They explicitly said it was melee and yet you’ve made it your life’s work to refute that…
Take the likes of Arcane for instance, in a given fight. Because of its constraints to its mobility, it ends up with different risk/reward components within its rotation that vary how it handles that fight from how it’d optimize shooting target dummies. Beast Mastery, on the other hand, doesn’t offer any of that contextual variance, because it has no constraints in the first place.
If you remove all constraints to relative mobility from a spec that previously had them, the amount of gameplay that context offers that spec has been necessarily reduced. I’d be fine with that so long as it’s made up for elsewhere.
That depends on how that DoT damage is doled out, though. If it were done in the WoD style of basically passive damage via Serpent Spread, it couldn’t then offer a leverageable, distinctly tunable option, because it wouldn’t be an option at all.
(Or, choose whatever explanation you wish for RSV never having had the massive spread-target damage enjoyed by other specs more iconically defined around that, each of whom tended not to apply their DoTs nearly so automatically/passively.)
I agree, so long as its identity wouldn’t remain that it would ‘has neither weaknesses nor strengths’ (no constraints it needs to play around, nor anything its especially good at), as Bepples has largely defined RSV.
I’m wondering why you say this. Unless a mob’s TTK only a few cycles or less of a given DoT’s duration, the difference in complexity between a DoT and direct damage is negligible, except in that the DoT is fixed by a soft timer and therefore offers fewer possible changes in order or frequency of its casts.
While there’s a slightly higher floor (i.e., than a direct damage filler), the skill ceiling a DoT or any other soft-CD offers to rotation will typically be less in sustained combat than what a freer skill does, because of the variation the less rigidly paced skill may be leveraged for/by.
Which is why I’d been asking for at least some sort of elaboration.
Happen to have any examples you can link? I’ve yet to see them but remain earnest curious as to what other people are coming up with for revitalized RSV iterations.
By offering ideas, or spitballing how the vague beginnings of what he has said he wants might play out, and having any that fall above a very low bar of complexity shot down, i.e., damn near anything that isn’t precisely RSV as it was in WoD.
That spitball was simply a matter of flexible constraints on mobility that’d differ from what BM or MM face.
BM would therefore have no mobility constraints beyond that of its pet. MM has its mobility constraints on its iconic nuke itself. RSV would be constrained infrequently (the Rocket Launcher cast example, 30s-ish CD) and/or by its reloads (can fire a rocket instantly and on the move, but it takes an immobile second or GCD to reload, etc., which then gives situation for a bit more flexibility to shared resource systems, soft CDs, etc).
I have to agree with Lluagor here; unless that’s been explicitly stated, the most we can say is that it could explain the results… if not for similar cases having being made elsewhere (Arms Warrior, Sub Rogue) on the same basis only for us to be told that hadn’t been the intent at all (or at least, not since Vanilla).
Heck, a fair few of Legion SV’s core features worked significantly less well in PvP than in PvE.
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Not sure they’d come out and say that… Given how upset it would make people. But I think it’s pretty obvious. Obviously, y’all disagree, so I dunno.
I would even say that blizzard’s attempts at making the spec more PvE friendly is what is making it not work as well (and making it less if the clear PvP winner for hunters)… Things like the new coordinated assault seem more like muddying the waters for PvE’s sake. (Why would an ability that enhances two ranged attacks have a charge attached lol)
New CA offers more to PvP purposes than to PvE ones. They simply chose to give players a choice of ST or AoE-ish capstone CDs, instead of just the one middle-ground.
Arguably, Coordinated Assault should simply reset Harpoon and be an oGCD, but its initial burst damage, too, is far more useful to PvP (where it at least does something) than to PvE (where it’s entirely negligible). Spearhead, on the other hand, should probably (re)gain impact on Carve/Butchery to fit its theme and lend the right side a bit more of the versatility the left side already gets, but it’s hardly anything specifically more useful to PvE.
But RSV did not have any such constraints when it was removed with Legion?
IIRC, the last time RSV had restrictions to mobility was in Cataclysm, with Cobra Shot still being an immobile cast at that time. They removed that restriction with patch 5.1(MoP). Since 5.1, RSV was a spec with unlimited mobility.
Well, going by my suggestions, a modern version of RSV wouldn’t just be about Serpent Sting. Nor would BA simply be a use-on-CD ability(degree depending on talents chosen). Same with ES.
Looking at some other options I suggested, Immolation Trap, due to its default funtionality as a trap, would bring with it certain challenges.
With Surging Shot, you could optimize CD management by leveraging your uptime of other DoTs on the target(s), also depending on talent based choices ofc.
I thought we were looking at what it could be like as a modern version?
It’s primary weakness was its lack of burst, it had none. Obviously wouldn’t be feasible for the modern game. But you could design it to have some burst, while still not being on the levels of the other hunter specs. Again, options through talents.
As for strengths, again, for a modern version, it’s primary strength should be in its use of DoTs, and how they can be leveraged in multi-target scenarios, some more than others ofc. And while mobility certainly would be a bonus, in the context of PvE, it wouldn’t be the primary. You could look into other potential strengths as well, such as how it would mostly be about non-physical damage, and how such would affect its performance in various parts of the game.
It would primarily depend on the encounter, such as number of targets, relative strength of individual targets(boss vs adds etc), purpose/importance of said targets within the scope of said encounter. And so on…
Not a full concept ofc, but here’s an old post where he tinkered with some early ideas. Granted it was years ago, so he might’ve changed his mind on some things since then, or not. How would you redesign our class - #6 by Bearples-gundrak
Note: I’m not suggesting that you should analyze those suggestions for a discussion with him, as I don’t know whether he himself still supports those ideas. In fact, he did mention a few replies further up that he want to avoid talking specifics until we actually get some form of hint or confirmation that they(devs) have it up for discussion.
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The devs have said on several occasions in the past how they design all classes and specs with the entire game in mind. No singular spec is designed for a specific part of the game, neither in terms of performance nor function/design. They often mention this during class panels at blizzcon, where the topic is generally up for discussion. Talking philosophy and mindset here ofc, not saying that they’ve accomplished those goals to perfection.
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SV, right now, does. If he wants SV reverted, it will lose that.
This was one of my favorite implications of your design, yeah.
I mentioned it because it was a point Bepples seemed keen on keeping.
Sorry, I should have just stuck with the latter phrasing (no constraints it needed to play around), as a lack of burst offers no way for the SV Hunter itself to play around, only for a party to be screwed over by a little less if they change how they, in turn, play.
Is a relative lack of burst even a fun/good/satisfyingly distinct point of identity, though?
Of course.
Aye. Fair enough. I still caution assuming that DoTs have any inherent value, but there’s certainly ways of applying, managing, and capitalizing upon them that could offer a niche that is decently unique but still applicable with decent breadth (and potentially multiple such niches at that, via talents, in addition to differences in complexity, etc., per player preference).
Much appreciated! Even if from back then, it’d still offer some insights (which I will take with due caution/flexibility).
Understood.
Sort of, if you include melee as a movement restriction. Though, it didn’t have such before they reworked it to melee.
I’d think of it rather as a foundation to build upon. It had some capabilities in the past, but again, this is something that could be further developed, based on the old model.
I guess that depends on whether you chose to play with a pet, or if you went with Lone Wolf. But no, in that sense, nothing specific for RSV. Having said that, I’m curious as to what you consider to be constraints, to play around, other than mobility restrictions such as hard-casting, and apparently, melee.
I’d argue not. Though, I’m perfectly fine, having a DoT focused spec being designed around having options of situational burst, or just in general, having less. Relative to the other specs.
Ofc it should have some capabilities. In the modern game, you really need to have that option to some degree.
I guess it would depend on how you look at it. DoTs allow for more flexibility in sustained pressure, for example on secondary/tertiary targets. They also allow you to focus pressure on said additional targets without a requirement of using abilities specifically tailored to multi-target application(AoE), as there can be situations where that is a downside.
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I dont feel as if surv needs a rework. Well, not to open the can of worms on the debate that never ends, going back to range would be swell. But in the mean time, in the current form, it just need tuning on some abilities. Maybe a few talents looked at/changed. But it doesnt need a full rework.
BM needs some love big time, but my personal opinion here (cant stress that enough), I feel MM needs the rework. MM use to get changed every xpac, was always good, then changed…but still good, then they finally settled on…this version in bfa and left it, a version that isnt very popular. And with losing DT and them messing up the tree, maybe its time MM just got reworked. Hell, they could bust out Legion or WoD or even MoP MM again. Not even reinvite the wheel, just be lazy and bring back a past version that worked.
BM should have been melee fighting along side your pets. Survival should have been max range dots and traps class staying away to never get caught and being a live lord.
None of them should have been made melee. Having a spec completely changed like that never works out well as you just upset the ones who enjoyed what was there. Plus it sets a bad precedent that your spec’s entire theme and identity can be changed and if you don’t like its complete playstyle shift, you just lost all of the years you poured into it.
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Yes and that was also a mistake when they did that in Legion. It just wasn’t as big a mistake as melee Survival.
If they made a Rogue spec ranged I would call that a mistake as well.
Demo wasn’t as bad as SV because it still maintained the same basic purpose as it did before. It still built of the core class and it didn’t actively surrender core capabilities of that class after having them for years.
Do you think that outside of these forums Survival is well-received?
Because it isn’t.
If my grandmother had wheels, she would be a bike.
Ranged SV and melee SV share the basic characteristic of being a “jack of all trades” when it comes to the toolkit. However one better fulfils that becuase it’s a ranged spec just like the base Hunter class. It doesn’t lose that capability. That’s not just a key difference: it’s the make-or-break distinction.
Having the capability to fight at ranged is better than not having it.
Hunters are otherwise completely capable ranged DPS, How does it make sense to spec out of it?
It should have high mobility, high control, and better attrition.
Yes it should be able to handle mechanics while keeping the pressure up. That’s the fun part of being a Hunter in PvE.
It doesn’t have to be as simplistic. There were plenty of gameplay options they could have applied to make it more complex. But it should absolutely achieve the feeling of versatility by being a great fit for mechanics on any encounter.
Having unlimited mobility doesn’t make every mechanic trivial, anyway. How to deal with mechanics with the toolkit such as Disengage and Deterrence had its own level of finesse.
It was perfectly healthy for the game for years.
I won’t engage in hypotheticals when we can learn from the past.
Assuming good balance like we had in Highmaul (and BRF to an extent), you went MM if you wanted high priority add burst, BM for cooldown burst and AoE, SV for high sustained damage. Also SV, unlike BM, was independent from a pet which was pretty important for some fights back then. In fact that was an aspect of the spec that made it very appealing in SoO, the tier just before Highmaul.
It offered enough to be the most played spec in the game during Highmaul.
You keep trying to portray RSV as useless/outclassed in an effort to achieve “just as bad” status with melee SV, but this is directly contradicted by the fact that RSV was a widely-included spec in PvE… at least until they went out of their way to gut it in HFC.
I mean, it evidently did a hell of a lot better job at making itself useful than melee SV, so what’s the contention?
As opposed to what melee SV offers to Hunters? For most of the Hunter playerbase it’s a 2-spec class. That’s supposed to be an improvement?
A heavily changed ranged SV is fine. I’d prefer it to keep some basic elements like high/full mobility, spreading poisons, Explosive Shots with proc-based gameplay, but there were many interesting mechanics they could have added to it just like they did to BM and MM.
I have written one before, but it was a long time ago and I don’t really care to do another one for talent trees. That’s why I generally just refer to Ghorak’s mock-up. I had gripes with it in the past (namely the inclusion of too many BM-esque pet mechanics + certain abilities quadrupling up on functionality making them seem unfocused) but it looks a lot better now.
I probably won’t be able to find it since I would have posted it before the 2019 forum rework. The gist of it was:
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The Lock and Load mechanic from WoD beta would return so that Lock and Load charges became a resource you could build and spend as needed
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Black Arrow would be changed to an electrical-themed ability to better fit the spec’s theme; let’s call it Charged Shot
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Serpent Sting would generate focus per tick. It actually did this for MoP SV but it was capped to once every 3 seconds. It wouldn’t be capped for a new ranged SV, so that it would be the primary way of generating focus (instead of Steady Shot) and it would scale with multidotting
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Both Serpent Sting and Charged Shot would multidot. Serpent Sting would be cheap and very easily spread via Serpent Spread, while Charged Shot would have a CD and depend on CDR via Serpent Sting ticks + the focus generated by Serpent Sting. It would be capped to a certain amount of targets e.g. 5.
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Charged Shot would proc Lock and Load just like it did in WoD so the damage could be funneled into Explosive Shot
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While the spec was focused around sustained damage and multidotting, it would have talent options for different areas of content. For example, for more single-target damage it could opt into allowing Charged Shot to stack up on the main target. For passive cleave it could opt into adding AoE to Explosive Shot (this is how ES originally worked in WotLK before they had to change it because it was super unbalanced for 2008 WoW). For burst AoE in M+ style content it could have Explosive Multishot; although they kind of ended up doing something similar with MM’s Salvo.
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It should have at least 1 cooldown and it should be something that affects the gameplay rather than just a percent damage increased, such as reducing the GCD and drastically buffing Lock and Loaded ES + increasing its proc rate.
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It could include Wildfire Bomb in some way, although I’m not sure of its role in the rotation (i.e. should it exist alongside Charged Shot or replace it?). Wildfire Bomb and Wildfire Infusion would thematically fit very well for the spec, though.
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It could include other elements of Legion/BFA SV where they make sense. One example is Caltrops. I also had the idea of igniting tar trap (yes I came up with this before they made Soulforge Embers in SL). However preferably it wouldn’t depend too much on traps like WotLK or Legion SV.
While I may have posted snark that amounted to it, I’ve never seriously been in favour of just copy-pasting WoD SV onto modern WoW. It wouldn’t even be viable because back then specs didn’t have their own talents. It would need its own set of talents and gameplay that varied between parts of the game.
Melee should be an option within BM rather than a default state of the tree; for example a talented stance that replaced the ranged shots like Cobra Strike and Barbed Shot with melee strikes like Raptor Strike and Lacerate. You would take a damage and HP boost in exchange for fighting in melee range with melee weapons, either dual-wield or two-hander.
This way you could achieve the true Rexxar fantasy in the spec inspired by it in the first place while not handicapping a Hunter spec at a baseline level thus making it repulsive to most Hunters. It also means we could focus SV on something good and unique instead of “melee BM with other random stuff thrown in”. The downside is they would have to keep it balanced; it would have to be an appealing talent without being either too strong so as to be mandatory or too weak so it’s useless to all but roleplayers, and that’s a tough balance to strike.
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Only in the same sense that target-specific CDs do, though.
If you can blow all your burst and only have your damage lull thereafter, yeah, you’re going to be less penalized from downtime, because you’ve already popped a disproportionate part of your damage for the following 2-minutes. (The inverse of really, really not wanting to have your burst interrupted.)
The thing about DoTs, then, unless applicable as a filler AoE or the like, is that the DoT amounts to a soft cooldown that is treated separately per target. So you get that would-be advantage on each… but now you also need a minimum threshold of remaining TTK for those soft-CDs to have any damage bonus over direct-damage filler (though that’s, again, inconsequential in long-term combat until the very end).
¯\__(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, same, especially if it has at least some degree of unique perk therein.
It’s always weird to me when “more sustained damage” is put forward as a perk, I guess, because sustained damage, unless a fight would end just before a given round of powerful CDs, is inherently weaker than having more burst.
At least, that is, until you get into that whole situation approach wherein, say, being melee (by not being taxed for the capacity to fight at range or by receiving compensation for that weakness) can be situationally stronger than being ranged. But at that point, the perk isn’t more sustained value (nor more sustained value), but rather just more total damage in a way that is mostly independent of other classes’/specs’ sync between fight length and their CD cycles, which then isn’t even a matter of damage floor (sustained…ness) so much as simply a spread multi-target niche.
- Which I guess is why I get confused by the idea that RSV provided much that was unique there, as even then it never really out-performed other specs especially suitable to that niche, given equal overall tuning. Instead it just felt… flat. Popular, sure, but not well differentiated nor capable of much of any ceiling to leveraging its (relative lack of) high points.
But, all that is history. And yeah, with at least some decent burst, it could be really great. Heck, UHDK is seeming a “debuff-focused” class yet manages obscene burst.
To me, I still prefer, much like what was done with Aspects-as-Stances before but in somewhat deeper manner, that Hunter and especially Survival be able to actively adapt and essentially… “tax-evade” — to, when the benefits of one things aren’t quite worth its costs or the costs of another thing are more than made up for, to just switch to the greater net benefit. As such, I still prefer a model that’s neither wholly bound to the constraints that come (indirectly) from being ranged nor (directly) from being melee.
But, that preference for active adaptation, though I do feel it fits Hunter to a tee, is quite subjective.
Help me understand how this is different than bm?
Well for starters it doesn’t have to literally steal abilities from BM…
It’s not stealing. You are a hunter. All of the abilities are hunter abilities. You then choose how to specialize. Of course some abilities are shared by the specializations, it would make less sense if they weren’t.
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Control referring to CC?
- (Control over the pace of one’s damage has tended to be pretty well zero-sum with “attrition”.)
I would have to say it’s a small part, especially if I never have to think about / prepare for it such that it doesn’t much reward good knowledge/intuition. But fair enough.
Maybe we’re just hitting that difference again in what level we’re looking at here, but, to me, unless overpowered, there’s a balance to how well one can fit the mechanics of a given encounter. Whatever one is capable of, there’s some compensatory cost. No downtime — no burst. No risk — lesser reward. Etc., etc.
It also means that there’s nothing much to master of/in those contexts, which would make the spec that much more dull to me, and I suspect to many others.
Now if you’re just talking about “doing ‘mechanics’” in the sense of flitting off to Narnia and doing the isolated bonus-work so that the encounter is simplified for everyone else, sure.
But we’re not in the past. The average spec now has considerably more mobility tools now than then. For passively unhampered mobility and reach to be nearly so advantageous now, you would have to reel all that back and start taking tools away from players or to make the fights uncomfortable/unfit for everyone else. It’s not going to offer now the same advantage it has at times back then, and it probably shouldn’t.
Except, all you’ve pointed out thus far is that when a job offers higher total damage, it gets played. Add unlimited mobility atop that, and it’s even more assuredly played.
You say it niched itself by being a more sustained class, yet, that’s exactly what the HFC nerfs pushed it deeper towards in removing the bonus direct damage from Serpent Spread.
Having one’s damage be more sustained (a euphemism for “lacks burst”), is not an advantage in itself. The goal is simply compensatory higher total damage. Then, if everyone else gets screwed over enough, SV climbs to the top of the high mound of the swamp.
But while everyone else fights to get more value out of their damage profile, that kind of RSV can only hope that everyone else would sufficiently fail or that it’s sufficiently overpowered that it can do fine despite going at everything on easy mode.
Granted, I guess that’s still… valid? It just… seems a really awful way to design a spec especially when you have BM right there with a similar lack of burst and dependence on tuning to see any value.
I mean, that’s fair. They’re ridiculous amounts of time. The bullets here (and I think any lost details are covered in what Ghorak kindly linked of your stuff from earlier) are still sufficient to get a decent glimpse of the overall idea. Much appreciated.
I’m still having a little trouble understanding the full implications of this one. It seems like it’d offer more damage-rate control, but to the point you’d be basically completely disengaged from any sense of urgency to spend procs.
Does the magic just not seem fitting to you, despite older lore excuses?
I can dig that partial mirroring/differentiation.
I mean, even Blizzard will grab the low-hanging fruit eventually.
You can have both, right, so long as their CDs are distinct enough. You’d have to replace Pheromone Bomb’s effect if you don’t want to force BM overlap again, but I’m sure you come up with something there. Shrapnel Bomb could actually be really neat as a capitalizing attack, maybe, wherein your Explosive Shots deform enemy armor, and then you blow it clear off (though these days it would only affect your own physical damage, outside of maybe a PvP Talent)?
Real quick: It seems like the primary value one gets out of traps is that they, if all goes well, allow for effect to be delayed which in turn can mean greater burst if you have some sort of synergy that’d take advantage of the increased overlap of skills/effects that the delay could provide. Are there any way traps might help with that in what you imagine of the spec?
Additionally, might it be worth having some sort of manual detonation feature (blow Freezing Trap early, then LoS behind it, or already maxes out the range as per the old Waylay passive on Legion SV such that Binding Trap [–> a revamped Binding Shot] can pull enemies in from further away) or… shaped charges, etc.?
Alright. That’s reassuring.
I’ll agree that SV-Kill Command isn’t BM-Kill Command. But it does make some sense to call it ‘theft’ when it was the key ability of BM, and now it’s been bastardized into another spec. Similarly, you wouldn’t expect to see Aimed Shot on BM, right?
Filler is one thing. The rotational centerpiece is another.
Yeah, but shouldn’t those be the utilities, not the rotational cores (even if mostly just shared in name)?
Why do both have multishot then? There has to be some overlap. These changes are a response to Legion feedback. Some players felt that spec was more important than class and complained.
Blizzard attempted to listen. This is the compromise. Honestly it mostly makes sense.