Some where in the Blue Tracker was some quote about giving Frost Mages Replenishment in attempt to make them more raid friendly. Half of me supports this - I hate to think of a person playing a spec that they don't want to because their preferred spec does intrinsically less DPS than another spec. The other half of me sees this as a cop-out.
I really wish I could find the post, as I distinctly recall first thinking: "They are buffing a lower-DPS spec by giving them Replenishment? What does this mean for the lower-DPS specs whose classes already have Replenishment?" Is it really fair, by this trend, that SV has both the top end DPS for our class and satisfies the Replenishment role?
This isn't a case of what a spec brings to a raid. You don't need to bring every single buff in order to succeed. Replenishment is fully intended to be a given now, and its role a considerable part of anything above 5-mans. One of our healing priests even jokes with me that he heals me last because I don't give him mana. SV gives everything a raid needs, so where does that leave the rest of us?
I am bitter, and I know it's obvious. I've been bitter for the majority of time since 2.0. This comes up only because a fellow officer, an officer that should know better, asked me why I didn't spec SV so I could have as high DPS as the other hunter officer. In return, I asked him if he ever considered that I don't like playing SV. The conversation ended there as we made another attempt on Six Minute Malygos.
Wrath was supposed to be the end of speccing against your preference in order to satisfy the raid. I did my time as SV - I recognized MM was just not cutting it in BT/MH/SW, so I chose the lesser of two evils to fulfill my contribution to the raid. I was not happy, but when the disparity was as great as it was for MM in BC, I had to accept that if I wanted to not feel carried. When 3.0 hit, I was back MM as soon as I could, and I was content with the game again. There was no longer a massive gap between the specs, and even now, it's not like I'm not doing competitive damage.
Now MM and BM are being put off as the "selfish" trees - our buffs are not mandatory, our DPS is nice, but not as good as SV's, so obviously we only spec the way we do because we are more interested in our own enjoyment than the raid. And I think that's grossly unfair, not to mention against the nature of Wrath.
Unless they adjust the DPS differences between the specs (come on 3.1!) or move Replenishment (yeah, right), this is the way it is, and once again MM (along with BM - welcome to the party guys!) is back to being the undernourished tree of the Hunter class.
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We got in on this party when we were kicked out of our VIP spot in the Flav Club.
Pretty high end club. You should have seen the stage.
In any case, I do think that BM and MM need a bit more utility. SV provides a great deal of it now, but BM's Ferocious inspiration is almost completely overshadowed by a Retadins talent(forget which). At least trueshot aura hasn't gotten a replacement yet!
Enhance Shaman and Blood DKs have the equivalent of TSA. The only difference is that it's a proc, not a constant aura.
I don't know how, but somehow I have managed to avoid anyone asking me why I am not SV (other than a guildie/good friend who was asking it out of pure curiosity). Somehow I've managed to get into all these PuG raids and heroics so far and not had it come up, even though the Big Red Pet and near 100% FI uptime is a big giveaway that I am not the spec-of-the-moment.
I'm sort of wondering if it would be different if I was in a serious raiding guild, but on the other hand, in just the past couple of weeks, I've seen both MM and BM hunters in our server's top raiding guild-- very well-geared, too, so they're getting into raids. So, I dunno.
Still, I look forward to 3.1 when hopefully the differences between specs will even out a little more. As it is I am doing "well", I may or may not be top DPS depending on circumstance/buffs/group composition but I am usually at least near the top, but I also feel like I could be doing better. Here's hoping!
*Shrug* at the end of the day, Marks and BM may not be squeezing every last drop out of Hunter DPS - but they're not in so much of a bad place. Skill is still a pretty big part of things.
If I wanted to crank out absurd DPS rather than enjoying my play time, I'd be playing a DK - there's one wandering our server who regularly comes out with about 6.5k DPS. I think that's over our theory max as hunters, let alone possible in average situations.
On the other hand, I'm surprised at how much satisfaction I get from getting the odd whisp from a Survival hunter asking how I'm out DPSing them with a "bad" spec.
No, MM and BM DPS are not in a bad place. I'm quite content with my DPS, but it is still obvious that they are not the "max DPS" specs.
I have never been biased against in a raid because of my spec - I have been fortunate to be in guilds that realize people enjoy other aspects of game play besides pushing content anyway possible. It does not change the fact that for the most part people will assume you are SV and wonder why you are not despite all of the spec's benefits.
I've received a few comments here and there, but have never been kicked or left out because of my spec. Most of the time it goes something like a recent Violet Hold run of mine. About halfway through, when the group leader recognized TSA, I got the comment in party chat, "Wow, we have a marksman hunter, I didn't know anyone still played that."
My DPS could be a little bit better, I'm still trying to reach that over 3000 mark consistently. I'm close and every once in while over with most raid bosses. Part of it is gear and a lot of it is just inexperience with the content. It'll come. I'm not too worried.
Luckily, my guild is very small, and very close knit, and very open. I'd like to think that we are a pretty skilled group of people. We get praises all the time from our pugs from the larger more prominent guilds. So other than our MT every once in a while having to spec heals, and our top DPS (an unholy DK) occasionally having to spec to OT, we pretty much will take the player, not the spec. ;)
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