It’s a forum minigame to keep the mind fresh. Trying to make sense of that lunatic’s ramblings is like trying to solve an enigma; a puzzle missing pieces built of shame and defeat. It’s entirely enthusing at the very least, and it’s filling up my spare time nicely.
…Look at the manual. It has a definite emphasis on ranged play. The Warcraft III units that Hunters (or, the devs in describing Hunter) reference as inspiration… were likewise ranged. And those were ostensibly a greater influence than DnD Rangers.
Bepples tangent
This is a… almost certainly a matter of frame of reference.
If I chop off your legs, are you less physically capable than before? Probably objectively yes.
- Seen individually, he’s right.
Now, if you’re part of some story where every otherwise disabled character gains commensurate super-powers and everyone’s special (just in their own way)? Objectively not, because it’s balanced out anyways.
- Seen more holistically, less so.
Raptor Strike is objectively more powerful (except when uber-buffed and against plate), but more constrained, than MM’s Arcane Shot, to the point of being pretty balanced against it contextually. So, is it more capable, or less? Neither?
That’s what this mostly comes down to.
Wanting the ranged option to do at least 95% of what the melee option does, at least in on-paper throughput, is a perfectly reasonable request. See broader Melee-Ranged balance for analogues.
I am (and likely you and probably many, many others are) likely not to agree with Bepples on a lot of things regarding what makes a well-designed spec —because we each have different wants regarding what skill expressions it should reward, impact of / emphasis on core mechanics vs. simultaneous accessibility and depth (high floor, low ceiling), etc.— but it’s usually more productive to find the difference in warrants than just shout out our differences in conclusions at competing volumes.
Yeah its also highly unproductive to cry about wanting a spec back that hasn’t existed for over 8 years at this point on any hunter thread that gains any traction regardless of the original topic. Nor is it productive to go on tangents about how people cannot possible enjoy sv and that they must be making it up that they are trying it and liking it. Yet here we are…
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Fair 'nuff.
My favourite part is how you said until today you avoided SV because it’s melee, yet now you’re saying MoP ruined the class by removing melee. What a switch!
The implication Bepples made is that melee range is less competitive than melee simply because it’s melee. That’s like saying a sword is less competitive than a katana because the katana is… well, a katana. They both achieve the same purpose, the both have difficulties. Melee isn’t gimped ranged. It’s not cutting off the legs of the class. It’s changing the style. Sure, there are some rough spots, the boots are a bit scuffed and it’s missing a few buttons - but it’s not unviable because of this.
From a design standpoint, this is a terrible idea. This would mean a fourth spec is shoved into Hunter. IMHO, make Survival 100% melee focused, but when forced into range, they can still use some basic attacks if they can’t keep a foothold on something squirmy/mechanics are interfering. The design work load of completely overhauling all SV abilities into ranged nodes would be massive.
If you want to be as viable as MM for ranged, play MM. I think all Hunter specs should dip their toes into melee and ranged both, with MM and SV being on the opposite sides of the spectrum. MM should have access to a weaker Raptor strike (70% efficiency) for when something is constantly on their heels in melee, SV should have access to a usable Ranged attack (70% efficiency) for when they need to avoid fire/hunt down something squirmy. Both should be encouraged heavily to play to their strengths (staying at range for MM, staying in melee for SV.) BM should be able to choose to lean heavily into melee or ranged, as it’s fitting for the class, but still able to do a little of both, since it has 0 constraints on its movement as-is.
Crazy how he’s been melee SV for all of one day and now he’s posting every canned melee SV talking point.
Oh yes, like how I switched to a dozen alts to gaslight you into thinking I’m masterminding a counter culture to your one-sided rants and assumptions. OoOooOOoo, look out, I’ll hop on another alt if you blink!
Went from “avoiding melee SV entirely for years because people on the forums said melee for Hunters is bad and it should be ranged” to “melee SV is the only good part of the class and it should never be ranged again because melee is a critical part of the Hunter identity” in about a day. Wow!
Cool, let’s give context so you can understand before that tiny motor catches on fire behind those glazed over eyes of yours.
I enjoyed the original iteration of Hunter in Pre-MoP which had both melee and ranged. I liked melee weaving and felt that it was a good addition to the class. It was particularly fun in WotLK, where I could step 6m away from the mob, auto shot, step in for a melee swing, then pop out for more shots.
MoP kinda ruined this aspect as it removed melee entirely. MoP is the worst expac in existence IMHO because it also removed talent trees, which are integral to WoW.
When I came back in Legion, I was left with a choice between MM, BM, and SV. I wasn’t ready to give up ranged just yet, so I stuck with MM. I got to level… 79 before realizing how bad the class felt. It was almost pointless to do ST outside of random vuln windows. AoE was busted, and made grinding dungeons feel… bad. I soon dropped Hunter and went back to leveling an Ice Mage which I gave up on when my sub expired. To me, I didn’t want to try BM, because I liked the idea of a lone wolf fantasy. And I didn’t want to try SV, because it wasn’t the hard hitting ranged class I wanted.
So I dropped WoW until Dragonflight, where I was happier with the MM changes, but still kinda disappointed. Because it felt so close to greatness, but it was missing so much. BM just felt bad to me, despite being fully mobile - it was just spamming 4 buttons, and none of them felt like I was doing anything, my pets were. I decided that Hunter wasn’t going to really pop off again until next expac, rolled a Druid, and began working on that. My friends wanted to level druids with me too, so I held off playing until they were online… dipping out of WoW again, feeling disenfranchised, and wanting changes.
But then, while hoping we’d get some reworks on the forums, I saw all of your hate posts for SV. Your whining. Your moaning. Your caterwauling. How you HATED the idea of a melee hunter. I remembered melee weaving fondly, and decided to give it a try.
Turns out melee is fun. Big sword go smack. It was janky until about level 30, but by then, I was disengage harpooning for focus, I was timing my rotation around my KC, I was having fun.
Now I’m fully supportive of melee SV, because your screaming about how it needed to be changed convinced me to try it, and I learned that your opinions are horrible, and that players like you need to muzzled. You offer nothing to the class but changes that’ll ruin what SV has. All I want is a bit of ranged options when I’m not bashing in skulls by the dozen; the kit is already there, it just needs one or two small tweaks to work again, and then I can melee weave again.
Until then, fight another battle. Whine about MM needing a rework. Leave SV alone. Seriously.
- Why would it be a terrible idea? It literally works for… all the rest of the game, at an even tighter threshold. The advantage just is in things other than on-paper throughput. And to be clear, this doesn’t mean that with a melee weapon equipped Arcane Shot should have 95-99.9% the effective damage-efficiency of Mongoose Bite. It just means that if you build for range, you should still be very competitive, especially in terms of throughput.
- That doesn’t require a fourth spec. You can literally have just baseline contextual skills. When in melee range, A becomes B. When not in melee range, B becomes A. Or when a ranged weapon is equipped, you have Cobra Shot; while a melee weapon is equipped, you have Cobra Strike, so to speak.
- No, that doesn’t actually require redesigning any nodes for the specific purpose of being able to use ranged versions of the melee skills. They mostly start as ranged, in the first place, and you can just use contextualization. You were the one harkening back to Rangers being hybrids and that Hunter (should) had taken inspiration from them. Let that be the case from the start (Wing Clip [spammable] <> Concussive Shot [ranged], Mercy Blow [reset on kill] <> Kill Shot [ranged], Muzzle [shorter CD] <> Countershot [ranged], etc.), and it’s a non-issue.
good freaking lord, going through the last 50 or so posts of this thread, it blows my mind people still entertain some of these critiques. the harshest critics of melee survival (and i’m not just talking about that one) also don’t really engage in any sort of content where tweaking (or completely overhauling, lololol) melee survival would affect their gameplay one way or the other. survival is flippin’ great atm. it could use a slight damage buff, imo (and maybe a smaller cd for savagery), but the rotation for both st and aoe are fun (this includes the hybrid of ranged and melee attacks, it is a blast being able to attack a fair bit away when avoiding bad while watching the rest of the melee just standing there, waiting to rush back in.) the utility is great, as is the mobility, even the 4-piece is pretty fun. perish the thought most of the ideas in here ever get implemented, lol good lo’.
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Well, okay then. Let’s contextualize why a designer would find this challenging to rebuild each node to fit Ranged instead of Melee. Let’s define some things real quick: Ability Power, or AP, is the overall amount of power that any one skill or talent packed into it. Most skills are tailored around a point system; damaging effects, resource costs/charges, proc chance, debuffs and the ability to apply them cost points, while cooldowns, the required range, channel times, cast times, if it can be interrupted, and the hardcast requirements add points. On top of their position in the talent tree and how hard they are to obtain, of course - and a million other tiny things. Ideally, you want a skill to be balanced. This is an ever changing process because it’s impossible to really make something truly balanced, so it’s contextualized in the whole kit, not per ability or talent.
Let’s look at just Raptor Strike and see why this is a challenge to rebuild. First, we look at what Raptor Strike is meant to do: A high damage single target ability meant to be the core of your rotation. It costs 30 Focus, and deals 182.7% Attack Power on an instant cast hit in melee range. This ability can’t be interrupted and can be used every GCD.
Initially, a skill like Raptor Strike, based on its position in the priority queue/rotation, would likely have the highest amount of AP assigned to it; we’ll dumb it down to 30 AP out of the kit’s allotment for AP. First, it must meet a certain damage requirement, otherwise it doesn’t fit the role as prime ST DPS. So that’s going to cost a large chunk of the AP, that being… well, all of it. It’s melee ranged, so it gains 10 AP. It’s instant cast, so it costs 15 AP. It takes 30 Focus, which is a good chunk - so it gains 5 AP. It has neutral cost now, and can launch - so the devs smack it into the PTB, tune it (with the AP system not factored in, as this is in the tuning phase now, and AP is just for development), then launch.
Now let’s convert it to Ranged.
Firstly, it has to do a lot of damage as your core ST ability, but a little bit less since it’s ranged. So we’ll assign 25 AP to this, leaving 5 - it now deals 160% weapon damage, whatever. It’s ranged, and every 10 meters costs 3 AP, so we’ll give it… 40m, which means your at -10 AP. Okay, that’s not great - and you lose another -15 AP because it’s instant cast, so… now you’re at -25. Now the focus cost is 30, so let’s add in 5 AP, aaaaand… the ability is at -20 AP.
Why does this system matter? Because it measures the impact the skill has on the player’s overall fairness compared to other classes. So it brings it back to this:
We nerfed the damage on the skill in this summed up system, and it still came out really strong. Why? Because the ranged component, the instant cast, the high damage, the focus cost - all of it is too powerful for such a long range, safe ability that makes up the meat and bones of your ST rotation. And since it has no counter play, players would have to eat this a 10 times to the face wile being kited, shredding them to ribbons in the process. While also fending off a Pet, and a Hunter who’s leeching HP from all of that damage.
The thing is, this system isn’t flawless. But a lot of game devs use this system for building fair abilities; this is exactly how the Gw2 team does it, and I would be shocked if Blizzard didn’t adopt a similar strategy.
Look at BM right now. Tell me, do you think it’s fair and balanced for other classes, like MM, who has to deal with cast times, standing still, and having no leech or pet? It’s not. Which is why BM is going to be taking a lot of nerfs, and maybe even another rework to be less free next expac - because it just has so much power and freedom of mobility, a Dev will totally kill it in TWW. Get ready for Barbed Shot to be a hardcast, and BM’s range to fall to 30m at best.
In this stage of DF, though, a nerf overhaul can’t happen. Only tweaks and downgrades until next expac. MM is going to be revised. SV is going to be looked over. BM is going to be nerfed hard before being tweaked up.
Are you Tanais?
I don’t think he’s lying about enjoying SV. I think he’s lying about having avoided it until yesterday. Example:
Do these sound like the words of someone who until yesterday beliefved that melee SV was a “stain on the class”?
As evidenced by the droves of players flocking to it 
“Fantasy wise” is doing a lot of work here.
There’s a big big difference between using a ranged weapon and using a melee weapon.
I don’t think the 5-8 yard deadzone was necessary, but having a minimum range was considered an important part of the class identity. Back then classes having key drawbacks was important to their class design philosophy. It’s why Rogues moved slower while stealthed and why Paladins did less damage during Divine Shield. Hunters were a very strong ranged class with a big part of their damage being an extra automatic unit.
The base Hunter identity is using a ranged weapon, not a melee weapon. SV changes that. So it doesn’t specialise; it deviates.
So if Survival had 11-70 talents that made it a healer spec; would that also fit the class identity and be a meaningful “speacialisation” of the class foundation?
And they still design the class as if it’s a ranged class and melee is an afterthought. Hunters deserve 3 specs; not 2 specs plus an option made for people who don’t like the class.
What, it’s creepy to call out people for doing a bad job? Is it also creepy when I do the same for politicians I don’t like?
Because:
-
Clearly it isn’t fun for a lot of people since it remains a largely abandoned spec with only a niche fanbase even after so many years
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It replaced a ranged spec that Hunters broadly enjoyed
Maybe summon the memories of how you felt about it 2 days ago when you apparently hated it and never played it 
No melee is good for a ranged class 
Why? We can already fight in melee range. It’s yet more compromising in favour of a vanishingly small niche of the playerbase that’s obsessed with being a Hunter but worse.
I think the same about literally all of your class design takes, don’t you worry.
Actually they were defined in World of Warcraft. They aren’t mimicking any other RPG universe 1 to 1. They created the class to represent some broader concepts but they fully intended on there being a core ranged identity to distinguish it from melee classes. Here’s their description of the class from game launch:
As you can see, they absolutely intended Hunters to be the ranged weapon class. This wasn’t an accidental result of the tuning. It was the driving philosophy of the class.
The fact that every time they had the opportunity to rework parts of the class they always compromised towards ranged only supports that. If they truly wanted melee to have equal place in the class, they would have pushed for it long before Legion and a newer set of developers.
So was this how you felt 2 days ago before you apparently ever played melee SV or did you change your views on MoP as an expansion too?
I shouldn’t need to say it, but these words obviously weren’t typed by someone who was opposed to melee SV up until a day ago.
Oh, want to talk about skill? What competitive content have you done? Levelling up a few times?
If it’s fine, why’s it always underplayed? It’s certainly not a damage problem since the damage has been good for a while.
Bursting Shot is also melee range. Does that mean MM is melee?
Sometimes melee abilities are still relevant to ranged specs because they counter melee opponents. Wing Clip is one of them. It doesn’t give precedent to a Hunter spec that fights exclusively with a melee weapon.
Why? We can see from SV’s unpopularity that very few Hunters want to be melee. So why compromise the class design even more towards melee?
I know why: you identify that SV is not cohesive with the rest of the class. You identify the rest of the class as being at fault for this when in fact it’s SV that’s at fault. The solution is to make SV ranged like the rest of the class; not make the rest of the class melee like SV.
Lmao it’s not comparing a sword to a different kind of sword. It’s comparing a sword to a gun.
What do you think the connotation of the phrase “bringing a knife to a gun fight” is?
Because SV is, given its baseline class, quite literally bringing a knife to a gun fight.
Let’s think of a scenario to help you understand.
Isle of Conquest: I’m up on the ship mast at quarry. A melee player shows up like a Warrior or even an SV Hunter.
As an MM Hunter, I shoot down at him, preventing him from capping while they can’t reach me to counter.
What does an SV Hunter do?
Why should SV be like that? That’s basically what it is now and hardly anyone plays it. Why double down on such an obviously widely disliked idea?
Yes, it would be a lot of work to rework it to ranged. But it would at least be making it a concept proven to be widely enjoyed. Meanwhile it was even more work to make it melee in the first place while that was actively transitioning from a popular concept to unpopular.
Why do melee deserve special treatment?
Why? MM already has full capability while in melee range. SV is the ony one with a ranged-based handicap.
Is this also a view point you’ve only held for the past 24 hours?
Firstly, melee weaving was a product of private server theorycrafting. It was a very rare thing to do back in Classic and TBC, considering the potential gains were minor and usually it just amounted to DPS neutral or even a loss while at the same time threatening your survivability.
Secondly, melee weaving was broken in WotLK because that’s when they made the melee and ranged swing timers shared. A melee attack would mean you missed a much more valuable auto-shot.
So needless to say this is already pretty suspect.
Previosuly you told me this account of yours was made in MoP. So you came back for the expansion you now call the worst one?
Also, needless to say, this is a stark difference of how you portrayed your stance from before yesterday. Back then you apparently viewed melee SV as a “stain on the class”, yet now MoP is one of the worst expansions for taking away our melee weapons?
And yet now in a day you’ve become a melee Hunter absolutist. What a twist!
Ah, so you forgot that SV existed until you saw me talk about it on the forums. Not a mention of SV anywhere until I talked about on the forums. Nope. Not one.
Yep and I’m meant to believe that you now have this strong of an affinity towards melee SV after playing it for all of a day
A day ago you believed that melee SV was a stain on the class and it was meant to be a hard-hitting ranged. Today you’ve changed your mind and Hunters have alwyas meant to have a melee playstyle and MoP was the worst expansion for removing it.
Let’s be real: you’ve played the spec for a long time and you think pretending that I made you play the spec scores points for it. This is made clear by your obvious alt-posting on throwaway characters.
We will take your feedback into consideration.
BM was in an even more overpowered state at the end of BFA yet it went to SL just as free and mobile as it had been in BFA, Legion, WoD, and MoP going all the way back to patch 5.1 in 2012 (11 years ago). What makes you think next expansion is when it all changes?
Yes, MM is too limited compared to BM. The solution isn’t to constrain BM but to help MM.
For one, MM shouldn’t be so consistently screwed on 2 target cleave and >6 target AoE pulls; if it’s going to be restricted to such a small range of targets for competent AoE it’d better be the very best at it.
Secondly, something needs to be updated regarding Lone Wolf. We can’t continue to have this nonsense where we summon a pet to lust and then dismiss it at the right time to maximise Lone Wolf uptime. Lone Wolf should be something that lets us fight at full effectiveness when we can’t fight alongside the pet. Having the pet out should still be a viable option. The building blocks of the class are ranged weapons and pets. We should not be selectively restricting those things from the three specs.
Thirdly, MM should not be at a large deficit v.s. BM especially in Single Target.
MM has had its moments. It’s capable of being a strong spec despite being less mobile. The problem is Blizzard keeps getting it wrong season after season. They got it wrong last season when they made WRG and they got it wrong in this one when they didn’t compensate it for the WRG rework. It’s too dependent on tier, and specific pull sizes/times, to excel. This is fixable without a major rework. As recently as Dragonflight S1 it was a compelling and widely played spec.
Yes, making MM better puts SV in an even worse position, but that’s SV’s problem. You made your bed, you will lie in it
I’m glad you have finally come to your senses that mm is incredibly dog
what does this have to do with a spec’s enjoyment? spriest last patch was above and beyond other specs by a huge margin in total numbers of people playing it, look at where it is now lololol. people flock to meta my good man. cause i suspect you don’t realize this because you’re not the sort (at least in wow), competitive types do not care about how much they like a rotation, they care about the numbers they can pump out. and this did in fact happen to survival in shadowlands. convenient of you to forget though, i know, considering you can seem to recall ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE about it.
anyway, this dude just had a full blown meltdown, quoting anyone and everyone, and using ‘evidence’ from the wow manual… from 20 YEARS AGO!!! you think it’s reasonable for anything at all, let alone a video game, to not change over the course of TWO DECADES? mods need to step in and help this poor dude out, cause he cannot help himself. this is not healthy behavior. it’s legit kind of unsettling.
and P.S. I LOVE (M)SURVIVAL!!!
Gameplay wise? Yes. But then again gameplay wise there’s barely a difference in the “physical ranged DPS” and “magical ranged DPS” besides occasional auto attacks.
You didn’t answer my question. Should it come back? Should MM do no damage if the target is within 8 yards of them on retail?
The base Warrior identity is using a sword and shield. Arms and Fury deviate by your logic and does not specialize.
What level do you get wing clip? Do you have to spec SV to equip melee weapons? Loooking forward to your reply.
Yes? That’s like saying Resto doesn’t count as a Druid spec. What are you even saying here lol.
Meaningless statement. They design the class as its a 3 spec DPS spec. SV is not an afterthought. Did you know on Tuesday the helm enchant only worked for SV and not BM/MM? Kind of a weird after thought there.
I like the class. I wonder why that makes you so upset?
Blizzard should go back to classic and have Hunters start with both melee and ranged attacks. Then players could get accustomed to either play style, and by the time they hit level 10 they can choose, which side they want to stay with.
You’re hugely overcomplicating the matter, and on a pretty arbitrary/unattached point at that.
- SV doesn’t rotate around Raptor Strike, a basic replacement for Arcane/Cobra Shot. It rotates around Mongoose Bite windows, which is the first point at which its rotation does something more than the base class does.
It’s not, though, any more than Cobra is the “core” of BM.
Just stick to a single direction (e.g., AP spending, rather than building) and a single frame of reference. Please. Determine the desired optimal (vs. training dummy) and likely (per PvP, PvE, etc.) frequency of the ability (as portion of total GCD casts) and build your available % of potency (Ability Power, %Attack Power, or whathaveyou) over time from there.
Keep in mind also, a skill’s value contribution is not individual. It’s a matter of ppm (potency per minute, or %Attack Power / Spell Power per average minute above what one would otherwise have available).
Moreover, none of this has anything to do with needing to swap out nodes. We literally already have conditional nodes.
Nor does that describe a Ranged version of Survival. Survival is not merely Raptor Strike. Raptor Strike isn’t even its core. Survival’s core is (de)buff windows. Raptor Strike is a filler; its only interest comes from what the (de)buffs pull off.
If you had melee Survival act in the way you suggest would be OP here, even with a whopping 20% damage buff over Ranged Survival’s (overly direct) equivalents, it’d be dead in the water, because you haven’t even considered/attached the actual gameplay optimizations or constraints yet.
Again, you have to look at / conceptualize actual builds in context:
And again:
You have nodes repurposed to give a different gameplay spin to the class that synergizes with something other than just management of effective-uptime. You don’t need to spend nodes, however, just to give (back) ranged versions of melee skills.
The game already has conditional nodes. The game already has conditional abilities. Rather than bloating talents or spellbooks unnecessarily, just use those conditionals.
Why ask me a question, rhetorical or otherwise, that I’d already answered in posts/conversations you’ve already responded to?
It’s not either. It revolves around Kill Command. I’m sure you know MB is just a replacement for RS, but at its core SV revolves around generating Focus with your pet and spending Focus with your melee abilities. You have WFB to do damage in between. That’s the core of the spc.
Moving on to the discussion of “just make melee abilities ranged when you’re at ranged” is a ridiculous premise as if you can do the same damage at range vs melee, there’s no reason to be melee.