How can you say that when the 31 point Survival talent was a ranged attack? And no, I don’t care about 1.7 or beta or what this one dev said this one time about this one thing that never happened.
1.12 Survival is absolutely a ranged spec. I know because I played it for years. You had talents that buffed your one melee attack and then several that buffed traps, stamina, and defense. That’s why we played that spec in PvP. But still, the bulk of your damage came from your ranged weapon. Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Serpent Sting. That’s how we killed people. 21 points into MM for the ranged necessities.
Or where do you believe we put the remaining points after filling up Survival?
You can’t kill anyone as a melee hunter and you can sure die a lot faster that way too. Survival helped you survive while doing damage with your ranged weapon and gave you tools to get back to range when melee rushed you. That is how 0/21/30 played.
Any melee hunters out there were doing a niche things and none were taken seriously.
I’m literally paid to fight people, just cause the general public sucks at fighting doesn’t validate that style. Your comment is evidence you have no training, no skill, and no clue
Whether it was improving your wingclip, or making your traps immobilize, or even increasing the threat drop on your disengage, its aim was letting you get back to ranged.
Ok it feels like half the people here didn’t read my op. Like people are not advocating for wyvern sting they are just against hunters being alittle better at melee with a 31 point dip into survival. I appreciate the support I got, and that no one #nochanges me (even though it felt like that which confused me cause lacerate was in vanilla).
I think I see the problem here
I said melee hunter, and people suddenly believed that I didn’t understand this concept of going back out to ranged sigh
Things were different in vanilla, with hybrid classes and hybrid tax. Well hunters were the ranged/melee dps hybrid. I fully understand the concept, just like shams/druids/priests/pally was hybrid with a focus on healing hunters were hybrid with a focus on ranged dps.
Now, back to the actual topic, lacarate > wyvern sting and should be in classic because it was already in vanilla (nochanges) and goes better with the talent tree. If you are a hunter and don’t like lacerate fine, but it’s not like people were going 31 survival anyways
now you’re making stuff up. hunters were a ranged/pet hybrid. always. there was never such thing as any hunters being “melee hunters” just like there were no such things as firestone melee warlocks. just players who didn’t understand how to play the game.
I haven’t fabricated anything, the abilities were in the game. And again I’m sorry for saying melee hunter cause you’re still hung up on it. Would you like me to edit my posts so they just say survival hunter? Regardless we can proceed to stay on topic, which is lacerate > wyvern sting
Like the vast majority of the people here, I’m not interested in pre 1.7.0 Survival. I would have happily left Hunter Lacerate in the realm of the completely irrelevant forever. If I talk about Survival hunters, it’s about post 1.7 Survival hunters.
No. You’re advocating for a level 40 warrior’s rend as a 31 point talent in a tree about crowd control and disengaging from people. Wyvern sting does not stick out, it belongs with it more than lacerate.
oh there we go ok let’s talk about it. Yes you can build into survival purely for the crowd control and disengaging ability sure. But you can also build into the defensive melee side of it. Even playing on 1.12 without lacerate I would 1v1 rouges/cats/enhance/pallies as a survival hunter IN MELEE and win. Sure when counterattack procd I would go back out to range, but until it procd I would be in melee, using raptor strike, using mongoose bite, rocking aspect of monkey for pretty decent dodge chance (more mongoose bite procs). Raptor strike, mongoose bite, and counterattack all had 6 sec cd, and as long as you dodge and parry you had some damage (with the high crit chance). But even though lacerate is not comparatively a good talent, it fit’s good into the survival playstyle of prolonged combat. Allot of survival hunters dmg comes from serpent sting and immo trap (dot dmg) so having lacerate would just build upon that. Other hunter tress have the focus on their pet or their ranged wep damage, not so much into dot effects as most hunters don’t even bother using serpent sting or imo trap over aimed shot and freezing trap (which survival doesn’t have to rely on freezing so they can use the cd on immo).
But wyvern sting, oh my god, a 12 sec ranged incap that can only be used out of combat. Now look I get their is nothing wrong with an incap, but an ooc incap is weak. So I have either open on someone with an incap and then not use another sting unless I want to waste the dot effect, or I blow a fd cd so I can use a worse version of freezing trap. It’s only useful in soloing mobs and is still weak, which is a sad state of a 31 point talent. On top of that, it’s a ranged ability, in a tree focused on melee, traps, and immobilize . Like if it was a trap Id shut my mouth but ranged? For the playstyle I described wyvern sting really doesn’t fit
That’s great. I could kill people as a firestone warlock as well. In melee. Just because you killed people who were lobotomized in real life doesn’t mean anything.
Mongoose bite does 115 damage to people at level 60 with 0% armor reduction. Most melee have at least 20% damage reduction, you’re looking at more like 30% for most people, so you’re doing most likely less than 100 damage every 6 seconds if mongoose bite was up 100% of the time. It does not scale with gear.
This isn’t some damage, this is garbage.
The survival playstyle is allowing you to live, not allowing you to kill others. See someone going to help your opponent and make a 1v1 become a 1v2? FD and wyvern sting him for another 12 seconds to finish off your opponent.
Flag running and see an opponent on an epic mount coming to slow you down/kill you? Wyvern sting so you can cross midfield into your team safely.
Are you for some reason the only CC in an instance? Freeze trap the first mob, wyvern sting the 2nd.
Are you speaking purely from a PvP perspective? Because their damage in PvP is going to come from autoshots, multi shots, aimed shots, and pets, just like every other spec. If you had any gear whatsoever, your freezing trap would net you a higher damage output than immolation trap either way since it would allow you an extra aimed/auto/multi round.
The playstyle you described doesn’t exist, much like melee firestone warlocks, much like dual wield protection warriors, and much like spell damage rogues.
Just because you choose to play the class wrong doesn’t make it a “playstyle”.
With Wyvern Sting in PvE, you prevent one enemy from joining the fight for twelve seconds, freezing trap another to kill it last, and use Serpent’s Sting on the enemy in the group marked with the skull (the one your group is killing first, should the skull turn out not to be a universal mark). I haven’t had a chance to do it myself–yet–but one of the best players I ever grouped with demonstrated it in a 45-minute Baron run.
It’s possible for a Hunter with Wyvern String to even CC 3 targets at once if they Freeze Trap, wait for CD, pull with Wyvern String into your trap, then FD and Freeze Trap another.
PvP wise I’d rather have Scatter Shot and do 0/21/30, but in PvE Wyvern Sting has its uses.
Nice strawman, like I get melee hunters have been a joke in wow for years but that claim was special. And mind you I didn’t include warriors cause you know the dodge chance and those overpower crits =/
I never claimed they were top dps, or even close, they sacrifice their dps for their survivalbility, but the 20% extra crit chance helps, and having lacerate would help too
2nd guy uses trinket or takes a dot tick, now you’ve wasted fd and proceed to get wiped, better to freezing trap
yes I’m aware it can be used in these two situations, as any ranged incap could be. Although why a hunter would be carrying the flag is abit beyond me most other classes would have a better time in terms of tankiness and mobility. And still freezing trap is better for that purpose. I could see it if you are trying to pull 1 guy off the fc and arn’t close enough to freezing trap. And yes I can see it’s use in pve, but at the same time pve hunters tend to go 31 MM for trueshot and just use freeze trap
That is, ofc, if you are not in melee, which survivals purpose is if you are in melee. And I’m speaking from a soloing and small scale pvp perspective. It’s not good at raiding (unless you’re a nightfall bot), it’s not as good at ranged dps
I’m sorry my playstyle doesn’t conform to your cookie cutter hunter specs, I’m sorry that it’s good at what it does and I’m sorry that retail has stopped you from being able to see outside the box what is a really fun, if limited, playstyle which could do for the bleed
If you like it, play it. If you think it’s fun, great.
But you cannot make it something it is not, which is a good spec. Survival (0/21/30), BM, and Marks are all better. Melee hunter might be a 4th spec but it is definitely in last place when it comes to both PvE and PvP. Numbers don’t lie. And please don’t advertise “melee hunter” as anything other than it is, a sub-optimal funsie spec for those who want to be the in-game contrarian.
How is it a strawman? Warlocks have an entire end tree talent and item dedicated to firestone usage.
I’m comparing useless meme specs with useless meme specs. Same realm.
I never claimed you were claiming they were top DPS. this is a straw man argument.
You claimed they had ‘exceptional’ damage, and you’re basing this off of raptor strike (an on next strike ability) and mongoose bite (at best, a move that does between 90 and 180 damage once every 6 seconds if it hits and you’re still stuck in melee).
You know raptor strike didn’t have that 20% extra crit chance at the time Lacerate was in the game?
What DoT tick is the guy going to take from 41 yards away? What trinket removes sleep? It’s its own category of incapacitation that isn’t cleansed by any trinket. Will of the Forsaken is the only thing that breaks it, and given how frequently you see hunters with wyvern sting, most players won’t even realize they have a get out of jail free card in their racial ability.
Also how brainless is that guy going to be to see you FD/trap and still run into your trap?
Hunters are amazing flag carries as they can avoid the vast majority of people on foot with cheetah micromanagement and tracking. Add in deterrence, traps that AoE slow/entangle, flares, and ranged incaps and you have a class that is arguably as good as mages in solo flag room removal. Good micromanagement with pet can also prevent respawners at GY from mounting up by forcing combat if you’re running that direction.
All PvE/PvP hunters should be going 31 points in MM. The difference between PvP/PvE lies in where the remaining 20 points go. BM tree if the hunter is hit capped and able to micromanage his pet to survive raid fights, survival if he really needs that extra 3% hit for whatever reason.
I guess you could also go a meme spec like 21/21/9, but honestly you shouldn’t be expecting to live long without deterrence in PvP.
Got off topic–but the reason why wyvern sting would be better in the original scenario would be removing a target from play before he could engage the FC/you. Whether its dismounting to PoM/poly, charge, blind, death coil, it’s irrelevant–all are countered by a 41 yard incap. and because of the extra range, you’re not risking lag and spellbatching screwing you.
Yes, survival’s purpose is to help you survive melee, it’s not meant to make you a melee fighter because that isn’t what a hunter does well. Its purpose is to disengage and allow you to start using your ranged again.
I’m sorry you actually are arguing for lacerate of all talents to be reimplemented. In no arena will it ever be considered “good at what it does” in any iteration of vanilla WoW.
I don’t get why you think I’m a retail player, but let me help you out–why don’t you just play a warrior that only uses heroic strikes and rends in defensive stance so you can also use revenge? That’s essentially the same playstyle you described. Sounds like fun.