its a flavor tier, every class has 2 of them. The real issue is the row with posthaste as that is a must have.
Since this thread is active again Iāve updated the main post. If you see any mistakes or things I forgot please let me know.
Gotta disagree here, cheetah could 100% be used in combat for kiting and running away from things provided you knew for sure you would not be dazed. OG Cheetah was incredibly strong compared to Trail Blazer.
A dev only just found out that hunter wild spirits/nightfae cov ability is useless and thereās only 2 months to go to launch 
1 Like
Did they ever replace aspect of the pack? Why did they even remove it in the first place? Would have been nice to get it back with the great unpruning. Some changes I would like to see though is baseline serpent sting, shouldnāt be a talent for any spec. I say give wildfire grenades to all specs. And maybe some more interaction with traps. Snake trap, the explosive trap, not the one that does a knock back, but the one that burns enemies. I just think they took too much away from the identity of hunters.
1 Like
I donāt understand how Blizzard could hire and retain such incompetent people. How is that even possible? Like are they hiring people that have no idea about game design? No company that has as much resources as ActiBlizz should be hiring such people.
3 Likes
Touche. It blows my mind that the last time Blizzard delivered on hunters was WOD, which was considered the worst of the expansions (before BFA came out).
Itās important to note that the WoD Hunter changes were generally very badly received at the time. It only seems good in retrospect because it was better than what came after it. WoD Hunter was basically a case of a bad class design team not having enough time to ruin the MoP Hunter.
11 Likes
I honestly thought the mastery for MM was novel and worth exploring; I am honestly angry at Blizzard for abandoning it after one expansion, but it was still modeled after MOP, which had a horrible Mastery. They did not have to remake MM in Legion: that model was still worth a look.
SV didnāt change much from MOP for which I was simultaneously disappointed but grateful. No idea who hated Ghostcrawler enough to break such a simple and elegant idea, but you donāt break such an absurdly versatile for PVE (and utterly useless for PVP) spec unless it was out of pure spite.
I think the big problem that results from none of Blizzardās devs maining a hunter (or giving enough of an ear to intelligent players who do) is that theyāre heavily invested in Fantasy-Based Class Design: creating a class the way it should work in their heads rather than dealing with the way the class works in the game.
Itās sort of like those BS martial arts where it would totally work if everyone would just cooperate and follow the rules because thereās absolutely no way that a high-mobility high-damage class like DH wouldnāt get up in a MMās grill the second they start that three second cast (or was it two? Whatever, it takes too long) and force them to burn their one defensive.
No, theyāre absolutely certain that everyone is a perfect gentleman who observes the Marquess of Queensberry Rules of PVP and PVE to keep things sporting and by God and Queen, nobody would seriously try to get a 2% advantage over everyone else.
TL;DR: Blizzardās devs have their collective heads up their butts.
7 Likes
It was more likely less hate and more this phenomenon where when a new person takes over something, regardless of how well designed/implemented it is, they have to make changes to leave their mark on it.
5 Likes
In this case, less a mark and more a poop stain.
8 Likes
WoD Survival ditched a few mechanics, like Cobra refreshing Serpent Sting, that took a lot of the skill and flow out of the spec. Itās no wonder they targeted it for the melee revamp, they had already broken and diluted it.
Well isnāt this a whole lot of nonsense. Cobra Shot refreshing Serpent Sting was not something integral to the flow or the skill cap of Survival. Before WoD, you would basically cast Serpent Sting once per target and then just forget it existed. Because of this they cut out the middle man and made Serpent Sting something applied passively by Arcane Shot.
Yes, it is a wonder how they targeted SV for a melee revamp. If they found it was ādilutedā (still a nonsense statement BTW) they could have just added more mechanics to it to make it more complex and involved. For example, in 6.2 we had a class trinket that gave Black Arrow a reset proc so you could multi-dot with Black Arrow. Making that baseline among other tweaks would have taken far less effort than making SV melee, while also being more successful.
8 Likes
You know, the lack of changes and the constant reworks reminds me of demonology warlocks. How many times did they rework, nerf, and break that spec to where it became unplayable and then rework it again? Affliction also had that same issue to a certain extent. I think hunter, mainly Survival is in that same state. They donāt know what to do with it or how to fix it. I donāt think just reverting it back to ranged will just make everything better. The question is, what to do with it afterwards. Iām sure RSV still had its own issues. I didnāt play hunter much, I was more of a warlock/warrior person, but when I did play RSV, it was pretty fun. Honestly I donāt care which way they go with it. As long as itās fun. Just donāt want another spam x ability. There are plenty of other melee classes with that exact type of game play that does it 1000x better. Iād like to see more focus on traps, gadgets, and things like that. Thereās literally none of that right now in the spec. Hell they could just turn it into a tinker/machinist spec. Ion said SV and MM were to similar in a interview. Theyāre hunters. Of course thereās going to be some overlap. Hell thereās a lot of overlap between fire mage, destro warlock, and to a certain extent elemental shaman. So that excuse doesnāt really work. And Iām sure that people that design games for a living can come up with multiple different ideas to differentiate the specs enough that they feel different from each other, but still share the core of what a hunter is.
3 Likes
Wall of text crits for 99 million!
2 Likes
But they finally nailed a really fun and warlock feeling spec albeit eventually, at least imo. Hereās hoping the same happens for sv!
1 Like
As much as I hate melee survival, imp mother demo is much worse. Itās still easily the clunkiest spec in the entire game. Current survival is at least kind of interesting in pvp.
Meta demo and explosive shot sv were my favorite specs thou, and they are still both dead in the name of āspec fantasyā.
4 Likes
I remember snake traps on low level area mailboxes. One killed me and I thought it was so epic.
3 Likes
I would love if they made survival a more gadget oriented spec. I shamelessly want a reincarnation of Warhammer Online engineers. My favorite class of all time.
1 Like
Itās so obvious that most of the dev either donāt play the game at all, or donāt play the class/ spec that they are working on.
If any other class on beta was in the slightest of messed up how survival is right now, people would lose their minds. Because itās survival, no one bats an eye.
Spells donāt work. Conduits not even in game, some spells require bow, some a polearm, some just an axe. Such a joke
A lot of people were angry at the WoD changes. Nothing felt game-breaking though. I was still able to play my hunter.
On the other hand, I clearly remember my heart sinking when I logged into the Legion pre-patch. I was completely dumb-founded - and very sad. I wasnāt even angry yet. It literally broke my heart. I am not ashamed to admit that I cried.
Difference:
WoD made me angry
Legion broke my heart
Not even on the same scale.
In fact, nothing they have done in the game has been as painful as the Legion Hunter class changes. Corruptions, Azerite Traits, Artifact Power, Titan Forging, Pathfinder, Covenants etc. As bad as these changes were/are, they were NOTHING compared to what Legion did to the Hunter class.
I am still heartbroken, but Iām angry as hell now too.
They need to stop to pushing āSpec Identityā at the hunter class. IT FAILED. They admitted it, but they wonāt undo it. The devs have their head so far up their own egos, they donāt even know why their unpruned class abilities donāt work for every spec or why people donāt want them.
I swear to God the only reason theyāre pushing the 5% HM at Hunters is so they can check a box that says āWe returned a class ability - unpruning is done.ā
13 Likes