Since people are making survival threads, I guess I’ll throw my hat in as well.
I like the idea behind melee SV, but I’ve always thought the gameplay lacks in a few spots. Here are some thoughts:
Mongoose Fury: A good idea, but pressing one button as the core of the rotation doesn’t feel very good. More importantly, the 14-second window feels really restrictive unless you’re stacking haste. Yes, I’m sure this isn’t an issue at level cap with haste enchants and gems, but it feels like crap while leveling.
Suggestion: Bring back the stacks => spender gameplay from Legion by keeping Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite as two separate skills. As suggested by Allieddeath in another thread, make Raptor Strike a skill that deals higher damage by consuming Mongoose Fury stacks. Additionally, allow the Mongoose Fury effect to be extended in some way; this can be done by either allowing uses of Mongoose Bite to extend the duration with diminishing returns or allowing Kill Command/Flanking Strike to extend the duration by 1s when used. The latter would make it easier to use Kill Command/Flanking Strike in a Mongoose Fury window because you’re not worrying about fully “wasting” a GCD on a skill that isn’t Mongoose Bite to build stacks.
Carve/Butchery: These skills are too similar, making the talent node these skills are in a non-choice because Butchery is overall better than Carve.
Suggestion: Remove Carve or redesign it into a frontal AoE bleed. Maybe have it interact with Serpent Sting, though it’d be weird to have a skill in that spot interact with something at the very bottom of the Hunter class tree. There’s also the challenge of having the bleed effect do something else; maybe give it the current Bloodseeker effect (+haste per target bleeding) and replaced Bloodseeker with a talent that lets Kill Command enhance skills used after it.
Kill Command/Flanking Strike: This is another case of two abilities that are too similar. Their cooldown timers may be different, but they are both skills that generate focus and deal damage.
Suggestion: Make Flanking Strike an upgrade node for Kill Command, changing its secondary effect to increasing focus regen rate for the hunter and their pet by 25% for 6s. Additionally, change Tip of the Spear into a talent that allows this new effect to stack up to 3 times. Conversely, keep them as two separate skills but change Flanking Strike’s secondary effect to increase focus regen rate by 50% for 20s. TotS could then be changed to interact with Raptor Strike since in this set of ideas that’s the spec’s “finisher”.
Coordinated Assault: I get what the devs were trying to do with this ability’s secondary effect (the “your pet’s attacks buff your skills” part), but I think this cooldown would work better as just a general buff for the hunter and the pet. I haven’t experienced issues with pet AI, but seeing other people write about it reinforces this belief.
Suggestion: Keep the damage component and the gap closer aspect, but change the secondary effect to either +crit for master and per, or +haste for both for 20s. Bonus is that this change wouldn’t interfere too much with the talents that interact with this ability.
Talent placement
Mongoose Bite is too low down the tree and should be moved to the spot where Aspect of the Eagle currently sits (at the least).
Aspect of the Eagle should be moved to a spot directly below Terms of Engagement (the blank spot on the current talent tree).
Flanking Strike should be moved to where Mongoose Bite currently is.
Flanking Strike’s current spot would house a new passive talent:
Interceptor: If you are below 30% health and receive a hit that would have killed you, your pet jumps in front of you to take the full damage for you. Additionally makes your next Revive Pet instant for 10s. This effect can only happen once every 3 minutes.
That’s all I got for now. I’m sure there’s more that can be said and done with the spec, and I’ll probably add it once I can think of something else.
I think this one can fit in the base class tree. In fact, how about improving pets in general to where they no longer die, but temporarily become incapacitated and automatically revive themselves with diminishing returns per revival? It would still allow pet counterplay in PvP but would alleviate some of our concerns in pet management.
I also like the Flanking Strike/Kill Command idea. How about we take it a step further with Coordinated Assault: Kill Command automatically fires Kill Shot on the target(s) while under the effect of CA. Alternatively, using Kill Shot would cause Kill Command to strike 2 additional targets (with Bird of Prey).
Kill Command and Kill Shot can do amplified damage against targets under bleed effects.
The Quick Shot talent can proc a Kill Shot randomly against any currently bleeding target, or perhaps at a 33% proc rate on use of Kill Command.
I agree here as well. Retooling Bloodseeker’s ias (increased attack speed) boost into Haste is a good idea and fits better. What if it also boosted movement speed? :3
How about a stacking bleed debuff similar to Latent Poison, that upon use of Multi-Shot/Beast Cleave/Butchery consumes the stacks for additional burst damage.
Something that should also be noted is that unlike MM and BM which have access to Wailing Arrow (An AOE silence) SV has nothing comparable. Thus in M+ situations SV has even less to offer than MM or BM.
Perhaps giving an AOE silence of some form or even a change to Explosive Trap (Knocking up instead of out) would increase what a SV Hunter brings to a M+ group.
I personally understand why Tranqu Shot is not base line for all hunters given what it is used for. I don’t have an issue with the talent that give back focus when dispelling but its not our interrupt, which I am not sure why that is not also base line (Other than Blizzard wanted to place filler in the trees)
There are some changes which could be made to SV to bring us up both in Dmg and utility. The question is, will Blizzard even consider this?
Just scrap mongoose bite as it functions. Build in a CD reducer for bombs. Revamp the red bomb to be a damage increase for mongoose bite and raptor strike. Make a talent that increases pet damage for each kill command after X raptor strike//mongoose bite. A cool talent where once every X when you harpoon//disengage you toss a bomb at your target.
This fits together well thematically: where a bomb blast, air current, or even a powerful frontal sweep when enacted, would propel the Hunter backwards. I always found Disengage a bit awkward, and this great idea can help to further develop the theme.
Another thought: The blast can disorient the target(s) for 3 seconds.
If we are going to throw bombs, then IMO we need more bombs to throw. The silent AOE bomb is a great ideal. We need to perhaps have a bomb that creates a cloud that releases healing spoors into the air. Make it choice with another bomb perhaps.
I also feel they need to bring back Aspects. Bring back the Hawk, Fox aspects, create some new Aspects. We have a Aspects of the Chameleon that NOBODY uses. Make it usable. Heck have it replace camouflaged. O have it add on to it. Make it a raid wide blend in sneak.
The point is, there are many spells and ability in our past and current spellbook that could go a long way to make SV better. Much better. If only they were used.
I agree about keeping Mongoose Bite and Raptor Strike as separate abilities. But I don’t want them to rework Mongoose Bite. I like how the playstyle is to just mash this key as much as possible to maximize damage. I think to enhance this playstyle change the talent that increases kill commands reset chance based on mongoose bite stacks to also increase the duration of the window.
The talent under flanking strike needs to be changed for sure. I would change it to KC reduces the cd of flanking strike by 1 sec. For every KC used while FS is on cd will empower your next FS by 3/6%% stacking. After using FS your next WFB Increases 25/50%
This works, though you’re not changing much if you go with the second suggestion. KC/FS extending the window by 1 second per use only slightly mitigates the time lost in the Mongoose Fury window. Assuming a GCD of 1.5s, you’re reducing the amount of time lost to 0.5s. Assuming Tip of the Spear doesn’t get changed, it’d also make it easier to take advantage of that effect because its current form looks like it was designed specifically for Raptor Strike and not the Mongoose Bite/Fury mechanic (it’s one of the examples of the spec being at conflict with itself).
I like this idea.
I’ve been mulling on a rework of traps and bombs that involves getting rid of Wildfire Infusion and creating individual skills that change depending on a new ability that (for now) I call Grenade Kit. This is a toggle for SV in the style of trap launcher that transforms the existing hunter traps into grenades corresponding to each effect. So you’d have Tar Vial/Tar Trap, Freezing Grenade/Freezing Trap, Shrapnel Bomb/Steel Trap, and Flash Bomb/Explosive Trap. The trade off is that grenades have a reduced area of effect or slightly weaker effects in general compared to traps.
For example, assuming that Explosive Trap were to be changed into a 5-second AoE stun with an 10yd radius, Flash Bomb would have the same area of effect as Wildfire Bomb and the stun would last only 2 seconds. Not sure where to put it in the talent tree, though. I should also note that Wildfire Bomb would still exist in its current state.
This is amazing and could easily pass for retail development fine as is.
You brought something up that interested me, so if I may embellish the idea further:
This “Trap–Grenade Launcher” could have customizable elemental charges obtained from the AH similar to the reagents for Rogue Poison. You would only have two abilities in the spellbook: Trap Launcher and Grenade Toss, that are infused with an element of choice. The items are permanent, and once purchased and learned appear in the spellbook under either ability for continued selectable use. This would fit-in with the whole Primal Infusion lore going on now.
Our toolkit would consist of one Trap, and one Grenade combination of choice.
This expansion of Hunter lore would further help explain abilities like Freezing Trap. Considering we’re not magic users, where exactly does the frost come from? A sliver of compressed elemental magic derived externally that we place into a trapping mechanism fits perfectly.
Tar Trap or Tar Bomb easily could become an Earth-debuff, reducing movement speed and cast time either in the affected area, or as a single-target splash grenade, while the other elements could remain virtually unchanged in application.
The regular (non-imbued) Trap Launcher and Grenade Toss would cause physical debuffs: the Steel Trap effect, and the Shrapnel Bomb effect respectively.
My suggestion is to join traps and the bombs that have become part of SV’s kit into one set of skills, with a toggle that swaps them wholesale.
Suggestion - Ordnance Kit: Prepare grenades with varying effects to use in lieu of traps. Lasts until cancelled.
Clicking on this toggle transforms any traps, both baseline and those picked up in the Hunter class talent tree, into grenades with corresponding effects. The differences between the two is that traps can be ground-targeted and persist for 60 seconds when set. Grenades require a target to be used and are less potent while also having a smaller effect radius. Traps/grenades share a cooldown with their counterpart. Ordnance Kit has the same cooldown as warrior stances (3 seconds).
Freezing Trap becomes:
Sleep Canister: Hurl a sleep canister at the target, causing them to fall into a slumber for 20 seconds. Damage will break the effect.
Tar Trap becomes:
Sludge Vial: Hurl a sludge vial at the target, reducing their movement by 75%. The target regains 10% of their movement each second for 8 seconds.
High Explosive Trap’s secondary effect is changed from the knockback to an AoE stun, and becomes:
Thunderflash: Hurl a thunderflash at the target, exploding for [18% of Attack Power] nature damage in a cone and stunning all enemies caught in the blast for 2 seconds.
Steel Trap becomes:
Shrapnel Bomb: Hurl a shrapnel bomb at the target, exploding for [20% of Attack Power] physical damage and causing all targets caught in the blast to bleed for [120% of Attack Power] over 10 seconds.
To go along with the above, I’d suggest adding a line to Binding Shackles so that grenades used via Ordnance Kit also benefit from this talent.
I really, really like this idea, even if I have a feeling BM and MM hunters would be really unhappy about it. Letting hunters prepare their traps and grenades ahead of time also means you could make the effects a bit stronger because you don’t have access to all trap/grenade types at once.
Being my own worst critic, I think it’s missing something. Like a lesser version of Survival of the Fittest or a “recover 20% of your max health over 6 seconds” or something like that.
SV should get the cheat death mechanic (that’s cool); BM should get an instant pet rez (even if Wild Kingdom could be used while pet is dead and then rezzed the pet once the effect ends, that would be SOMETHING).
All hunters should get 2 charges of disengage.
Mending bandage should be baseline for SV and the pvp talent should turn it into a HoT instead of a channel.