Ranged Survival talent in Dragonflight

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-hunters/1279513/63

  • New Talent - Ranger - Increases the damage of Steady Shot, Kill Shot, Explosive Shot, and Serpent Sting.

It’s an interesting decision that shows that a ranged option for SV is still a topic of discussion but it doesn’t really address the central point of friction.

  • The spec still doesn’t have a ranged weapon. It will be an animation-only crossbow. It sucks to restrict the most iconic part of the class from one of its specs and it’s jarring when the class starts with a ranged weapon. Really it would make sense to be baseline ranged and have to spec into being melee.
  • It’s not a ranged alternative. Steady Shot will still likely never be used because even a 10% buff wouldn’t make it worth casting and it doesn’t have interactions with anything else. An Arcane Shot buff would be more appropriate but it would still probably not change anything. Other than Steady Shot those abilities will already be used by melee SV regardless.
  • The spec still has a confused and directionless identity. It’s interesting that this criticism is often levied at the former pre-Legion ranged SV when the problem is far worse now. SV still has a sense of Blizzard trying many different things at once and not committing to any. It’s the Rexxar-esque primal Hunter plus grenades and a crossbow for some reason. Can’t we leave the BM stuff to BM and have SV focus on something truly unique? Again “uniqueness” is ostensibly why they made it melee but it feels like it’s borrowing more from other specs than when it was ranged.
17 Likes

I really dislike the thematic direction for both BM and surv. Looking at the BM tree it feels like they are really pushing the idea of attacking your foe with a zoo of pets, some people like it i prefer BM when its me and my loyal companion not Ash Ketchup with a gun.

And they push Survival into the old BM fantasy while also just throwing in random elements from tinkering, to trapping, to poisoner to brawler. It just ends up in a position where neother specc feels nice from a thematic position imo.

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As far as I can tell, it doesn’t address the topic of RSV much at all. It’ll just boost the damage of baseline abilities + abilities you can get from the class tree, presumably so that SV players will feel that those would be worth picking.

  • Afaik, Steady Shot in DF will not generate Focus by default.
  • It doesn’t say anything about Auto Shot-damage.
  • The current Explosive Shot is a 30 sec CD AoE nuke. Doesn’t come close to the old gameplay.
  • No Black Arrow.
  • No Lock&Load.
  • It would amount to gameplay that also involves Kill Command(for Focus regen on top of that).
  • Nothing mentioned about all the other talents in the SV tree, working with their regular melee-abilities, etc.
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https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/en/wow/t/feedback-hunters/1279513/67

Wrekt

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https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-hunters/1279513/67

“We still intend to quadruple down on a decision that demonstrably hasn’t worked”

28 Likes

Absolutely decimated.

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Them being unable to figure out what to do with SV is why I have gone back to maining enhancement into Dragonflight. I honestly prefer how it felt in Legion but they have it in this really awkward melee/ranged hybrid and I, at this point, just wish they would full commit to one or the other.

Ranged or Melee. I don’t really care anymore at this point. Just commit to one of them.

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Well I appreciate that blizzard stomped out the hope quick tbh. Now I can go back to my other characters.

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Maaaaaaan. You guys are on top of it. Was just coming here to talk about “ranger” just to see all this.

I kinda figured that it wasn’t going to be away to be a ranged survival. I think they would have made a talent that replaces the use of a melee weapon for a ranged weapon. And that would have been clear cut a version to be ranged.

Plus the fact that kill shot and muzzle require a melee weapon. R I P

1 Like

Disagree, I like the hybrid play style.

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Muzzle does not require a melee wep, the reason kill shot does is so that we actually lose damage during disarms.

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I do wonder how it will feel being able to kite while still tossing bombs, serpent sting and tossing traps while weaving in some steady shots will feel though. Might be kind of cool

Decimated = Survival’s design direction since and including Legion

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Decimated = your hope for RSV.

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You have an awful lot of pride in such a floundering spec lmao

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“Sometimes” is now “By far most of the time”, with just 2 core melee abilities remaining.

It’s long past time to pull the plug on melee Survival. It was on life support on day 1 and it’s just holding back the spec.

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Being honest, all of these last posts are extremely juvenile.

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You have an awful lot of salt for your non existent spec.

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Some of us would like to see SV amount to more than the circus freak of class design, what can I say

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Better get your 2her out buddy! ROFL decimated.

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