Because it’s one example of SV having to make changes to the base class as it largely diverts from it rather than builds on it. Barrage not working for SV is the other example; as is Kill Shot requiring a melee weapon. They keep having to make these strange exceptions because SV is still, at its heart, not built as a specialisation of the Hunter class. They tried to remedy this in BFA (it was a lot worse in Legion when the spec didn’t even have Misdirect or Disengage) but it’s still an evident problem.
People have noted that the entire class tree would make sense if the class were just BM and MM. They make it work for SV mostly on account of the sidearm crossbow, which is becoming increasingly overburdened. How come the weapon that carries most of the toolkit at this point isn’t even a real one but rather animation-only? It’s like they really want to keep SV melee but design pressures of the class keep making them rely more and more on the ranged weapon, so now we’re at this state where it’s almost a ranged weapon user again but has a couple tacked-on generic melee attacks keeping it using a spear/staff.
It’s from this post. The class tree talents are not meant to change between specs. They’re meant to be foundational class mechanics. They may trigger from different abilities e.g. Latent Poison Injector but they’re not meant to be making entire nodes conditional on spec.
Those barriers are much more minor variations on the same ability. They are all 1 minute CDs that give an absorb shield for the same amount. The only difference is the visual + a minor passive effect. Arcane’s one reduces magic debuff duration, Fire does damage to attackers, Frost slows attackers.
Survival can’t use a ranged interrupt; one it used to have. In fact, as pointed out on Liquid Max’s stream: it’s effectively locked out of most of its design iterations pre-Legion. That’s a big part of why they have such a difficult time making a compelling SV tree. On top of that we have Barrage which they plan to strictly require a ranged weapon. It seems the comedy of a sidearm crossbow being used for that ability in particular was too much even for Blizzard.
No, they shouldn’t make more nodes conditional on spec. Going back to this model of class design where there’s a strong foundation that specs build on exposes how weak the Hunter class foundation is and it’s mostly a result of Legion’s changes. This class was defined around ranged weapons and pets but now both of those things are conditional depending on spec. That limits things when coming up with a class tree.
Lone Wolf is a tricky subject. I used to like it a lot because there are often times where having dependence on a pet is a weakness, not a strength. When they first made Lone Wolf in WoD the context was a number of raid bosses throughout MoP that were punishing for pet classes. So it seemed like a good choice to give us an option to be independent of a pet. I still think it can be good, but I don’t like how it’s effectively mandatory due to MM’s design (in particular its AoE). I think Lone Wolf ultimately normalised the carving up and compartmentalising of the Hunter class identity that led to Legion’s changes (where they also wanted traps specific to SV) and that’s been the single most negative influence on this class since the start of WoW. “Hunter” is a very broad concept that needs a narrowed-down definition. We had that for a while but Blizzard went and actively deconstructed it.
I would rather they either change Lone wolf to make it baseline for MM (and a hypothetical ranged SV) and design it so it isn’t mandatory but rather a “catch-up” for when you can’t rely on a pet, or just remove it outright. And I would rather we stop having to tread on eggshells around melee Survival; especially if it’s hardly melee at all these days. What’s the point?
Lol? It’s effectively 3 minor variations on the same ability. An interrupt being melee or ranged is a more significant difference.
It’s much more comparable to Multi-Shot before Legion: All the specs had it but they each buffed it in different ways: Beast Cleave for BM, Bombardment for MM, Serpent Spread for SV. Class design made sense like that back then.