Some abilities of old have just been confirmed to be returning for Hunters in Shadowlands.
These are purportedly returning for all Hunter specs. It remains to be seen how they handle this for Survival.
EDIT: I’m not sure if this is true. In the live thread on Reddit it included the post “Note: All these things [Holinka] is mentioning are class-wide now instead of locked into a spec.”. However, I don’t know if this for-sure applies to all the abilities mentioned and I can’t find similar language on other website. Given that the context was class identity over spec identity, it’s hard to imagine that any of the abilities they announced were spec specific.
Currently, the list is:
Hunter’s Mark
Kill Shot
Eyes of the Beast
N.B. Apparently they said that they are not going to be significantly changing
EDIT: And here are the slides where the abilities were listed
Just make it a melee/ranged hybrid, melee weapon is the stat item, but you still have a bow and it works like pre-mop hunter
unfortuntately won’t happen since thats a massive overhaul, but that’s my dream for the spec
I mean, Eyes of the Beast is not an ability that involves specs in any way. Not even MM anymore since they made Lone Wolf a passive and not a talent option you have to pick.
But for Hunter’s Mark, which is themed around you being at distance from your target rather than up close.
And, Kill Shot which is…well, a Kill Shot with your ranged weapon.
Am curious to find out what they will do with these two for MSV.
If they want to return to class identity over spec identity then I would expect survival to go back ranged. Kill Shot and Mark were spoiled so I would say it looks good
Fair point. Though still, I very much doubt that they will remove MSV.
Most likely they will add in equivalents to Kill Shot and Hunter’s Mark for MSV.
Technically, they can add in Hunter’s Mark as it is for MSV as well even though it wouldn’t really make sense to have it if you fight in melee range.
That would kinda fly in the face of the whole spec identity thing though. They’re giving classes back all the stuff they’ve been missing and moving tools around, so it would be REALLY weird for marksman and BM to share things and for survival to be something completely different
Plus they mentioned as a core point that they hated how when you hit level 10 and chose a spec, it was a jarring experience to have everything suddenly changed, and to lose abilities you’ve become familiar with. How jarring would it be to level to 10 with a bow and then choose survival and need a melee weapon?
Honestly everything I just heard from that panel suggests that they want to bring ranged survival back, it falls very much in line with the philosophy they repeatedly espoused
And if we are to take everything he said at face value then no, it doesn’t make as much sense to keep MSV as it is.
From a personal standpoint, I could not care less if MSV was removed as I don’t enjoy melee combat. But having said that, I still think that removing it completely, would not be in the best interest for the class as a whole.
Perhaps they will decide that MSV can remain an outlier for the class purely because of the players.
Again, I agree.
But if they remove MSV, we have basically arrived at the polar opposite of what happened with Legion.
Back then, the devs said that RSV wasn’t unique enough, that it did not have it’s own niche.
Now it would instead be: MSV is waaay to unique. And we cannot have that anymore.
It must be removed.
And we’re back here again going as usual with a portion of the playerbase being outraged because of how their preferred fantasy was taken away.
(Just that now it would be MSV players instead of RSV players)
Hunters mark and kill shot would work just fine on MSV.
The mark is just a mark and the shot can be shot from the crossbow. Though I have been asking for a glyph for that demand crossbow to make it a bow. But both still work fine for the spec.
The guy even said they aren’t not looking at removing because they realise their are plenty of people happy with things as is, so the goal is to add.
You realise what an awful, contrived mess that would be? I mean, even more than the current awful, contrived mess? It would make no sense at all for SV to be using a phantom ranged weapon for the baseline ranged elements and not having a real one.
I don’t doubt it’s a likely outcome, but it just further exposes what a farce the melee aspects of SV are. Hunters without ranged weapons are just not Hunters…
All of the animation needed to make it happen are already currently in game as well.
There is nothing right that says kill shoot will not function exactly like SS and hunters mark has always been a point. The main function of it for me as Hunter is tracking so they could just adjust the tooltip if needed.
Once again y’all are needlessly and rudely reaching.
hunters as a core class are a ranged class. they are traditionally and historically a ranged class, no matter what the legion rework said. the whole leveling rework thing they’re doing completely contradicted the existence of melee survival.
imagine you’re leveling a new hunter. you obviously start with a ranged weapon. you get your basic hunter abilities, your arcane shot, your steady shot, cobra shot, serpent sting, whatever. the core, historical tenets of the hunter class.
then you hit 10 and pick survival, and all of those core abilities except serpent sting are gone.
that’s exactly what they said they’re trying to avoid in shadowlands. that exact thing. there is no chance at all that melee survival stays in its current incarnation.
a questionable thing he did mention is how they want elemental ( or someone who wields mace) to be able to hit things “with their mace” on new characters. New shamans doing so doesnt mean every shaman needs to be doing that from that point on. I think it would be flawed for them to based a entire classes experience purely based off of the first ten levels.
Hunters who wanna use a bow can pick between BM and MM. Hopefully the option will open up to even use one in current survival. if not, other hunters can opt for a more refreshing and unique experience. And that’s that.
Huh, I haven’t thought of that. And obviously, Surv wouldn’t get the special treatment, so what would you think they’d do to fix that, rather than make Surv a ranged spec?
That made it sound like shaman (and all classes) will be specless from 1-10, with a mix of basic skills from all their specs; then they choose to specialize at 10. You’ll have a few ele, resto, and enhance skills to experiment with, and then once you hit 10 get to focus on something.
As opposed to the current system where your 1-10 experience is as a default spec; hunters level from 1-10 with a BM kit and then are automatically beast mastery once they hit 10, and must choose to swap to mm/sv.
Just because he have those skills though doesn’t imply what you need or have to be doing come endgame content though, which is what the corpse was talking about.
That works out perfect for hunter cause then you can pick between to different types of ranged game-play or a unique type of melee. its glorious.
the core spell of the shaman class, since life first dawned on this planet, is lightning bolt. every shaman spec can use lightning bolt. that is your primary low level spell. yes, shamans get primal strike before they can spec, but that’s only to give the class some of the flavor of enhancement before a player chooses a specialization.
what is the core spell of the hunter class? it isn’t mongoose bite. it isn’t serpent sting. I would argue it’s some combination of cobra shot, steady shot, or arcane shot. one/two of these are the core abilities while leveling. I don’t think anyone will deny that a pre-specialization hunter is going to be ranged, and is going to have a mixture of all three specs’ kits. steady/cobra shot, kill command, and serpent sting are likely.
the devs do not want you to suddenly play like an entirely new character when you hit level 10, and thats what would happen if melee survival existed - you level to 10 as a ranged character with multiple types of shots, and now all of a sudden you’re swinging a spear. it’s jarring, disconnected, and makes no sense.
