I do agree with much of what you’ve written in your most recent CC post Watermist. Some good points there for sure. While not all that surprising, I found it ironic when they singled out parts of the hunter class as exceptions of what was to come, talking class design philosophies. As you pointed out in the link below.
Class Fantasy vs. Spec Fantasy
You’ve also seen me talk about this before, about what I think of their justifications for some of the changes to our class, going into Legion. I know some players on these forums love to echo the same arguments. Yet, lookin back, the thematic overlaps between MM and RSV, talking both from a fantasy standpoint as well as towards mechanical overlaps, these overlaps just weren’t there.
Pre-Legion, class design was still based on the philosophy that each spec should be built on top of a common, class-wide toolkit and fantasy where many abilities, offensive or otherwise, weren’t exclusive to a single spec. This also included the talent system at the time. Essentially, by intent, the only parts of a class that were meant to further a certain identity(in depth) were the Core Specializations themselves. Again, looking back, the core specs of MM and RSV in WoD did not share any signature abilities or effects at all, only the common class-wide fantasy/theme - the use of ranged weapons as a primary focus.
If that alone was enough to justify the rework, how come the same class-wide overlaps for other classes such as Rogue, Mage, Warlock, how come it was perfectly fine for them to keep? Why could Rogues keep 3 specs focusing on using 2x 1h weapons, with combo point generators and finishing moves? Why can Mages and Warlocks both have 3 specs each focusing on using magic?
Again, I’m not saying that I think those other classes should be reworked with this in mind. I’m asking why the class-wide fantasy of hunters, of using ranged weapons as the primary focus, was an issue when said common class fantasy wasn’t an issue elsewhere?
You can also look at this even more, and talk about the philosophy changes for class design in Legion with said focus on individual identities. If you look at it, based on mechanics and abilities, you could’ve just kept the ranged version of SV while doing the same to it as you did with all other specs at the time; commiting to adding a complete set of talents to further that particular fantasy, to make it stand out even more on its own.
They didn’t do this. This tells us that their issue wasn’t actually with overlaps of individual mechanics or abilities, but rather from a broader perspective of how they found our common class fantasy of using ranged weapons to be the problem. So, the question remains the same…Why for us, if not for anyone else?
Looking at your most recent CC post again…
MM hunters go with Lone Wolf
I don’t necessarily share the concerns of some other players when it comes to Lone Wolf. I think that it’s perfectly fine to have it as an option for hunter specs where pets are not intended as a central part of their offensive toolkit.
My biggest gripe with the talent is…well, how they’ve once again made it into a talent. In short, it shouldn’t be a talent based option, but be baseline for specs where it’s relevant. It should also be designed to have no impact on AoE/Cleave damage since, if you take MM pets as an example, your pet does not contribute to AoE/Cleave damage in any way.
On the topic of utility, I think that they should take another look at what can be done for hunters that choose to opt out of using pets. Since the original implementation of Lone Wolf, they’ve reworked hunter pets several times. The utility provided through pets/pet specs nowadays is now more impactful for your gameplay compared to in the older days. This should be reflected in the design of Lone Wolf.
Agreed.
I would argue that, if they insist on keeping pets as a core part of melee hunter gameplay, they should simply do something akin to what you said in the BM section, adding a melee option within BM, and then remove those parts from SV itself.
- The melee-specific attacks could replace ranged equivalents within the BM spec/tree.
- Talents like Wildfire Bomb, Guerilla Tactics, and more could be moved to the class tree for anyone who wants to keep them. All three of those talents would fit perfectly as their own capstone path/branch in the class tree.
Edit
For anyone who wants to, here is a quick mock-up for TalentTreeManager(TTM), showing what the above could look like. Note: I took the liberty to make some adjustments to pathing and other talents in the BM tree as well. Animal Companion is shown, but is not intended to be a part of the spec tree, but to instead be a baseline spec option with no impact on damage.
With this in mind, they could proceed to further develop the core concept/theme of pre-Legion SV, of a munitions expert and trapper, with ranged weapons in mind.