If there’s one thing I know, You can’t parry people that are behind you.
Actually some fights you would stutter step and weave a raptor strike into your rotation.
The class has changed, I do think to keep people happy you add things, not take them away. A fourth spec would be in order.
Resorts to ad hominem attacks and tries to act like a post with feedback or ideas is whining.
Typical loser ladies and gents.
I love MSV, I only wish they made another ranged spec to compensate. There’s an absurd amount of melee specs.
Also I just really want UH DK to be ranged, that would be so rad
I mean, they could have just left ranged survival in and added another spec for hunter as a melee, no one would have complained.
But… why should I care what you think?
We did not have specializations prior to Cataclysm…
The graphs have been linked many times already. If you look at them, it is fairly obvious by the timelines that since the spec became a melee spec, fewer players than before are playing it(a lot less).
My bad I guess when I said ‘class’ and did not specifically mention SV there. I though that was obvious as well. Since SV is a part of the class…
But no matter how you look at it, the class did not exactly become more represented in the game as a whole due to the decision of turning SV into a melee spec.
But hey, if you disagree, feel free to show how it has…
Ever since the start, they have added in more abilities/defining elements and effects with the purpose of distinguishing your respective playstyles.
This is an example of a natural path of development, for a particular part of the game.
If you look at SV, which up until Legion had been developed more and more to provide a ranged weapon-fantasy unlike the other two specs. Going into Legion, they suddenly turned around and made it(SV) a melee-spec. As in, the spec was now providing a melee-focused playstyle with no use of an equipped ranged weapon. Something it had never been about in the past.
This is why it wasn’t a natural path of development.
And? It’s still Blizz.
It was an interview with the lead class designer and senior producer.
You think they weren’t being told about design decisions and intentions?
The argument was not about who knew the most about intentions and decisions made.
It was about whether “flavor” was being used to justify changing SV from a ranged spec to a melee spec. And why that was a bad change, considering what most current Hunter-players at the time wanted(ranged specs/fantasies).
You can argue against this if you want but, you tell me…since the class, prior to Legion, had always been about ranged playstyles and weapons for it’s primary focus. Do you think the majority of it’s players played it for those ranged weapons, or because they wanted something other than ranged weapon-playstyles?
Like I said above:
Prior to Legion, the class only provided ranged playstyles/fantasies.
So isn’t it safe to say that the overwhelming majority of players playing the class before then, did so because they preferred ranged playstyles(for this class specifically, ranged involving the use of weapons and not spells/magic)?
I mean, why pick a class that holds no options for your preferred playstyle(melee combat as an example)?
If the devs then decide to delete 1/3 of the options for ranged playstyles for that particular class, considering why most players have probably picked it, am I wrong for saying: making changes not really meant for those players playing the class, that this is a bad decision?
And yes, I say “not meant for those players” based on what Ion himself said in the interview.
A design that intended for you to stay in melee at all times?
Only if you ignored most of your toolkit…
Ergo, the opposite of the intended design.
He is not talking about dev-intentions there but about the actual design we had back then…
And since we did not actually have any core specializations back then but only the baseline/default toolkit of the class(that being almost entirely about ranged weapons and abilities), and talents were only adding to that core, then no, there was no melee-focused playstyle(by intended design).
If it was intended by design to make you an actual hybrid, they wouldn’t have designed the melee abilities in that category to be requiring enemies to hit you for those abilities to be usable. As, in many parts of the game, such a mechanic is extremely unreliable, even impossible to make proper use of.
“I’m a hybrid, but only sometimes, and only if someone hits me and I successfully parry/dodge the incoming attack”
Yeah, solid argument…
In short:
You only wanted to make use of those melee abilities if the enemy (especially players) decided to move into melee range of yourself. This again, is called “method of play”, as in: the other players methods for countering Hunter strengths.
But the intended design for hunters, was to try to stay away from the enemy as much as possible, as our primary strength came from using our ranged weapons.
What they originally intended for SV(or the class) in terms of melee combat, we don’t know.
But we do know what design we got and what the design itself intended for us to do. And that design did not make us a melee-hunter.
The design intended for us to not be completely useless in terms of dealing damage even if enemies were to close for ranged weapons to be usable(according to the game).
Indeed.
I meant exclusively fighting in melee since a few people in this thread cough are claiming that playing as melee 100% of the time back then was completely viable. When it wasn’t.
Not only in this thread, but every thread that even remotely brings up the topic of Vanilla SV.
You lost yourself.
The argument is, if that is a weak argument or not. Not if it was a reason.
That’s news to me. I always thought the term Spec… was for… I dunno. Specialization… Might want to recheck your facts on this one…
Co relation, doesn’t equal causation Ghork. I was also only wearing purple socks during that time, the time line lines up. It must be the cause.
You could make the same argument about pets being part of the fantasy of the hunter. They removed it from specs. Aspects too mate, the class has devolved through out its whole existence. It’s nothing new.
The actual spec of survival in the original design has one ranged spec in its entire tree. Wyvern sting. That’s it. It’s not like it came out of left field man.
I agree I do think a 4th spec is in order because good game design is adding things not taking away.
Going off that logic, we should bring back pets, and ammo too. I mean during vanila that was a huge part of the hunter. They played hunter because they preferred that play style and class fantasy.
I’m confused, can you NOT play ranged at all as a hunter? This is a weak argument man.
What it was intended for, I have no clue. But all the spec is, is buffing your melee kit… Improved wing clip to get back into range, and wyvern sting. That’s about it man…
That’s what talents were man… they were what you specialized in, and ADDED to your tool kit.
What did survival add? More dodge parry chance (Melee) Counter attack (Melee) Deterence (Melee) Savage Strikes (Melee)
For sure, I never said it was an entire melee spec. Just that it focused on melee. Which it did. So, a natural progression would be…
Focus on melee?
They literally told you in that interview it was a melee focused spec. Re read your interview you sourced.
I did read and if YOU had you would have noticed I said I was just putting in my vote. Also if you had continued to read you would have seen that I said I agree that we should get a 4th spec. I did NOT in any way say “screw you”. I said not to change survival was my vote and then farther down I agreed we need a 4th spec.
I have played ranged hunters as well as melee but I can honestly say I don’t know if I played survival before it became melee so you got me there. Sorry if I didn’t post on my hunter, I do have many, all survival and one BM I think but I don’t enjoy it as much. 
Please don’t bash me for not reading when YOU didn’t. No offense intended.
Because half the people in the melee camp are just in it because they’re happy about peoples’ longtime SV hunters getting deleted in Leg.
No, wrong. You asked specifically:
And, in that interview, they did.
And why was what they said in that interview an extremely weak justification for doing what they did?
Here, they gave a few reasons for it:
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?”
RSV wasn’t missing a niche. It was about enhancing ammunition and traps. Something neither BM nor MM focused on at the time.
Kind of like MM?
No, MM had abilities and a mechanical design intended for heavy hitters and burst potential. RSV was about consistency and a steady stream of damage dealt over time(DoTs). Very different compared to both MM and BM.
More traps?
No. RSV enhanced traps, this was a fantasy and a niche tied to RSV since Vanilla.
Core Fantasy?
Like we’ve already said multiple times: Enhancing ammunition and traps. In other words, a Munitions Expert and Trapper.
Having it move into the melee space and actually return to its roots that was the vanilla Survival experience.
The Vanilla Survival experience was not turning you into a melee-hunter. Survival in Vanilla was a talent category that held talents focusing on survivability by improving utility and defensive capabilities. The only reason anything that involved melee was included in the SV category back then was because the BM category only focused on anything that involved your pets.
While the MM category focused on everything involving your ranged weapons. But since hunters were partially hindered by the minimum attack range on their ranged weapons, it also made sense to have some things that allowed you to become better when fighting enemies in melee range.
(With the new Survival/MSV) You get more flavor both visually and also as a player. That feeling of “What is that experience that I wanted?” and it delivers a little bit more for every class now.
Like I said earlier in the thread. Considering this class was entirely designed for players who preferred ranged combat(prior to Legion), removing 1 ranged spec in favor of implementing a melee spec, did not add flavor as most who played the class back then, didn’t do it because they were secretly hoping for it to become a melee fighter(or partially). All that did, was taking flavor away from us.
What is that experience that I wanted?
That experience was RSV, and they took that away from us.
And it delivers a little bit more for every class now.
Not for those hunters who preferred ranged combat…
So yes, the term he used there, “flavor” was weak, to say the least. On the basis of what players there were who were actually invested in the class.
There’s a difference between how we “specialized” in picking certain talent options back then when compared to having actual Core Specializations like we got with Cata, which are designed to provide unique playstyles.
In the old days, you could pick any talents you wanted from any tree/category. You’d still have your baseline toolkit, including the core offensive damaging abilities we had.
So no, we did not have "specs"back then, as for what they are meant to do today.
Is this supposed to mean something?
Pets are still there for all specs if you so wish.
All three specs still have various Aspects to make use of.
Completely changing a spec from being about ranged combat to then be about melee combat was indeed new. No matter how much you would want to argue about the days of Vanilla.
Like I said earlier in his reply, SV in Vanilla was a talent category that held all talents that focused on increasing your survivability, by better utility and defensive capabilities.
Wyvern Sting, was added for that exact purpose.
Ah, we agree on something!
The main difference here though, is that it was very common to see feedback where players wanted ammo to be gone.
There was no feedback where players said that RSV should’ve been turned into a melee spec.
And again, pets are not gone. You can use a pet with every spec you choose.
That was not my argument…
I said: playstyle(s), as in plural.
Meaning that players wanted more options and more variety in terms of ranged fantasies. Not less.
In WoW today, Hunters have 1 spec which focuses on the ranged weapon. And yes, technically BM makes use of one as well, but that’s not the same thing. Not even close.
It was about survivability, about better utility and defensives. Why?
Like you said:
The design intended for us to have better control of enemies movement, where we ourselves would want to try to get away from them as much as possible. As our core toolkit focused on using ranged weapons.
…and more.
Anyway, I’m not pretending that those talents did not exist. All I’m saying is that even if you picked those, you weren’t meant to abandon ranged combat in favor of spending more time in melee-range on purpose.
Not “for sure”. As anything that focused on the melee-side in that category, required enemies to actually hit you to be somewhat useful. That is an unreliable mechanic, to say the least.
The class is about dealing damage, and if your abilities cannot be used unless the enemy hits you, how are you supposed to use them to deal said damage then?
The Hybrid-argument suggests that you should be the one who decides when to use your abilities. But to then have abilities that you have no real control over for when they can be used or not, kind of goes against that.
So much talk about how SV is the best thing since sliced bread yet so few people playing it. Hmmmmm.
Clearly Survival is NOT fine if they have to keep remaking and tweaking it in a vain effort to get people to actually play it.
Survival was super unique and fun when it was ranged. Contrary to popular belief, melee isn’t god’s gift to class design and the Hunter class was not only fine but better off when all the specs were ranged. If you want melee you already have 12 other specs in the game including literally every single DPS spec made after the game’s launch. Hunters are the only class to use ranged weapons. Let’s not take one of the few ranged weapon specs away for yet another stock-standard melee.
For most Hunters having one of the specs as melee instead of ranged means they have 2 options instead of 3. Don’t believe me? Maybe you should listen to Hazzikostas when he reaffirmed that most Hunters play the class for a ranged spec.
You keep equating fun with melee with respect to Survival. You do realise the spec was very fun when it was ranged, right? And the representation data actually backed that up, unlike melee SV. The ranged version was frequently one of the most popular specs in the game. The melee version has been essentially rock bottom for its entire existence.
Nope. You’re wrong and you should admit it.
Because they weren’t concerned with bettering the Hunter class when they made SV melee. Simple as that.
Anyone arguing that it was a decision made with Hunters in mind is deluding themselves. They flat-out admitted they knew most Hunters wouldn’t like it and I see posters left and right say that they like Survival because it reminds them of a Warrior. You even have many people asking for a petless option for SV, meaning they want a Hunter spec without a ranged weapon or a pet i.e. the two most essential parts of a Hunter.
https://i.imgur.com/kBVr5Uc.png
You are factually wrong on this. Hunter class design centred around ranged from the very beginning. Even though we were forced to use melee abilities when enemies got close, the class still had a ranged weapon and a full-fledged ranged toolkit and was intended to use it as much as possible, with deliberately going into melee being undesirable in almost all circumstances.
No, having a melee-oriented spec is further from the roots of the Hunter than anything the class had seen before Legion. Every iteration of every Hunter spec before Legion used a ranged weapon and was intended to primarily use it, even the earliest iterations of Survival. That spec had abilities like Arcane Shot, Serpent Sting, Multi-Shot, Distracting Shot, and Tranqulising Shot etc. in every single iteration before Legion. It is outrageous to argue that the Legion or BFA versions are closer to the original; that takes breathtaking ignorance of Hunter class design to seriously argue.
Getting suspended sucks but it happens. I’ve been suspended multiple times for the most minor “offenses” when it comes to Survival discussions. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up suspended for something I say here. When arguments get heated people get report-happy and the moderators can crack down harshly on anything at all they deem to be a personal attack. That’s why I’ve come to learn to be very careful with my wording.
I find it patently ridiculous and downright offensive that you’re still trying to sell this point here.
I confronted you on this hundreds of posts ago and you failed to come up with any explanation. I could not find a single patch note referring to a nerf of any of the melee abilities before Cataclysm and the removal of Mongoose Bite, much less a nerf to the degree of 80% or whatever ridiculous number you were claiming. You need to show evidence of this claim otherwise you are gleefully misleading everyone in the thread. Have some respect for the rest of us and show some proof.
Frankly, the idea of WotLK Survival being worse than BC Survival is unbelievable. Unless you really liked Readiness (which would become a universal talent option later anyway), WotLK Survival was basically just BC Survival with lots of cool new stuff added on top. If you loved playing as a pretend Warrior you still had Savage Strikes and Raptor Strike, and no, I don’t believe Raptor Strike was nerfed.
Another non-Hunter leaves his 2 cents, more at 11.
So should I just respond to “MSV is a really fun spec” with “CAN YOU PROVE THAT OR ARE YOU JUST MAKING A BASELESS CLAIM” anyone ever says it? Because it seems like according to your standards every single statement of opinion needs to be explicitly disclaimed, which is ridiculous. No reasonable person will take a description of something as “timewaster fluff” to be a statement of fact. It’s impossible to take it as a statement of fact because it’s inherently subjective. So it comes off as maximally immature and desperate when you latch onto that as some sort of example of me making a baseless claim.
It’s especially hypocritical when you immediately follow it with an actual “statement of fact” that there’s a large population of Hunters in Classic who think buying ammo and feeding pets is as important to the Hunter identity as the ranged weapon. What a ridiculous statement. Did you survey all the Hunters of Classic?
Firstly, evidently the ammo part is not as important as the ranged weapon because its entire importance rests in there being a ranged weapon in the first place. Secondly, claiming anything to do with the pet is as important to the identity as the ranged weapon is an absurd claim because, as I’ve said many times and as was proven by Lone Wolf later on, the look and style of the class’s combat is changed very little when the pet is taken away unless you rolled the spec that explicitly depends on the pet i.e. BM… and even that spec depends on the ranged weapon.
Plus, if we are stating anecdotes as fact, I know many people who either begrudgingly deal with the timewaster fluff or are completely turned off from the class by it. In fact, I know a certain someone who was a big advocate around these parts of Classic Hunter over Retail Hunter who quit the class for some time because of those elements, but I don’t want to call anyone out by name just yet.
Uh, no, the point was actually in the part you deceptively cut off here (you didn’t even quote the whole sentence, for crying out loud). To reiterate: the point is people are making false claims about the original identity so I will disprove them with what Blizzard’s contemporary material about the original identity.
It’s funny reading this after writing a reply to Wolfthorn in this very same post who claimed that having a melee-oriented spec is true to the original roots of the Hunter.
As Ghorak helpfully pointed out, many people in this thread and other Survival discussions claimed that a Hunter without a ranged weapon is true to the roots of the Hunter class.
No, that’s not merited. This whole “each spec needs to be it’s own distinct micro-class” approach is not merited, as evidenced by its profound behaviour and Blizzard’s backtracking on it. By WoD the game had changed a lot but I could still look at the Hunter class and see how it transitioned to its state then from what it was in Vanilla. I couldn’t do that after Legion. Legion’s changes were all jarring, out-of-left-field, and contrary to what a Hunter was all about. This wasn’t removing some side-chores like pet feeding which, let’s be honest, contributed little to nothing of value to the everyday look and feel of the class; one of the specs after Legion hardly resembled a Hunter at all.
And, no, it did not bring in new players (at least not any significant amount). They succeeded in making the game’s most dysfunctional fringe-niche spec that most Hunters avoided like the plague. This wasn’t a surprise. This wasn’t some idea that looked good on paper and just turned out badly. It was a bad idea to begin with. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that going to a spec defined by its ranged weapons and full of people who liked ranged weapons, and then taking away the ranged weapon from one spec, is a bad idea. I knew from the moment it was announced it was a bad idea, and what do you know: we were right.
Yeah it’s a pretty bad string of logic, good thing I didn’t promote it and you’re just strawmanning.
You have people here admitting they picked up Hunters recently and only playing Survival. Of course they are not informed about the class; and it shows in how they argue. When I have Joe McFreshBoost coming into the thread and proudly proclaiming that the current version of SV is truer to the original SV than any of the other ones before Legion, none of which he has played or has any idea what was the design, I’m going to call them out on that.
Not having a ranged weapon absolutely came out of nowhere. Every single iteration of every Hunter spec, including Survival, had a ranged weapon before Legion. A real one, by the way; not some phantom ranged weapon we only see in a wonky animation. One that could Auto-Shot as the original manual says. As a proud Classic die-hard you should know this well.
Change is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. It is never self-meriting. Change is merited by whether it can be shown to be a good idea that can be executed well. Melee Survival was bad in paper and bad in practice.
This is a false equivalency and you know it. The current Survival is not a ranged spec that can get a small damage boost by melee-weaving. It’s a melee spec that wants to stay in melee range for maximum damage. It can’t even Auto-Shot. That’s nothing like the Classic iteration.
Plus, all 3 specs benefited from melee weaving on static fights in Vanilla because the wonky half-baked nature of the class meant there was a gap in our rotation between two auto-shots that could be filled. Does this sound to you like a precedence for Survival in particular lacking a ranged weapon entirely as well as a multitude of iconic abilities 12 years down the line?
… and Lightning Reflexes, the single most significant talent of the spec which gave +15% Agility which gave 2 ranged attack power for every 1 melee attack power. Oops!
No…your opinion is just that, an opinion.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Hunters design initially had a good deal of melee because of the deadzone mechanic. Make a level 1 in Classic and see for yourself. As for being a melee spec, survival has the most and farthest ranged attacks in the game. One of their cool downs is literally making their hardest hitting melee attack a ranged one.
Survival is a unique melee spec in a game with fewer unique playstyles. So, see short answer.
Seeing the interview with the Lead Class designer and producer when they talk about SV and how making it melee was “making it return to it’s Vanilla roots”, is so sad to see.
It’s like they’ve forgot the very core of the class, only looking at a few very specific talent options taken entirely out of context as to what the general design for the class(or even SV as a talent category) was back then.
I hope they bring back ranged survival, id drop my reroll class and run back in heartbeat. Problem is neither bm or mm fills the massive void rsv left. Rsv was best and most fun spec in game hands down.
Okay, survival currently has mostly ranged abilities except for raptor strike. They could just add a talent that replaces your raptor strike with explosive shot and then it’ll kinda be like having BC-WoD ranged survival.
They could do that, although it would barely even hint at the old RSV playstyle.
It also would not work that well considering everything else that is a part of that spec. As to what it is designed for in terms of passive effects, talents and other abilities.
If people want some way to play current MSV but ranged, fair enough. But that still would not be like the old RSV.
Translated: it did not have nor was it intended to have a fully-melee option, like the current version of Survival.
That’s what you’re saying without the pro-melee spin.
So we started off with a class design that has melee abilities you have to use when you get stuck in melee, a melee toolkit that was deliberately weaker than the ranged one to encourage the Hunter to play it smart and get back to ranged, followed by a doubling-down of the ranged-centric approach for the next decade, only for one of the specs to suddenly lose the ranged weapon entirely in the 6th expansion. How does this make sense in your mind?
So what you’re saying is the best part of melee Survival is its ability to be ranged? Funny, that.
This might blow your mind but a few years ago Survival could be fully ranged all the time. Man, that spec must have been amazing.
Melee is less unique than ranged, period. It’s less unique for the simple fact that there are 12 other specs in the game that use a melee weapon. Going into Legion, we had 11 melee weapon users in the game and 3 ranged weapon users. It takes hopeless melee-favouritism-driven delusion to think that taking away from one of the ranged weapon users and adding it to a pool of melee weapon users makes the game have more unique specs. It’s probably the worst instance of homogenisation of class design we’ve ever seen.
Of course you have the caster specs, but the ranged weapon specs i.e. Hunters look and play very differently in this game. It’s still ludicrous to think reducing the already-low representation of ranged weapons by 1/3 was a good idea. Plus, if SV remained ranged we would have a perfect balance of 12 ranged and 12 melee specs.