Hell of a lot better option than they gave RSV Hunters.
If I were given this option to play RSV again, I would jump at the chance - and be happy about it.
8 Likes
This is true yes. Though I still see no reason for this to be the path that they should’ve taken(or should take today).
Like yourself, if they were to add in a class which actually had a modern version of the old RSV(not some weird magical version or something…vaguely similar), then I would be happy to reroll/switch to that class as well.
Though, I see no reason for that to be needed. A 4th spec option for the Hunter class is much easier to do, requires much less work/time to get done, and would provide us with the desired playstyle as well.
3 Likes
“You know something, You Suck.” -Billy Madison.
Since retail surv is so awesome, change the pet to an enslaved demon and make it the DH’s third spec. named This-Is-Too-Complicated-For-Havoc-Players. Then bring back ranged surv, and everyones happy.
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Still not sure why people say Hunters shouldn’t use melee, it’s ultimately just another class fantasy for different people. Personally I wouldn’t even care if they gave warlocks a spec that uses melee, since it’s just whatever really at the end of the day.
Class balance and the devs being questionable when it comes to changes is another story though.
Still not sure why people say Hunters shouldn’t use melee, it’s ultimately just another class fantasy for different people.
Because they replaced a highly loved and very popular spec to add in something that Hunter players didn’t want (and still don’t, looking at spec representation)
Imagine if Blizzard decided that Affliction (mobile DoT spec) was too similar to Destruction (turrety big numbers spec), so they replaced it with a melee spec that fought alongside demons. Do you think people would be happy about that? Because that’s essentially what happened. A unique fantasy and playstyle got erased for what ended up being a dollar store Beast Mastery.
13 Likes
I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of people saying that hunters shouldn’t be melee too, that’s not really the same thing as just disliking the devs for taking out a spec from the game.
Well, pretty much all Hunter players before Legion picked the class because of it’s focus on being ranged. Even in Vanilla where Hunters had a bunch of melee stuff, Blizzard pushed that Hunters were about staying at range.
Given that, yeah Survival never should have gone melee. Trading out one of three ranged weapon specs in the game for yet another melee, in a class that was designed for and played by people who didn’t want to be melee, was an incredibly dumb idea.
As Ion admitted in an interview, melee Survival was purely intended to attract new players and rerollers to the class. A Hunter spec made for non-Hunters.
15 Likes
I still agree with removing ranged survival being odd, but I still just don’t see the issue with a melee spec for hunters.
I also feel like there’s an assumption being made about the players in question when it comes to what they wanted and didn’t want to be, as personally I would be an example of someone they doesn’t mind either way.
These forums are filled with ppl coming in to speak negative stuff about X change, the change to surv hunter is no exception.
But unlike what those haters claim, new surv is loved and people do love it. Its strong in pvp and fun to play. They believe spec % representation on high end tier of pve content determines what is popular and not… when truly it shows us nothing since those players goes for the most optimal spec… aka most dps… which is a number tweaking and not spec play.
2 Likes
Well, we don’t need to make any assumptions. Simply looking at the spec’s representation in raids is incredibly telling. In both MoP and WoD, Survival was consistently one of the most popular specs in the game, sometimes being played more than Beast Mastery despite not performing better.
On the other hand, ever since Legion Survival has consistently been one of the least popular specs in the game, being outplayed by Beast Mastery and Marksmanship in tiers where it performs better than either.
Even in LFR, Survival is one of the least represented specs. It’s not just high end content. And as I mentioned earlier, even when melee Survival out-DPSed both Beast Mastery and Marksmanship, it was played less than either.
8 Likes
Still is a terrible stat that shows nothing, because WoW is waste and isnt only based on PvE.
The truth ? Survival hunter is close to the other 2 specs in representation… but you will scream it aint.
It’s just my personal opinion but I’d say that for raids and the like that Survival can be rather awkward to play even if it does preform better on paper, mostly because as a melee spec it doesn’t really have all that many survival options at it’s disposal.
It’s much easier to just play for example a fury warrior or a demon hunter and get by without stressing you or your healer out.
Using your amazing Graph:
Surv : 2.5%
BM: 3.2%
MM: 2.8%
Oh noes the big difference ! Oh look, mist weaver is at 2%, that spec must be dead !
Nearly all specs currently in game roams around 2.5% so no, MSV is not unpopular, its good and its played just as much as others.
Thats the % of players at 120… its as close you can get to representation… because yes, not everyone does PvE content, PvP content, some just play for fun without doing rated pvp or raids or even dungeons… some just do it for rp, wpvp, pet battle, collecting stuff.
2 Likes
“People always complain” is always the laziest way to dismiss valid criticism. Besides, the SV change is particularly more controversial and divisive than most other run-of-the-mill changes to the class.
If a spec is popular people will try to bring it into raid content, at least to a Heroic level which is not high-end. Also, the difference in the DPS between SV and the real Hunter specs is not huge right now but the difference in representation is. Hell, in Uldir SV was our top-performing DPS spec and it was still miles behind BM. Don’t kid yourself into thinking this is purely a matter of performance.
Being strong in PvP/fun to play doesn’t mean much because ranged SV was even stronger in PvP and more people played it with most saying they thoroughly enjoyed it. There’s really nothing you can bring up that makes current Survival look like an improvement over what we had in MoP/WoD. Plus, you did just say that being good in PvE is just “number tweaking and not spec play” yet here you are pretending that being good in PvP validates Survival being melee, which is pretty hypocritical.
This fact, coupled with the fact that those numbers essentially never change and they are not actually used on the graphs, should tell you something about the validity of that statistic or the lack thereof.
There is no reliable way to tell the share of a spec at 120 in WoW. People switch between them all the time. You also have plenty of parked toons and boosts that never get played. That’s why people look to what specs are participating in content, and counting just 1 mythic boss killed is actually a pretty fair way to do that. And what do you know, whenever it comes to checking what specs are participating in content Survival is always on the low-end unless they are outright forcing people to play it e.g. the current rated PvP situation.
Oh, so according to you there is some giant population of Survival Hunters out there that is just hidden away from all forms of trackable content?
Every spec in the game has a proportion of casual players and people who push end-game content. Why would Survival in particular have a population that is almost exclusively the casual type and never shows up in M+ or raiding?
Even in PvP, supposedly Survival’s forte, it’s a no-show in random BGs. I don’t often bring that up because it’s anecdotal, but you’re here telling us you see them all the time while I routinely get epic BG after epic BG with 10+ Hunters across both teams and usually 0 of them are Survival. It only shows up in force in high-rated arenas, and that’s a product of the over-nerfing of the ranged specs this expansion and the fact that they are too scared to ever nerf melee SV.
When I get home this afternoon and do a /who 120 Hunter, and then check the armory specs of each one, how many do you want to bet are Survival?
Anyway, even if it were true, having close to 100% of a spec’s population being composed entirely of non-commital casual players should be a giant red flag to you. Ranged SV was seen out-and-about as well as in the raids. You’re still failing to demonstrate how SV’s in a better position now than when it was ranged. Melee SV’s strongest showing is rated PvP and even that figure is lower than that of ranged SV by about 50%.
12 Likes
I should also note that the “% at 120” figure was similar during Legion, yet when asked about Survival’s low population Hazzikostas didn’t say “Survival actually has a decent following; they are just more casual and don’t happen to show up in raids”, he said “We knew we were making a niche spec” and “Most Hunters are Hunters because they want to be ranged”.
If there truly were a lot of SV Hunters as you say he would have pointed that out then and there. Instead, he acknowledged SV was unpopular and gave an excuse.
12 Likes
I’m just going to say one last thing here and just be done with the topic for now. But while I understand that it was a poor choice for the devs to remove ranged survival as it was something many people enjoyed, why in turn do you want to ruin what other people enjoy by demanding melee survival be gone?
1 Like
why in turn do you want to ruin what other people enjoy by demanding melee survival be gone?
If it were up to me I’d re-add RSV as a fourth spec and keep MSV alongside it, since there’s definitely room thematically and gameplay wise for both, but unfortunately I doubt Blizzard would ever add fourth specs, so bringing back the version of Survival that was both way more popular and objectively more unique (the 3rd ranged weapon spec vs the 13th melee spec, a unique fantasy of enhanced projectiles vs another spec that focuses on fighting alongside your pet?) seems like the right choice.
Having a spec you enjoy be removed obviously feels awful, but as it stands MSV is dead in the water and I doubt Blizzard wants to keep it that way.
5 Likes
If that’s how you feel then…that is how you feel.
Odd how BTW?
Technically, it’s an assumption yes. Though one that is based on a fair reasoning. As, prior to Legion, there was nothing but the focus on ranged gameplay for hunters, by intended design. Even when we had melee weapons in Vanilla/BC etc, we were intended to stay at range as much as possible.
Therefor saying that most players that picked a hunter prior to Legion did so for the ranged combat, is a pretty safe bet. Does this mean that every single player/hunter wanted only ranged combat? Ofc not.
For good reason.
Stop trying to minimize the negative impact it had on the class and what it told us about their mindset in terms of changes made for a particular class and the players that are invested in it.
How come MSV even when it was the top performer(on multiple occasions) for PvE was nowhere near the top in terms of representation?
About
2% are MSV-players in PvP(Arenas).
0.5% are MSV-players in PvE(raids).
And even when you add them all together it’s still not a fair argument for removing RSV. It saw the same, sometimes even more representation in PvP while also being a common choice in PvE(and other content).
Plus the total percentage of players that are specced into a particular spec tells us nothing as to why they have picked it.
We have the players in PvE and PvP but any others, we just don’t know why they have picked a particular spec.
In short, I don’t.
I want RSV to return as a 4th spec. So we can end these debates and have both options to pick from.
<3
4 Likes
I really do agree with all of this being said, I just ultimately don’t understand why the new melee survival spec gets criticized honestly. In my opinion I believe and support that all of the hate should be focused on the devs if anything for removing something that people enjoyed so much.
It would be more then fair to say that I may be biased in my dislike for the devs in charge of balancing issues in multiple areas of the game but that’s how I personally feel here.