In terms of aoe damage, yes survival has the upper hand over marks. However, if fighting continuous mobs survival will be focus starved after a few waves. Marks has the advantage of nearly unlimited mana with the combination of Rapid Killing and Rapid Recuperation, plus constant slows with Concussive Barrage. You won't ever do as much aoe damage as survival, but you can multi-shot forever if you take out mobs fast enough.Harvoc wrote:@ Nightsights
If I'm not mistaken, Survival is still better than Marksmanship in terms of AoE damage. Not in single-target, but because of the synergy between Improved Serpent Sting, Toxicology, Noxious Stings, and Serpent Spread; and Trap Mastery, Point of No Escape, Lock and Load, Resourcefulness, and T.N.T; their AoE is very good. Also, in an instance, AoEing down a pack of mobs is better because you don't evenly split your damage among all the mobs, just like other classes. When you AoE, you have one marked target than you use Steady/Cobra Shot on for focus as well as Aimed Shot! from Master Marksman, Explosive Shot from Lock and Load, Kill Shot, and Auto Shot. Not to mention your pet's melee abilities are only single-target. With everyone having a primary single-target and seconday AoE targets, damage is much more lopsided. You could have all of your DPS and tank have the same primary target so that mobs drop faster, but even if everyone targeted different mobs, the amount of time each mob would've lived is still less than if everyone single-targeted. If not, then why would anyone multi-target?
For soloing I can see your point. If you want to aoe, be survival. Marks aoe is mostly used for raid fights with a ton of adds (Heroic Beth for example) where focus will be an issue.
