When looking through the Legion spec reviews I posted last week, I noticed I put a lot of thought into the Survival focus mechanics, and very little into how focus would work for BM or MM. For BM, we don't really know that much, as it's clear from the WarcraftDevs twitter and Andrew Chamber's reddit responses, that they're still fairly undecided with how Dire Beast will work, and there's talk of focus generating talents, if need be. For Marks, however, we already have a good bit of info regarding focus and its regeneration.
**WARNING** Everything I'm about to say is based on my interpretation of a fairly limited preview of the Hunter class in Legion. While I will not write anything intentionally misleading, any/all of it could change before the Legion Beta even comes out.
MM Focus Basics
From what we know so far, we have two ways of gaining focus as MM hunters in Legion. Our baseline regen that will give us 10 focus per second (modified by haste), and Arcane Shot, which will generate 5 focus per GCD. From what we know so far, the vast majority of our focus will be pumped into Aimed Shot, costing 50 focus. In addition, we'll be spending focus on Marked Shot, a channeled ability with a 30 focus cost, and most likely some Talents (Black Arrow, for example).
Let's say, just to get an idea of our rotation, that we have 10% haste, giving us 11 Focus returned each second and a 1.36 second cast time on Aimed Shot. If our rotation consisted only of casting the absolute most Aimed Shots possible (it won't be, but that makes a good starting place to analyze the rotation) after the opener, we'd get into a pattern of using 2 Arcanes between each Aimed Shot, occasionally needing 3 Arcanes. It would look something like this:
| Timestamp | Focus | Ability | Cast time | Focus Cost | Foc Balance |
| 0.00 | 120 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 85.00 |
| 1.36 | 85.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 50.00 |
| 2.73 | 50.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 66.00 |
| 3.73 | 66.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 31.00 |
| 5.09 | 31.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 47.00 |
| 6.09 | 47.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 63.00 |
| 7.09 | 63.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 28.00 |
| 8.45 | 28.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 44.00 |
| 9.45 | 44.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 60.00 |
| 10.45 | 60.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 25.00 |
| 11.82 | 25.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 41.00 |
| 12.82 | 41.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 57.00 |
| 13.82 | 57.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 22.00 |
| 15.18 | 22.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 38.00 |
| 16.18 | 38.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 54.00 |
| 17.18 | 54.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 19.00 |
| 18.55 | 19.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 35.00 |
| 19.55 | 35.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 51.00 |
| 20.55 | 51.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 16.00 |
| 21.91 | 16.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 32.00 |
| 22.91 | 32.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 48.00 |
| 23.91 | 48.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 64.00 |
| 24.91 | 64.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 29.00 |
Adding in Marked Shot
Next, we can add in our Marked Shot. While we did get some info about Marked Shot, we don't have any idea how long of a channel it is yet, or more importantly, how long we have to channel it to get the 10 sec buff on our Aimed Shot. The text we have says "Rapidly fires a shot at up to 3 targets..." to me, that does not sound like our current Barrage talent; the Barrage tooltip reads "Rapidly fires a spray of shots...". Assuming the singular "shot" from the Marked Shot description is intentional, I think it's fairly safe to assume (as safe as it is to assume anything this early) that we'll have to cast it multiple times to get the 3 stacks of buffed Aimed Shot.
For this little experiment I'm doing in my brain. I'm going to assume a 1 second channel, since it says "Rapidly". And because it only works with targets that have Hunter's Mark on them, and both Marked Shot and Aimed Shot are listed as "Strong Physical Damage" (all of the abilities were divided into weak, moderate or strong damage), I'll be working under the hypothesis that the opening rotation (before taking any talents into account) should consist of casting Aimed/Arcane Shots until Hunters Mark pops up, then casting Marked Shot until you have 3 stacks of the Aimed Shot buff. After that, we should settle into a rotation of casting as many Aimed Shots as possible, with Arcane to build focus, while always saving enough focus to use Marked Shot again before the buff runs out (so you don't have to triple cast it to get the 3 stacks back up). Again, it is very possible that I've misunderstood what the devs were trying to describe about the spec, but based on the information we have, I feel pretty good about this as the base rotation for Marks. It might look a little something like this:
| Timestamp | Focus | Ability | Cast time | Foc Cost | Foc Bal. | MSStack |
| 0.00 | 120 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 85.00 | 0 |
| 1.36 | 85.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 50.00 | 0 |
| 2.73 | 50.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 66.00 | 0 |
| 3.73 | 66.00 | *Marked Shot | 1 | 30 | 47.00 | 1 |
| 4.73 | 47.00 | *Marked Shot | 1 | 30 | 28.00 | 2 |
| 5.73 | 28.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 44.00 | 2 |
| 6.73 | 44.00 | *Marked Shot | 1 | 30 | 25.00 | 3 |
| 7.73 | 25.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 41.00 | 3 |
| 8.73 | 41.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 57.00 | 3 |
| 9.73 | 57.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 22.00 | 3 |
| 11.09 | 22.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 38.00 | 3 |
| 12.09 | 38.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 54.00 | 3 |
| 13.09 | 54.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 19.00 | 3 |
| 14.45 | 19.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 35.00 | 3 |
| 15.45 | 35.00 | *Marked Shot | 1 | 30 | 16.00 | 3 |
| 16.45 | 16.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 32.00 | 3 |
| 17.45 | 32.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 48.00 | 3 |
| 18.45 | 48.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 64.00 | 3 |
| 19.45 | 64.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 29.00 | 3 |
| 20.82 | 29.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 45.00 | 3 |
| 21.82 | 45.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 61.00 | 3 |
| 22.82 | 61.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 26.00 | 3 |
| 24.18 | 26.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 42.00 | 3 |
| 25.18 | 42.00 | *Marked Shot | 1 | 30 | 23.00 | 3 |
| 26.18 | 23.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 39.00 | 3 |
| 27.18 | 39.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 55.00 | 3 |
| 28.18 | 55.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 20.00 | 3 |
| 29.55 | 20.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 36.00 | 3 |
| 30.55 | 36.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 52.00 | 3 |
| 31.55 | 52.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 17.00 | 3 |
| 32.91 | 17.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 33.00 | 3 |
| 33.91 | 33.00 | *Marked Shot | 1 | 30 | 14.00 | 3 |
| 34.91 | 14.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 30.00 | 3 |
| 35.91 | 30.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 46.00 | 3 |
| 36.91 | 46.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 62.00 | 3 |
| 37.91 | 62.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 27.00 | 3 |
| 39.27 | 27.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 43.00 | 3 |
| 40.27 | 43.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 59.00 | 3 |
| 41.27 | 59.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 24.00 | 3 |
| 42.64 | 24.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 40.00 | 3 |
| 43.64 | 40.00 | *Marked Shot | 1 | 30 | 21.00 | 3 |
| 44.64 | 21.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 37.00 | 3 |
| 45.64 | 37.00 | Arcane Shot | 1 | 0 | 53.00 | 3 |
| 46.64 | 53.00 | Aimed Shot | 1.36 | 50 | 18.00 | 3 |
Here we're averaging 13-14 Aimed Shots per minute, which is of course significantly lower than when we had just Arcane and Aimed, but the extra 75% on those Aimed Shots will more than make up for it (not to mention that Marked Shot is listed as a strong damage ability).
Note, for anyone interested, that because we don't yet know what the percent chance to proc Hunter's Mark is, I didn't try to include any expected value procs for it. I am assuming that on a single target fight, after it procs, it will stay refreshed so long as you are casting a reasonable number of Arcane/Aimed Shots.
I'm really excited to get more information from the beta to see if I'm guessing the priority correctly, and to get a look at some of the talents and how they'll fit in here. This is obviously a fairly dry rotation with just these three buttons; even if you take the Lock and Load talent from the Legion Class Preview, you'd only be looking at variation due to a proc about once a minute.
Here's hoping the Talents fix all of that, though! Have I mentioned lately how excited I am for Sylvanas talents!?
No comments:
Post a Comment