Help me understand how this is different than bm?
Well for starters it doesnât have to literally steal abilities from BMâŚ
Itâs 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 werenât.
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Control referring to CC?
- (Control over the pace of oneâs damage has tended to be pretty well zero-sum with âattritionâ.)
I would have to say itâs a small part, especially if I never have to think about / prepare for it such that it doesnât much reward good knowledge/intuition. But fair enough.
Maybe weâre just hitting that difference again in what level weâre looking at here, but, to me, unless overpowered, thereâs a balance to how well one can fit the mechanics of a given encounter. Whatever one is capable of, thereâs some compensatory cost. No downtime â no burst. No risk â lesser reward. Etc., etc.
It also means that thereâs 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 youâre just talking about âdoing âmechanicsââ 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 weâre 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. Itâs not going to offer now the same advantage it has at times back then, and it probably shouldnât.
Except, all youâve pointed out thus far is that when a job offers higher total damage, it gets played. Add unlimited mobility atop that, and itâs even more assuredly played.
You say it niched itself by being a more sustained class, yet, thatâs exactly what the HFC nerfs pushed it deeper towards in removing the bonus direct damage from Serpent Spread.
Having oneâs damage be more sustained (a euphemism for âlacks burstâ), 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 itâs sufficiently overpowered that it can do fine despite going at everything on easy mode.
Granted, I guess thatâs 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, thatâs fair. Theyâre 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.
Iâm still having a little trouble understanding the full implications of this one. It seems like itâd offer more damage-rate control, but to the point youâd 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. Youâd have to replace Pheromone Bombâs effect if you donât want to force BM overlap again, but Iâm 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 thatâd 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 [â> a revamped Binding Shot] can pull enemies in from further away) or⌠shaped charges, etc.?
Alright. Thatâs reassuring.
Iâll agree that SV-Kill Command isnât BM-Kill Command. But it does make some sense to call it âtheftâ when it was the key ability of BM, and now itâs been bastardized into another spec. Similarly, you wouldnât expect to see Aimed Shot on BM, right?
Filler is one thing. The rotational centerpiece is another.
Yeah, but shouldnât 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.
âSomeâ doesnât quantify a degree of that overlap, though.
To take Multi-shot on BM, for exampleâŚ
You could as easily, and probably for the better, make Concussive Shot baseline, put Multi-shot in its place in the class tree, and have Beast Mastery instead apply Beast Cleave any time it strikes multiple targets with a single attack. And the Multi-Shot would be wholly optional.
Hydraâs Bite? Beast Cleave.
Hi-Explosive Trap? Beast Cleave.
Explosive Shot? Beast Cleave.
Cobra Shot under AotW? Beast Cleave.
Chakrams? Beast Cleave.
Each hit of Stampede? Beast Cleave.
A returned Lynx Rush? Beast Cleave.
Multi-shot isnât rotationally core because an overlap is needed. Itâs because thereâs simply a shortage in permitted means. It should, as a non-BM tool, simply be another indirect means BM has to do BM things.
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What would msv do with that?
This would be impossible to balance.
Nothing; itâd still have Concussive Shot, or Carve/Butchery in that slot. SV already uses its own talents for the class tree, just like each of the Warrior spec have their own versions of certain talents.
No, not particularly. The most that change would mean is, when Barbed Shot and Kill Command resets are few, youâd use slightly more Cobra Shots than now if and only if Focus would otherwise have been a bottleneck, since prepping AoE would situationally cost less Focus.
Thatâs besides the point, though. BM uses Multi-shot because itâs there and Beast Cleave was, for now, designed inflexibly, not because every spec âneedsâ to borrow skills from other specializations for its core rotation.
- Since Legion, the specialization provides oneâs primary rotational fixtures and features; shared rotational tools mostly just provide additional means of exploiting them.
Survival doesnât need to depend on a pet or to use Kill Command any more than it needs Quickdraw. It just needs to feel like, on the whole, it has its own personality and offers its own flow and strengths.
Imagine if all 3 specs had Multi-Shot from the baseline Hunter kit but all three of them augmented Multi-Shot in unique ways that complemented their spec identities. Sounds like a cool modern concept but I guess itâs too far ahead of its time in 2023.
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They already do, though, except in that one of them is called Carve now (still an obvious and direct analog, with only MM using its filler AoE more often than per ~6s)?
BM: Beast Cleave
MM: Trick Shots
SV: Frenzied Strikes (WFB CDR)
But the point remains: Is it somehow vital to BM that Multi-shot be the only way to trigger Beast Cleave? It certainly isnât the only way to trigger Trick Shots on MM, nor the only way to trigger WFB CDR on SV.
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A spec which relies on/provides target specific burst, and/or stacked AoE, isnât(shouldnât be) as valuable as a spec which is capable of multi-DoTing, in multi-target scenarios(assuming stacked/spread cleave or âspread AoEâ, not stacked AoE).
For stacked AoE targeting a shorter timeframe, generally, Iâd argue that a spec capable of burst AoE should be the stronger option. Obviously a DoT based spec could certainly be capable of stacked burst AoE as well, but IMO, shouldnât be at the same levelâŚ
For ST, itâs a different topic ofc.
I guess, for me, it would depend on how much capability in other areas is sacrificed for it. And again, itâs not worth looking at in a vacuum, but has to be meassured towards encounters.
Obviously, if no encounter/not enough encounters favor such a profile, then it wonât be as much of a perk.
The argument there, is that RSV provided the foundation for what could be done in that area, within the scope of the hunter class(relative to other hunter specs, and what their individual strengths were/are).
Was it fully realised(based on how we work with mechanical themes/niches today) back then? Certainly not. This has never been the argumentâŚ
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My two cents on BM.
I actually enjoy BM and I think it is probably the most successful of the three specializations for all content currently. Slight changes I think would help make it perfect.
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Change barb shot to 8s cooldown, but 9s on target so if played perfectly you can self build frenzy. Keep the proc talent, but now it is just a bonus for if you mess up or to more quickly getting back Besital Wrath.
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Increase the window for beast cleave to 8-10s. Honestly more of a quality of life improvement, trying to burst AoE, build frenzy and maintain beast cleave with the lackluster multi-shot is frustrating.
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Change Scent of Blood to give 2 frenzy stacks instead of 2 barb shots. This would quicken our ramp time and change our opening rotation from:
BS > BS > BW > BS
to BS > BW -
BM needs burst and something to keep an eye out for in the middle of a fight, so change Hunterâs Prey from 10% proc to 20% and introduce another talent that when kill shot is cast, your pet will kill command at the same time.
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Might respond to the rest later but I wanted to highlight this. It comes across as the same logic behind Double Tapâs removal, or at least the logic offered by fanboys because Blizzard never actually gave their reasoning for that (nor this Serpent Sting change back then).
Nerfs arenât reworks/refocusing or whatever other euphemistic reframing people come up with. Theyâre just nerfs. That Improved Serpent Sting removal did nothing for the spec other than cement* the specâs total unviability by that point in the expansion.
It was a sustained damage nerf. Improved Serpent Sting was something that gave damage on every single Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot cast. Removing it was something like a 20% damage nerf to the spec. At that point its sustained damage was worse than any other spec in the game.
Improved Serpent Sting was an integral part of the spec since Cataclysm when it was the major part of what made Cata SV so successful. There was zero perspective that makes sense for removing it other than âweâd rather you didnât play Survivalâ. After all, announcing Legion and Survivalâs melee rework was right around the corner, and they did the same thing to Demonology in the very same patch and that time they admitted it. It also had the effect of a) convincing players that Serpent Stingâs initial tick was an unintended bug, and b) making playersâ last impression of ranged SV as a hobbled and broken spec so they might assume it was always like that. Look at how Toxiktraktor goes around saying the spec was always unpopular. Sure, heâs easily the most mistaken poster on the forum, but heâs not the only one under that impression.
*Note I say âcementâ rather than âcauseâ because the spec was already screwed. The main reason is because of that DREADFUL legendary ring that nuked class balance from orbit and trivialised the entire tier. It completely invalidated any spec that didnât revolve around a big 2 minute burst phase.
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This has nothing in common with Double Tapâs removal, nor whatever pissant excuses people made for its not being compensated for.
But the 6.2 changes to Serpent Spread / Improved Serpent Sting were NOT just a pure nerf, as explicitly stated in the patch notes that made that change:
6.2 Patch Notes - Wowhead
Multistrike increased in effectiveness by 19%. This buff is counter-balanced by reducing Serpent Stingâs damage (below).
- Serpent Sting no longer deals an initial âtickâ of damage when the periodic effect is first applied.
The reason for that shift, too, was given at the time: The initial bonus tick behaved in an unintended manner with Multistrike, allowing it quadratically cascading damage from procs.
Was it insufficiently compensated for? Apparently so. (In much the same way as Mastery or resource generation bugs screwed over other specs during that period because the oversight was considered negligible when it wasnât.)
But it was not a pure nerf. It was literally and explicitly an intended damage shift as a last-resort way of avoiding a bug, which on the whole fell quite short.
- Not anywhere near 20% DPS short, mind you, but short nonetheless.
They didnât buff multistrike; they buffed Survivalâs mastery at the time which increased our magic damage. And no, it did not adequately counter-balance losing Improved Serpent Sting. They tuned the spec around that wonky interaction with Multistrike (which was more of an oversight and not a bug) and then pulled it out from under it. They even nerfed Explosive Shot to ensure that the spec didnât get âcounter-balancedâ.
To be fair, I can believe that they were just that breathtakingly incompetent that they truly believed that their changes in 6.2 were âbalancingâ. But they werenât. Survival was already in a dire position going into that patch because of the legendary ring + their laughably undertuned tier set bonus, compared to Marksmanship (which was buffed in that patch, BTW). They did rush in some emergency hotfix buffs to the spec just a few days before Legion was announced, but again it wasnât enough to save the spec.
https://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/Raid_T18M.html
Those are the simulation results on a 5 minute single-target boss fight (i.e. the ideal situation for a sustained-damage spec), after the hotfix buffs. Imagine what it was before, or on literally any other damage profile like priority add burst i.e. the meta for almost every fight in HFC.
Then why remove a crucial baseline part of the spec? Letâs also not forget that a) they planned on removing Multistrike anyway, and b) the spec was going into 6.2 severely disadvantaged anyway. And youâd better believe it was pointed out to them every step of the way through the 6.2 PTR. The change doesnât make sense outside of the perspective of âweâre deleting this spec anyway so who caresâ.
The interaction they were âfixingâ was that Arcane Shot applied Serpent Sting and they implemented it as a separate and simultaneous ability cast. So the Arcane Shot could multistrike, as could each of the Serpent Sting casts. Yes, itâs unusual. But it wasnât gamebreaking, and they kind of tuned the spec around it. Then suddenly they have second thoughts and instead of, say, restricting Multistrikeâs application from this interaction, or just not doing anything because it wasnât even overpowered, they removed the baseline interaction the spec had since 2010 entirely. Again, makes zero sense unless the perspective is âweâll delete the whole spec anywayâ.
It really wasnât. We strongly depended on those ISS procs ESPECIALLY in AoE. It was utterly spec-gutting when they did it.
It was mainly a problem with damage profile, so in fact itâs actually quite similar to the Double Tap change and the alleged logic behind that⌠only a lot worse.
1 Like
In that aspect, Iâll agree.
The difference, to my mind, was that Double Tap was removed without any sort of technical reason âno communication even about its PvP implications, for which DT already had separate tuningâ and without compensation (Tactical Reload is practically a under Surging Shots and LnL, as so few casts will come from a full, non-reset CD). ISS procs were affected by a Multistrike bug.
My apologies; I had just looked at the mmochamp forums/archives and tried to cross-reference the spell ID, as Survivalâs old Mastery was no longer housed on WoWhead (despite other equally old Masteries still being under their current IDs despite equally large changes).
They werenât⌠that incompetent? Both the before and after, and the comment surrounding either position (and lack of âWe would rather you not playâŚâ style comments) would appear to suggest otherwise.
Aye. I remember writing about this at the time.
15% buff to Aimed Shot; Iâm aware.
The point remains, though, that the specâs profile was significantly stronger when it was less based on pure sustain and less based on DoT tick damage alone. Even had it been compensated properly, it would have put itself in an even less often applicable niche, all still without any unique ways to capitalize upon its spread sustained damage.
They didnât increase its sustained damage, though. Its sustained damage was less on 6.2 patch day than before.
Plus ISS was relevant on every Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot cast. So itâs only burst in the context of literal moment-to-moment ability casts. Otherwise itâs upfront damage attached to abilities we were casting all the time.
If they didnât do the nerf SV would have been screwed anyway, along with a lot of other specs including BM. That legendary ring was a tactical nuke against the gameâs class balance. They were thoroughly warned against ever adding it but they mostly ignored the warnings and assumed people were reacting*. The result was an entire year of PvE dominated by a handful of specs with 2 minute burst phases that aligned with the ring such as Arcane, Subtlety, and Marksmanship.
Having SV remaining relevant in HFC and beyond would have just required a lot of other class design decisions going the right way. Other than the ring, they needed to not make every single boss in HFC revolve around priority add burst. That would be a lot just to save SV, but really it wouldnât have been just for SV but rather in the interest of healthier encounter design. They also should have committed to SVâs spec-specific cooldown they promised to give in WoD beta before abandoning (no doubt because thatâs when they decided to abandon ranged SV entirely). Yes, it was meant to be about sustained damage, but evidently theyâve engineered a game where a spec canât survive without a damage cooldown. I think itâs even worse now than it is then. So we can still have specs that are more oriented towards sustained damage but not to the point where they lack a cooldown phase entirely.
One thing I forgot to mention in that post: when they brought Serpent Sting back in 8.0, it had an initial tick and still does to this day. So again it was a change that only made sense in the context of removing ranged SV rather than maintaining healthy game design. Blizzard got it into their heads that leaving specs deliberate broken for over a year was acceptable, along with a lot of other breathtakingly stupid and reckless decisions in 2015 and 2016. I knew Hazzikostasâ leadership was bad news from the game all the way from early 2015 but he surprised even me in just how bad it could be.
* Funnily enough, the early version of the legendary ring was even worse. Originally the idea was that there was a major stat buff that was always up on someone with the ring in the raid depending on ring stat type (phys dps/spell dps/tank/healer), the strength of the buff depended on how many shared that ring type, and it rotated every 20 secs to a random other member. So you would basically run a raid of all phys DPS, or all casters, and your performance was entirely dictated by how many times the game decided to give you the buff instead of someone else. At least I have to give credit to them for not going down that direction, but the final result was still really bad.
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Because its total damage was decreased (however intended or not, it faced a net nerf). Its portion of damage dealt via periodic damage (and thus shrinking the specâs damage dynamics / gap between minimum and maximum damage per second or GCD) and was objectively increased. Perhaps weâre using âsustainâ to mean subtly different things, but to me, that⌠was a push towards the profile being even more based on sustained (over time / DPS-floor) sources.
My point was that the upfront damage mattered, though, increasingly as enemy TTK (or the time by which one needed them dead) decreases.
Without something to capitalize upon those DoTs indirectly (Malefic Rapture being a notorious but still apt example) or alternatives (which, since the DoT was rolled into and watered down by being applied by your filler attacks anyways, SV did not have), a DoT-centric build can end up rather finnicky, to say the least.
How? Comparing a well-tuned iteration of RSV against well-tuned iteration of MSV⌠MSV now has burst. Its damage profile has some really good focus damage even while managing decent AoE. It now has funnel damage, even if not quite to the degree of some other specs. Even its damage lulls, with only the occasional bomb and Mongoose Fury window, are still directable for more focused/purposed damage. Its AoE isnât just a modest DoT-maintenance loop and ends up therefore far more flexible. Etc., etc.
It has more that one can do wrong, for sure, but also far more situations into which it can (actively) adapt itself well. (Not quite to the degree Iâd like most, but still, itâs up there in terms of versatility-as-âtax evasion,â to use the earlier analogy.)
In terms of a profile, given equal tuning, MSV finds itself much more often applicable even while typically offering more distinct advantages.
That profile still isnât the best that can be bought/budgeted/exploited (largely due to 2-3 inadvertent constraints whose effect the dev(s) seemed to have underestimated), but it is an improvement.
Oh, Iâm aware. I PTRed that cluster----. v.v
But anyways, that is the past. While Iâd caution against such a similarly sustain-intensive damage profile as even pre-6.2 RSV, I donât imagine anything like that would be attempted again anyways. Sorry for taking us on such a long tangent.
âItâs worseâ as in the circumstances of PvE mean a purely sustained damage spec would fare even worse now. In early WoD SV was actually an extremely capable spec. They hotfixed a sizeable Serpent Sting buff in during Highmaul progression then the spec took off. For a month or so it was by far the most played spec in the game. Many donât realise this because they look at the warcraftlogs data for Highmaul which by default only shows data from months after the fact when Highmaul was obsolete content. But it performed great and it did that without having any cooldown at all.
I doubt any spec could get away with that these days. They just design fights that are way more oriented around moments of burst. Thatâs why in those bullet points I wrote earlier about a hypothetical ranged SV I included a DPS CD even though itâs ostensibly intended to be sustained DPS. Because at this point a spec just needs burst to survive; especially AoE burst due to M+.
Itâs kind of like how Hunter defensives are crap. We actually have much more defensive capability now than what we had in MoP, the often-cited high point for the class. But both the encounter design and just about every class has leapt so far ahead in that regard that MoP-level healing/mitigation is no longer enough. You wouldnât get absolutely nuked by unavoidable pulse AoE all the time back in MoP but now that characterises PvE design.