I'm losing faith in the Marksmanship tree.

I'm losing faith in Marks as we've fought more and more teams that focus on nullifying my damage and being successful @ it.

I re-specced back to a high damage output SV build (5/5 MT etc) and my 3v3 team shot up to 2650 last night (2nd in the BG), I've also noticed 5s teams with ever increasing focus on defensive affliction scrubbing which is especially painful as MM/Destro.

I will say this however that there are teams where MM definitely has a clear advantage but from my experiences the over all quality and reliability of SVs output shines in more situations than not.

An example from last night was Pal/Destro/EleSham we fought a few times and I was playing extremely defensive. The 1 shot luxury explosive provided me allowed me to get off my damage while peeking out from behind LOS and while being constantly mobile, as MM I'm forced to give up optimal positioning to give myself opportunities to chain 2+ globals together. Even without the ability to readiness another deterrence or double disengage out of range of people SV feels like it has a higher chance of survivability because of the positioning it affords you. As long as I concentrate on defensive CD management and don't freak out and blow ROS/det/BMasters on the first instant I get locked down in a fail safe attempt at preventing a death I've been able to cycle CDs in an efficient manner to keep myself up.

We'll see how this holds up against our biggest competition in the BG the R1 wizard cleave (druid/warlock/mage) and the now R3 cleave of destro/ele/paladin. Facing off against 2 quality wizard cleaves as a hunter vying for that number 1 spot should prove to be anything but stress free.

If you asked me what I thought marks needed I would immediately respond back with a revamp to the chimera shot talent. Ever since the viper sting change the shot really lost it's luxury as a versatile multi-role shot and some simplicity and stream lining would be much appreciated.

Remove the serpent sting requirement for bonus damage
Make scorpid sting it's own disarm shot on a 1 min CD
Remove the viper sting refresh

Base what the shot provides off of the aspect the hunter is using rather than the sting on the target.
Dragonhawk = max damage
Viper = bonus mana regen with medium damage

Currently the tree suffers from a serious case of mana management and GCD management and these changes would help in both of those areas.