That's One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Marksman Mana Efficiency

So there's two new changes on the horizon for hunters, one particularly big one for Marksman hunters.

Hunter's Mark will now provide a 500 RAP bonus instead of the 300 it provides now and the MM talent Marked For Death will reduce the mana cost of both Chimera and Aimed shot by 5/10/15/20/25% per rank.

The Hunter's mark change is nice and it is yet to be seen whether or not taking 3/3 in Imp. Hunter's Mark and glyphing for it will actually be worth it instead of being viewed as a sacrifice for the betterment of the raid. The talent improves the bonus by 10/20/30% and glyph also increases it by 20%. The bonus is additive, not cumulative so the two together increases the bonus by 50%, not 56% as some may believe. Currently, this improves Hunter's Mark to provide 450 total RAP. Not all that impressive. However, with the patch, that 500 RAP will become 750 RAP. That's a much nicer number. Personally, I believe that it will be worth glyphing and talenting for it. There will still be no need for more than one hunter in your raid to do it, but it won't be as much of a sacrifice as it is now.

Marked for Death. That collective shout you heard when this change was revealed were all the Marksmen hunters crying out in joy. This goes a long way in our never-ending battle with our rapidly depleted mana pool. Personally, my heart sinks every time I'm riding the top of the damange (like I was last night on Ignis, probably the closest fight to Patchwerk in Ulduar) to sinking down to fifth or sixth when I drop into Viper after I run out of mana. (This also happens during Bloodlust. Proof of how poorly haste affects hunters.) It's all due to the extremely high cost of our two power shots, chimera and aimed. Chimera costs me 605 mana and Aimed costs ~400 mana to fire. That's 1000 mana to fire two shots. That's rediculous. However, with the upcoming change, chimera's cost drops to ~454 mana and aimed drops to ~300 mana. That is certainly much easier on our mana pools. That's just another step in the fight on mana deficiency. Now if they could only fix it so we're not so reliant on Judgement of Wisdom to keep our mana up on long fights...