Survival Hunter

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

Alright so I leveled a melee hunter in vanilla (on nostalrious) and honestly had a blast. Sure they weren’t good for raids besides as a nightfall bot, but they were exceptional anti melee (even better than a hunter normally is imo). The way the class played is something you just don’t see in mmo’s. You had raptor strike as steady form of dps sure, but the fun part about them was their riposte abilities (mongoose bite and counterattack). With their mail armor, base evasion, and deterrence, they were more of a sustain damage class that made combat feel more realistic (people don’t just baseball swing at each other in rl).

Now that we got why I loved survival in vanilla lets get down to it; for some reason this tree that is lit designed for the melee abilities was changed around 1.7 to take out their bleed at 31 points and make it some $#!% incap (which hunters already get tranq shot). Now yes I understand the bleed was a $#!%ier version of rend, and if it this wasn’t turning out to be a faithful recreation of vaniller I would advocate for buffing the bleed but I digress. However lacerate (the bleed) actually belongs with the rest of the melee abilities in the tree, while wyvern sting ($#!%y incap) sticks out like a sore thumb. I’m hoping to convince some of the people on this forum that survival deserves to be as it was in vanilla with some self respect and not just some 30 point dip for agility at end game

4 Likes
2

I fully embrace everything wrong and out of place with the Hunter talent tree. Some of it doesn’t make sense but it leads to some more emergent cheese strategies.
Maybe I want survival to be a real tree but if they revert it, they might get some bright ideas in other places that turn out to be worse.

7 Likes
3

Because survival is not a melee spec…

:cocktail:

15 Likes
4

told you that its retailers coming to the classic forum and expressing their modern expectations on it.

:wine_glass:

9 Likes
5

Even with Lacerate, Survival never struck me as a melee spec. Almost every melee talent is some variation of “Get me the hell out of here!” rather than a DPS increase. Still a ranged spec, just with more options when stuck in the deadzone.

15 Likes
6

(people don’t just baseball swing at each other in rl).

You haven’t been in many fights.

5 Likes
7

:rofl:

:cocktail:

5 Likes
8

Survival, was a melee spec though…

I made a melee hunter in vanilla, It was quite good at pvp if you weaved in and out of ranged. It was definitely a thing, I remember watching youtube videos of melee hunters pvping in vanilla.

Later patches in vanilla is was also a range spec, arguably the cookie cuter spec for raids at higher tiers.

4 Likes
9

Right, and Enhancement was a Tank spec because of shield specialization and anticipation…

Or, combat was a ranged spec because of thrown weapon specialization…

Just because there were a few talents that gave you more options in melee doesn’t mean hunters were ever meant to sit in melee range. That is, until Blizzard gave survival spec hunters no other option in retail.

:cocktail:

9 Likes
10

Because it was worse, at 60, than whatever rank of Rend was in the early 40’s. It was complete garbage.

Tranq shot doesn’t work in PvP, and isn’t an incap/sleep in PvE anyways. Do you even know what the abilities you’re talking about do?

Survival was never a melee tree. Playing back at Vanilla release it wasn’t a melee tree, after 1.7 it wasn’t a melee tree, not until Legion was it an actual melee tree.

No, it really wasn’t. It buffed melee but that’s different from being a melee tree, especially since the half of the buffs were defensive.

5 Likes
11

Oh man there is so much wrong with this post … first off, buffing then bleed doesn’t make you able to use it in raids, no one is dumb enough to have a rend or any bleed effect on a boss over a CoE, CoS or any type of caster dot. Secondly, melee hunters weren’t a thing, stop pretending they were… this seems like a post from that Druid that is obsessed with melee hunters.

3 Likes
12

Steady in the same sense that continental drive it steady. Raptor strike, if it crit, and you had a big 2 hander, could punish a caster that misjudged the dead zone. But it was never something you could “rely” on, since most of its value was in crits, and since it replaced a white attack and had a substantial cooldown (I want to say 8 seconds?)

Mongoose bite only did 115 damage at max rank, with a cooldown. It wasn’t tied tied to weapon damage. Counter-attack only did 110 damage at max rank, also with a cooldown.

Pre 1.7 survival was kind of a melee spec, in the sense that it had some talents that only affected melee. But it was never a viable melee spec. It was a dead tree. No one competent ever went deeper than imp freezing trap & entrapment.

No, it really wasn’t a thing. Pre 1.7, there was one viable spec for leveling (30/21 BM IIRC), and one viable spec for raiding (Marks, I don’t remember the point dist exactly.)

Was the 1.7 survival revamp ineffective at making the spec viable? Absolutely, survival was still mostly a dead tree, effectively a “marks light” that could only out damage it at a very very specific gear level (after you passed ~450agi but before they nerfed agi to only give 1ap/agi) with a dead 31pt talent.

Does that mean that the pre 1.7 version was better? No. Was the pre 1.7 version ever viable? No. Lacerate, at max level, did 3.5 damage per second. Even if it had done 10x that, you wouldn’t have gotten to use it on raid bosses due to the debuff cap.

There was never a viable melee hunter, at any point in vanilla. The entire freakin’ class, even the survival tree, was built around getting, and staying 8+ yards away from your opponent.

5 Likes
13

You never had a shaman tank in vanilla?

I did all the way through Brd

How you word it dude is the survival tree had a melee spec.

4 Likes
14

No, it had more melee options. Most of which assisted with the hunter getting OUT of melee.

:cocktail:

5 Likes
15

Survival was not a melee spec. You’re more than welcome to try for Classic, but expect to get laughed at more than ret pallies if you’re smacking things with a melee weapon instead of a bow constantly.

7 Likes
16

Smacking things with a bow is the way to go.

4 Likes
17

Thematically, there’s no point in Survival in the 1.12.1 patch. Survival in 1.12.1 plays pexactly like Marksmanship.

Another issue is that Survival wasn’t actually even viable in raiding until you got something like 400 agility, and had another Hunter in your group provide you with trueshot aura. Only then, in this extreme situation, might Survival Hunter have been able to put out more DPS than Marksmanship.

I would say some of the flaws in it’s original design was the fact that Mongoose bite only becomes active once you dodge. I think if they brought the pre-1.7.0 talents back, buffed them, and made Mongoose Bite have 5 sec cooldown like in WotLK, Melee Survival would already be in a much better spot.

The original theme of Survival as Melee Hunters was strong; of this there is no doubt. Only things that are needed then are balance changes, not changes that completely transformed and homogenized the tree like on live like the 1.7.0 talent changes.

I think it would be reasonable to ask for pre 1.7.0 Survival back, since current Survival hardly fills any niche in high end PvE, and thematically is identical to Marksmanship.

1 Like
18

You could play that way as well. I love how you guys are trying to put everything into a box…

When it comes down to it, Survival enhanced a hunters melee capabilities… and I don’t see it has unreasonable saying it was a melee spec.

It was also a range spec too… but that was how dynamic vanilla talents and classes were.

It doesn’t really matter what you or I think in the end… melee hunters existed and were a thing in Vanilla whether you like it or not… that is a fact.

2 Likes
19

Trying to make melee hunters a thing is like trying to make wand casters a thing.

6 Likes
20

Vanilla was home to many diverse classes and specs, one of which, unquestionably, was the melee Hunter.

Just because you personally don’t want a Melee Hunter, doesn’t mean that Melee Hunters weren’t, or that they shouldn’t be a thing. They definitely were, and many times were played as such.

Having different and diverse specs, is part of what made Vanilla so great. Homogenizing all Hunter trees into ranged trees is not fun and goes against everything that Vanilla is about, and destroys the original gameplay diversity of Classic.

For example, many of us are here in part because of the rampant homogenization of all classes on live. In live, for example, in PvP, all classes have the same tools; escape, movement ability and so on. In Vanilla most classes are(or in Survival’s case, used to be) unique.

Asking Hunters to be melee is perfectly in line with what Vanilla is all about. If you want to homogenize all classes like late Vanilla and other expansions did, you’re better off playing live.

2 Likes