Do you have first-hand experience with the spec to speak authoritatively on the subject matter? If not, I can provide gameplay videos if you’re interested in seeing the game through a different lens.
I boast 250k honorable kills, 1800+ arena rating, and 250+ days played from the 2006-2009 era. I played SV exclusively, running several variants of 15/5/41 for World PvP and Duels, and 0/20/41 for PvE and Battlegrounds. I’d average around top 5 damage dealt, with a low death count.
I wasn’t quite clear.
The post-BC revamp altered early tier BM talents to include an HP% boost for player and pet, 6% increased dodge chance, and 10% armor rating. The ideal PvP build would dig about 13 to 15 points into BM for enhanced durability and pet damage, 5 to 20 points into MM for enhanced ranged capabilities, and 41 points into SV for Readiness.
SV could seamlessly float between close-quarters and distanced play, producing one of the most nuanced and elegant playstyles available (next to the Subtlety Rogue, a close analogue). Among true SV Hunters, there was never a debate as to the intended purpose of the spec. The problem came with communicating that fact to MM or BM Hunters, who never quite understood the gameplay, and who would typically ridicule us, only ever to be outperformed by us. That fact still rings true today, apparently.
I would mostly agree. Vanilla had a radically different design philosophy than retail. Classes could routinely hybridize; foregoing capstone talents yet still maintain relevance in certain circles and situations. Class/spec identity was less of a factor in overall performance because the ability multipliers scaled more exponentially with gear than with capstone talents for some classes.
Back then it was just one class, with many flavors. In retail, each spec feels like an altogether different class.
You dont even know the current build. You just watch your favorite youtuber who also doesnt like it and go, yup I can use this later
I couldnt preform it correctly*
By all means, please exit the hunter forums
Raiding is like just one part of the game bra. Still pvp in general, open world content, mythic plus, hell even RP. I play Survival and I almost never do raiding because I enjoy everything else just a little more.
I tried to have a podcast with him over the topics here. Hes shy
Uhm, sure. And? Your way of playing in certain content/scenarios isn’t relevant to the main argument. Again, unless the enemy was attacking you, most of the stuff you mentioned mean nothing to the overarching gameplay theme, if you played a hunter with SV talents picked. Again, you said that the intended thematic design of SV was:
You could use it for that, but that by no means constitutes how that was the intended primary theme/design of the SV category. “Method of playing” does not equal “intent of design”, by default.
Sure, but that’s still only 1 part of the game. They’ve said multiple times in the past that they did not design talent categories just for 1 type of content. They designed them based on the entire game.
Again, if your basis for this is to focus solely on open world pvp or instanced pvp, and not group-based PvE, then the basis just isn’t there to support your argument. In PvE in general, if you weren’t forced into melee, you generally didn’t want to spend time in there. Could there be specific situations where your tank needed some help? Sure, but that falls under “method of playing”, under circumstances. It doesn’t by any means motivate for what the overarching theme of the category as a whole was intended to be about.
Yep, hence my previous argument(s). Or I should say, players chose to do that, based on circumstances. The intent was definitely for players to want to head down towards the end talents of a specific category(as has been said during several blizzcon panels in the past).
The Beps can’t argue anything real (notice how he NEVER mentions actual mechanics or abilities). Instead, he just tries to trick people into arguing about the original design from 2004, or he argues the “it’s just the vibe of it” (for any “Castle” fans lol)… And if that fails, he says, “look at logs! It’s not popular!” While failing to understand that’s flawed data.
I played BM for the first time in my life today. It’s cool and chill. But NO WONDER survival is less popular. You just got a few buttons and things die lol…
Oh I know, me and him have been super special awesome best friends for 2 years now.
He likes to link videos from hated WoW youtubers or anyone who agrees with him. He also likes to link raid logs when raiding is at an all time low and use data from when the game was at around 10-12 million players to justify any and all arguments. If that all fails he will go to WoD survival for the one patch people liked it, while ignoring shadowlands when the tier bonuses made it super popular. The guys a mess. But gotta respect his constant struggles to keep at it, even when constantly getting ratioed and taking daily L’s.
Who wouldnt like 4 buttons to do what complicated play styles can do? Thats why people love outlaw rogue over sub lol
I talk about specific mechanics all the time. What are you on about?
Also if Toxiktraktor wants to argue that SV is popular outside of raiding maybe he should know better than to invoke M+ where SV is still the very least played spec. Even in PvP it’s not particularly well represented. I guess there’s still the roleplayers
Instanced PvE content constitutes exactly 1/3 of the game yet is a perfectly valid and fundamental part of it nonetheless. If your point is to invalidate the hybrid playstyle simply because it doesn’t fit into raiding content, noting the presence of a dedicated tank and off-tank… I’m not sure if anyone ever made an argument to the contrary.
So there must be a miscommunication here.
You presume that I’ve made an attempt to conflate post-Legion SV with the Classic Hunter. There are some who feel that way, and from their perspective may yet be a legitimate one.
In my opinion, they are distinctly different, and not exactly in a bad way. As a Vanilla SV Hunter, that used every possible and effective style/combo available to win, I feel that a 70% melee 30% kite admixture fits better than what we’ve had before. What it’s missing is the characteristic defensive mitigation tactics (that nowadays most melee classes have by default).
Classic-era design philosophies are no longer applicable to the retail game. Any such argument for or against retail based on classic methodologies would be patently false. The game has gone through multiple iterative shifts in ideology, multiple development teams, etc and it’s something you need to personally deal with and accept. Let it go, friend.
Do you people actually believe this? If so, care to elaborate?
Classic players are, on average, hot garbage. These are people for whom the Thaddius jump, a literal Super Mario Bros level 1 mechanic, is genuinely hard. You could take any crap build into PvP and, as long as you’re engaged enough to mouse turn and keybind, beat most people you encounter. Speaking of which, 15/5/41 is one of the most sus sounding builds I’ve ever heard. You’re missing several crucial MM talents by speccing like that. Back to the point: PvP statistics from classic are less than meaningless.
Weird because every time I say something factual about classic SV I end up being correct.
Not having played it back in actual classic could lead one to be wrong about it, but it’s a moot point when we’re not wrong about it. You haven’t actually specified what you think we’re wrong about. In fact you’ve been very vague about how you think modern SV represents classic SV in general. Personally, my point is that viewing classic SV as a precedent to modern SV is absurd because it’s a fundamentally different design philosophy with respect to ranged v.s. melee. What do you say to that specific point?
You know what can also do this? The modern ranged Hunter specs.
Link the videos then. Put up or shut up.
Well it’s capstone was literally a ranged ability…
In any case this is still a far cry from actually being a melee spec.
This is a very euphemistic way of putting at it. The reason you saw “build creativity” is because a lot of the talents were just garbage; even capstones. SV’s Wyvern Sting was actually often not very useful so it was common to go further into MM and get Scatter Shot instead. You aren’t going to do something like that in WotLK when the capstone is Explosive Shot.
Even still, hybrids usually sucked. They only existed because the environment was non-competitive enough to mess around more, and even then they were niche.
Is he wrong or not? That’s what you’re not addressing.
These aren’t remotely comparable. Sticking to melee in Classic was severely gimping yourself, whereas sticking to ranged was most often optimal. The only scenarios it wasn’t optimal:
In BC you could get more DPS out of melee weaving because there was enough time in the rotation to include a Raptor Strike. This wasn’t strictly necessary, though, and it would also put you in significant danger in many PvP situations.
You might be fighting a keyboard-turning caster that literally can’t turn fast enough to catch you if you’re running in circles around them.
Otherwise, you were not only safer at range but your throughput was higher.
What new direction?
TBH with new Survival it looks like there is no direction.
Why are you just repeating an incorrect statement? Classic SV was fundamentally different to modern SV. You pretending that they feel the same comes across as you making stuff up as you go along. The fact that you first said that melee weaving was good for mana but now you say it burned mana contributes to that.
In PvE melee weaving was a damage increase but one small enough to get away with ignoring, and in PvP it was rare because you would put youself at immense personal danger. Otherwise it’s optimal to stay at range. Whereas with modern SV you’re a full blown melee DPS and you greatly penalise yourself when playing at range.
You seem to have a knack for spin-doctoring.
Firstly, classic Hunter did not “seamlessly float between close-quarters and distanced play”. Seamless would mean not having a significant power difference between the two i.e. the way the ranged Hunter specs work right now.
Secondly, SV did not have any fundamental difference to BM or MM in that regard. All three of them had a minimum range and had the same priorities and concerns when it came to dealing with melee. SV had (mostly passive) buffs to help them with that, but BM and MM had to do the same things and in fact they often dipped into SV to take things like Improved Wing Clip and even Savage Strikes.
Finally, let’s not pretend SV was particularly effective. It wasn’t. It was usually better to just run MM or even BM for greater damage output. Plus BC was the drain meta, something especially MM was more equipped for, and all those big PvP talents of SV were high up in the tree so MM and BM builds could reach them as well.
Yes they should reinforce class identity by making Survival a ranged spec again just like its counterparts.
So if we go through my post history I’ll never find a post where I talked about modern SV mechanics? Want to bet on that?
What’s with the weird fanboyism around specific PvP personalities when it comes to the SV community? Is it something you guys look to for validation? You know most of those guys also played ranged SV back in the day. We didn’t have to fanboy around them nonstop and pretend the entire worth of the spec rested on them because the spec was perfectly functional and widely enjoyed in the rest of the game.
I hope you’re smart enough to understand that a spec being unpopular for raiding and a spec being wonderfully designed are not mutually exclusive concepts.
its funny it isnt just me saying this now. People catch on
really picking and choosing what to say for a hypothetical win again I see
boy you cant even do a paragraph without flip flopping
you have been wrong so many damn times.
Not playing Retail survival in actual dragonflight could lead one to be wrong about it, but its a moot point when were not wrong about it.
I have many times.
I say, I have said this too you a multitude of times and you didnt like it and would always compare them. BUT NOW YOU WANT TO ACT LIKE PEOPLE SHOULDNT.
so can unholy Dk
want me to link Bicmex for example? cant wait to see you say hes bad because hes using a polearm when hes literally at a level you could never reach even with your moongaurd larping.
the tree was for melee. We all know it
everything that wasnt warrior, priest (dwarf), or mage sucked. This isnt a point
maybe address him?
the entire hunter class was a gimp in classic. you were only kept around for True shot aura for the warriors and rogues.
its pretty much the same, just more modern. You would know if you actually played either one during the current version of the game
LOL
Why make Marksmen again? You can already spec into it
it has more of an identity now then it literally ever did.
you copy and paste. You dont even understand how to play survival.
say this in the rogue community now
its so avoided its the most popular discussion on the online forums. We are at the point you should be wearing a facemask when you type about it
It’s designed primarily for PvP and because in raids melee is harder than ranged, and even among melee specs SV is difficult… And they bring no worthwhile raid buff. And BM does more damage with almost no effort.
If SV provided a raid buff that gave everyone 40% extra damage, they’d be way more popular and that’s way worse design. See your flawed reasoning?
Now give me 200 words on why, specifically, the spec doesn’t work. If you aren’t naming actual abilities and interactions, you’re going on ignore… Once and for all.
