Survival Hunter

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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:rofl:

:cocktail:

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

:cocktail:

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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.

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Smacking things with a bow is the way to go.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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[citation needed]

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I’ll definitely have to agree here that survival wasn’t a dedicated hunter melee tree, but it made it so you could do range/melee equally average. Raptor strike actually could hit very hard where it was in line with an arms warrior special attack.

You couldn’t sit there realistically and ditch range completely in survival and think you weren’t missing anything, but it could easily give people a run for their money, so to speak. And casters? Hunters could eat through them in melee.

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My thoughts exactly. The Survival tree allowed you to, well, survive in melee range much better. You have improved wing clip, entrapment, raptor strike critting more often, Deterrence, Counterattack, more stamina and other things. All of these tools made you much better in melee and allowed you to get people out of your melee range, either through multiple snare options or by scaring casters off with a huge raptor strike crit.

Survival boosts your melee capabilities and makes your melee range less of a weakness. It isn’t a melee tree, it’s the Survival tree.

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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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So does BM? You know, the Hunter specs make the Hunter class play like a Hunter.

Yes there is. Survival spec wasn’t a strong, or even mediocre, melee spec. You seem to be under the impression that Classic specs were treated like Retail specs when they are not. Each spec isn’t it’s own “class”, it’s just a focus. The core the class is the same over all 3 specs.

No, it’s not. Well, I guess they could have been around but no one took any of them seriously because it was a joke idea. I actually used to melee on a hunter for S&G’s and… it was garbage. It was like people doing a DW MS warrior; yeah you COULD do it, but it sure wasn’t a good idea.

It’s exactly this. It’s a tree that shores up a weakness, it doesn’t flip the class over and neuter ranged option to bring melee damage to the fore. The class is still a ranged combat class, no matter where, or even if, you use your talent points.

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Survival isnt about being melee dps. Infact savage strike is the only thing actually targeted at melee dps. Everything else is either overall dps or defensive talents. Counterstrike is used for the root and so is improved wing clip. Infact id imagine in its current form savage strikes is the stand out.

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