Its not a nerf. Weapon abilities aren’t based off of your weapon like they used to. To say it could possibly be a nerf is factually incorrect.
Since I guess there’s a lot of talk about BM being melee here for whatever reason, all I’m going to say is I and I assume others wouldn’t care all that much. I just want the spec to focus more on the beast aspect of hunter, be it melee, bows, or even throwing axes or whatever the spec just needs more of that beast feel.
Totally agree and I think BM would’ve been the better idea for a melee spec originally. But instead blizzard decided to give it the technomagic gnome gun for their artifact in Legion. Apparently the BM fantasy is gnomish technology go figure.
kinda hard to make it a pistol when it shoots a green poison arrow but yea. i’d rather it was a bow animation or atleast make the crossbow look better than some lv 1 weapon.
So what if the compromise to allow hunters transmog their two handed weapon into two one handers? What then? Its not like this hasn’t existed before and its not game breaking so why not let hunters dual wield at least cosmetically? There would be no need for tuning or buffing around.
honestly, i think the current bm setup would play better as a melee spec anyways. you got the bleeds, you can cleave to make your pet cleave, going into a rage to make yourself hit harder with a gun doesn’t make sense but it does for melee weapons. it would just need to some tweaks to make it more melee friendly since it was designed for a ranged spec.
That he is. Nathanos was added much later as a “hunter”. But Sylvanas was never anything of a hunter. Always known as a Banshee and/or Dark Ranger. No links to the hunter class.
Let’s have some real talk here:
There is no compromise necessary. The entire fantasy of the Survival Hunter is that they are one with nature, communing with their pet, using any and all methods available to them to survive, and make sure their enemies do not.
Let them use 2h, Dual Wield, or Ranged.
Hear me out:
On the Alpha right now, there are only 5 abilities for Survival that require melee weapons:
Raptor Strike (2h)
Carve (2h)
Harpoon (2h)
Muzzle (1h or 2h)
Kill Shot (Polearms)
Aside from those few abilities, everything else has no weapon requirement. Wing Clip is usable with a Bow equipped on alpha, for those unaware.
For talents, there are 5 that require (or only benefit builds with) melee weapons, all of which currently require 2H: Viper’s Venom, Butchery, Tip of the Spear, Mongoose Bite, and Birds of Prey.
If you were to give all Hunter specs baseline Multi-Shot, Counter Shot, and Concussive Shot, remove the weapon type requirement for Kill Shot, and convert Raptor Strike, Carve, and Harpoon to Melee Weapons, alpha SV would be fully functional as Two Handed, Dual Wield, or Ranged.
There would be some additional concerns - Concussive Shot would need to trigger a 5 sec CD on Wing Clip (and vice versa); Counter Shot would need to trigger a 24 sec CD on Muzzle (with Muzzle triggering a 15 sec CD on Counter Shot); Viper’s Venom would need to proc from Arcane Shot as well as Raptor Strike; Tip of the Spear would need to increase Arcane Shot damage as well as Raptor Strike, and Birds of Prey would need to activate from Arcane Shot or Multi-Shot in addition to Raptor Strike or Carve.
I wouldn’t change anything about Butchery or Mongoose Bite; if you select those talents you are clearly opting in to that melee playstyle, and those talents can be dead talents for players who want to be ranged.
Except that Sylvannas was introduced in the Warcraft universe as an archer. And not just any archer, but the Ranger-General of Silvermoon. So “never anything of a hunter” is disingenuous at best. Since WC3:FT sure, you can make the argument that she is a dark ranger, but her original incarnation is that of an archer, part of the hunter class fantasy.
Except Archers aren’t Hunters. A hunter can be an archer but all archers aren’t hunters.
The wish to have an “Archer fantasy” is what brought Lone Wolf in the game.
I don’t want to make it a pistol, i’m just saying I can’t stand the little cross bow out of no where animation. 
Kind of makes my point though don’t it? They clearly want the archer fantasy to be part of the hunter class for some… reason. So that being the case, you can’t call Rexxar the most iconic hunter when there are more iconic archers such as Tyrande.
I kinda like this idea but why make them dead talents? Why not just re-work them and make them work for ranged too? A ranged mongoose bite might be pretty cool actually.
I don’t remove or replace Raptor Strike or Carve, they still work as is - with a melee weapon equipped.
There could be a lot of interesting gameplay around swapping between the best weapon for the situation and using your abilities effectively.
No? They’re just saying all archers aren’t hunters. Like for example I wouldn’t call every single npc guard or dwarf with a bow/gun a hunter, they’re just someone trained to use a bow and it just so happens that the hunter class is the only class to hold a part of that fantasy.
I know what they’re saying. I don’t agree with Blizz either and think the archer fantasy needs it’s own class, but as it stands in WoW right now, archers are hunters.
Again fair enough.