Bepples said that.
So he did. Guess that goes to show I shouldn’t read and post on the forums literally 5 minutes after I wake up. ![:joy:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/joy.png?v=6" ":joy:")
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I know I already replied to this post but I want to add to this part. They got into this fervor of making everything spec-specific; it’s like at some point during WoD they got the impression that specs needed to be entirely separate and all their class design decisions of Legion are built on that. Traps being SV specific was meant to somehow make the entire class better because it made them more unique. The only thing crazier than that is the fact that I’ve seen multiple people across the WoW forums argue that traps should have remained specific to SV and getting them back in the other Hunter specs is an example of the ranged Hunters “stealing” from the melee spec and treading on it.
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With the release of Rise of Azshara and the addition of our newfound bodyguards, I’m finding it virtually impossible to land a trap on a player.
I find myself wishing for a means to allow Freezing Trap to freeze multiple enemies. Freezing Trap is probably the most skill demanding CC in the game, not auto affecting your target, having a travel time, having an arm time, and having such a small radius.
I’m really starting to feel like a PVP talent that slightly increases the triggering radius of your traps and allows your Freezing Trap to freeze all enemies in its radius at the time of trigger is just what the doctor ordered.
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I really want a glyph to change Serpent Sting’s animation to a pistol. Actually kind of boggled how it’s not already a thing since it seems like the most obvious glyph ever. Saw some requests for during pre-patch. Throwing axes were also requested and seemed obvious. Blows my mind how underutilized the glyph system is.
Maybe it’s too much. But, I would love if Aspect of the Cheetah base CD was lowered. I also enjoyed Caltrops. As long as they don’t bring back Fury of the Eagle. It was kind of fun to line the ability up with your stacks, but I really dislike channeled abilities.
3 Likes
Topic of this thread:
Changing a few of the core abilities along with some talents, would do much.
Edit: check reply after this one.
Other discussions in this thread:
Made this post a few times. It’s a summary ofc but covers the essentials about the vanilla spec designs for the class.
Vanilla design
Beast Mastery:
•Improved your Aspects
•Improved your pet’s health, armor, movement speed, damage, critical strike chance, focus regen.
•You gained several utility based improvements such as lower cast time on pet res, better pet mending, on-demand stun etc.
•Apart from some utility as well as the signature talent for BM(Bestial Wrath). The spec did not give you anything beyond improving stuff you already had access to, baseline.
Marksmanship
•Gave some additional utility, in the form of targeted shots(ranged attacks), increased attack range.
•Most stuff were in the form of lower mana cost on abilities, increases to critical strike chance as well as critical damage, CD reduction, base damage increases.
•Some of the more iconic stuff you got through MM talents was the improved Stings that you already had access to. Along with a powerful ranged attack, a ranged disorient as well as a party-wide AP buff.
Survival
•Enhanced your fantasy as being a tracker
•Improvements to your focus on utility. Especially in the form of traps you used defensively but also the ones for offensive use.
•It did give you a offensive melee ability in the form of Counterattack. Though you weren’t really meant to focus on it to much. You still wanted to get away from your enemies.
•Part from this, the spec also held options to improve your baseline defenses, with increased health, parry chance, on-demand parry/dodge, improved Feign Death.
It also gave you a ranged CC ability(Wyvern), which was essentially mostly meant as a way to keep distance to enemies. Or to help you manage multiple targets.
Back then, no matter what you spec’ed in/for, you were still a hunter that wanted to engage in ranged combat, and you were aided by a pet/companion.
It’s the sad truth really. We’re in the situation, and have been since the overhaul with Legion, where it has become a matter of Ranged vs. Melee, when people talk about the Survival spec.
It’s an endless loop where people keep arguing back and forth. You can look at it how much you want, as far as peoples opinions towards design philosophies go, there are no right or wrongs here. We are different, and we like different things.
There is however a difference. Those that hate on suggested changes/additions simply to do so, without any real emotional attachments/investment themselves towards the topics at hand. When you dismiss something even though it might not actually affect what you like, then you can say that this is not right.
I’ve had a personal opinion for quite a while that, there is no point whatsoever to go on with this argument on Ranged vs. Melee.
Why? Because we, most likely, will never see it reverted to it’s previous ranged state. If anything they will continue to iterate on the melee-aspects.
And the thing is, there is no need to look at it as a “either-or” -case. We can have both.
To anyone here who have seen the later discussions in this thread: We need range Survival Hunters back
They know that I, quite firmly, believe we have the grounds for a 4th spec option that can hold it’s own identity among the existing hunter specs. A spec that can embrace the core identity of the class while still bringing in the unique design and feel of the old DoT-spec we used to have, and build on it even more to fit with the design philosophy of today.
Now, there is no spec that is perfect for everyone. It does not exist, nor will it ever do so. But from my memories of playing that past spec from Cata-Legion(when it was changed to melee), and how we could make it fit within the current game, my suggestions would be as below(link): We need range Survival Hunters back - #457 by Ghorak-laughing-skull
Opinions are personal. There are no right or wrongs about them. It’s just how we feel. Again, it’s sad to see that there has to be this continued Ranged vs. Melee discussion. I refer to the above and say that there does not have to be a discussion like this.
Hopefully this is not the case. They(devs) gave a statement that changes/additions can and will be made where they feel that there are grounds to do so. I truly hope that they can see how this extends to class design/spec additions as well. Referring to the 4th spec option here ofc.
I mean…imagine if at the time of the split of the Feral druid spec into Guardian/Feral Combat, imagine if they instead had decided to simply scrap one of those. I know it was a case of 1 tank spec design and 1 damage dealing one. But still, imagine what those who liked either would have felt if theirs was removed.
In short, you shouldn’t. If you liked something and it was taken away. Then by all means, argue in favor of getting it back as a playable option.
But, perhaps there is a better way to do it without simultaneously arguing that melee survival should not exist? I at least hope that there is, because the alternative is that we will always have a portion of the playerbase that lacks something they care deeply for.
I would say that it depends on what you’re after. In the eyes of the devs, I would like to imagine that there are better ways you could make your case without talking down on others. Again, we have our opinions…
<3
Agreed. They made an attempt at giving us an alternate version of it through MM(did not, and still does not feel anywhere close to what it was prior to Legion).
We then got the redesign of melee Survival in BfA. Where many abilities and talents have been inspired by the old ranged version.
Still, does not come close to what we liked about the old ranged spec.
And yes, this is my own opinion.
I hope more and more people take this to heart. (…hint Blizzard).
Edit:
Idd it was!
I really hope that this isn’t the case. 
To be honest, for the current Survival spec and/or for a potential ranged DoT-spec(4th option), a passive effect that in general increases the trigger radius of your traps would be a good thing.
Maybe you can say that MM should have something like this as well. Although, IMO any trap enhancements on that level suits the theme of Survival(melee or ranged) the most.
I should probably clarify as well regarding my references in previous posts when I say that most people refer to the past ranged DoT-spec being that of the one we had between Cata-WoD.
Much like Bepples is saying here, although his/her comment is directed towards the TBC era.
Survival did have that DoT-playstyle even in Wotlk. Although it wasn’t until Cata that we saw more changes being made to separate the specs/build on their unique playstyles. Also, it was in Cata that we saw our resource change from Mana to Focus. Which was part of why I decided to focus from that point and onwards(as it better fits what we have today).
Also, in WotlK, Explosive Shot was entirely optional. From Cata and onwards, it was the defined style you could get through this spec.
Black Arrow was still optional though. And honestly, I liked the Wotlk version of it more than what we got in Cata. The damage increasing component that is.
Again, we all have certain preferences towards what versions of talents/abilities we liked the most. In my spec suggestion linked above, I did not include the damage increase on Black Arrow. I decided to do other stuff with it both through the major CD, a Mastery Bonus effect suggestion as well as through talents.
2 Likes
Well said.
All hunter specs should have access to certain traps.
What should be exclusive to either melee survival and if we get the ranged DoT-spec back as a separate option, is that those specs should both have baseline enhancements as well as talents focusing on improving traps as well as having access to some additional traps that the other specs don’t.
So, one more upside with introducing that 4th spec option for the Hunter class,
Hint : We need range Survival Hunters back - #457 by Ghorak-laughing-skull
is that they can let Marksmanship focus on what it’s actually meant to be. The ranger/sniper with strong hits and burst damage.
As well as adding in more nuances that cater towards the initial fantasy of the current Survival spec. Melee combat + pet coordination.
When I first saw the new design of the MSV spec with the Alpha/Beta of BfA. My initial thoughts were basically, why are they copying over stuff from other specs?
Since then, I’ve thought of what things I would prefer for the MSV spec to have(no, not reverting it to ranged). Like below:
Any abilities or talents not mentioned below, they can stay as they are IMO.
-Core Abilities-
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Remove Kill Command.
-
Rework Raptor Strike to be the new focus builder(it can work the same as Kill Command did for the spec, just melee-based, and it shouldn’t have a cooldown).
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Drag out Mongoose Bite to become the main Spender instead of Raptor Strike.
-
Rework Serpent Sting into a mid-range CD.
Instead of you, firing a poison tipped arrow at your target, now, when you activate this ability, you coat your melee weapon(s) in snake venom for a short period.
Let’s say the ability has a 30 sec CD. The duration could be something like 15-20 seconds.
The venom itself, could work much like the old Exotic Ammunitions-venom we had in WoD. Where your auto shots(here, it would instead be melee auto attacks), they would inflict that venom on the target.
The damaging effect would stack with every attack. -
Wildfire Bomb can pretty much stay as it is. Although perhaps changing it into an actual bomb with a splash effect rather than being designed with a cone in mind would be better.
No matter the design here, throwing a bomb in front of yourself does not make sense but at least the splash design allows for less annoyance.
-Talents-
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Remove the talent, Alpha Predator(no longer needed).
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Put the last tier talent, Birds of Prey in the place of Alpha Predator.
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Talent: Viper’s Venom, could be reworked so that if it’s chosen, it causes your new Snake Venom ability, it causes the venom to spread more quickly(stack up higher with every attack).
As well as adding a chance for you to extend it’s duration on the target(s) beyond the default time(up to a set max).
Essentially, this could allow you to keep that DoT up permanently. -
Hydra’s Bite. This would now just allow you to hit 3 targets at once with your Snake Venom buff that you use on your weapon(s).
-
Bloodseeker, could work the same, just that it would involve Raptor Strike instead of Kill Command.
-
Tip of the Spear, can be renamed Sharpened Edges.
Now, when picked, as you would have Mongoose Bite baseline. This talent could be reworked to allow you to stack Mongoose Fury up faster and/or allow you to extend the duration of the buff. -
We have a free spot for a talent option in the place of Mongoose Bite.
This could be fun
New talent called Mean Duo (I love that name!).
What it would do, is this:
Each time you hit an enemy target with an ability, there’s a high chance that this will cause your pet’s next Basic Attack(Bite, Claw, Smack) to be a guaranteed critical strike.
Each time your pet hits with a Basic Attack, there’s a high chance that you gain this effect as well.
I like the synergy! -
Wildfire Infusion might have to change a bit in it’s design to better fit the new core makeup of the spec. But still, mostly, I think it’s the Pheromone Bomb infusion that needs to change. Perhaps into something that benefits your Mongoose Bite?
And last but not least!
- In the place of the talent Birds of Prey(that was moved to the first row). I would like to put in a new talent. Some of you might remember the talent: Way of the Mok’Nathal. Explanation follows.
(And no, I don’t intend to bring that specific talent design back).
What I want, is this:
A LOT of players think of the current MSV spec as a visualization of us playing as Rexxar.
The famed Hunter from Draenor that fights with 2 1-handed axes.
So…what if a talent that you call Way of the Mok’Nathal, would do just that? Allow you to equip 2 1-handed weapons.
All your melee attacks(and abilities) would now be executed with those 2 weapons instead of a 2-hander.
As for tuning…Now, you would have to tune the 1h-concept to be on par with the 2 other talents on the same talent row, instead of trying to tune it as a baseline option for players choosing between using a 2-hander or 2 1-handers.
I know it’s not as simple as this, but still, more simple than the alternative.
Considering the amount of players that would want to play with 1-handed weapons. I’d say this would be worth it.
2 Likes
delete BOP
1)Flanking Strike to replace Kill Command as focus generator.
2)Explosive Shot and Black Arrow as part of SV kit. Black Arrow could replace Serpent Sting and give Explosive Shot a chance to reset(like the old days).
-
option to dual-wield.
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more focus on stronger traps for SV. Maybe shorter cooldown or Spike Trap baseline.
I want old talent trees back. I have always hated the new talent bushes. This is suppose to be an RPG and yet we only have three choices in each tier? It’s ridiculous imho. If we had more talents and actual trees it would bring back class identity and not these silly ‘specs’. If it’s so hard to balance with the old talent trees then hire more people to work on your multi billion dollar game and stop ruining it with systems and bloat. Just give us talent trees so we can play our characters how we want. Blizzard complains about ‘cookie cutter’ builds with old trees but it’s not possible to get rid of cookie cutters. There will always be cookie cutter builds.
TLDR: bring back talent trees.
1 Like
Wilderness survival / latent poison baseline so I can play wildfire in arena again plz!
Id like to see more interaction between chakrams and the rest of the kit. Maybe spreading serpent sting, or further reducing bomb cooldown. Idk. I love chakrams.
Why would talent trees bring back class identity? They’re a spec thing. This probably sounded better in your head. Class identity comes from the shared baseline capabilities of the class.
Cookie cutters are an inherent result of talent trees with a mixture of DPS and utility talents. It’s nearly all better to just ignore the utility talents and stick to throughput talents so a lot of the interesting utility was just never seen. That’s not really dependent on tuning, either.
But the bigger problem with talent trees was how set-and-forget they were. They didn’t accommodate on-the-fly modification so people generally just stuck with the same builds. Almost every single Hunter in BC is running the same 41/20/0 build and will run that build for the entire expansion. There might as well just not be talents at that point. Whereas talent tiers can have you switching talents multiple times within the same raid clear.
Talent trees let you build your character the way you wanted. If you wanted to be a hunter with mostly BM talents you could and you could also grab some cool MM or SV abilities and buffs. How does a talent tree not bring class identity back? I would prefer to be able to make less optimal choices if I choose to and still have fun with the game. If someone wants to put every single talent point into one tree why shouldn’t they be able to? I’m not talking about min maxing so don’t bother bringing up that dead horse. Having three options in each tier is too few imho and they are all for the spec your in. I want to be a hunter, not a MM/BM/SV hunter, but a hunter with its own identity based on how I built it with what is available. What we have now is just watered down choose one of three.
This is extremely idealistic. In most cases there were clear choices. I tested this earlier and I was able to figure out the optimal builds for a few specs e.g. enhancement shaman despite never having played them. Talents were, for the most part, minor passive changes with a handful of standouts (e.g. Mortal Shots, Serpent’s Swiftness) and active abilities. The trees were extremely static and built from the ground up assuming you wouldn’t be changing them often, which isn’t conducive to trying out different things frequently. There wasn’t much room for “picking what you wanted :D” and even when you did pick alternative routes the ultimate difference to your character was minor compared to taking less-optimal talents in modern WoW.
Because talent trees and talent tiers are not the reason class identity was ever compromised, and we never truly lost class identity to begin with. The biggest damage to class identity was done in Legion when they went crazy over trying to make every spec as different as possible. They have largely pulled back from that and the biggest holdout is Survival still being melee. Switching to talent tiers happened in MoP and we didn’t have any significant loss of “class identity” (not that this is an objective quantity that could be measured) v.s. the previous expansion where we still had trees.
This is the optimal Hunter talent build for all areas of content and for the entirety of BC. I challenge you to come up with a variation that actually plays noticeably differently.
Most of the differences are exceedingly minor. For example, you might take Improved Hunter’s Mark instead of Efficiency. This would help your raid’s DPS to an extent that might be noticed if you look over logs but otherwise it makes zero difference to your playstyle. If you were Survival you might take Wyvern Sting (nor not because it mostly sucked) or you might spec deep into MM instead and get Scatter Shot but that’s very situational and, again, minor for the over all playstyle of the class. The entire Survival build plays the same as the BM build. This really limits exploration of the Hunter archetype which is why we have specs in the first place.
Every talent choice is like this. It’s an illusion of choice.
The talent tier choices are far more relevant and impactful than talent tree choices (if there aren’t any). Granted, there are balancing issues with talent tiers (e.g. the Stomp tier for BM has a clear best choice for every situation) but even single tiers that provide choice equate to more variation than anything from the talent tiers. The Marksmanship tier with Steady Focus, Streamline, and Chimera Shot is an example of a well-designed talent tier because all three talents are relevant and have noticeable impact on the playstyle. It’s fun to be able to fine-tune a spec for each situation.
You’re simultaneously asking for more and less choice. Class identity is important. Legion class design showed what happens when class identity gets neglected in favour of spec identity. But it’s also important to have major, impactful playstyle variations within a class. We don’t want to have a Legion situation where specs in the same class have barely anything in common, but we also don’t want a Classic/TBC situation where spec choice is an almost entirely passive difference. This is why when most people are asked about their favourite era of class design they talk about WotLK, Cataclysm, and MoP. That’s when we had a good middle-ground where classes had a solid foundation but each spec was a meaningful choice.
8 Likes
I feel like we should kiss. Let’s stop fighting and agree to disagree 
-Delete Carve and make Butchery baseline.
-Replace Butchery with Chakrams
-Replace Chakrams with Primeval Intuition
-Make Viper’s venom interact with Butchery.
-Make Terms of Engagement baseline. Replace with Dire Consequences (Pet summon part of mechanic).
-Buff flanking strake by 300% (They addressed this some)
-Buff overall damage. (They addressed this some)
-HP or mastery heal buff.
obligatory: mAkeE iT RaNGed aGAiN
I love dumping on hunters who are still butthurt about SV going melee. The salt is real when they get out dps’d.
1 Like
I’d love to see how my DPS holds up against a Survival Hunter but unfortunately I haven’t been grouped with one this expansion, what with the 0.4% share of mythic+ representation and all.
In an alternate reality we could have been grouped together, but that would require a) being on the same faction and b) you being capable of clearing something higher than a +9.
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Is this one of those kids again who claim that everyone is in awe of their dps, but then you check their logs and theyre all grey? Cause we already have that here.
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