are you new to the game or something? rotations have always been a thing…
No, it wasn’t.
5 Likes
What Radroit said. SV in Vanilla had more melee tools, but they were tools to get you back to ranged. Melee SV was only viable and good once 7.0 hit. Nobody should kid themselves otherwise.
5 Likes
Before the 1.7.0 talent rework, Survival Hunter was the dedicated melee tree.
Here’s a list of all DPS talents melee hunters lost and gained in the 1.7.0 talent tree revamp.
Lost:
- 5% Melee Hit (5/5)
- -1CD on Raptor Strike (5/5)
- 20% damage on Mongoose Bite (5/5)
- 5% Melee Crit (5/5)
- 5% Melee Damage (5/5)
- Lacerate (1/1)
Gained:
- 3% Beasts, Giants, Dragonkin damage & critical damage (3/3)
- 3% Humanoid damage & critical damage (3/3)
- 20% Mongoose Bite & Raptor Strike crit chance (2/2)
- 3% Hit Chance (3/3)
- 5% Crit Chance (5/5)
- 15% Agility (5/5)
From the start Blizzard had intended Survival to be a melee spec with Lacerate as the 31-point talent; however, its damage was worse than a Rank 4 Serpent Sting, and was considered the worst 31 point talent in the game. Very few people ever took it for anything other than a joke, so Blizzard replaced Lacerate with Wyvern Sting and moved in a direction that would change Hunters to a fully range class. However, a fact that many have forgotten is up until patch 5.0.4 when Hunters lost all melee abilities is that Survival still had talents that strengthened melee combat
-
Savage Strikes Tier 1, Increases the critical strike chance of Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite by 10% per rank.
-
Counterattack 11-point talent, which becomes active after parrying an opponent’s attack and required player to be in melee range.
It was a nine years before Blizzard decided to change Hunters to a sole range spec, but Survival held on to it melee roots the longest out of the three specs. Adam Kugler felt that Survival did not bring anything that BM or MM could not bring, and moving it into the melee space was actually returning Survival to its roots.
Adam Kugler is also a talentless hack but that’s its own can of worms.
The problem with this is, as per usual, it assumes that the talent trees of Vanilla for pure DPS classes were a make-or-break playstyle and identity commitment like they are now when they weren’t. All 4 pure DPS classes back then had roughly the same foundational identity between their three specs. Most of the toolkits were baseline. Hunters had all the ranged stuff and all the melee stuff baseline, with the notable exception of Aimed Shot which was early in the MM tree. The trees of the Hunter class all picked a certain part of the Hunter class and enhanced it, but none of them were “dedicated” to a particular style; they all used a pet, they all used ranged weapons, they all had to melee when the enemy came up close, and they all used kiting/control tools. Each spec just picked one (in SV’s case: those last two) and enhanced them.
Being in the only class with a toolkit based around ranged weapons pretty much precluded SV from being melee and they knew it, so that wasn’t the point. They wanted SV to be the more adaptable PvP spec that wouldn’t be totally useless when in melee, but it still preferred to be ranged (hence the control tools like Improved Wing Clip). It didn’t work out, though: melee was still a weakness and focusing on a weakness of the class was just an inherently flawed idea. The spec was half-finished before 1.7 with minimal testing (like most of the class) and that’s why you had that stuff before it quickly got cut.
On the utility note: the original version of the spec had just as many utility/control talents as melee ones. The problem is they were hilarously badly distributed. For example: you have Clever Traps in 1.7-1.12 which improved traps. Before 1.7 this was spread out over 4 different talents (each buffing one individual trap) and something like 10-12 talent points.
One small correction: Savage Strikes did not exist in Cataclysm. Counterattack was the on melee holdover at that point, and even that was very distinctly a tool used to get back to ranged; it doesn’t lend credence to the whole “pure melee” angle.
This gets to the general point: Adam Kugler can feel however he wants about Hunters. He’s welcome to live in his own little fantasy world, but he should keep his misinformed crap to himself. Making Survival a purely melee spec didn’t return Survival to its roots, or even make it any more similar to its Vanilla iteration than it was in WoD. The Vanilla iteration still had a ranged weapon and still used an array of ranged abilities including Serpent Sting and Multi-Shot. With the current tier favouring ranged DoT classes it is more clear than ever how ranged SV provided something that BM and MM could not. It’s ironic if that was his real concern because now he has permanently ensured SV will never be valuable over BM/MM.
5 Likes
The Survival tree made Hunter melee better, but there wasn’t a “Survival spec” like we have now; there was a hunter class which was a primarily ranged class with minor melee abilities. The Survival tree enhanced the melee abilities, but it never made it not a ranged class.
6 Likes
This was all in the original early design of World of Warcraft, and even if the original team had planned on Survival being a melee focused spec does not mean that everything turns out as planned. If something is broken, like Lacerate was, it is just better to remove the issue and move on. Hunter’s biggest weakness was not our melee abilities it was our dead zone that required us to hang on to useless abilities, and when we no longer had our limitations removed Hunter became a fully range class. As of BfA Survival is more in line with Hunter’s original design, a mix of range and melee abilities, but with a emphasis on melee over range.
2 Likes
Og, with all respect I just don’t understand how it is that you can know what the original design intent was; from a more pragmatic perspective, I base my opinion of the survival tree as one that was intended to provide more utility, which is what it did.
Stronger in melee? Yes. Emphasis melee over range? No.
I think it’s fair to say no players really know what goes on with Blizzard’s development people, what they’re thinking, the problems they’re dealing with, and even what they’re trying to accomplish. All we can do is speculate, and to me it makes more sense to base that speculation on the available tangible information, in this case what the SV tree brought to the class.
I agree that the class’s biggest weakness was the dead zone (I still remember too vividly mages dancing around me in a tight circle in PVP, knowing full well I was impotent at that range).
I enjoyed PVP’ing with SV tools (and hated going up against other similarly specced Horde hunters, lol). I was pretty disappointed when the spec was moved to melee. My opinion is that Blizzard missed a opportunity to enhance the class when they didn’t implement a fourth spec.
7 Likes
This topic is temporarily closed for 24 hours due to a large number of community flags.
All easily accomplish by communication. Much like they have recently done for Warlocks and Shamans. All we can do is look at the numbers and compare them with our own experiences. It doesn’t take much to jump over to where they’re aggregating data to visually see Hunters in the bottom of the tier. Not by 3-5% but sometimes as high as 30-40%. It’s not right and since we invest time and money into their game. Some sort of feedback as to the reason should be acknowledged at the very least.
2 Likes
Totally agree with the communication aspect of your post, although I can’t speak to the data because I don’t dig into that facet of the game.
In my experience I believe Blizzard is reluctant to the point of stubborn when it comes to responding to issues brought up on this forum…oftentimes frustratingly so. It almost seems the more a response is requested, the less likely one will be forthcoming.
Hunters are in a decent spot right now, but need some work. By decent, I guess more like adequate. But much of what I’m reading indicates that as gear levels increase our class will fall further and further behind, which is problematic to say the least. I recall similar retrogressing in past expansions that (usually) brought about some type of buff (which felt too little, too late).
Right now I’m playing BM, which wouldn’t be my first choice. The pet AI is a PITA, and PVP’ing in that spec is not fun (for me, your experience may vary). But MM is clunky and too immobile, and SV (my preferred spec) is melee. So BM it is, at least for now.
BTW, this toon is the only character I’ve ever played; all the HK’s and whatever’s were accomplished with this one hunter, so I’d like to think I have a fair amount of experience with the class.
Sorry, long read. Blah, blah, blah.
2 Likes
Kinda sick of seeing people claim MM is immobile… play a caster and see exactly how mobile they are. The ONLY thing more mobile than MM is BM.
First, Bepples is right.
I played a Vanilla hunter to Rank 10 pvp, I remember the 0/21/30 spec very well. Increased survivability (weird, right?), burly traps (double trapping was so clutch), improved wing clip, a Raptor Strike crit that made clothies cry, all topped off with Lightning Reflexes. It was an absolute BLAST to play, my best times in WoW.
Counting down the days until Classic to do it all again.
I have tried BFA Survival hunter and I don’t hate it. Cannot bond with either MM or BM which is sad, but here we are. Strangely, one of the losses I feel most acutely is our pets. They used to feel more like animals. Had to earn their loyalty, pack food around to feed them, teach them skills, level them, etc. Now they’re just a fun DoT that runs along beside me.
Lastly, hunters cannot kite like they used to which was a KEY component of Hunterism. The Jump Shot? Used to be mandatory. Now every other class has eleventy gap closers, stuns, and heals. Kiting is an afterthought if it’s even possible.
Yeah, yeah, I know “old man yells at clouds” and all but I just can’t get too excited about Hunters right now, especially remembering what they were. If they were to turn the survival spec around and give us majority ranged damage with enhanced melee, traps, and survivability… well then we’d be talking!
5 Likes
I have all 12 classes @ a geared 120. A fire mage has prob the BEST mobility in the game, a frost mage has a shorter cd on blink and roots and … just lol, a warlock has so much health the ability to self heal, much like a druid with AMAZING healing and mobility. Not to mention a fear, a poly, a cyclone, an invis and on and on and on…
No sir, my 20 sec disengage is not enough to combat a rogue stun or blind, a charge/heroic leap of a warrior, a DH, a dk’s grip (especially a blood dk), and on and on.
Compile that with a 2+ sec cast of aimed shot or near 3 sec sniper shot you can do virtually no damage. Our niche is in back of the lines not getting attacked. The lack of mobility to DO damage is what everyone is talking about. The absence of deterrence, the nerf to turtle shell, the nerf to exhilaration is all underwhelming for the class.
Going to have to disagree with you.
3 Likes
I just applied for a dozen mythic 0 groups at ilvl 396, and was instantly declined for every single one. Not a big deal, since I could complete the quest for 4 mythic dungeons with my guild. However, if the devs ever see this, it would be really great if there was some reason that groups would be motivated to bring a hunter. A group buff would really helpe class overall for o o o or example.
1 Like
I did mine yesterday at 401 and had no trouble getting an invite to 2 different groups, but I agree that groups need a better reason to bring a hunter. Although, I am skeptical that a group buff would solve anything. We already have lust/hero as BM, but drums are a thing as are war-scrolls for any potential buffs with the exception of perhaps group camouflage similar to what rogues have. You really nailed the problem with hunters though. There is just little reason to bring them. They either need exceptional dps which they don’t have or they need something unique to offer the group. With only 3 dps spots in a mythic group a hunter taking one of them is not ideal. At least one of them needs to be a melee and with the current affix, it’s a good idea to have a shaman or druid to tank the reaping with their pets. So that leaves one open spot. Hunter isn’t a bad choice to fill it. As BM I can lust or dispel enrages. I can aoe stun reaping and slow trap them. But is that enough? I don’t really think it is. A frost mage can do all that and more plus pull better dps. Hunters need some love.
Do people forget that we bring more than just lust/hero to the table baseline and not just within the confines of BM?
Maybe. What are you referring too? I mentioned aoe stun and slow traps. Misdirect is nice too especially on skittish weeks.
1 Like
Well, there is a purge, MC, slows, MS, people tend to forget that pets have abilities that can be used too.
ETA: Pets have more utility than Lust/Hero. If you fail at using it for an advantage, can you call yourself a Hunter?