Replace Survival with Ammunition Spec

Classes Hunter
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When Survival switched over to Melee, I was initially a big fan of this spec playing into a certain fantasy of early hunters before bows having to use spears to hunt. Two expansions later, I’m now in favor of completely scrapping this folly of an idea of a melee hunter spec and asking that it return back to a Ranged Spec with even a Spec name change as was done with Combat Rogue to Outlaw Rogue to play more into the Rogue class fantasy.

The idea of the Ammunition spec does two things, first it removes any doubts as to what the Spec is about, as Survival clouds the water up too much as to what people have in their minds as to what the spec should be and how it should play. Second this returns us back to what the Ranged Survival spec eventually became anyway with it’s various shots that used really special ammuniation, Explosive Arrow, Black Arrow if memory serves me correctly, Serpent sting ect.

We have a spec that focuses on your pets, a spec that focuses on range and powerful shots in Marks, but nothing that focuses on Hunters use of specialized arrows to deal damage. Instead we have this bloody mix of Survival Hunter, that removes a viable ranged option for hunters, and only leaves them with two specs to choose from if they desire to play range, and only one spec if they don’t like one or the other spec options. I personally hate Marks spec, and was a long time Survival Spec Hunter since Wrath of Lich King.

This change will also help focus what then spells, talents, and abilities that the Ammunition spec hunter would receive to also help differentiate it from the other two specs as well as even probably help out Marks better, since some of the old Survival skills got thrown over there, like Explosive arrow and Lock and Load.

Some Spell Ideas would be a Fire Arrow, that adds a dot, Ice Arrow to slow targets and does light damage, changing serpent sting to just poison arrow, and the return of explosive shot/arrow back to the spec removing it again from Marks so they can have a talent focused on power and range again. I think the main idea of the spec would make it the dot spec for hunter, something hunters don’t have, like Affliction Warlock, Shadow Priest, Assassination Rogue, and Arms Warrior even.

I do understand that their is a missing class really in this game with a desire to have the play style of a Ranger. Yet, I feel that doing this with Hunter is now no longer viable, and to give us back our third Range spec, and create a new Ranger Class of some type that plays better into that fantasy and is created from scratch instead.

10 Likes
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While your idea of a new spec for survival looks quite interesting, I doubt they can make a Ranger class that is distinct enough from Hunters to justify bring added. Unfortunately, even though current Survival is a huge underwhelming mess that Blizzard can’t even be bothered to take a look at, it’s the closest we will ever get to a “Pre-King of Gondor Aragorn” style of Ranger.

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Negative ghost rider.

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Nah I like melee survival. It doesn’t need much for it to be good just add some utility and make some things baseline.

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There was a talent option way back that allowed you to choose ammo types – flame arrows, frost arrows, poison arrows – for your auto-shot. I don’t think it’s really a broad enough concept to base a whole spec. around. Really, aren’t different shots – Serpent Sting, Barbed Shot, Cobra Shot, Arcane Shot, etc., really just different “ammo types?”

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Why focus on hypotheticals? Survival once was exactly as the OP described and it was the most successful the spec has ever been. BM and MM to this day do not represent different ammo types very well if at all.

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I think Blizzard is aware most hunters want ranged survival back and that’s why survival has gotten nothing in shadowlands except the baseline new hunter spells. Even their legendaries are just azerite traits. They literally put no effort into them at all.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they neglected to do anything with survival in shadowlands because originally they planned to rework it back to ranged but ran out of time and decided to put it off for later. Either that or they wanted to rework it as melee AGAIN for the 3rd expansion in a row, which I doubt.

I really hope they decide to just cut their losses with melee survival and revert it. It seems more likely now since they’ve done it with enhancement. Maybe give demon hunter melee survivals playstyle as a 3rd spec, although I would prefer old demo (without the pet) as a 3rd dh spec. Warlocks will be salty about that, though lol.

As for the OP, I like everything (as it’s basically just old ranged survival) except the name. If they want to change the name they should change it to Ranger, in my opinion. WC3 rangers, dark rangers, and priestesses of the moon used elemental arrows and they should emulate that for a theme. Give them a talent row that is a choice between either empowering your pet or lone wolf for both themes.

1 Like
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I miss cata/mop survival, just one of many play styles I enjoyed that is no longer availaible.

If hunter had to have a melee / ranged hybrid spec I always thought it should have been BM. I wouldn’t want the ranged version of it to get killed off in the process though. In all reality they should have just added a 4th spec for melee.

2 Likes
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I made a similar call to action like this back in legion, and then in BFA; and still agree. The key is to allow use of spells like Arcane Shot and "Shot"s in general while wielding a 2-hander at the least. Survival pulls a crossbow out of its pocket for Sting, so i don’t see the logic of not using “shot” spells. However, I think the class designers like having a multitude of identity to the class, and thus added this melee oriented spec. I also dont HATE the idea of the melee hunter, though not a big fan at all.

I think thats the idea of the designer(s) though, to cloud the spec and allow it to be both ranged and melee. I look at it as a guerilla warfare tactician; Shots fired, literally jumping in for melee, disengaging out, shots fired. Rinse repeat. It’s not bad as an idea, its just not playing well as one right now. We aren’t playing Naruto, and no one is going to pick Kiba over the other choices…

There are two abilities that I see as iconic to the spec, which you mentioned as well, and would still work well within this spec.
Explosive Shot (a bomb attached to the arrow). Explosive Shot could work well into the talent tree at level 25 or 50.
Black Arrow a poison that deals shadow damage. Black Arrow could work well into the talent tree at level 35 as a Direct replacement to Murder of Crows or as a level 15.

As well these spells should work well with the Mastery and Identity of the spec; spells that cost focus get increased damage, and bombs (explosions), bleeds, and poisons. Explosive Shot in the Marksman Talent tree (not sure how that plays into the identity MM well) could just be copy-pasted to Survival. And, Black Arrow wasn’t out of the spec to long ago that finding and implementing the data/spell would not be difficult.
This idea continues to use the premise of a melee hunter, but allows for an increased range toolkit.

This is not a “new spec,” in fact it is a request to Return to what was once a vary awesome and favorable spec.

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Very much agree with this. Assuming it’s based on the hunter fantasy ofc and not some spellcaster(but for example the style of old SV).

Now, I disagree with the notion that it has to replace current SV. It’s only a case of a narrow mindset as to why they can’t just give it to us as a 4th spec. There’s nothing that stops them from a design-based perspective.

But yeah, assuming it returns as a 4th spec and not as something that destroys yet another spec already in the game, I would want it to play like below(link):

Name it: Munitions
(so that it follows the same theme as the current spec names)

https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/suggestions-updated-pre-legion-survival-4th-spec/47579?u=briz-zenedar

2 Likes
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I would be fine with adding a fourth spec if that is what Blizzard wanted. As I said, I was an initial fan of the initial surivival melee even. I’m not a big fan of the version we got with BFA because basically it’s inspiration also isn’t from WoW, but is from Diablo 3 and it’s Demon Hunter Class. From the stupid crossbow you pull out to apply serpent sting, to the throwing of the bombs. I mean seriously, how the heck did Hunters go from Traps, to throwing Bombs? It’s all cut and copy pasted from Diablo 3 instead of taking any form of inspiration from WoW or any form of creativity on the part of the Devs. At least the initial form of melee Survival was a pure melee spec that was created from the ground up. Now they share kill command as the Focus generator with BM hunters.

One of the stated reasons for changing Survival from ranged to melee was even “well the three specs” play to similar or aren’t different enough. Yet, one of my main points in all of this is also to help Marks gain it’s flavor back as being a Marks Spec again with new Talents that actually focus on Marks. Instead of having the old Survival Abilities stuffed into it’s talent choices or passives that don’t really make sense for that spec.

3 Likes
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Yeah I remember that talent I believe it was called “exotic monitions” and I think it lasted all of one expansion… The poison ammo was supposed to be your single target pve one, the explosive ammo was for aoe and the ice one was for pvp. The problem was that the poison one did so little damage that you would use explosive for everything but pvp. And then the talent was gone.

My guess is that if blizz does something with ammo again, it would be for a Tinker or Machinist type class. For SV being more ammo focused, I guess that would depend if blizz wanted SV to lean more in the ranged department whether that is just having more ranged attacks or going full time back to ranged sv-we know that is not happening for SL so we will have to see what happens to sv for the next expansion.

1 Like
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They could just replace rapid fire with black arrow and aimed shot with explosive shot and then bam

You can make old survival in the marks tree

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If those are best in tier abilities, then all Marksmen will suddenly be Survival hunters. If they are not the best-in-tier abilities, no Marksmen will be Survival Hunters.

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Yeah so?

It would be like before hand before they decided to change it up because they were almost the same thing?

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That “illusion of choice” between talent options is already true of every spec, let alone each build… By your logic, people would already swap to BM or SV, nevermind the better MM talents, if the best build of either other spec could outperform Mam’s best.

If the point of talents isn’t to provide as much attractions as possible via player preference of aesthetic and playflow, but solely to be optimized, why have them at all, they’d be mere anti-gameplay, time spent on sites and in menus rather than actually playing the game, at a further cost to the most fun build, as most popularly or broadly perceived, that players could otherwise have had without it being trifurcated by a talent grid. Not great.

Either real aesthetic and playflow choice in a talent grid is a worthwhile goal, or the system itself is fundamentally a waste. You pick.

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No. All you’d get, is current MM but with a select few old RSV abilities.

Again, wrong.

“Both fired arrows and therefor they were the same” is not a valid argument.

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Are Destruction and Affliction almost the same thing?

They both use fel magic and demons. Affliction is just like Destructions with DoTs. That’s not much of a difference, right? They can just put that DoT stuff in Destruction and make Affliction melee or something radically different.

… for some reason I suspect this sort of spec standard from people like you only applies to Hunters.

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You’re aware they changed the spec because it was basically using cross assets?

Almost every ability that survival has is now in marks and BM, the only ability that got cut was black arrow

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You’re aware that you’re inventing history as you go along?

Explosive Shot exists in Marksmanship talents as a totally different ability, both aesthetically and mechanically.

Lock and Load is a Marksmanship talent which, again, different mechanically.

Serpent Sting exists as SV baseline/MM talent. It has shorter duration and absolutely no baseline interaction with anything else. Most notably, no Serpent Spread.

Black Arrow just doesn’t exist at all anymore.

The trap enhancements that came with SV, Trap Mastery and Entrapment, don’t exist at all.

So, basically, almost none of ranged SV’s unique mechanics/interactions still exist and you are being stunningly obtuse even for a melee SV fanatic.

6 Likes