, and of course constantly in Mythic+.
Aspect of the Hydra is a good talent in this raid for Sentinel. But Sentinel was gutted, and Dark Ranger's core ability, Black Arrow, is conspicuously missing from Hydra's list of affected abilities, destroying its cleave potential.
For the same reason as above, Dark Ranger is forced to run Trick Shots over Aspect of the Hydra in Mythic+ just to do middling AoE damage, losing all of its 2-target DPS and funnel in the process.
The redesigned Windrunner Quiver, in conjunction with the massively nerfed Precise Shots, is so weak as to almost never be used for any content as any Hero Talent. Another example of genuine work being put into something so undertuned and garbage that it never sees any actual play.
Meanwhile, the right-hand capstone Unload is gated behind the Small Game Hunter Talent, which is a completely 0-value Talent point for many builds, since almost no good builds actually run Explosive Shot, and Volley damage is just weak in general. In other words, on single-target, you must take a Talent point that gives you literally 0 value, just to grab a core keystone for the spec.
In the few scenarios where we do run Windrunner Quiver, it is pretty much a universally-maligned, dare I say "clunky" Talent. Precise Shots procs are so nerfed and so slow (with the GCD reduction removed) that the procs do not feel fun or satisfying to get.
Aimed Shot cooldowns are so much longer due to removed CD-reduction mechanics (tied to the Precise Shots nerfs) that being forced to Steady Shot (an ability that does ~auto-shot damage for a 1.75-second cast) during Trueshot (what is supposed to be one of the strongest 2-minute cooldowns in the game) is common.
This is not Patch 12.0.5-specific, but Calling the Shots continues to never be used. It is probably about time to make it turn Trueshot into a 1-minute cooldown, or maybe an ultra-powerful 3-minute cooldown. 90 seconds just does not do it for almost all content.
Summary
Nobody asked for this rework. Marksmanship was in the best state it had been in a long time in terms of gameplay and mechanics and content working well together. Unnecessary work was done at Blizzard to make changes that nobody asked for, fixing problems that the spec did not have, and of course, thousands of Marksmanship Hunters were forced off the spec due to the massive nerfs in the middle of progression. Their ranged alternative is Beast Mastery, which has its own long list of problems and is one of the worst specs in the game, particularly for Raiding, leaving Ranged Hunters (the vast majority) with no good spec to choose in the raid.
Many have quit because they feel that their only other choice for viability and competitiveness is Survival Hunter. I like Survival, but melee is not what most Hunters signed up for when they chose this class.
From the outside looking in, it seems like it would've been so easy to just nerf it where it was overpowered while retaining all the fun gameplay we had, and buffing bad options like Dark Ranger into viability.
