I'm a raider that quit years ago - came back and hate hunter now

Classes Hunter
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I started playing WoW in Burning Crusade and raided at a high level until I quit about halfway through the panda expansion. So I’m not sure how long I’ve been gone (6 years? 7?).

I started playing again last week, and I feel so lost - so much is different - especially with hunters. Survival is now melee? WTF? MM plays without a pet? BM is so f*cking boring I couldn’t even last 3 hours playing it while leveling.

I feel so disappointed and sad. Used to be I couldn’t imagine being anything other than a hunter - but I can’t stand BM, I don’t want to play in melee, so that would just leave me MM. I don’t see how I could try to raid again and only be willing to play one spec.

I stuck with my hunter when we were OP and when we sucked, when we were so basic everyone made fun of us. I have never disliked my hunter, until now.

What happened to hunters? Do you guys like the way hunters are now?

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They changed so much since then, a lot for the worse as far as interesting abilities. In general, right now, BM & MM are in a good place for PvE raiding & dungeons.

I personally find MM to be slow and boring. Chocolate/vanilla?

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I was hardcore from Vanilla to WoTLK and became casual afterwards. I started with Hunters in TBC and was a solid MM Hunter. During WoTLK, I tried Survival… I used Survival on Heroic 5-mans and on all AoE situations on ICC… trash mobs and 2 bosses in ICC including Lich King. I never like BM Hunters becoz I dont know how to play one. Pandaria came and I saw many played BM Hunters so I tried it. I was able to understand how BM works. I even made a 2nd Hunter in Pandaria (this toon) and it became my main. My both Hunters were on BM… maybe becoz of exotic pets. Draenor came, I was still with BM on both Hunters.

On Legion, I discovered Dungeon Finder and WoW token, I was able to raid again. But when I look at spec selections, I was forced to play BM. I want a Hunter that is very similar to original Vanilla Hunter… a range dps’er with a pet. Survival became a melee so I crossed it out. MM got rid of pet becoz of lonewolf so I crossed it out. It left me with BM. No choice. But I know how to play a BM and how to play with Legion changes. Got the right Artifact relics and were able to get the 2 legendaries that most BM Hunters wants to get very early. I was able to climbed to M+15 and beat Mythic Emerald Nightmare/Heroic Nighthold but I left WoW and later came back to maintain my M+15 and got AoTC on Antorus on time. I had fun.

In BFA, I survived the snoozefest content as a BM Hunter… was able to reach M+10 before 8.2 but frustrated on Heroic Uldir and BoD becoz PuGs sucks. I can only use Dungeon Finder on my raids coz I cant join guilds as I want to play when I want to play. I still play BM now at ilevel 419 thriving… becoz I have a lot of Azerite gear to choose from… if I want triple Primal instincts, triple Dance of Death or Triple Rapid Reload, I have it. I am trying to balance what I need for my Mythic+. So far so good. I love Operation: Mechagon btw. Cant wait for its M+. I am really loving BM Hunters now for their mobility.

My alt Hunter remains alt… tried Survival on her. Still cant convince me as it doesnt gives anything special on melee other than Lust from pet. Very hard to be competitive against Rogues and DH… and there are Warriors, Ret Palys and DKs who tries to compete on melee spots. Coz my alt Survival cant tank, I would rather play my Warrior or DK instead.

Since I dont have much play time anyway, I would just stick to 1 toon… my BM Hunter.

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was that directed to my comments in the original post or the guy above me? I am just wanted to talk to my fellow hunters about the state of the class. The guild I was in (well still in) quit raiding and there’s almost no one left around that I used to know from 5-6 years ago, so I don’t have anyone to discuss hunter stuff with except you guys.

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This made my day! Thanks :smiley:

You can call a pet out to fight with you as MM. But no, the spec no longer promotes pet use in any way.

Some do, others do not.

Mostly what happened is that they(devs) decided with Legion that all specs for all classes had to be much more unique. They all had to have their own identity(more so than what we had previously).

Again, some like this, others do not.

I happen to like uniqueness, although, I’m not entirely satisfied with the exact design of the Hunter class atm. not even close.

I could say the same. Forced, might be a strong word but, at the same time, the other specs are no longer interesting to me.

Very much this.

I should say that this is something I like with BM as well. Despite that it feels as if something’s always missing when playing as it.

On another note, some might’ve seen this already but, I have always been a big fan of the old ranged SV spec we had prior to Legion.

The version of it that I liked the most was the one we had with Cataclysm. Before talents were re-designed to be more generally focused rather than being more specific to a single spec.
Maybe it was because of the actual talent choices we got with MoP, that they did not feel interesting to me.

I just feel that, the modern spec design of today, despite certain flaws that it might have, it allows us to really enhance a particular playstyle(spec) if we so wish.

Due to this, I’ve for a while been thinking of how we could get the old SV spec back, as an updated version that fits the modern design of WoW and it’s systems.

I came up with this:

I know that there’s a lot of hesitation towards suggestions for 4th spec options for classes. As, historically, only one class has been given this treatment(Druid).

But if you ask me, the Hunter class, if you compare the specs we currently have, with what the old SV spec could be with modern design. I’d say that it would very much be warranted to add in that 4th spec.

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Me too - it was always my favorite spec, despite only being a good spec for small periods of time. Maybe that’s partly why survival being melee was so shocking - that, and the idea of hunters being a melee class is just sacrilegious.

Remember when hunters couldn’t even fire an arrow if it was inside the minimum range? We had to go around whacking people with our weapon. What a long way we are from that now.

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Those who say that SV as it is now is not fun tend to have an agenda and have never played it. Those who say that the SV of old was not fun are trolling Bepples because he can’t help but fall for it. Give it a shot, especially in 5 man’s and PvP.

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To be fair - I have not tried it. I just don’t like playing melee in raids. I can’t see myself in with all those other people. It makes me crazy.

Maybe I have it wrong? Is survival like a mid-distance spec or is it a true melee spec?

My favorite alt (before I quit) was a holy pally - and I feel like I can’t play that now either since they are melee position healers now.

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It’s fully melee and plays like an extremely more mobile Ret. I loved playing it in Mythic+ before the guild kinda died. In PvP it’s strong, as in I have beaten Warriors, Rogues, and Druids. I should add that I suck at fighting those as MM, well Warriors can be easy.

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Oh yes, I remember.

I should say this though. The fact that there is a melee-spec for the Hunter class, is not something that I’m against. In fact, I’m all for it.
As it’s clear that there are many players that do like that playstyle.
The only thing that I’m against, is that they removed the old SV spec in favor of the current melee version.

I have said this before but I’m a firm believer that, if you want to add in a completely new playstyle to an existing class. It should not be done by scrapping an old one.
Specifics regarding the current melee spec aside and whether people think that it plays well or not, the real mistake, was that they chose to completely remove ranged SV.
This is also the very reason for why I’m petitioning for a 4th spec option. And why I believe that it’s a just call to do so.
The old ranged SV, had a unique identity with it’s focus on enhancing ammunition/arrows by applying venoms/toxins or explosives. Mechanically, the spec focused on DoTs rather than instant hitters.

In an interview made at the time of Legion, the lead devs stated that they thought that ranged SV was too similar to that of MM. That it was the same spec, just with different arrows, or different traps.

I as well as many others, do not agree with that statement. And no matter really, as that statement wasn’t going to hold up anyway considering that every single spec in the game was remade and re-focused with the Legion expansion.
They could’ve given ranged SV the same treatment as the other specs/classes got at the time. Giving it more focus on it’s intended fantasy/playstyle.

Right now, the Hunter class does not have a spec that fills the void of dealing damage through DoTs. It used to…
No one wants the class to become a spell caster(at least I hope not :confused: ).
But the old ranged SV spec, allowed the class to have a playstyle that dealt damage through DoTs. A playstyle that actually fit the class fantasy very well.

Sure, in many cases, this might very well be true.

But that’s not the entire story. Many(this includes me), who either have never tried it, or haven’t tried it a whole lot, who claim that it isn’t fun. They say so because they simply don’t like melee combat.

Does this mean that we want everyone else to hate it as well. No(again, at least I hope not :confused: ). What this means, is that we do not like melee combat.

We are different. We prefer different fighting styles. Nothing wrong with that.

It’s intended to be a melee spec. It’s just very flexible compared to other melee specs in terms of what you can do from afar.

The Legion iteration was even more focused on the melee aspects compared to what it is now in BfA. They overhauled it again due to complaints from people that did not like how it played in Legion.
Did they get it right this time? Opinions vary ofc. As they always do. Some love it.

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Think and why I would use the words “tend to.” I wasn’t encompassing everyone, but there are a lot here who fall under the statement.

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Don’t worry, I got that part :slight_smile:

I just chose to elaborate a little more on the subject.

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I have no idea how about became and when using an andriod phone to post…:thinking::clown_face:

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Phones…best to get rid of them. All they do is wreck our games anyway! :wink:

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Wife and kid are both disabled, otherwise I wouldn’t have one.

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Yeah, communication is a good reason to have one, :thinking:
amongst other reasons to.

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Nope. Post-legion hunter is a failure. Hardly played the last 2 xpacs. Playing other games until classic and 9.0.

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Many feel as you do.

It’s sad really.

I keep thinking that the specs now, have a lot of potential in terms of their overall design directions.

Not saying that they are even close to perfect atm.

Beast Mastery - I would like for them to keep working on the concept of either buffing your main pet along with it buffing you.
I would also want us to once again be able to choose between Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy. As I’m not really a fan of Barbed Shot(nor the Frenzy buff maintenance).

Talent wise, there are several stand-alone, press-on-cd abilities you can get through talent choices for the spec. I want less of that, and more focus on enhancing the core concept of the spec. Simply adding in more buttons, is not very engaging to me.

Marksmanship - I would mostly like them to work on the options you have regarding the pacing of the spec and how it plays. Many don’t like how slow it feels.
And really, MM has both Rapid Fire + Barrage? Isn’t one machine-gun ability enough? Personally, I don’t think that either fits the hunter class but well…

Survival (Ranged (new name needed)) - as for the ranged SV spec, my suggestions for a 4th spec, are in the link further up this thread. :slight_smile:

Survival (Melee) - it seems as if most who currently plays it, like it. So based on that alone, it might be best to keep it like it is. I do however think that it could attract even more players if they decided to refocus it to be an actual melee-spec rather than this hybrid version.
Many don’t like melee combat, while many others don’t like ranged combat. By keeping this spec with a focus on both aspects, it might very well alienate even more players.

So, based on this, I would say that they should go back to what they started with in Legion, and focus on the melee-aspects.

My suggestions can be found here:

Melee Survival

We all have our preferences ofc. But…

…I’ve thought of what things I would prefer for the MSV spec to have.
Like those below:

Any abilities or talents not mentioned below, they can stay as they are IMO.

-Core Abilities-

  • Remove Kill Command.

  • Rework Raptor Strike to be the new focus builder(it can work the same as Kill Command did for the spec, just melee-based, and it shouldn’t have a cooldown).

  • Drag out Mongoose Bite to become the main Spender instead of Raptor Strike.

  • Rework Serpent Sting into a mid-range CD.
    Instead of you, firing a poison tipped arrow at your target, now, when you activate this ability, you coat your melee weapon(s) in snake venom for a short period.
    Let’s say the ability has a 30 sec CD. The duration could be something like 15-20 seconds.
    The venom itself, could work much like the old Exotic Munitions-venom we had in WoD. Where your auto shots(here, it would instead be your melee auto attacks), they would inflict that venom on the target.
    The damaging effect would increase with every attack.

  • Wildfire Bomb can pretty much stay as it is. Although perhaps changing it into an actual bomb with a splash effect rather than being designed with a cone in mind would be better.
    No matter the design here, throwing a bomb in front of yourself does not make sense but at least the splash design allows for less annoyance.

-Talents-

  • Remove the talent, Alpha Predator(no longer needed).

  • Put the last tier talent, Birds of Prey in the place of Alpha Predator.

  • Talent: Viper’s Venom, could be reworked so that if it’s chosen, it causes your new Snake Venom ability, it causes the venom to spread more quickly(stack up higher with every attack).
    As well as adding a chance for you to extend it’s duration on the target(s) beyond the default time(up to a set max).
    Essentially, this could allow you to keep that DoT up permanently.

  • Hydra’s Bite. This would now just allow you to hit 3 targets at once with your Snake Venom buff that you use on your weapon(s).

  • Bloodseeker, could work the same, just that it would involve Raptor Strike instead of Kill Command.

  • Tip of the Spear, can be renamed Sharpened Edges.
    Now, when picked, as you would have Mongoose Bite baseline. This talent could be reworked to allow you to stack Mongoose Fury up faster and/or allow you to extend the duration of the buff.

  • We have a free spot for a talent option in the place of Mongoose Bite.
    This could be fun
    New talent called Mean Duo(I love that name!).
    What it would do, is this:
    Each time you hit an enemy target with an ability, there’s a high chance that this will cause your pet’s next Basic Attack(Bite, Claw, Smack) to be a guaranteed critical strike.
    Each time your pet hits with a Basic Attack, there’s a high chance that you gain this effect as well.
    I like the synergy!

  • Wildfire Infusion might have to change a bit in it’s design to better fit the new core makeup of the spec. But still, mostly, I think it’s the Pheromone Bomb infusion that needs to change. Perhaps into something that benefits your Mongoose Bite?

And last but not least!

  • In the place of the talent Birds of Prey(that was moved to the first row). I would like to put in a new talent. Some of you might remember the talent: Way of the Mok’Nathal. Explanation follows.
    (And no, I don’t intend to bring that specific talent design back).
    What I want, is this:
    A LOT of players think of the current MSV spec as a visualization of us playing as Rexxar.
    The famed Hunter from Draenor that fights with 2 1-handed axes.
    So…what if a talent that you call Way of the Mok’Nathal, would do just that? Allow you to equip 2 1-handed weapons.
    All your melee attacks(and abilities) would now be executed with those 2 weapons instead of a 2-hander.

As for tuning…Now, you would have to tune the 1h-concept to be on par with the 2 other talents on the same talent row, instead of trying to tune it as a baseline option for players choosing between using a 2-hander or 2 1-handers.
I know it’s not as simple as this, but still, more simple than the alternative.

Considering the amount of players that would want to play with 1-handed weapons. I’d say this would be worth it.

IMO, these changes would allow for the spec to be what it was meant to be with Legion, while still, keeping it closer to the fantasy of the Hunter class.

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As Yura said, most of the damage was done in Legion.

OP, I see you stopped playing mid-MoP. That’s a shame, because Survival still had some great moments in its future. In Siege of Orgrimmar the Survival 4-set made Explosive Shot sometimes not consume a Lock and Load charge so you could get crazy chains of Explosive Shots. They tried to work this into the WoD iteration by changing how Lock and Load worked but it didn’t make it out of beta (and now we know why…). SV was really good at the start of WoD, too. It was mostly the same spec, but Serpent Sting became a passive tied to Arcane Shot and Rapid Fire and Kill Shot were removed from the spec. There was a new stat called Multistrike that interacted well with SV and some bad luck protection on Lock and Load, but otherwise it was the same gameplay. It did really well in Highmaul (after the initial hotfixes it became the game’s most popular spec!) and then fell to “decent” status in Blackrock Foundry. Patch 6.2 with Hellfire Citadel, unfortunately, utterly butchered the spec. They made a seemingly small change to Serpent Sting that ended up gutting the whole spec (removing the initial tick) and the HFC raid was designed specifically for the types of damage SV was bad at (i.e. CD/add burst). Then they made it melee in 7.0, the Legion patch.

Legion was not kind to Hunters. They remade all three specs, with Survival of course being something totally different. It was actually totally different to the current Survival, too. They remade SV again in 8.0. Same for MM; it was just about entirely different in Legion. BM is mostly intact with some key changes.

Not many of the Legion changes were received well by the general Hunter playerbase. They were trying to make a clear and defined theme for each spec and make them more distinguishable. The problem is they went way too far and it felt like switching between different classes. Also, we lost quite a lot of abilities going into Legion; it was “pruning” fever at Blizzard HQ and they were removing abilities that they thought had no purpose or were too similar to those of other classes. For example, we lost Tranquilising Shot, Kill Shot, and Distracting Shot. For a while, SV was the only spec that had traps at all. On top of all this, a lot of the baseline abilities got moved to talents. Chimera Shot became a BM talent, Explosive Shot became an MM talent (and also turned into something entirely different and extremely terrible), Master’s Call became a Survival-only PvP talent before becoming the Cunning pet ability, Scatter Shot and a knockback Explosive Trap are PvP talents, and so on. It makes the class feel a lot less capable and much more dependent on specific talent/gear choices. A lot of classes have this problem (e.g. a lot of iconic abilities such as Haunt, Hammer of Wrath, and Shadow Word: Death are now talents) but Hunters were one of the worst examples.

It seems like the class developers in charge of Hunters in Legion were a particularly dangerous mixture of eager and willing to make large changes and lacking in the knowledge and understanding of the class to make sure they were the right changes. I do think it’s better in BFA for all three specs but it’s still a far cry from what came before Legion.

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Agree with much of what you’re saying here Bepples!

We all have our preferred versions of the spec/design. It’s all subjective really.
Or…I should say that most of it is. Overall the SV spec was designed to have a very fluid/smooth gameplay. It wasn’t meant to be a huge burster or relying on heavy hits. The core of the spec that is.

Have heard this from others as well. I played in the MoP Beta, and I wasn’t a huge fan of what the new talents did for the spec(more so, what they did NOT do).

I came back for WoD as I really wanted to play through that story. Many hated WoD for various reasons. My opinion, is that I liked most of the stuff that we actually got. Granted it wasn’t a whole lot. But apart from Tanaan Jungle, and mostly the continued talent design, I liked most of it.

The leveling experience in WoD, it felt really good if you ask me. They managed to really involve us as players with building outposts and it felt like we actually explored the new content(new to us).

Opinions on Highmaul as a raid, varies a lot. I liked the theme. There were some good variation in the encounters and how they played.

Blackrock Foundry, I can say the same for. I really liked it.

Hellfire Citadel, was a bit more of a divided opinion for me. Some fights, I liked. Others, not so much. Mostly, it was also about the general aesthetics and design of the place.

As for our Garrisons, the base concept, was very intriguing. I liked the profession buildings + some of the other buildings that we could get.
The Shipyard and Naval missions, I felt could’ve been a bit better. Something more than, you went down there, looked at the docks and what ships you had. You clicked the command table and started a few missions. And that was it.

Looking back, I would’ve preferred it if we had scrapped the Garrison concept entirely and focused on creating a place within the Ashran hubs that was similar to buildings in the garrison.
We could’ve kept all the outposts throughout the zones, and let some of the buildings from the garrison remain within those outposts. Such as, stables, and more.

Anyway, enough about WoD.

Did not actually know of this. As I did not play during MoP(came back during the WoD pre-patch).

Yeah, a shame idd. For us old ranged SV lovers :wink:

Was not a fan of this. I get why they did it. But still, not a fan.

Aspect of the Fox
Party and raid members within 40 yards take on the aspects of a fox, allowing them to move while casting all spells for 6 seconds. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. 3 minute cooldown.

I would not mind getting this back…
Sure, it’s a niche ability. But it deff had it’s use.

Black Arrow‘s cooldown is reset if it’s dispelled.

This is another thing that would be really helpful(and fun) in PvP. In PvE, you wouldn’t really gain any benefit from this anyway.
But for PvP, combine with the design from my suggestions, this could make for a fun addition. (Maybe)

In general, I would not mind it if, for PvP especially, dispelling the SV DoTs, would be harmful in itself.

The fact that SV did not have any major CD at all during WoD, was a bit of a bummer if you ask me. It was not intended as a burst spec, I get that. But to not really have anything at all?

Kill shot, I would say that if people want it for PvP purposes, by all means. For PvE, I haven’t missed it at all. Much because it doesn’t really live up to it’s name(and it never could really).
This is why I would suggest(am suggesting in my spec design), that any execute-effects for a ranged SV spec, should be based on increased damage/crit or other things. Not on instant hitters.

It did, though I would say that it wasn’t that interesting of a stat anyway. Most of the time at least. Part from the beneficial effect to L&L that is.

Ah yes, and we all know why…sadly.

That did not help either.

Although, this focuses more on performance rather than gameplay(IMO). Ofc it matters, as it often determines the popularity and viability of a spec in e.g. content.

Opinions vary ofc. Like they always do.

Idd.

Some of which, I did not like.

The removal of letting us choose between Dire Beast/Dire Frenzy, being one of them. As for BM, I liked Dire Frenzy more than I like Barbed Shot. But hey, people wanted another ranged ability for BM so…

Might not be a popular opinion, but I don’t mind that each spec has an identity of it’s own. That it has a unique playstyle. (includes offensive talents).

What I think of more, is all the extra abilities tied to the entire class rather than single specs. The ones we lost.

Yeah…not the best choice they’ve made.

Abomination! -I think is the word you’re looking for :wink:

Anyway, if you look at the specs today and if we were to get that 4th spec option with Explosive Shot being the top focus(pretty much), I would say that if MM keeps a version of Explosive Shot. I would not be against it.

For MM, it would be optional, and ranged SV would be the spec where you really focus on mastering using the most of the ability/explosives.
Heck, speaking of class fantasy and letting 1 spec be really good at something that the other specs are not, even though they can have optional access to a version of it.

Yeah, the class as a whole really need this ability back baseline, for all pets…

I agree.

It looks like it yeah.
More so, perhaps lacking in knowledge on what many of the players want out of the class? Who knows really, it’s just speculation on my part. I have no idea why they made the choices they made. I don’t know the whole story.

As there’s always more to it than what we’re told.