Yes, I tend to feel the same way about Steady now. Having one spammable cast that is your best dps and most mana efficient doesn't seem like it would be logcal. This does however, have a significant impact on Viper time. Not only will using these instants result in more time in Viper, but when you actually are in Viper, and using primarily a steady heavy rotation to recoup mana as quick as possible, the result will be an even greater damage penalty, since you will be using a sub-optimal rotation in addition to the damage penalty. Just something to think about.

Mattaos, I believe the [Glyph of Arcane Shot] would be in-line with what you are saying.

Also, it may actually be Survival that suffers the most from the steady shot nerf, which someone made a little spreadsheet assesment of a couple pages back. Reason being is that survival is the "stat stacker" spec with more AP and crit than the other 2, so the scaling really hurts there. Also the spec has fewer other shot options than MM (since Explosive shares CD with Arcane, while MM has Chimera) and doesn't get a pet doing a significant portion of their overall damage like BM, all of which means Steady becomes a greater % of survival DPS than the other specs have to rely on.

Here's my take on it. Bliz wants to nerf pets and avoid massive QQ... So, the best way to do that is to tell Hunters they're going to nerf a whole lot of stuff to bait their QQ trap. Then, they'll retract all of the nerfs that they never were planning to implement in the first place. Next thing you know, the Hunter community will be thanking them for not gutting the class, instead of being upset about the pet nerf.

Tell someone their computer is going to take 2 hours to fix, and they'll get upset if it takes 2.5. Tell them it's going to take 5 hours in the first place, and they'll thank you for getting it done in 1/2 the time. Customer Service Strats 101.

Well yes, but to restate the current issue, quite simply it's not worth using most of those shots.

Arcane shot is mana-inefficient, and is often resisted by boss-level mobs.
Multi-shot is mana-inefficient, and while it has a deacent damage/mana ratio while hitting multiple mobs it can also break CC.
Aimed shot is mana-inefficient, and requires serious talent boosting to make it worthwhile - MM can do this, BM can't.


Essentially, I think that if this nerf to steady goes through, then the other shots need boosting. Note I'm far from adverse from having it happen this way: I've mentioned that I don't like the current model of steady spam in any case.

So...

Conservative model:

*Drop 1% base mana cost off arcane/multi/aimed.
*Arcane shot cannot be resisted (note that this also helps in pvp)
*Multi-shot gains "smart targeting" (its secondary shots won't hit CC'ed targets)
*Aimed and Explosive shots get 10-15% more damage

Radical model:

*All Hunter shots are instant
*Haste affects Hunter's GCD. Potentially at half-rate compared to casters for balance reasons.
*"Focused fire" buff. For each *cast* shot the Hunter fires without moving he gets a 2% damage bonus, to 10%.
*Steady shot costs 3% base mana, but adds only 5% AP and no amo/weapon damage
*Arcane shot drops 1% base mana cost, scales with 20%AP and cannot be resisted. A talent deep in the BM tree adds 5/10% damage.
*Multi-shot drops 1% base mana cost, "smart targeting" (its secondary shots won't hit CC'ed targets), scaling improved slightly
*Aimed shot drops 1% base mana cost, 20% more damage, scaling improved slightly
*Explosive Shot damage increased 20%
*New shot: Slicing arrow. 15s cooldown, (potentially shared with kill shot), causes a 15s bleed effect. A talent deep in the SV tree adds a physical vulnrability (1/2% extra damage for 1/2 talent points) to all damage caused to targets affected by slicing arrow.
*Viper gets a small (1%?) boost to mana return from shot damage, encouraging a normal shot rotation through viper rather than steady spam

It seems to me that something like 53/18/0 might work out well with these changes for BM, along with the Arcane Shot glyph.

The rotation would be Kill > Arcane > Aimed > Multi > Steady while keeping Serpent Sting up and using cooldowns, perhaps dropping Multi as its mana cost/damage may not be worth it.

Mana issues would be addressed, in part, by Cobra Strikes and Longevity; right now, on a fight like Patchwerk, I burn down to about 3k left of my 12k raid buffed mana bar by the end of the fight just on the basis of having JoW, BoW, mana spring, and Replenishment, so perhaps Longevity would allow us to maintain Arcane/Aimed in our rotations. I agree, in any case, that mana costs and scaling need to be tweaked with this in mind.

One thing to note, however, is that the design isn't, and shouldn't be, that we are balanced around never being in Viper; our DPS should be balanced around assuming some use of Viper, perhaps one full OOM-to-full Viper period per boss fight. Otherwise, for example, we will avoid things like the 4-piece T7 set bonus (e.g., I have been gearing to only use the two piece and completely avoid 4 piece). More use of Viper would also make Haste and Int more valuable stats for BM, which has been discussed previously.