Shower-thoughts on Survival

Classes Hunter
1

So, I was just thinking about what if Survival was a remaster of it’s old version, using WoD as an example because it was it’s last ranged iteration but with a fake and optional deadzone. Now, I know how this sounds, but the idea here is something that is completely cosmetic. I would just like to clarify that yes, I know it’s more effort than Blizzard wishes to put into a spec, but even if it were not, I am sure someone thought about it and yet they decided to go “full” melee, again, this was merely a shower thought.

So here’s how it would be:

  • Equipment -
    Bow - It would be the main weapon, stats, attack speed and whatnot, even when attacking in melee, it would follow the bow’s rules, the only concern I can think off is having your character’s auto attack be a bit slower to mimic the bow’s auto-shots.

Optional Green or Blue melee weapon of your choosing, two handed or dual wield, as long hunters can equip it. - Why green or blue? Because they would be purely cosmetic, so it would be a way to avoid the issue of “Every weapon is a hunter weapon”. It would be equipped in a secondary weapon slots, fully transmogrifiable.

Now, why optional? It’s understandable that some people that play Hunter, do so because they enjoy bows, crossbows and guns, so my idea here was, if they don’t equip the melee weapons on the secondary slot, they don’t get the fake deadzone.

Talking about it…

  • Fake Deadzone - How it would work is simple, understandably, a lot of people hated the original deadzone because people could get into a range that you can attack with neither melee nor ranged. My idea simply was, to make the fake deadzone a small “x” wide circle from your character and inside the entirety of that circle, your character would pull his melee weapons and hit people with them, I hope I explained this right, but sometimes the language difference really catches me.

  • Abilities - For the most part, I my idea here would be simply to rename abilities to fit a melee theme, maybe an icon change for added flavor, but nothing more, there should be no damage difference between melee and ranged, it should be a purely flavorful/RP choice to attack in melee, ranged or both if you so wish.

  • Cobra Shot ➧ Serpent Strike/Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bite Note - Just reiterating, It would simply be a name change, just saying different name options

  • Black Arrow ➧ Shadow Hit

  • Explosive Shot ➧ Wildfire Bomb/Stick Bomb

  • Arcane Shot ➧ Arcane Infusion

  • Multi-Strike ➧ Carve

  • Counter Shot ➧ Muzzle/Counter Strike Note - Due to balancing, Counter Shot/Muzzle or even Counter Strike should remain on a 30s CD with a 3s Silence even if used in melee range.

Now, I am no theorycrafter, I am sure if Blizzard were to bring back Survival it would be different in many ways to fit in better with current design as well as I know that there are more abilities than that, I was merely trying to demonstrate my train of thought ability wise.

Now, some abilities like Barrage, for obvious reasons, should be bow only, I thought about maybe using Fury of the Eagle animation for melee, but in the end, it would just make sense for it to be an ability where your character would pull their bow and arrow.

  • Closing Thoughts - I understand that many people enjoy current survival, as well as many people wish for days where the spec was vastly different. I personally just wish there was a class that represented the fantasy of a Ranger, not a nature connected woodsman or a master archer, simply someone versatile that adapts to the situation they are in, if an enemy gets to close, you strike them with a sword and a dagger, if they are far away you pull your bow and shoot them down. My whole idea here was simply to give the player an optional to play out a fantasy that they enjoy without limiting their damage capacity or utility.

Anyways, a lot of you probably won’t read this, which I understand completely, it turned out to be quite the wall of text, in the end, I know this would be too much work, so as I said, it was simply a shower-thought, I guess the ability to imagine things the way we would like for them to be is part of what makes us humans. (don’t quote me on that, though)

2

To check, you basically have dynamic abilities that use melee weapons (and perhaps a rename/reiconed tooltip, and perhaps even a tad more direct damage or some bonus effect) when in melee range, but otherwise use the ranged weapon (and icon/name/tooltip)?

3

Exactly. To avoid any balancing issues, it would add a fake deadzone where your character would pull up their melee weapon(s), as long as they have them equipped in their hypothetical secondary weapons slot. But, as far as damage and whatever else attach to balancing is concerned, it would be the same spell, even the same tooltip with the only thing being modified is name and maybe icon for flavor.

4

That wouldn’t actually do anything about balancing issues, but I can’t say I mind the aesthetic.

Note, though, you can perhaps add a mock Sigil slot or two to SV that then allows them to transmog a weapon of their choice, as compared to merely a “blue or green” auto-generated weapon. I would think this essential for that aesthetic.

5

Well, I simply meant as, if there was a proper deadzone, it would bring back the pre-cata issues of people trying to be in the exact range where you can’t hit them with either of your weapons, this way, pulling up your melee weapons would be completely cosmetic, since all your damage would be coming from your bow, as well as to avoid a way that would basically create a meta, should, say, equipping melee weapons be a talent choice that for whatever reason ends up being better than ranged, it would break the idea of allowing players to choose how they want to play their character.

Understandably though, there would be some animation tunning here and there so that your dual-wield for an example, would mimic the bow’s speed.

True enough, I am open for any ideas on how things could be in this imaginary build of Survival. In all honesty I made the equipment choices in the most straightforward way I could find, but definitely didn’t end up being the least cluttered.

By the way, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts! I forgot to mention pre-edit.

6

Don’t need to, as long as the DPS output is the same. These days it doesn’t matter for squat if you’re attacking 3 times per second or once every 3 seconds. Weapon enchant procs are all RPPM, as are nearly all trinket and class effects. Spell pushback is proportional to weapon speed, and is capped. There’s literally no true mechanical difference between fast and slow white attacks anymore (at least, for most specs. A couple, like Arms and Havoc with Demon Blades, scale directly with auto-attack rate).

As with Vitwolfen, I don’t really see your “deadzone” as having a lick of balance impact, but I do rather like the aesthetic of swapping back and forth. Heck, just for fun, let the spec keep but Harpoon and Disengage, so they can easily swap back and forth.

1 Like
7

nope like my melee weapons as main weapons.

8

I think it’s just Havoc that does that now, right? If I equip a one-hander on Arms, I get more frequent but smaller chunks of Rage, else Shield dancing in your free Shield Slam would truly be a thing given the Rage bonus you’d generate.

Or, I’m probably misreading that and “rate” here refers to the intervals and not to the actual resource generated per minute?

Admittedly, I’ve never had 3 weapons of the same ilvl through which to bother testing Demon Blades against varying Weapon Speeds.

So, dumb thought, but… is Harpoon even particularly “Survival”-esque if Survival no longer means a boar-hunting spearman? I mean, if my intent is tactical, optimized approach, the last thing I want is for my enemy to determine that approach path, I would think. If we’ve no significant mobility tools outside of a long CD, an escape, and a charge, we don’t really have any of the agency one would expect from the spec’s alleged identity.

Compare that to even the likes of, say, a slightly more reactive Chi Torpedo (especially if it, like Roll previously, could still be clipped short via a queued melee skill).

But, yeah, let’s definitely keep as many deliberate and interesting mobility tools as we can on “Survival” spec.

9

Iiiish. So, each weapon type has a fixed speed nowadays. 2h are all 3.6, 1h are all 2.6, daggers are all 1.8, etc. Rage generation is based on that base speed. However, increases to your actual attack speed (haste, other effects that simply increase attack speed, etc) using the same weapon do increase your rage generation per minute.

Demon Blades is the same way, except DHs literally can’t even equip anything except 2.6 speed weapons.

A good example of this is the new Windfury Totem from Enhancement. The extra attacks generate rage just like normal, so Arms actually gets the most benefit of any melee spec in the game from it (like Vanilla and BC, it’s party-only, not raid-wide, so party-stacking is back on the menu). DHs with DB and Outlaw rogues (due to offhand attack energy regen) are roughly tied, but substantially behind Arms (the rough sims I’m seeing show Windfury as being about a 7% boost for Arms, about a 4.5% for Havoc + Demon Blades and Outlaw).

All I really meant here is that attack speed doesn’t matter for most specs as far as white attacks go. All that matters there for most specs is white DPS.

Doesn’t seem particularly relevant when the idea of the ability is yoinking yourself to the target. It’s just a creative version of Charge, Wild Charge, Grappling Hook, etc. If the spec were to have both melee and range intrinsically supported, it makes sense to have abilities to hope between the two ranges.

1 Like
10

That would be interesting indeed. The best representation I can think of a character that acts in combat similar to that is Lor’themar Theron during the raid on Azshara’s camp in Nazjatar. He carried a bow on his back but mainly used his sword as well as having a gap closer that is just like hook, except it is made out of Arcane energy.
Possible glyph idea perhaps?

11

I swear to god the only reason we can’t make survival hunters get the changes they need are god damn hunters

Survival needs 1 passes worth of attention and for ranged survival hunters to stop living in the past for the spec to get where it needs

1 Like
12

The grapple idea is neat. Personally I would add a “leave behind empowered trap/improvised explosive” option. That way instead of grappling to targets it could also be used to dodge sideways out of range and leave a surprise behind for enemies charging in or clusters of enemies. Then disengage could be saved purely for oh sh@t moments.

13

Chill, yo. This is the hunter forum, blues don’t even read this forum section. I’ve been doing my best to discourage RSV talk in the beta feedback thread, but out here is fair freakin’ game. Don’t like it, don’t read it.

14

What’s the point in using a forum if I ain’t gunna read stuff

15

I mean, you can read whatever you want. And frankly, you can post whatever you want. But if y’all MSV enthusiasts are going to keep coming into threads dumping on them every time you see “RSV”, why are you so freakin’ surprised that RSV enthusiasts do the same? You want to have rational talk on how to fix or improve MSV, then stop trying to shut down discussion on RSV.

1 Like
16

It’s worth noting also that when RSV makes a thread, they get the (not wholly unreasonable, but certainly unempathetic) blame of making irrelevant threads, since SV is now MSV. But because every thread about current SV is thereby MSV, well, you get the idea.

I’m sure there’s a fancy word for it, like circumstantial systemic silencing, but regardless it must suck.

17

threads like this are exactly why melee SV exists in the first place so…