Dumbing Down Marksmanship

Today's Warlords of Draenor Alpha patch-notes were updated after-the-fact to sneak in some substantial Marksmanship changes. While I wouldn't call changes to the amount of damage a shot does a "nerf" because it will all be balanced with other classes and specs, I am completely comfortable calling some of these changes nerfs, as they change the nature of the ability, making them less valuable.  Perhaps not a nerf in the sense that the class will be worse off overall on the damage meters; but a nerf to the abilities, and the style of play we're accustomed to.   Perhaps, in the end, these changes will be for the best, but we won't be able to know that until WoD comes out.  Until then, here is my take on the changes:

Chim Shot

• Chimera Shot has been nerfed to no longer heal the hunter for 5% of total health.

Removing the Heal from Chim Shot isn't a huge issue.  In PvE a 5% heal every 9 seconds is rarely a lifesaver.  In PvP, it was a nice heal, though really it's the reduced relative damage done by Aimed Shot along with losing Silencing Shot that will most hurt MM PvP. Hopefully MM PvP'ers will be able to snipe enough killing blows in battlegrounds to make up a little of this lost heal, but in arenas, and in the majority of BGs that mechanic won't be part of the gameplay.

It's important to remember we'll still get a small heal from Enhanced Camo every minute, which is only 2% less healing per minute, and is available as a more bursty heal.  

Master Marks

• Master Marksman has been removed.

While it may seam insubstantial, for Marks PvP this is a major change.  An instant cast Aimed Shot can mean the difference between a killing blow and seeing your opponent healed back to full health.   The switch from Arcane to exclusively Aimed Shot is going to make the loss of Master Marksman even harder.

Conc Barrage

• Concussive Barrage has been removed.

This is one I definitely would not call a nerf.  They've had CC on the chopping block for WoD, so the loss of the daze effect on Chim Shot and Multi-Shot doesn't come as a surprise at all, and is only fair with the CC that other classes are losing.

Careful Aim

• Careful Aim has been nerfed from 75% increased Crit chance to 60% increased Crit chance

I imagine the point of this one is to keep it relevant as we get further into the expansion and our crit rating gets higher.  That's understandable to some extent, but it will make Marks less appealing at the beginning for the first tier.  Careful Aim was the mechanic that had most top-end hunters excited about getting to play MM early in Warlords of Draenor.  A 60% buff is still substantial,  and will balance out the added duration of Careful Aim since it's now active during Rapid Fire as well,  but it means we'll be more RNG dependent, and our openers won't have guaranteed 30-focus Aimed Shots.

It could be that the devs plan for the Marksmanship Attunement bonus to make up for this, but we'll have to wait and see what our crit levels are like.

Steady Focus

• Steady Focus has been removed.

This is another that I'll be sad to see go.  I would assume they'll change the cast times on Aimed Shot to compensate for it (hopefully, at least), or perhaps they were hoping to make sure MM hunters really needed haste, but this was an interesting ability and had great flavor for Marksmanship.  I recognize that it would take some added effort by the Devs to make this work with Focusing Shot, but I to me, this is too fun of an ability to lose because of that.

My real problem with this change, is it feels like it's part of a continued trend of dumbing down the game. Raising MM's focus to 120 was already lowering the skill cap for Steady Focus, in that it makes it easier not to focus cap while hitting two Steady Shots in a row; taking it out altogether is just disappointing.

Piercing Shots

• Piercing Shots has been removed.

This is one of two significant nerfs to the benefit of Marksmanship Crit.  This was the primary mechanic that made crit so valuable for MM hunters, that it wasn't simply doubling the damage of these shots, but was adding a 30% bleed as well.  And the bleed was a substantial part of what made MM hunters unique from SV and BM.   I really don't know what they were thinking with this one, but if I had to guess, I would think they perhaps thought crit was becoming too valuable with the extra crit benefits from the Draenor Perk Enhanced Aimed Shot.

Speaking of Draenor Perks,  I didn't see if they listed what the new perk would be to replace Enhanced Piercing Shots.  That perk would have gone a long way to bringing MM's AoE damage in line with SV's and BM's.  Assuming this change sticks, I'll be looking forward to seeing what new perk MM will get.

"He just does that to show he could've snuffed me"

A clever way to get people on board with changes to the game, is to take away more than is intended; then the devs can give us back something, placating us, and still they've removed what they really wanted to remove in the first place.  I certainly don't actually know that this is a strategy Blizzard uses, but it feels like that sometimes: take away a handful of abilities with the first alpha build, then give us back Distracting Shot and Rapid Fire, then all of the sudden we've forgotten the other losses.

My hope is that this is what they're doing here.  Take away a lot of MM's flavor, then give us back a couple, so we'll forget the ones we lost.   As they keep reminding us: this is just the alpha, and none of the changes are final.   Even in these patch notes, they put in a comment that they'd be adding something to ensure that Crit remained the most valuable stat for MM.  Hopefully that will be something to keep MM a fun, exciting spec.