Make Survival Not Scuffed BM

When the original manual was written, “hybrid” wasnt as buzzworthy. A hybrid car wasnt even something I had ever seen.

It was unique in WoW how much focus the hunter class put on the ranged weapon, because everyone else had a ranged weapon as an afterthought. To not point that out in the manual would have been doing the whole game a disservice.

To my knowledge, true ranged classes didnt have some kind of Arcane Strike where the mage imbues his staff with arcane energy, did they? Like, two or three melee weapon abilities in the hunter class baseline seems MASSIVE. Dismissing that out of hand is so common. It seems a little dishonest, but I think its more just a partisan argument. In the same way that maybe I exaggerate how melee hunter was intended to be, people who feel betrayed by the msv change exaggerate how irrelevant the early hunter melee abilities were.

Off the top of my head, Warlocks actually had a Firestone that enhanced their melee, so yeah, it existed too haha.

I think the important thing is the context of those abilities though. The only abilities (besides lacerate’s short stint) that direct damage without meeting a defensive condition of doge or parry were Raptor Strike and Wing Clip.

Wing Clip was used primarily to get back to ranged by slowing your enemy down. Raptor Strike gave a consistent form of damage on a short CD for while you were well and truly stuck in melee.

The other abilities were purely defensive and meant to be used when your were being targeted (Mongoose Bite, Counterattack, and IIRC Disengage which reduced your threat back then).

And I don’t agree with the idea of “hybrid” being in the lexicon for most people back then to be super meaningful. It’s not like battle mages or the concept of fighting in both ranged and melee was a unique or rare one back then. They could have simply stated as much if it was meant to be played that way. But they didn’t, and I think that’s because it wasn’t meant to be in the first place.

I mean, I am not trying to be dishonest or partisan here. Roaka wanted evidence about the claim being made. I was trying to bring forth the evidence they were looking for. The context of how our melee abilities functioned back then is also super important to the discussion.

I could see an argument about “Well, it was never balanced properly” which, sure. I wouldn’t agree with that argument but I think it is one you could try to make concerning lacerate. But what I believe is more likely to be the case is that blizz intentionally left the melee skills undertuned to help promote the ranged fantasy most players had.

I personally think Blizz just missed the mark with the class originally. Hunter was the last class to be introduced and was quickly rushed. As you know I do deeply believe there is room within the hunter class fantasy for melee or even a hybrid playstyle. I also believe it was a failing on Blizz’s part to shove ranged weapon focused gameplay to just one class and then proceeded to fail on bringing a proper melee or hybrid fantasy for those who liked the pet class.

But I don’t buy the argument we were intended to be hybrid. They could have easily described the idea if it had been, or helped put emphasis on it with the gameplay, but that’s just not what happened or how the class was played.

Edit: Figured I might as well link Firestone while I’m at it.

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Ah, thanks, forgot about that.

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All good. What is also interesting about that example is that Firestone had a talent deep into demonology for some reason which further improved the damage bonuses it gave.

You guys always manage to turn these into subjective posts trying to prove each other wrong.

BM and SV are completely different. Having KC doesn’t even make it remotely similar lol.

OP obv not that much xp with it but man can you guys give it a rest with these opinions arguments.

It’s a melee spec. Who cares how or why we got here. Also who cares if some folks still like RSV. That’s great. I like it too.

How since legion are we still having the same arguments we already know the answer to?

Thematically? I think the two are really similar to be honest.

Gameplay wise? Obviously apples and oranges.

No? It’s an important issue to a lot of players purely due because of Blizz’s choices. No one ever got change enacted by being quiet.

We are hunters. Not different classes. Specs still are not the same.

Also there’s a difference between posting for changes and having ideas, and having arguments about who is right or wrong regarding information that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme.

And I think SV still takes too much from BM personally. Sorry we disagree?

I posted specifically to answer someone who asked for evidence about claims being made. I was specifically trying to answer their request with something I thought would satisfy them.

As for the arguments in general, they happen because it’s clearly a point of contention within the community. And people do post about ideas about what to do, myself included.

I’m not sure what else to tell you here, but it’s blatantly obvious the conversations aren’t just going to go away or anything and I think there’s only so much we can do without blizz taking the hint to do something.

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Or you just got hurt feelings because you realize you’re one of those folks im talking about lol

There’s a difference between asking for meaningful change and a few folks talking about the wow manual etc. Which does nothing for anyone or the specs.

:roll_eyes: Okay. That’s why I had a perfectly fine conversation in the other thread a few days ago about Aspect of the Eagle with Mawthorne. Or why I made my own thread awhile back discussing my idea of what a 4th spec could look.

No, clearly I’m just here to

The answer is because someone asked for specific information regarding the devs back at the time of vanilla, and that is the closest we have to that. I again, tried to provide that for them because they specifically asked.

I obviously don’t care about the WoW manual in regards to current class design because I also try to argue for ways to help improve current SV too.

I did not have “hurt feelings” man.

Nowhere did I mention your name. I asked why we continue to argue opinions on the whole melee/RSV thing which is honestly pointless.

Having a discussion about changes or spec additions I’ve been all for since day one. But again we get into these ego matches that take up the posts about why they did this or that. Again pointless.

You chose to respond and I’m continuing to do so as well. :upside_down_face:

I tried to answer that, and gave my own posts in this thread as an example with my reasoning to try and clarify why these conversations are still happening, per your question.

I genuinely think you think I’m upset or something with you. I’m not? For clarity, I replied back about the part with BM and SV not being similar, just giving my opinion that they are thematically.

The other part of your post I tried to address was you telling people to stop with having

Which I made clear that no, that’s not happening since it’s very clearly an important topic to a lot of hunter players and that being silent accomplishes nothing.

I don’t think anyone in this thread was having an “ego match” to be perfectly frank.

You’re not wrong, but it is a discussion board. This forum is not just a place for sterile bug reports, but also a collection of nerds, specifically wow hunter nerds who enjoy dissecting the class, its history and where it might be going.

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Now this is a fair argument. I’m glad you clarified your position further! :grin:

I do disagree with your interpretation, but it’s all subjective as you’ve said. I’m just glad that you took the time to help me fully understand your original post.

Also, apologies if you felt I was jumping down your throat. I have a hard time turning off my High School Teacher persona during my off-hours. I teach history and English, so I’m constantly giving my students feedback on how to make their arguments more accurate and airtight.

If I seem rude or off topic, feel free to tell me off. :wink:

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So far I haven’t met a single BM hunter that can beat me in damage per ilvl. I think that makes BM a scuffed SV. :smiley:

My word folks. I leave for a few hours and all **** breaks loose lol. Call me a geek or nerd or w/e you want. but, I absolutely love the discussion going on here. Maybe I should visit more often if there is more of this on the hunter forums. :slight_smile:

So, I am going to start here -->

I always assumed(this word will be important in a moment) that it was just poor execution on their part. I’ve just never felt like I even had to read between any lines to catch the hints that it was an intended way to play. And many others agree as I have seen it stated more times than I can count.

I have read the snippets of manual you have so graciously hunted down for my lazy butt and …
I stand wholly, and thoroughly, corrected! Shame on me for never having read the manual!! I was young(ish) and stupid lol. I will never again make the argument that I thought the devs intended for it be melee(ish) to some degree or another. That kinda makes me sad. My years of hoping they would improve on, what I believed to be, their original idea were all in vain … :frowning:

I have always sworn I was going to make a melee lock on day. Maybe I should hop on classic and start working on it :laughing:

There was no trying to prove anything. This was a spreading of ideas through disagreement!! It’s an excellent exercise in both social interaction and thought provocation. You should try it.

Man, idk how you can say that. If we go purely based on the, ‘thematic’, reliance on their pet.

Imho, BM has multiple layers (only 1 can really be played at a time).

  • One is about the hunter being their pet’s true master. And making it stronger, faster, better. Then sending it in to KILL KILL KILL!!! Whilst standing back and Pinging them down with Nature shots and continuously re-invigoration good ol’ fido.

  • The other is about being a true master of the animals and just having a slew of them at your beckon call (beck and call? idk. Couldn’t ever get a straight answer on that one. Someone said they were an English teacher right? lmao). Sending them in one after another after another.

And survival is about you and your pet being ‘equals’. Working in tandem. Feeding off of each other and stepping in for each other.

As for the actual skill in question, KC, I feel it can be explained both thematically and Functionally -
For BM It’s a focus dump. You exert energy to have your pet deal extra damage.
For SV it’s a builder. Your pet steps in for a moment so you can take a breather while he gnaws on them. Or, you feed off of his blood-lust to become stronger.

:point_up_2:

The truth is … your not wrong. But the truth also is that this is an open forum to discuss hunter related things. All of our discussion was on topic, trying to flesh out what SV was/is/supposed to be to maybe make a better decision about what we want out of the spec. The topic is about Making SV ‘something else’ comparative to BM.

I love to discuss things. If I can stay motivated to not hide from the world for an extended period, and you happen to be a regular around here, maybe you’ll learn this about me.

Not a thing at all. I was soundly dis-proven. :rofl:

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I wouldn’t take it too personally. Back then, there were a lot more RPG elements going on with the game, and I think as I noted to Mawthorne earlier, there’s nothing wrong with the idea of a melee or hybrid hunter or whatever really. I think it’s more so a failing on blizz’s part because the fantasy of fighting up close and personal with your pet is a sound one. And so is wanting to wade in and out of melee.

I think the problem is Blizz wanted to try and go back in time and rectify that mistake when the class was rushed and in doing so they ended up angering a lot of hunters who were already attached to the old spec because they had been playing it for over a decade at that point, 8 if we count Wrath as the start of the old SV that most people fell in love with.

It’s a failing on blizz, not any of the players or anyone who enjoys SV or even wanted melee / hybrid playstyles since forever.

I remember back in classic also kind of wanting to make it work because I like the idea of a spell blade haha!

So, for me the idea of Beast Master has always been very similar to Rexxar. I’m working in tandem with my pet as a team to rip and tear my foes apart, bestial wrath being the ultimate example of that team work in game play ever since BC when we gained The Beast Within so the hunter is also benefitting from BW. The master summoner of pets is a good angle they recently brought in, which I think can still work well with the theme of a team. Hell, Rexxar is also the perfect example of that, literally all of his abilities in WCIII were summoning animals by his side, with his ultimate (level 6 ability) being Stampede!

Survival to me is also very akin to that partnership as you noted, though the main difference is fighting up close and personal with the pet. Personally from a thematic point of view, if any of the spec had to be melee, BM would have made the most sense to me. It’s only a pretty recent (Legion) change where BM has had less of a partnership and more of a reliance on the pet IMO.

SV borrowing a different variation of KC, along with knock of BW (Coordinated Assault) just feels off to me. Gameplay wise as I noted to Wing earlier, I do think they play differently so it’s fine, but thematically I feel like they’re filling a really similar niche if that makes sense?

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It’s indeed a common thing for players to claim, and lately, the devs(Ion) as well. I don’t know how this misconception came to be exactly, but who can really blame players for thinking it when the devs themselves contradict their own design and history?

Honestly in the modern game, considering changes to general philosophies in terms of class/spec design, despite how it’s not really supported in the historical design of the class(as a primary focus), it does fit thematically for us to have a melee-option. And I have said this several times before as well.

My only problem is with the fact that many, incl the devs, tend to twist historical facts to fit the narrative. And, they then use this twisted logic as an excuse to justify making changes that are straight up the opposite of what most players of this particular community have in mind for this class, something the devs have actually acknowledged themselves(Ion).

And, like I’ve said before, if they had gone by implementing MSV as a 4th spec option from the get-go, none of this would’ve been an issue. There would be no endless debates or arguments about ranged vs. melee, etc, etc, etc.



What also bugs me a lot is the fact of the current design of MSV, and how it does share/take many elements directly from BM, slightly re-skinned or otherwise.

In itself, I would only urge them to focus on making sure that MSV come with abilities and effects that suit it’s intended primary theme of being a melee spec, but with partial reliance on pets. Mostly because it doesn’t actually have to steal parts from BM in order to function on it’s own.

Why does it bug me? Because of what I mentioned in my initial post, about what the devs accused RSV of, and what they used as an excuse to remove it from the game.
They literally said those things I mentioned before.

S: https://www.gameaxis.com/interviews/interview-wow-legions-lead-class-designer-senior-producer/

And then Survival Hunter…

Travis: It was another one that was missing its niche. It’s kind of like Marksman except more traps? Or different arrows? So it was kind of missing that “what is the core fantasy?”

For them to say this about RSV, and then go about with what they have done with current SV…?

So, in other words, these issues aren’t really issues unless we’re talking about ranged weapon-specs? Apparently they don’t apply to anything other than ranged weapons.

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Current sv =/= legion sv. In legion we had a clear playstyle and niche, but it got forked going into bfa when blizz tried to cater ( and failed btw ) to the rsv crowd by turning sv i to a pretty much hybrid

Tldr; it made more sence in legion than now

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I don’t take it personally. They didn’t develop the game for me :rofl:
The truth is I feel like the missing RPG is part of what’s … missing. I have to almost force fairly flimsy narratives into why each thing exists. Like coming up with reasons why BM and SV are much different outside of Bow vs Melee. Now, I feel my logic is sound, but I shouldn’t have to come up with that on my own. It should be obvious up front considering the whole basis for the switch was to make a ‘niche’ and part ways with, what they considered to be, to close of a relation to another spec. Funny how so many people think SV and BM are similar now. And Never thought it felt like MM. SO now we have a BM like spec while takes ‘the’ SV skill and stuffs into into an optional talent. If Xplo Shot was so well received that you had to find a way to work it back into another spec, why did the spec that made it an Icon need to be removed in the first place?

I do not disagree. I was put off the first time I saw KC in both BM and SV. And even more so when the first talent gave me 2 charges of it. As I stated before, I shouldn’t have to find ways to explain why things are set up. It should be obvious. Especially since SV is supposed to fill a niche yet spams the same skill with the same name and animation as another spec. It would have made more sense, if they wanted to be lazy, just to reskin the Icon, have the hunter do another, already written, animation and call it something different. As far as Coordinated Assault goes yah it’s just BW on a longer CD. But so many of the long CD’s are just “Increases your dmg for x seconds” now-a-days. It doesn’t feel good or fun. It’s just an unsatisfying button to press. I feel like that’s a lazy design practice that permeates most classes now not just this little corner of BM vs SV.

This. And this. And this some more. It has been stated and asked for more times than I can count, over the years and by many different ‘veteran states’ of players. The problem is … they wont. I can’t see them ever doing it because then the rest of the community would want their own class to have 4 specs. It would be a design nightmare in a time where so many people are already disgusted with the state of the core game itself. As much as I want this I don’t think it’s the right time. They need to fix the game itself before expanding on the classes cause that is going to be a whole other can of worms to open up and chew through.