The Vanilla Hunter Specializations are indeed mostly separate and individual faculties. The key difference between Vanilla and Retail is that you could hybridize the archetypes at will to create your own custom playstyle. In retail, I really want to try [Beast Cleave] and [Kill Cleave] with the new Survival S2 4pc but I can’t because we’re unable to hybridize skill trees. That wasn’t the case in Vanilla.
31/20/0 BM, x/31+/x MM, and 0/21/30 SV would compose some of the more popular cookie-cutter variants.
Facts are facts.
That would be a false equivalency. You used the same example in our first exchange back in January, so I will respond in kind:
Feel free to utilize the base class toolkit wherever you see fit or whenever you deem appropriate for optimum results.
That would depend on your definition of proficient. More proficient in melee damage relative to the other Hunter specializations? Yes. More proficient in melee utility relative to the other Hunter specializations? Yes.
Only your senior could stall you out in a debate over the course of the better part of 2 weeks.
We’ve got an original game developer on our hands here, folks.
They key difference is that Vanilla specializations(categories) were designed to build on/add to the design of the base class. With Legion, until the end of SL, there was no core class toolkit to speak of. Sure, you had a select few baseline abilities, even for damage, but those did not add upp to anything that resembled a near-complete profile to which you could make small improvements/adjustments to. They’ve somewhat started to steer back towards that core structure with the DF changes, but we’re still ways off from what you got out of baseline core class mechanics relative to what was found in each category in vanilla.
Sure, but you’re not presenting any to support your claims that the intended damage profile/gameplay for a SV hunter in vanilla was to be a melee dps, in all parts of the game.
How?
So, your argument is that the SV category supported a melee-focused damage profile, but only because the purpose of dealing damage doesn’t actually matter within the scope of the game/content, and our role as hunters?
I chose to skip all of that mess. I had several opportunities to come back but was like nah. Dragonflight seemed like more of a hospitable environment.
I’ve only ever preached leverage. Survival was indeed an internally 90%+ melee dps specialization, but I also leveraged my baseline MM and BM abilities while in combat. That’s about all I ever stated. You added in tripe about “the entire game”, as if a PvP playstyle must be relevant everywhere at once to be valid, when that simply wasn’t possible for several specializations at that time.
No, they weren’t composed of a single archetype, but any baseline capacity’s potentially/likely exceeding a specialized alternate capacity would mean that the class was, at the time, designed narrowly as a class, not as a housing of various playstyles (or builds perceived as and intended to be distinct in their gameplay and/or feel), let alone specs.
We don’t start building for breadth or playstyle or thematic options “above all” until Legion, and to mixed degree even then.
In design intent, no, but in practice, it easily can be.
If the baseline ranged capacity would exceed even specialized melee capacity and/or Survival was not tuned as to actually compete with Marksmanship, then that melee capacity becomes further pigeonholed behind an additional constraint of niche.
Now, in the same way as we can point out that only a single spec was competitive for raiding in Vanilla, we might say that outcome was in error —it only had 2-3 years total work on it, after all, so we might assume the more time since (re)creation and adverse contextual shake-ups, the nearer the likely proximity between intent and outcome— but something else making more sense doesn’t necessarily mean it was intended either.
What Blizzard said is precisely not conjecture. We wouldn’t know it in the first place were it not recorded. Now, whether the words of a guy summarizing second-hand the thoughts of the actual class designers are worth adhering to, let alone that adherence to them should be imposed on all future prospects for the class (or discourse thereupon)… yeah, that’s far less likely.
Now, AGAIN… why would any of this matter?
We’re not acting within those old design paradigms. Even Watermist isn’t asking for a full return to them.
And discussion on far we should (or should not) backtrack should probably still be based on the net gains we can estimate from doing so (or from not), not on almost certainly flawed original iterations that were likely already mismatched with their (secondhand reports of) design intent.
Survival had its own playstyle and identity outside of the more rigid raid environment. In PvE, the Hunter playstyle was fairly 1A and generic, which was comprised of the same small set of ranged rotational elements provided by MM.
This is a VERY old topic. Melee Hunters were shamed, suppressed, and attacked since the beginning, much like they are now being shamed even after becoming fully canonized. Don’t let Bepples fool you into thinking it’s about RSV vs MSV, this is an extremely old war with roots digging deep back into Vanilla.
My thesis is worthy of an entire thread on it’s own, but I believe that it’s rooted in symbology. The Survival and Beast Mastery Hunter has deeper ties to the original Horde including the Orcish Spearman, Troll Axe Thrower, and the Troll Headhunter (these were ranged analogues in situ, but the weaponry itself represents versatility, useable at either a distance or in melee range)–Spears and Axes. Then there’s Melee Hunter heroes like Rexxar, Durotan, etc.
While Marksmanship is more closely aligned with the Alliance. Alleria, Tyrande, Sylvanas (alive), etc in terms of heroes. While in terms of units, you have the Human Archer, Elven Ranger, Dwarven Rifleman–Bows, and Guns.
So, a lot of the ideological tension between the Hunter Specializations is because we’re all natural enemies crammed into a single class and forced to cooperate.
A spec being non-competitive in content types X, Y, or Z —be that due to design issues or mere tuning— is ultimately just a factual matter. It was simply however good or bad, regardless of what it could or should have been.
I, too, played around on SV a bit in Vanilla and did surprisingly decent on it, especially in PvP, but that state of balance from >16 years ago, however its actuality may differ from what’s implied by typical discourse, does not matter today.
I don’t disagree with that. And such are among the archetypes that they said they wanted to draw from in creating Hunter. But ultimately prior intent does not matter; you simply need to establish that Hunter would be better for allowing players also to draw from those archetypes, as compared to only the (simultaneously narrow yet arguably muddled) few nexuses of themes we draw from now.
Which, if you want more options as to themes, playstyles, and archetypes, is not a bad thing, and is certainly preferable to splitting us into Rangers, Sappers, and Wildlings, etc., separately. The problem isn’t what all the class can house; the problem is the build freedom, including our being held back by talent bloat (low impact-per-point talents, paying for skills that should be baseline, unnecessary pathing restrictions, etc., all reducing the total customization possible within/through the class and spec trees, both).
Hunter has the largest range of franchise precedents to draw from and among the least excuses for splitting those precedents into separate constituent classes (especially, without sacrificing components each of those precedent archetypes). It shouldn’t shock anyone, then, that doing a good job with Hunter would require, more than perhaps any other class, a careful but unhesitating selection of baseline skills and some really damn good trees.
And yeah, we probably need a 4th spec, since Survival, while plenty fun, is in a really weird place in terms of contingency (influence taken from each neighboring spec compared to influence given to those specs).
Again, I’d suggest Beast Mastery, Marksmanship, Pursuit, and Munitions (because the ability to ‘survive’ should obviously be something limited to the class tree or embedded within the melee skills themselves or through shared synergies that would, in due proportion, have greater total value to Hunters with high melee uptime, at which point Pursuit makes better sense for the kind of things MSV does and could better thematically center those elements).
Once we have that, then we’re free to beef up Hunter’s opportunities. And we’d then have a precedent for what especially great talent trees could look like, atop that, which other classes could then benefit from.
It does. Which is why it’s weird to me that some want it to behave as a solely concussive explosion (purely) spherical/radial, rather than as the napalm it is (which, as a viscous liquid, would continue onward beyond the point of impact, which the current truncated cone better imitates).
Yes, but note that he was also ranged. It doesn’t make the case for a melee Hunter. The case for a melee Hunter is only ever going to be that managing one’s positioning is a risk that, when commensurately rewarded, makes for a fun game-within-a-game (additional layer of challenge) that improves the class for having access to it, just as Aimed Shot does for Marksmanship.
Yeah, not directly in terms of profile, but in terms of theme I think it’s a nice inspirational fit. The lore for the Orcish Spearman was that they were Grunts trained in the use of Spears and gained the ability to throw them. So, in a pinch, I could see that martial training being useful against would-be melee assailants.
Axes and Spears vs Bows and Guns–Horde vs Alliance. Survival vs Marksmanship. This is just a light summary that probably got overlooked as a potential root cause of the tension.
Yep, WFB is definitely more similar to napalm. It’s not an engineered weapon like a grenade, so it shouldn’t have a large blast radius. It’s an ability more reminiscent of a bushcraft Molotov. Here’s the description of the passive debuff of the Troll Batrider.
Liquid Fire (Passive)
Flings a volatile liquid that causes buildings to take damage over time. Buildings that are currently taking damage from Liquid Fire cannot be repaired and have their attack rate reduced by 60%.
Well, at least we agree that cramming all of these opposing themes into a non-synergetic, three spec topology hasn’t quite worked out.
I propose a highly unlikely and certainly unpopular answer: Split the [Hunter] Class into two new sub-classes with each boasting a three spec topology.
Both the [Primalist] and the [Ranger] sub-classes would appear under the [Hunter] Class option in the character selection screen, and you could select either of the two. Done in this way, it would allow the player to retain all gear and achievements, plus there’s the option to change your mind and respecialize from one sub-class to the other at will.
[Primalist]
Survival, Beast Mastery, and the Berserker could each fit into one sub-class. BM and SV have the most synergy with each other currently, and both trace their roots back to the Original Horde. BM would wield Rexxar’s twin cleavers, which would be thrown at a distance and swung in melee range–embodying versatility and flexibility like Rexxar in HotS.
[Ranger]
Marksmanship, RSV, and the Dark Ranger could fit into a separate sub-class. Each of these fantasies powerfully invoke the Archer theme and have the most synergy citing the lack of an emphasis on the pet and melee attacks. Alliance themed.
They will have the option to partner with either a ranged or a melee assistant NPC to manage in place of pets, like Shandris Feathermoon is to Tyrande Whisperwind.
Wouldn’t be horrible, but I think the prospects would be less than those of 4 well-made specs available to the single class and no better, even, than three well made trees in a single class, especially unless you tremendously fleshed the hell out of each of those sub-themes (to where the vast majority of what each offers would be unprecedented).
Again, it mostly comes down to the use of the trees and how many distinct (in both aesthetic/theme and gameplay/feel) builds each can support, and how well the extremes within each tree can leverage the rest of that tree (or at least anything in reasonable patching distance).
Having 6 specs and only 6 themes still allows you very distinct specs, but if the core of each of those themes is only 3-5 mechanics, the remainder is relatively arbitrary and can typically offer as much synergy even if it may slightly step towards another theme. Specifically aiming to avoid thematic overlap, moreover, means that you have very few ideas with which to fill up your remaining 30+ nodes, increasing the likelihood of bloat.
To be clear, to my mind, the only reasonable occasion to have a simple +X% Stat or +X% Skill Damage talent is to act as a faintly inferior choice from which to avoid further complexity, and such talents should therefore be in wholly optional locations (capstone’s, wings, choice nodes).
To take Dark Ranger vs. a non-Munitions RSV, for instance, I can imagine a whole spec for Dark Ranger that’d go well beyond precedent (leveraging summoned shades to jump through, to progressively offer CC control of enemies, etc.; different kinds of curses, different kinds of dark oaths, etc.), but I could still manage 80+% of that while fitting in a non-Munitions RSV because there’d naturally be so much of that guerrilla warfare aspect shared between them, and that overlap could inadvertantly give aspect also to the non-Shamanistic parts of a Shadow Hunter. That proximity can often be thematically useful.
If there’s not enough of the single theme to fill an entire tree with no bloat (at most, only some wholly optional talents to reduce total complexity), then it makes sense to find what other themes it overlaps with and what themes may exist as pretty much a hybrid of that first target theme and the one it overlaps with. That maximizes your player freedom and customization more than even a greater total number of (Classes_times_)Specializations would.
It just takes a solid baseline, freedom from arbitrary constraints, bloat-less trees, and careful consideration of the available themes and how they should function in the class’s greater context.
Keep in mind the above is theoretical, though, and based on what imaginings I’ve seen of those themes, what imaginings I’ve had personally, and how far those seem like they can be extrapolated (even if being very optimistic). If there were enough work done to flesh out each to some tenfold their precedent skills or more, then… sure, it’d be neat to get that second ranged-weapon-capable class.
To be clear, I don’t think you’re going to get “sub-classes” between specs and classes by which to offer 2 class trees and 6 spec trees to a single class. The closest you’ll get to that is just having the “Ranger” and “Primalist” split into two separate classes, with SV, BM, and Berserker and MM, RSV, and Dark Ranger, respectively.
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I also do not think it’d be best to force, say, MSV and Berserker to play with a pet just because they share a class with BM or for MM, RSV, and Dark Ranger to be forced to play without a pet.
Just baseline an actually good version of Lone Wolf, whereby using the pet is better for non-BMs only whenever you can make use of the split and separate threat pool and the greater total HP via a separate unit and not using a pet is better for non-BMs only when those utilities can’t be leveraged and/or the pet would get stuck and its portion of your damage would be thereby wasted. Simple as that.
It should be fairly agreeable that Blizzard missed the mark with BFA. The Dark Ranger and certainly the Shadow Hunter archetype were featured heavily in the expansion, but they instead chose not to develop these themes into a dedicated class.
In my opinion, there’s enough material for the Shadow Hunter to become at least a 2 spec Hero Class. There’s such a rich breadth of Troll and Wild God lore to pull from that it’s truly a shame they didn’t capitalize on it.
I would like a choice of playing a range hunter with a pet that does about 30% of the damage while the hunter does 70%.
I do enjoy spreading dots/poisons and doing most of the abilities on the run. My pet would be able to tank or dps that I can switch when needed. Would like both ST and AOE damage be competitive.
Alot of the appeal that the BM and RSV specializations offered to the game is described right here in this quote.
In my opinion, Caster Class throughput feels overly constrained due to the imposed immobility of hard casted abilities–that if remediated, Hunters might actually drop in class representation.
What Casters need is an on the move Auto-Attack which could comprise at least 15-20% of total damage, and at least 20-30% instant cast damage. With these changes, they would feel much more natural to play with.
A playstyle consisting of mostly hard casts is a design philosophy that I find most obtuse and is now antiquated with how many gap-closers, snares, and interrupts melee classes have now.
Idk man, mechanically, bfa was the best that msv ever played imo. If you want to say that thematically they missed the mark, I suppose a case could be made. Bfa, in general, was a craptastic expansion.
Sounds good to me, so long as no part of that is forced as such on everyone (i.e., same as I’d say of literally any other preference, save one that “Hunter must be {narrow span X}”).
To me the big thing is that span of choice. I like the idea of pets dealing anywhere from two-thirds to none of our damage, of being modestly to significantly rewarded for multi-DoTing, of dealing all to most of our damage on the move, of dealing all to half of our damage from range, of using all to nearly all of our abilities from range, of having zero to two pets, etc.
I feel like that’d just water them down. Despite the number of gap-closers, casters haven’t been doing that badly for their having hard/immobile casts.
Fire Mage is a capable of a decently high level of mobility for a caster yet has had some of the worst median performances among them in PvP.
It’s more a matter —as with melee or any other playstyle built up from a given challenge/constraint— of having the tools and tuning to leverage their playstyle.
Sometimes reducing both the constraint and compensation makes the given build/spec more fun; sometimes it just makes it feel more watered down. Context is key.
Just as importantly, though, newly making 15-20% of a spec’s damage literally passive and unable to scale with target count would be a large blow to both player agency and balance.
In my opinion SV hunters need more balance to AOE talents to make it in line with other. pets since they are needed for the class should deal more damage with kill command and carve should be more in line with total damage just as much as butcher does with all 3 attacks bombs need a slight damage increase for aoe . I saw what they did to the tier set next season and SV hunters single target dps will get a huge nerf unless that is addressed to be compensated for the loss.