Is Melee Hunter going to be removed?

Community General Discussion
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That would be max level for each period measured since they are both raid statistics.

I chose that one because a) Warcraftlogs was hardly used by anyone before Highmaul and b) it shows that people absolutely did play SV if it wasn’t undertuned to uselessness like it was in 6.2. This goes against your claim that SV was consistently underplayed.

Uh, no, it isn’t. It’s across 5 patches and it’s ahead of BM in 3 of them. In fact that one is particularly remarkable because it shows that SV was the preferred spec of most Hunters in 5.4.8, which is interesting because BM did more raw damage in that tier. It’s almost as if people liked ranged SV and preferred to play it whenever possible.

I fully acknowledge that it’s not much. There aren’t a lot of sources when it comes to spec representation.

However, when we look at what we do have, we see a consistent picture of Survival being a popular spec back in its ranged days. Those links cover 3.3, 4.3, all of MoP and all of WoD and we see that 6.2 is really the only time at all that ranged SV is in an abandoned state… and that would probably be because they abruptly removed a core part of what made the spec work just in time for Legion’s announcement. Even for the patches for which we don’t have data, such as much of WotLK and Cata, we can look at boss kill PoVs and notice that a hell of a lot of Hunters were playing Survival at the cutting edge. There’s a Survival Hunter on most of the Ulduar world firsts as well as Cataclysm T11.

If you want to see an actual weak argument, look to your own here:

So you spent a great deal of space excusing away all the data that was linked, and then you use that as a platform to declare that ranged Survival was consistently underplayed. That’s not good enough. Disputing that ranged SV was consistently a widely-adopted spec is one thing, but proving that it was the opposite is another. Do you see data that points to ranged SV being consistently unpopular? Because you sure as hell didn’t link any.

Again, 6.2 is the only patch for which we can say it was an unpopular spec and we know that there were significant tuning issues for the spec in that patch: far worse than melee Survival has ever experienced (Survival was barely outDPSing TANKS for the the first month of 6.2, and hotfix buffs still left it over 20% behind the other Hunter specs and very last place across the whole game).

So to recap: your argument here is that Survival is consistently underplayed if you ignore 3.3, 4.3, 5.0-5.4, 6.0, and 6.1 and assume that it was unpopular in all the gaps. And you were calling my argument weak! It’s pretty clear to most reading by this point that you’re in way over your head.

Why do you think Chromie Time emphasises Legion content? It’s the opposite. Legion content used to be mandatory before and now it isn’t. Chromie Time is in fact an argument against placing importance in Legion content.

If melee Survival is problematic enough - which it is - any workaround is preferable. They could make ranged SV share MM’s chain. They could tack on a ranged weapon at the end of the existing chain and change/add a few dialogs. They could make the spear appearances shared with other classes or have a cosmetic melee option within the Hunter class. It’s obsolete Legion content that most players never see so it doesn’t matter nearly as much as you think it does.

…no, that’s not what he means. Travis Day is moronically saying that ranged SV did not have a thematic niche.

It’s clear you’re just guessing as to what Survival’s popularity was in it’s ranged days because you have no clue. That’s clear to everyone reading so you might as well stop pretending to know.

In fact, here’s Hazzikostas saying they knew perfectly well that melee SV would be unpopular. It would be a bit strange to axe ranged SV for being unpopular only to replace it with something they know will be unpopular, wouldn’t it?

https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/gamescom-2017-world-warcraft-legion-patch-7-3-interview/2

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Protip: Read what’s actually being said by Travis in that interview, the part about Survival.

Like Bepples just said, they’re talking about fantasy and theme, about distinguishing features. Which is also ironic considering how he(Travis) has no idea what SV was about, neither in the early days, before specs were introduced, nor later on.

The most ironic part here, though, is that if one was to in fact apply your definition of “niche”, or, “only appeals to proportionally a very small part of the playerbase”, then by definition, “Missing it’s niche” means that it does not only appeal to the select few, but to many.

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Some of you need to go start up classic and play a hunter again. These were base abilities that all hunters had regardless of what tree they were filling out. The only melee abilities the survival tree had was increased crit on raptor strike, improved wing clip, and counterattack which could only be used after a parry. The survival tree was all about helping you get back out to range, not stand toe to toe in a fight.

I’m sure you have a source for that somewhere?

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Sorry but you have no clue about 2v2 meta. Warrior has 0 chance in 2s with good Survival. And BM has higher representation because it’s 3x easier to play but Survival is way better. Why because it absolutely counters Bleed based specs. Not only he can dispel himself with lego but can remove Bleeds from his Healer. If you check 2v2 ladder in EU Survival is top spec with highest winrate as it literally has all benefits of BM + more. It’s damage is also 50% magic 50% phisical so you cannot counter it ever.

Also if you are clueless please don’t tell me what to do and Survival is not a meele spec it’s ranged spec with 1 meele damage spell. You can literally deal most of your damage from range.

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Ok. You got me. I never played hunter in classic remastered.
I also haven’t played hunter since 2010.
I apologize for my foggy memory of a spec that has been gutted and revamped many moons ago.
Either way… keep on keeping on.
I wanna know why hunters are so angry tho.

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If hunters can have a melee spec why can’t warriors and paladins get a ranged spec where we can use bows and stuff.

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You’re confusing “method of playing” with “intent of design”. SV is very much designed to be a melee spec. Just because it’s not always favorable for you to stay in melee, does in no way change that fact.

Which part of this is meant to counter Bepples’ argument that “Survival isn’t performing like it does because of melee, but in spite of it”?

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It still doesn’t change the fact guy is clueless and spreads miss information that has literally 0 reflection in reality. Even when Survival was real meele spec in Legion it was never played like Warrior. It was more of a hit and run playstyle rather than tanking damage and dealing more like Warrior.

Also Survival has a lot of fans as it’s arguably one of the most complex and most fun specs in 2v2. A lot of top Hunters main it because of how entertaining it is and how much potential it has. Also how are you going to bring back old Survival if besides Black Arrow most of it’s spells got distributed among other specs like Explosive Shot. If there will be a third ranged Hunter spec I wish it was a new one reflecting Dark Ranger fantasy instead of changing Survival. Why do we have to change one of the most fun specs.

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What does 2v2 have to do with anything? PvP isn’t even balanced around it. You are now talking about a niche within a niche. Surv might be popular among the few hunters who use it in pvp, but it is still by far the least played spec in the game and that has nothing to do with how it performs in pvp or how great its aoe damage is in M+. People aren’t playing it because people picked hunter to play a ranged class and because there is a dozen other specs that can already fill the role of melee dps and have more utility on top of that.

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Again, “method of playing”, not “intent of design”. Sure, current SV has more ranged options for dealing damage than warriors do, but it’s still designed as a melee spec.

It’s true that some players do choose a particular spec because of complexity, however, throughout the entire life span of MSV(Legion+BfA+SL so far), it is played by about 5% of all hunters, which equates to roughly 0.45% of the entire playerbase. By no definition is Survival played by a lot of people.

Pretty much every single ability/effect which was taken from RSV, once given to other specs, was heavily redesigned, to the point where it’s more or less a reference in name only.

Besides, they can just as easily remove said reworked abilities/effects from the other specs, and replace them with other ones that actually fit their respective themes to a larger degree.

The Dark Ranger fantasy is not at all like that of hunters. The only reference is that they focus on using bows.

If anything, Dark Rangers are better suited as their own class, in terms of theme and fantasy.

Not saying that we have to, just that there are a lot of hunters who aren’t interested in this melee spec, but instead want the old spec back. If that can be in the form of a 4th spec, then, even better!

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Then make 4th Hunter spec being a third range one. Just leave Survival alone it’s extremely fun and complex. It’s amazing to have such hybrid.

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Fine by me, would be the optimal solution IMO.

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I like being a terrible melee hunter. I hope they don’t make me play a better spec.

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In fact, I maimed it, and have no memories of playing some strange dot spec on a hunter with explosive arrow

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yea it was ours too (10’s of thousands of us) and without any choice in the matter we had it stripped away with no option and no vote. ranged survival hunter should of never been made to melee. if anything melee hunter should of been a 4th spec. and in my actual opinion it should of never ever been a thing at all. there is no such thing as a melee hunter. there are trappers but not a melee hunter. its dumb and even in a fantasy game it fails to make any sense.

yes they removed the best spec in the game ranged survival hunter and made it melee and it is 100% no good. sorry not sorry.

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Feel free to elaborate, during which expansions did you “main” RSV?

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I will play what I want. SV hunter has been one of the most fun specs to play in solo activity and mythic plus. Your opinions don’t speak for everyone. I quite enjoy my hunter using melee weapons again. Although I do wish we could wield both melee and ranged weapons again like before. And also for a duel-wielding stance. Since the rangers used to duel wield daggers/swords and fight in melee and switch to bow for ranged encounters. You can do this now with macros on switching weapons, but it’s not intuitive, you have to macro your spells to switch weapons, would rather there were two slots and your abilities would pick from those weapons when you trigger those animations. Just like shooters where you normally have 1-3 weapons. 1 2 3 keybinds switches those weapons. Would be fun for hunters if they got to pick between 1-3 weapons. duel wielding weapons counts as two.

Not really, most specs you see today have had expansions of iterations. SV melee has just gotten two. And it needs tweakks to improve quality of life. SV this expansion suffered for there need to making each spec feel like a class again. Tying kill command to focus generation feels weird, especially when your pet died or you are mounted combat like the wq daily in Bastion/Korthia. They did this to make torgast easier to design, since many of torgast spells buff class spells and not the niche spec spells. That’s not any reason to get rid of SV hunters, it’s more reason for them to go back to Legion designing of specs>class.

Rexxar is a melee bm hunter, I would rather the melee have gone to bm, I used to main bm, but it makes no sense to tie exotics to only bm. SV, should for fun’s sake get access to exotics. Just like Rexxar, melee hunter with a bunch of exotic companions. BM isn’t that fun to play compared to SV hunter.

As a general remark to this thread.

  • using melee weapons again as a hunter is fun
  • Harpooning into mobs is fun
  • pet tanking at melee is fun
  • Throwing bombs at people from 40 yards is fun
  • Mixed/melee ranged combat is fun
  • The ability to switch to ranged weapon for certain abilities is nice, but needs baseline gamesupport outside of macros. Like melee slot and ranged weapon slot. Let us use 2-3 weapons again like in wotlk. Let ranged animations be used with the ranged slot, melee with melee slot. Being able to use both ranged weapon and melee weapon would make survival more different from the others.
  • Make more talents baseline next expansion, focus on the talents being more utility/cd based.
  • Duel-wielding stance would be nice. Or weapon option. We can already do it, just abilities not balanced around it. Would love a duel-wielding ability that buffs duel-wielding to be usable by survival hunters.
  • Let us choose what specs our pets are. So we can just pick the ones we want again, and not based on if they are ferocity or cunning.
  • Let Survival hunters use exotics like Rexxar. BM already has pet management to worry about and option for two pets, and abilities that summon more like stampede. Would be nice to use rhinos/carapids/ stone hounds/ shale beasts, pterrodaxes as melee.
  • The old sv hunter tree would be nice on a gunmage sort of spec/class.
  • SV hunter feels pretty fun overall. Idk if it’s popular or not I just know it’s pretty fun, didn’t expect it to be fun when I first tried it. Hope they keep it around and make it feel better.
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As far as M+ goes, survival hunter was the only bottom tier DPS that got buffed significantly in 9.1.5. Better than BM right now.

( Tables don’t link properly )

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Lock n load explosive shot spam was fun.

Rexxars main pet is Misha, a bear. I don’t recall him running around with a devilsaur.

How would you balance that in the current game? You know we used to call our melee weapons ‘stat sticks’ for a reason right?

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It be the melee abilities have more power then the ranged abilities? Bow wouldn’t have talents and abilities that make it powerful, your main gameplay is melee. Just like most other melee who have ranged abilities. But hunters should be able to use more weapons for there abilities. The ranged weapon could be counted in stats or not. Could just be a cosmetic slot. It’s nice having a slot where we can actually use weapon enchant transmogs.

They used to be stat sticks because all the power budget was toward ranged spells. They can choose to equalize that or not depending on ability tuning. If hunters melee spells did more then ranged, you would believe they would go melee. That is the same with survival. Aspect of the eagle does turn you into ranged, but you get no autoattack damage. Abilities that trigger from autoattack swings will also encourage melee.