It did not stop them from giving druids a 4th spec.
But Druids only got that 4th spec because it essentially had two specs combined into one…
Yeah, and with Hunters they decided to add in a 4th playstyle to the class(something which it hadn’t focused on in the past). They just chose to add it in as a replacement to something that was already there, something that already had an established theme and fantasy AND a playerbase that liked it.
Druids had 4 different playstyles/fantasies contained within it. They chose to give players full access to all of them.
Hunters do as well(as of now - Legion, when they decided to add in that 4th one). But for Hunters it’s okay to remove one of those previous 3 because Hunters aren’t allowed to have access to them all? No, it isn’t. Not by any standard.
And, as for this:
I’ve already answered it before.
We aren’t asking for it to come back exactly how it was in -insert expansion name here-.
We know very well that any re-implementation of a prior specialization/playstyle would have to be updated to fit the modern game/systems/philosophies.
If I thought it would be enough just to ask for the MoP version of RSV or the one from WoD, I would ask for that. But I’m not doing that.
I’m asking for:
This concept holds all the prior core elements that were synonymous with the old RSV, with certain things that have been updated/added for a better fit within the modern game.
Will that concept be perfect for everyone who wants RSV to return?
I highly doubt it. And I encourage others who want it back to provide feedback as to what they want to see from it as well.
Current Survival is I think one of the best specs in the game. Rotation, movement and deep are all good. While it not #1 in charts. Not every spec can be #1 at same time.
I will agree they should add a 4th spec that was like old sv or close to it. It does not even need be on hunter. DH, or new class down the line. We do need another bow/gun range spec or/and class.
Doesn’t really matter. The only reason anyone wants to see ranged SV back is because as it is now, MM is not a fun spec to play. This isn’t to say it isn’t suitable for raiding, and this isn’t to say that BFA itself is bad expansion (note to self: it is a bad expansion), and this isn’t to say that the BFA iteration wasn’t a step in the right direction compared to Legion (that is to say, back to WOD…God, I can’t believe I just said that), but the spec certainly isn’t any fun for anyone who wants to avoid playing BM. (Or maybe everyone plays BM and I’m just odd.)
Hell, they could slap the base ranged survival kit as it was in MOP with no azerite traits to support it and its old crusty 8-year old talents and it would still be leaps and bounds beyond anything whoever designed MM for the last four years could possibly cough up.
Why do some people want an old spec back? Because the new one that was supposed to replace it sucks, plain and simple. Too bad Blizzard won’t ever admit it, but there you go.
We’re talking about the people who intentionally tanked the spec near the end of WOD, after all. The absolute most I would expect is if Blizzard brings ranged SV back as a fourth spec, then makes it the absolute worst DPS in the game completely out of spite. Like, as bad as arcane, but then they’d double down on the badness.
Yeah MM is no fun for me at all right now, but even when it was, I still preferred RSV over the other 2. But yeah, the loss of RSV sucks twice as much because the other 2 are in a bad place right now funwise.
They got about as close as you can get to admitting the change to MSV was a bad move. They didn’t mention it directly, but MSV being the most egregious example of spec fantasy gone too far had to have played a factor in their change of heart. You should read the Deep Dive Panel recap from Blizzcon if you haven’t already. It seems like they’re really gonna push class over spec identity come Shadowlands.
They do love to play the Corrupt-A-Wish game. People asked for High Elves and got Void Elves instead. People asked for Tinker class and got Mechagnomes instead. Watch RSV come back but not have anything it was known for. Sounds like something they’d do.
Yeah, about that…I can’t figure out why people are so salty about that.
Except for humans, every race in WOW has a ‘twist’ to it that differentiates it from what you’d expect in classical fantasy. I cannot figure out why people thought they’d go back on that theme with High Elves, who are just your basic fantasy elves - pure elves are so rare now because the huge takeaway is that the world of Azeroth has changed so drastically since the Third War that very little of what came before it remains.
Like if you want High Elves, the LOTR MMO is waiting for you.
But anyways, I’m not really down with Blizzard being the Jafar genie here. it’s really just kind of peevish, if you ask me: there are times where we didn’t ask for something and it ends up being pretty cool - like melee SV is pretty cool - but then there are times when we didn’t ask for something and it’s not cool at all - like losing ranged SV is not cool.
The only problem (for Blizzard) I can see here is if Blizzard backs down and gives hunters back ranged SV, then other classes that have lost specs - like Demonology warlocks - will see that as an invitation, a can of worms Blizzard may not want to open. Not that I have anything against demo locks or metamorphosis, but for hunters, that mobile ranged DPS with excellent CC and utility was part of the class identity for a really long time, and I’d really like to see that come back.
Do you not see the irony here? You’re repeatedly saying that we are LYING when we say RSV was a popular spec because we “can’t know that” yet you so proudly declare that it was factually unpopular. What a joke.
Not usually, no. But it was popular in WoD before it was nerfed. You could argue this was due to raw performance but people seemed to legitimately like it and were saddened to see it go.
Yes, indeed. I know many players who would like to see ranged Survival return and never post on the forums. See? This goes both ways.
In fact, we used to have some regular posters around here who quit because Survival became melee. If you don’t believe me, here are two names: Guillotaur and Leorina.
We elude to it because we saw it happen at the time and we see evidence of it now. The first time people legitimately flocked to play Survival was when Explosive Shot was added to the spec in WotLK, and it remained a popular spec right up until they gutted the spec in 6.2 and then made it melee in 7.0. I played every single one of those patches to the fullest, and many here are veterans of the class and can attest to it. We saw Survival as a popular choice, and now we look back at data from the time that affirms those experiences. In fact, I heard from a guy who knows a guy that Survival is still a very popular choice on blizzlike WotLK and MoP private servers, but who knows.
Look at it this way: you keep shrieking that we’re all filthy liars making up history about Survival because we refer to statistics that you don’t think are representative of the real popularity of the specs. That’s fine if you think they’re not representative; that doesn’t make us liars who base our arguments on assumptions. It’s real data that says Survival was a popular raiding spec and it is not just a momentary spike, but let’s put that aside for a second: you are going from claiming this to then saying that Survival was always an unpopular choice. Where’s your backing for that? Do you even have “evidence that may or may not be representative” of that point?
Fact is that most of the class wants to play ranged. This is not debatable at this point. Four years into this mess and statements directly from Blizzard developers has proven this. It follows that yes, you would have a mass of people who would at least try a ranged Survival that otherwise wouldn’t play it at all.
You’re getting confused. You’re thinking of Aspect of the Fox, the short-lived cooldown that existed in 6.0 and 6.1 (WoD). It didn’t exist until then and was sadly removed after a few months because they were too lazy to properly prevent it being rotated between Hunters in the same way Bloodlust used to be. Before that, from 4.0 to 5.1 you had Aspect of the Fox, the aspect that allowed you to cast while moving.
Actually, MM was the primary choice for Firelands, and if I recall correctly while SV was the popular one for T11 it wasn’t that dominant. Dragon Soul was the tier where it kicked the crap out of everything else.
BM and SV actually traded places throughout MoP for most popular Hunter spec, and often BM was the superior spec including in SoO itself (although more people played SV by a small margin anyway at that time). BM was very good for clumped AoE, I daresay better than Survival.
WoD SV was generally considered to be a downgrade because it wasn’t fully-baked (now we know they clearly stopped development for it early because of the melee decision for the next expansion).
It lost Rapid Fire and Kill Shot entirely as well as universally-pruned things like aspects other than Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack and Hunter’s Mark, and Serpent Sting became a passive baked into Arcane Shot. The way Lock and Load procced was also tweaked; instead of a flat 20% chance from each Black Arrow tick you were now guaranteed at least 1 Lock and Load during Black Arrow (it would be randomly assigned to one of the ticks) and had an extra chance on each tick at Lock and Load that scaled with your Multistrike, so basically it was bad luck protection and made it more consistent. Also, the guaranteed Lock and Load from trap procs was removed (I think this was a mistake). Some of the passives that you learned at higher levels like Improved Serpent Sting and Viper’s Venom were baked into the base spells. Also Draenor Perks changed some things like adding a heal to Camouflage and giving Explosive Shot an extra tick.
Originally it was going to have its own unique cooldown. This was to be Bear Trap. BT was actually going to be in WotLK but never made it in. It would never make it in to even the Beta either, although IIRC it did briefly appear in the game files. It was basically a 2-minute cooldown that put a mega-damage bleed on whatever stepped on it.
They also had a new Lock and Load system in the works. Instead of getting 2 free Explosive Shots on a Lock and Load proc, Lock and Load would become like a charge system; you would often generate stacks of it and it could stack up to 10 or so, and it made your next Explosive Shot not incur a cooldown. It still had a focus cost, though, and Explosive Shot was put to 15 focus down from 25. The system didn’t make it in, but the focus cost nerf did which was nice for a time.
No skill curve: Yeah, sort of, but like BM today there were still nuances. It definitely felt too simplistic by the time we got to WoD but there were ideas floating around on how to fix that. In particular there were attempts at making Black Arrow something that could be used for multidotting. First in MoP it was going to be a 1.5 sec cast that applied the debuff to the target as well as nearby ones, then in 6.2 they added the Archimonde trinket which gave a CDR to Black Arrow. I think the “skill” factor really came from keeping up the fast-paced priority execution going while doing all the mechanics that were generally assigned to Hunters.
Nowhere to take it: Absolutely not. I really hate this point. Not only were there many good suggestions from the players but you had some cool experimental ideas that almost made it as you can see above. Black ARrow multidotting would have been awesome. Giving some dynamic skill factor to Lock and Load generating and spending would have been pretty cool, too. Coming up with a unique cooldown would have also been nice; hopefully something better than that Bestial Wrath clone it currently has. I would actually argue ranged SV had far better prospects for coming up with new ideas than pretty much any iteration of Marksmanship.
Unimaginative: Absolutely not. Explosive Shot itself was really awesome in its theme and aesthetic. The idea of a Hunter that excelled at that sort of utilitarian aspect along with the trapping was pretty cool.
Thematically messy: debatable. Black Arrow didn’t fit as well as everything else but otherwise it definitely had a “resourcefullness” feel to it. It was certainly less thematically messy than anything that came after it.
I can only assume English isn’t your main language. I didn’t estimate anything. SV was a relatively low played spec, with periods of higher representation, i.e. when it was overtuned. That isn’t an estimate in any way, shape or form. Anyone who isn’t pushing an agenda, i.e. you, and played back then knows SV wasn’t a popular spec. Those are facts. Learn the difference or go back to the shallow end.
Check the bottom graph on that page for the two that are showing spec comparisons. The first half of that graph is MoP and WoD. 2 expansions.
It’s fairly easy to see that SV was the most popular spec for this period in general. No matter it’s performance levels.
The later half of that graph(when the green line plummets to almost nothing) shows SV after the announcement that it was going to be turned into a melee spec. And it has barely managed to climb at all ever since. Despite MSV’s performance being on par or even surpassed the other 2 specs on multiple occasions.
Besides, in a comparison between RSV and the newer MSV, the new RSV beats it by miles(again, despite it often doing well on performance).
So, there is no argument for why RSV was removed due to not being popular. Or if there was, MSV would have no place in this game whatsoever as, not even when it is doing well, people won’t play it.
We can argue back and forth forever as to how popular RSV was. But there’s no basis for that when determining whether it was justified to remove it or not.
I guess I’d be wasting my time, yet again, to point out the idiocy of showing a 2 year span when the spec was overtuned as some kind of “proof” of popularity.
People argue about RSV being popular or not just to be contrary and to get the focus off the real issue. Blizzard should NEVER delete a spec. It was an asinine decision. It is the WORST thing they could do to a class and their players. MSV hunters don’t want their spec removed or changed to the point that it is no longer recognizable. We didn’t want ours removed either.
I can’t comprehend what kind of idiocy went into this decision. I frankly don’t know how anybody this &#$()&@() stupid could be given the authority to make any changes to the game. Remember MSV players, the same people who made the decision to remove RSV from us may decide your fate too. Logic obviously doesn’t work on them. They wouldn’t know common-sense if it slapped them in the back of the head. Arguing against a 4th spec could end up biting you.
Somewhere along the line, Ion is going to get replaced by somebody who has a clue, and they’re going be given the choice of creating a fourth spec or reverting RSV back to ranged. How confident are you that the new person will be as much of an IDIOT as Ion is?
What is your basis for saying RSV was “overtuned”? If anything, I have heard that MSV is the best performing spec now. If that is the case does that make MSV overtuned? And if so shouldn’t we see MSV’s numbers far surpassing MM & BM on the chart?
So, by your logic, since BM is the best hunter spec at this time, and dominates the chart, it is overtuned now? I’m also assuming BM is not a popular spec, its representation is purely a result of its overtuning?
It’s not even a question of popularity, Walkereboh. As I’ve argued before, the current archer design (and BM is not the archer design) of the hunter is half-baked and not very fun.
These constant non-stop posts for the return of ranged SV is more a desire to get a tried-and-tested decent workable design back on the table: it might have been basic and simplistic, but nobody could ever say Ghostcrawler’s design was bad.
Hell, if Blizzard somehow coughed up a good MM design that was reminiscent of ranged SV, I’d be happy. But of course, they won’t: they’ll probably over-engineer yet another MM iteration with some idiotic gameplay mechanic like a damage window or double damage focus dump with a three-to-five target AOE limitation and a four second cast time with horrible performance unless you play it computer-perfect.
Because you know, the solution couldn’t possibly be as simple as “more dakka even when you’re running” - which incidentally, is what ranged SV offers.