Community Council discussion on Hunter design

Classes Hunter
1216

Don’t leave so soon! We were just getting to the good part.

It’s called conjecture. I’m not a WoW game developer, so any conclusion drawn about the spec* symbols would only suffice as a talking point, not a premise for debate. You mistakenly attributed my subjective stance as an admission of fact, then tried to frame my subjective statements as contradictory to the facts, those facts being:

[Beast Mastery] Tame Beast: Pets

[Marksmanship] Ranged Weaponry: Volley

[Survival] Melee Range: Mongoose Bite

The descriptive cadence is as follows: specialization, style of weaponry that actuates and conveys the particular ability displayed by the symbol.

Note that without [Tame Beast], there would be no Pet DPS. Without a Ranged Weapon, you cannot actuate [Volley]. And without being in Melee Range, you cannot actuate [Mongoose Bite].

These are the facts–immutable and irrefutable. Now what they mean beyond that is anyone’s guess. I conjectured a stance, but I’m also not an original game developer. It could infer melee centrality, it could also be a more general summary of the specialization as you’ve mentioned.

I’m not interested in the furtherance of this topic beyond the surface.

The reason you’ve painstakingly attempted to contradict me is because you’re trying to pull a quick victory in the debate, instead of undertaking this journey with me into the past to learn more about the class.

We have radically different intentions.

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1217

It’s a public forum in the sense that, if you post something, it is part of the topic in question, not a private DM conversation.

That doesn’t mean that you quote one person, proceed to post a reply based on that quote, and then say that said reply was actually to someone else and not the person you actually quoted. The exception would be if you multi-quote several posters, and direct your comment towards one of them, in a clear manner. This, however, isn’t what you did.

“Consorting”? Really?

If people assume that I’m for the removal of MSV, simply because I tend to refute revisionist arguments of what the class and talent category was in the past, then they have a problem with comprehending the narrative. I have never argued that MSV should be removed.

Aside from the odd forum troll, I have no interest in taking a stance against another poster. My focus is on what’s being said/written, not who’s saying it. I certainly won’t join in on the argument that it has to be either MSV or RSV. Nor will I agree with fictional revisionism simply because I want to distance myself from other posters, just for the sake of it. Again, that doesn’t mean that I agree with everything they say.

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1218

You do see the irony, though? The whole intent with those lines was to expose Bepples as oversensitive to the subject. I was speaking to you, yes. And I meant every word of what I said. However, it was intended to teach Bepples a valuable lesson–he won’t allow anyone to have an unfavorable opinion of RSV, while at the same time tries to wedge his own unfavorable opinion to others without solicitation. His response to the trap I set for him highlights this irony–he walked right into it.

4D Chess.

1219

The irony of insisting the virtues of a public forum while proudly bragging about flagging posts you disagree with…

So when you post revisionism about what SV was and how its iterations were perceived, are you being sincere or not?

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1220

Yes, out of the ~4677 posts that you’ve made, somehow flagging 3 of them is considered flagrant abuse.

:rofl:

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1221

- You openly bragging about flagging a type of post that is absolutely not against the rules

P.S. Have you ever actually offered any proof that you played in original Classic? For someone who claims to be so deeply experienced in it you sure get a lot badly wrong about it.

1222

I find this statement deeply offensive. Mods!

Eh, I’ll leave that up for you to decide.

1223

alright bepples, tell us how you would improve the survival tree (without changing it back to ranged)+hunter class tree in order to make it more competitive

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1224

No

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1225

what’s the matter, colonel sanders? chicken?

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1226

Simply uninterested, I would think.

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1227

Why even bother asking me?

I don’t have any faith in SV having a successful future as a melee spec. It’s been melee for a long time now and has pretty much been a disaster the whole time so why should I believe that x or y hypothetical iteration will be the one that works out?

So given that I believe melee SV is fundamentally a bad idea, what makes you think I’ll ever have any suggestions for the spec “without changing it back to ranged”?

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1228

@Allieddeath

Why are you going back and making heavy edits/add new points to old posts?

“Trying to pull a quick victory”?

I have no interest in winning anything, beyond simply not agreeing with your arguments put forth, and based on what was in the game, and what the devs had actually said about our class and class design philosophies, further the concept of how the class was from the beginning designed to be a ranged damage dealer with a pet. Nothing you could get, or spec into would change that core focus, not unless you deliberately deviated from the main role of our class as a damage dealer, by intentionally restricting yourself to a significantly worse state.

Nor am I interested in any journey to “learn about the class” from the original days. I played back then, we also have Classic now, and anything the devs said about the original class is still out there.

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1229

because you feel strongly and passionate about hunter, i want to see what kind of changes you would make with it. i think the dev working on hunter fundamentally does not understand how to do their job, because enh shaman feels incredible despite also being a melee spec on a class that has 2 ranged specs. and i mean, you probably do things that are probably a bad idea, right? maybe a smoke every now and then or a drink, or being with somebody who is like the human equivalent of junk food

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1230

I might edit a post within the same day of creating it. I don’t believe this to somehow be disingenuous. You’re free to critique my approach but don’t insult my character.

I have not altered any underlying facts but may have clarified my subjective stance.

The highest purpose for you to fulfill in this topic is to highlight any logical flaws in my delivery which I will then use to reassess and bolster my argument. Like two knives sharpening one another.

Note that your repeated attempts to thwart me have in fact served to strengthen my argument. For this, you have my undying gratitude.

Sentimental.

Will you forever lean on an idealized fantasy composed of mere generalities? You must look deeper.

I’ve asked what’s the answer to the formula ‘2+2’.

You’ve instead responded with: “Math is a broad subject of numerical interplay”.

While that statement is generally true, it does not satisfy the more nuanced answer that the initial question calls for.

General Summary:

“Hunters are a Class that primarily deals ranged damage”.

Contextual Nuance:

“Marksmanship talents and skills have the highest damage ceiling in which a playstyle leaning into that fact is optimal for damage dealing output within the applicable design limitations for said skill and talent set”

While the general relationship between these points are factual, it does little to describe Beast Mastery or Survival’s internal mechanics. So until you’re willing to more deeply analyze the Hunter Class and cease in the erroneous application of more sweeping generalities in place of contextual nuance the debate will forever remain trapped in stagnant, perpetual circularity.

A: Hunters are not composed of a single lore archetype. Archetypal generality therefore would not apply to the whole of the class, only singularly to each spec.

B: “Primarily ranged damage Class” is not mutually exclusive with “An internally 90%+ melee output Specialization”. Both of these statements can be true at the same time, citing how the former is a general summary and the latter is a contextual nuance.

C: “Blizzard said this” is purely conjecture as we are not qualified to impose “What Blizzard said”.

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1231

It pretty much is TBH. Specialisations are based on the class. That’s why it’s called a specialisation. It doesn’t make sense to start with ranged weapon mastery and then “specialise” out of it, and that’s not how vanilla SV works. Anyone who actually played back then knows this.

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1232

Would this be a statement of fact or would it instead be a more subjective stance? Choose wisely.

Should your statement be strictly a subjective talking point, then I find that there are better-suited and more nuanced perspectives that hold higher objective parity with the underlying facts.

I find that Specializations are more aligned with various lore archetypes more so than any notion of a singular class identity.

  • Features such as melee and pet dps compressed into a singular envelope are aligned with Rexxar and retroactively Durotan. Rexxar is revealed with the removal of Marksmanship abilities and talents which leaves the Hunter Class with a remainder of melee and pet damage.

  • Features such as ranged weaponry, a scouting owl, and Trueshot Aura are aligned with Tyrande and by extension, Marksmanship.

  • Traps, explosives, in addition to ranged and melee damage all compressed into a singular envelope would be more aligned with the Trap Assassin from Diablo 2.

At no point will you find the roots of our three specializations–and thus the breadth of features provided by the Hunter Class in a singular lore archetype.

And thus any attempt to generalize each category under a singular root archetype would be maligned with the underlying facts.

That would be correct–in that a Hunter could not spec out of ranged weaponry. Hunters could neither specialize into or out of ranged weaponry, melee weaponry, nor pets but could become proficient with each of these three facets by specializing into MM, SV, or BM respectively.

Thanks for your contribution.

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1233

SV did not make you even close to proficient in melee. That was neither the intended design nor the result.

Anyone who actually played back then knows this.

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1234

#releasethebepplescut

1235

Uhm…what?

I really can’t tell why you insist on looking at vanilla class design(+philosophies regarding design) with the same mindset as you would for the later era, especially what we got from Legion and onwards. They had entirely different goals for, and approach to, the concept of class design then, compared to anything we’ve seen since Legion, heck, even a while before then, to a degree.

While they did indeed draw inspiration from a plethora of different hero units from WC3, and even some other sources, when creating the original classes, they did not set out to create sub-classes with entirely different focus profiles(talking pure dmg classes first and foremost). The sub-class concept is something they began to build on in WotLK, and primarily from Cataclysm and onwards when they added Core Specializations to each class.

It’s mind-boggling how you dismiss the purpose of our combat role, as a damage dealer, in favor of arguing for a profile that literally wouldn’t be a feasible option in a large part of the game, back then.

You might as well say, “hey, I’ma switch my gameplay to only fight using Eyes of the Beast to control my pet”. The Beast Mastery talent category held talents that buffed your pet directly, so naturally, this meant that the intended purpose of the Beast Mastery category was for you to fight only using your pet. The icon of the category is the Tame Beast icon, and using Eyes of the Beast to control your pet is the ultimate form of taming a pet. Clearly that’s what they intended…

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