This is an opinion, which will be made obvious, and i would like the opinion of you other hunters.
I think that they messed up Survival vs. Beast Mastery. I prefer Survival the way it was in MOP, I want Black Arrow and Explosive Shot and that play-style back. I don’t recall ALL of the abilities; I just remember it was so much going on and so much active play.
Survival makes sense with bombs and traps, to be honest, I loved survival at first it even makes sense as the idea. But, it took away all I loved about the spec.
I guess I’m just looking to see if im an outlier on my opinion of Survival in BFA not being so great. Or if there are others that miss the way Survival was.
I think we should keep survival as melee, but I believe we should have a 4th hunter spec that revolves around more “magical” abilities. We already have stuff like arcane shot. I think most classes need some type of 4th spec. I would actually love for the next Xpack to release 4th specs instead of a new class.
Magic hunter, tank shaman, healing mage, etc. Just mix things up.
reading through more of the Survival based thread, it does seem like im an outlier on this, that most people tend to think the current survival is the great and in some sense the best. with few complaints or opinions on adjustments but not so much to go back to a range specific spec as i like.
Mostly as I’m not a fan of specs that focus on melee combat. To any degree at all really.
I like fighting with my ranged weapons.
Your thoughts on the old SV spec I can get behind as well. It was idd a great spec. A playstyle that to it’s core, was unlike anything else the class had access to.
This specific line, I’m not with you on though. We all have our preferences ofc, and like you said, it’s your opinion. Many liked how specs worked during MoP.
For me personally, I quit essentially after playing the MoP Beta. A big reason for that was because of what they did to the talents. Not as much in terms of the new layout but more towards the fact that all specs now had the same talents.
Utility and defensives, not as much of a problem. That kinda fits with the overall Class Fantasy.
But the later talent rows where you had offensive abilities/talents, they were to bland. Most focused on things that involved elements of the BM spec. Some you could tie to MM as well.
And while there was one or two that previously were a part of the SV spec, they weren’t exactly talents that highlighted the SV playstyle.
For me, the very Core that involves active offensive abilities + the majority of offensive talents, should have a theme with a strong connection to the current Spec you’re playing. They should enhance that playstyle.
Utility + defensives and maybe one or two offensive abilities/talents can be a bit more general(depending on the spec ofc). They could cater more towards a coherent class fantasy. Rather than spec identities.
As far as changing the current specs that we have, I would prefer the 4th spec route for the class. Now, ofc many are very sceptic towards suggestions of the likes as…well, historically…
But the likelihood that we’ll see melee survival return to the old ranged version…I just cannot see this happening anytime soon.
Posted this a while back, it caters towards the 4th spec design. Muynta refers to that past playstyle as magical’ish, I dno, I would say it’s about animal venoms, poisons and explosives.
Arcane Shot in itself, I don’t want the hunter class to have at all. Arcane magic, should be exclusive to the Mage class if you ask me.
I kinda really enjoy the melee survival because it really fits my idea of the “Ranger fantasy” but I can understand wishing the old ranged one back.
I just feel that BFA survival kinda feels more like beastmastery than BM does, which is wrong, in a way, Kill Command should not be part of our rotation.
I mean, all specs or classes when implemented or when vastly changed, it becomes a bit of a hassel to deal with the follow up.
With a game such as WoW. The fact that implementing new specs or classes causes problems, is but a guarantee.
Agreed. On both!
Although, what people like or not, is entirely subjective.
As an example, I can fully understand why many like the current MSV.
But I will never like it as long as it remains a melee spec. I just don’t like melee combat.
But, does this make the spec in itself bad? Not at all.
Like I said, many players like it. Nothing wrong with that.
I think it likely this is because so many of the ranged SV players rerolled or quit the game in Legion and no longer frequent these boards. I personally know 3 people other than myself that quit at Legion (myself included). That was all the hunter mains on my rather short friends list. None of them have come back to the game except myself, and I no longer play my hunter.
That is anecdotal evidence, but that is my guess as to why your opinion seems unshared.
It is the best by some measures. When they worked on it for BfA they put actual time into it and listened to the feedback (unlike beta MM development). It has quite a few more abilities with fewer weaknesses than MM making it a much stronger spec. It is also stronger than BM for a lot of PvP, though BM isn’t tier 0 like MM is.
So yes, its pretty much “the best,” but that’s because we only really have two specs. Additionally many of the SV players are people who came to the class to play melee from other melee specs, having never mained hunter before (I know several former Warriors or Enh who play SV e.g.).
Though, I’m not asking for us to get a different version of Beast Mastery back as a 4th spec option.
Nor a different MM spec. Or melee Survival.
A different iteration of an existing spec I would not say is a justified argument for a 4th spec option.
By all means, if there is a playstyle/spec design that suits the DH class, that also fits the fantasy of WoW. A design that currently does not exist within the class. If that can be worked out, I would not be against it.
Same for any other class really.
But again, if you’re arguing for a 4th spec option just to get a different iteration of a spec already in existence back, I would not agree that this is a justified case.
Realistic? Maybe.
But there isn’t really anything that they could implement within another Hunter spec that would actually give us that old playstyle back. At least not without removing a massive part of that specs current playstyle and design.
Simply reworking the Explosive Shot-ability currently found in the MM talents. Along with putting in a Black Arrow talent as well. This would not give us the old SV playstyle back.
Not even close. There was much more to the spec than just those two(3 with Serpent Sting), abilities alone.
But yes; people have quit. If you go look at threads from 2017 there are many people who no longer post anymore. One example is Guillotaur. He was a very active Hunter forum poster going back years and a few months ago he told me on the Hunter discord that he gave up and quit for good, mostly due to the direction of the class and Survival in particular.
To be fair, there are people on both sides of the debate who have quit. I think Arctos, who strongly supported melee Survival, has also quit since I never see him post any more.
My anecdote was intended to show the timing of a possible mass exodus. It is a very small population size, but I know for certain that this event occurred BECAUSE of the Legion Hunter changes. It wasn’t just 4 people, it was ALL the hunter mains on my friends list. And they didn’t reroll, they quit, just like me (I tried to reroll, but Templates really killed it for me).
Other data that supports a mass exodus is the participation data of both Hunters in general, and SV in particular going from WoD to Legion. This data, which can be found on various sites, provides strong circumstantial evidence that supports the supposition that the reason there is very little opposition to Melee SV now (there used to be a metric f’load) is because the people that would do so have moved on from Hunter entirely, one way or the other.
Personally I know a couple of people who quit over it.
Person 1: Hunter main, Was already very disillusioned due to both events in and the design of WoD. Mained a Hunter, briefly came back in Legion but ultimately the lack of ranged Survival was too bothersome and she later quit for good.
Person 2: Not a Hunter main but had a very active Hunter alt, played tons of PvP to the point where they were starting to play their Hunter more than their main. He played Survival exclusively. At first he was fine with SV going melee but it made him never play his Hunter again and he came to realise that was quite a lot of enjoyment in the game gone up in smoke and with SV Hunters gone he was pretty much exclusively logging in to raid and do nothing else. Got burnt out and later quit. He comes back occasionally but never plays a Hunter.
There’s also a couple of people I know who actually tried out SV in Legion and say it was really fun… but after they played it a little more they came to like it less and less until they couldn’t stand to play it. This kind-of happened with Mikepreachwow too. The spec had this “new-and-exciting” feel to it early on that made people review it positively, probably because of the sheer amount of abilities/talents that never existed before, but not a lot of them stuck around. For some people it was the opposite: they hated it at first and got used to it, but evidently not many.
The 4th spec thing will never happen, they need to fix what we have now. They are incapable of adding anything “new” that doesn’t cannibalize what we already have in the process.