Ranged Survival seemingly a no go in 9.0

Classes Hunter
43

I have seen you post over and over about how melee survival needs to stay, no matter the cost. Please explain to me how your play-style preference is more important than mine? Your preferred spec is melee survival, before Legion my preferred spec was range survival. Before the melee switch, ranged survival was my favorite spec and the class/spec that I played 95% of the time. How is your $15 more valuable than mine?

Before you start any argument, I want to point out that there are currently 2(ONLY 2) archer play-styles, while there are 18 melee specs (13 melee dps and 5 tank) options already in game, not counting melee survival. How is adding a 14th melee dps class an improvement at the expense of the 3rd(!!!) archer spec?

Now I know that you will not be able to come at this argument from a subjective point of view because to you the melee survival is your favorite (which is why there are so many arguments over it and will elicit an emotional response). What you don’t seem to understand is that for you (and a couple hundred others) to gain your favorite spec several THOUSAND others lost their favorite spec! I do not care what argument you may have with some of the more vocal players in here. Never forget that your preferred play style came at the expense of THOUSANDS of others. This alone should cause Blizzard to reconsider their choices when they compare data from hundreds(melee) to tens of thousands(ranged). Changing your mind ultimately does not matter(and I really don’t care to based off your previous posts where you troll players that are legit sad that they lost their favorite class/spec after years of playing), I’m hoping that eventually Blizzard realizes that they screwed up (doubtful after 4 years, some can’t accept that they made dumb choices) and return my ranged survival spec that I loved for over 6 years.

TLDR; You’re a troll that takes satisfaction off others losing something they loved and continue to argue that “your” spec should stay despite the fact that it is the 2nd lowest represented spec(out of 14 other options and that very few wanted) and well over 10x as many players used to play the same spec as ranged. I also apologize in advance if your reading comprehension/stamina is not capable of sustaining you through 4 paragraphs.

19 Likes
44

He’s more of a Ben Shapiro, imo. Thinks he’s some brilliant genius, and that because he’s such a genius whatever he says must be objectively correct and The Best Thing Ever. He even plays a goblin.

2 Likes
45 
No no champ you've got it all wrong.

SV is gone because it was the worst of the three specs for the majority of it’s life.

It never had a strong identity, and was never highly played, other than a few meager times when it had a small niche.

I don’t really care about anyone’s feelings about an extinct spec. But I will say, living in the past isn’t healthy, and I feel sorry for people who do.

And if I’m a troll, you’re King Rastakan. Pro tip, indent your “paragraphs”, it might make your rambling wall of text, passable.

Not sure why this got formatted all wierd .:smile:

46

I think its time to let that one go TBH. Unless they go to 4 specs for us, which i doubt, that time has passed.
At best what we might get is more of the old skills in other trees

47

Thank God. I like MSV. Could be more of a melee/ranged hybrid though.

48

You’er back, were have you been?

I do not think there was any worry Blizzard would just kill off MSV to bring back RSV. MSV is their little redheaded child that they want everyone to love.

It is close to being a melee/range hybrid, but is closer to range now and like to have one more melee attack to even it.

2 Likes
49

Except in Classic, you primarily attacked from range. You only used your melee abilities when something was clawing your face (the first 10 levels, when your pet loses aggro, when another mob is attacking you, your pet dies, and PvP). With the removal of ranged weapon minimum range there is no need for melee abilities. Why Wing Clip when you can use Concussive Shot? Why use Raptor Strike when you can use Cobra Shot?

8 Likes
50

Quit about a year ago because of azerite + pvp’s state being… downright terrible. I’m mostly back for the anniversary stuff because throwing myself at swarms of people in classic AV is fun, and I’m hoping that the game improves at some point down the road. Shadowlands has potential but I really need to see what they’re doing about pvp, otherwise I’ll end up wandering away after a couple months.

51

I think the discussion really should be on what could be done to melee survival. Living in the past like everyone on the hunter forum has been, being in denial that blizzard wants it to be melee (or has decided that it isn’t worth the effort to fix legion problems that would arise if the spec went back to ranged). What discussion on this forum should be about is how we can find a median with melee survival which gives it a worthwhile use in high end PvE content, giving it a reason to be used over a ranged spec on a given fight/encounter or dungeon. Looking at melee survival now, what does it bring?

It bring really strong consistent single target damage - Arguably the best in the game, assuming your getting strong up time on a single target - target switching is pretty bad for the class just because of the fact that it relies on pets and their god awful ai. This is obviously talking about the bop variant since that is what is strong right now. And the other thing it brings is an insane amount of passive self healing.

But thats it, at least for PvE content when compared to other hunter specs. A lot of survivals power in pvp is tied to unique PvP interactions and talents.

Now here is where the problem lies. this spec is underplayed because even if people want to play it (which honestly, i hear pretty often) the problem is, they are giving up ranged utility for the ability to do say ~2 to 3k more dps on a single target fight than a MM hunter or Bm hunter and are essentially told that they cannot give up their ranged utility for it, the trade of is simply not worth it in the eyes of their raidleader (even though if your not top 100 this shouldn’t matter but whatever, its a thing for some people and you can’t ignore it). Forgive me if this information isn’t correct since i didn’t really play for the first 3/4 of legion, but i’m pretty sure survival was used in the world first kill of mythic guldan, because it was very good at dealing with the adds (? or something of the sort, but it was something to do with how the cleave from survival worked which made it strong on that fight i’m pretty sure), so inherently the spec being melee is not the problem with the spec, its simply that the trade off for the spec going to melee is never really worth it.

So again the question becomes, what can be done to melee survival heading into next expac that gives it a niche or a foothold in PvE content over a ranged hunter. This should be the discussion, if its not gunna be ranged what would make it interesting enough for you to switch or if not switch, temporarily use on a given fight if its stronger than the ranged specs for it. maybe stuff like giving it a proper dot instead of the garbage low thought serpent sting that doesn’t scale with haste even though the rest of the kit synergies super well with it (ahem, fix serpent sting blizzard) or a raid buff - or stronger cleave, a strong mythic plus utility, or a strong raid cooldown (aspect of the fox?), make mongoose bite baseline and rework all the abilities on the level 90 talent row to be interesting to allow for these abilities or maybe bringing some of the pve talent utilities to base line. these are ideas im just throwing out that i’ve heard people say, all of which could give it viability. That is what the spec needs and thats what i hope to see from upcoming news about the new expansion.

52

In what universe do you think people opposed to SV being melee in the first place are eager to discuss how we can start bribing people to play melee SV by locking away crucial utility/damage advantages behind the melee spec?

Is it really? Because even in casual content the spec is a ghost town and the overwhelming majority of Hunters around are defaulting to BM.

It was brought to Method’s first kill which was world third due to Hellcarver, something that hardly resembled anything that should belong to a Hunter to begin with, and how it helped on the adds.

Regardless of this, BM and MM were still vastly more represented on that fight.

Here’s what should be done: SV has made its bed so it must lie in it. If Hunters do not want to play melee, too bad. Hazzikostas was quite clear that they knew Hunters wouldn’t want to play it. Let the spec live with that.

Locking stuff behind Survival is not on. It’s bad enough that we lost ranged Survival for this spec. It is so much worse if you start making Survival the go-to spec for anything. We are already dealing with this ridiculousness in rateed PvP, where after 15 years of ranged Hunter gameplay and expertise in PvP our top players are now relegated to a melee spec, and this makes me thankful that I don’t do rated PVP. It was bad enough when, in the first patch of Legion, the class developers* in their infinite wisdom locked TRAPS behind Survival. So SV can take its superior single target damage and have fun with that while being thankful that it still exists, because any more sensible class developers would have put down this sick dog as soon as possible.

You’d better believe the forums would riot if you locked something like AotF behind Survival.

11 Likes
53

Wrong.

Sort off…

I’m sure some players would pick current SV if it happened to be overtuned compared to other specs.
But far from everyone would. Ultimately, I can only speak for myself ofc.

I, will NEVER pick current SV for the sole reason that it has become what it is.
I picked, and have enjoyed, this class because of the fact that it was intended to be a ranged class focusing on dealing damage with a ranged weapon. I picked it over Mage/warlock/priest etc, because I do not like being a caster.
And, because it was the class that had a strong emphasis on playing with pets.

I’m sure there are things people would want for current melee SV, that could improve both it’s gameplay feel, but also it’s viability in certain types of content.

As for the above specifically, it’s ironic since the old ranged SV spec was the perfect base for a Hunter spec to focus on strong DoT-abilities. Which would in turn allow the class to have a spec that was strong in multi-target situations(even with spread out targets). And, it would be added in a way that made sense for the class, thematically.

Having said that, I don’t think adding things to MSV specifically so people will chose it because of it’s…newfound strength, is the right way to do it.
It would essentially be an attempt at bribing players to choose a spec based solely on the mechanical upsides rather than catering to the actual design and strength that lies in it’s fantasy/theme.

Example:

or a strong raid cooldown (aspect of the fox?),

Something like this, should be added to the entire class. Not just one spec.

This argument/comment is easy to type for anyone who already has what they like.

The reason many of us here are hanging on to the old ranged SV spec is because of how much we liked it. It’s because we see what it could bring to the class.
It’s because we can’t get that fantasy/playstyle from any other spec that currently exists in the game.

And…

We keep bringing it up because of how/why it was taken away from us. Despite the fact that noone asked for that to happen.

Having said that, I’m a believer, in this case, that what’s done is done. They have already added a melee option to the class and it wouldn’t be a good choice to go back on that now. Hence why I’m such a big advocator for us to get the old ranged SV as a 4th spec option.

7 Likes
54

I still got rsv abilities on my survival bar to this date. Couese they dont work but it does bring back memories. I dont play survival at all anymore since the nerf after nerf in wod when they seemed like they were trying to get people to unspec from survival i havent touched it. Was my main i only used bm to quest and such but every raid i was there in survival. I still think of chakras as glaive toss xD i never got used to new name.

2 Likes
55

Survival before was basically MM hunters with DoTs focus. But they are basically marksman. Having a Melee focus spec, Range focus spec and Pet focus spec is more unique and gives more choices.

56

Wow, we lowly ranged Hunters have never heard this divine wisdom before! Thanks, o great melee player, for coming here to enlighten us and explain how everything we thought about Hunters was misled!

/s

Yeah… no. This BS has been trotted out time and time again and it’s just as wrong every time. By this logic, Affliction is just “Destruction with DoTs” and should be changed into a melee spec. On second thought, let’s not give you melee vultures any ideas. I’ve seen enough “melee Mage” suggestions already and I don’t want to invite you guys to ruin another class.

You know what would make SV even more unique? Making it a healer spec. It would give us more choice, too. I don’t think I need to explain how it’s still a really bad idea. Being unique does not make something better by default (I’d argue it’s less unique anyway given there are way, way more melee weapon specs in this game than ranged weapon specs), and it’s not “adding choice” when it’s something most Hunters don’t want. When you have a class full of people who like ranged gameplay and you force one of the specs to be melee it’s less “adding a melee choice” and more “removing a ranged choice”.

11 Likes
57

This is flat out wrong for one simple reason.

Marksmanship as portrayed in WoW, is about the fantasy of being a sniper/sharpshooter that takes his/her time to find that perfect aim. Followed by hitting the target where it either kills the enemy or causes severe damage.
Mechanically, MM is and was about dealing damage in the form of large instant hits and by relying on shorter burst windows.

Survival, was never about this fantasy or this mechanical gameplay design.

Survival, was thematically about enhancing ammo/arrows by using poison, animal venom and explosives. As well as by perfecting hunter Trap designs. There was no need to bother with perfect aim/standing still. As long as you hit your target, it would eventually succumb from the poison/venom.
In short, it wasn’t about taking the shot as much as it was about what was on/in that shot, and what that did to the enemy.

Mechanically, ranged SV was about a consistent damage-model. Not relying on big hits or burst windows. By weakening the target over time until it eventually died.

True in itself. Though you have to consider the targeted group of players/playertypes when deciding on a change such as this.

If the majority of the players who plays the class in question, do so because of it’s intention to cater towards ranged combat, then it kind of explains itself why replacing those/a ranged spec option(s) with a melee one, isn’t the best idea.

Wrong.

The way they did it, did not give us more choices. It took one choice away.

What they added in instead, wasn’t catering to the preferences of most hunter players.
And therefor would not be a choice to consider.

6 Likes
58

Melee Mage is a good idea. They should make one of the spec be like the Red Mage class in FFXIV. Will be awesome to have a melee mage like that :grinning:

59

No one wants your repulsive melee spec ideas.

11 Likes
60

I think it is just you. Cannot assume everyone has the same views as you. Claiming “No one” is really reaching for it :joy::rofl:

1 Like
61

I share his view, used to love pvping and playing as survival up until legion turned it into the spec it is now.

10 Likes
62

Yes I am sure there are people who likes the old survival range spec. But I am sure a lot of people also loves the melee specs :slight_smile: So Saying a blanket “no one” is very much false and arrogant :slight_smile:

2 Likes