A video with some personal perspective on identity and lore of hunters. I find it interesting to learn about what others think about the class.
Watch give your own thoughts, or don’t if you like.
I agreed that Survival is about using what you have on hand to get an edge over your opponents.
“Known to use any device to help them ambush an enemy and give them the edge” except a ranged weapon lol
Then what would you call thier tiny crossbow?
The other specs can use the ranged weapon all the time. And they have traps, Camouflage, etc. They are better at “using any device to help them ambush an enemy and giving them the edge” than Survival is.
If Survival is so resourceful why is it arbitrarily sticking to a much less capable weapon? If it can use a crossbow, why not all the time?
To get technical with Survival it can use a range weapon if wanted, but would not be as capable. You could still use most of you attacks, but non of the strongest options.
That’s the oddity of Survival that it has more range abilities than melee. Yet, as long as it keeps a spear it is still called a melee spec.
The problem there is Hunters start off as fully capable ranged DPS. You start with a ranged weapon and ranged abilities from level 1 with no range restriction. So at level 10 if you pick Survival you’re speccing out of a core strength the class starts with.
Of course, since SL you aren’t literally losing ranged abilities like you were in Legion and BFA, however they give you Raptor Strike and make you heavily depend on it so it turns out to effectively be the same thing. You also lose access to Counter Shot and the normal version of Kill Shot. So it’s clear to me at some level they know it’s incongruous but they’re not being effective in addressing it.
I know what they’re trying to do with Survival, with the whole resourcefulness angle. But it will never be a compelling fantasy as long as the in game reality is at odds with it, and that will always be the case for as long as Hunters start off as a fully capable ranged class.
P.S. No, Blizzard, that’s not an invitation to make Hunters start off as melee with BM and MM speccing into being ranged.
It very confusing to have Hunters start out range than giving an option for both play-styles. Could that be a cause for SV hunters to be so scarce?
If you get accustomed to playing range and the ease that comes with it. Players who try out melee might give up after finding it more difficult to survive.
If they want to give a player a chance to explore both sides of Hunters than they should give Hunters both melee and range abilities until level 10.
Maybe. They do that with Shaman; you get Lightning Bolt and Primal Strike in the first couple of levels and the game tells you to use both. But I think it’s a very different ball game when the class has a ranged weapon.
It’s a oxymoron to give a class a melee spec, but you need to play the first 10 levels completely ranged that way you can get a good knowledge of how hunters play.
It’s like the design team couldn’t not even agree on what hunters are.
Completly agree with you my man. Blizz after how many years now, just can make their minds up on survival. I dont know why they just dont make it full melee and give the spec all the melee tools like gap closers and health regen strikes etc. Basically like a warriorwith a pet i guess.
All in all blizz seems to just throw s**t at a wall and if it sticks they all cheer and add it into the spec.
Lacerate just needs to be added back that gives a Haste, Crit, or a leeching buff. Something to use in-between Mongoose Bite.