I just started levelling an SV hunter and I have to say, it is kind of confusing. Kill SHOT requires a… “two-handed weapon”? But there also seem to be ranged powers that require a ranged to use.
With outlaw rogue you have “pistol shot” and “Between the eyes” even though you never equip a pistol. Fine. It’s just ranged a power you get and has nothing to do with gear.
But SV hunter seems to have some ranged powers that REQUIRE a ranged weapon to use, but other ranged powers that can be done just fine without one. WHUUUU?
It just FEELS like a bunch of random powers with random requirements tacked on, from other specs or classes, that don’t fit together. Like a power stew.
Guys it’s not that deep. Survival is a melee spec. You’re going to have a melee weapon. Why are we dissecting and overthinking Killshot requiring a melee weapon that you’re going to have equip regardless.
As someone else said, they’d have to completely readjust all the survival scaling because now you’d have 2 weapon enchants, 2 weapons scaling stats, and it would make loot bloated. PuG raids would have Survival taking ranged from the other two specs, and your great vault would feel it.
Animations would be janky too, right now it’s a quick hipfire with your melee weapon still out. Using a ranged weapon you would sheath melee, pull ranged off your back, shoot it once, put it back, pull out melee
This is nothing new. Even in 10.0 it worked the same exact way with KShot requiring a 2H. That’s part of what made me discontinue Retail Hunter. Not to mention that Coordinated Assault self-cancels when you unequip a 2H.
I don’t know how a spec can be reworked from SL to DF and that was deliberately allowed to be. But I might as well fire up Classic WoW (WotLK) somewhen for the first time. Blizz screwing up 10.X SV was a good excuse to learn how to play 3.X SV, though I still farmed gold in SL when DF was live.
Imagine a rework being so bad you just want to roll back to an earlier version.
I knew SV was trash the first 10 minutes 10.0 was live. There was ENOUGH time to figure out how to incorporate weapon type interchangeability. The only official version I’ve seen this work is in SoD, where any Hunter spec can choose to specialize in melee. Why the SoD team couldn’t translate the same success to Retail is a mystery…
I’m pretty sure arcane shot requires it, and steady shot I believe. I know these are not part of the Survival tree, but there are ranged powers in there (in the survival tree). Are all those usable with a melee weapon equipped?
Not at all surprising. I made this guy months ago and barely touched him. And I have yet to find a good two-hander. If they are “leftover base abilities” that still require a ranged weapon, then why does “Kill shot”, also in the base tree, say it requires a two handed weapon?
Because Kill Shot is intended for use in the survival rotation, it’s not leftover. Thus it requires a melee weapon so you will use it with a melee weapon equipped. I presume Arcane and Steady are left with the ranged weapon requirement specifically to discourage you from using them.
The spec needed an execute ability and the designers wanted it to be a ranged execute, which is really good for the spec. It’s the most “intermediate” spec. in the game, able to operate at range for a substantial portion of its dps. Don’t get hung up on the ability name. I imagine it was programmatically simple to keep the ability with the same name, but they gave it the crossbow animation to keep it as a ranged ability, so it makes sense in that respect.
They didn’t want you using Steady Shot. Instead Kill Command is your focus generator, and they didn’t want you using Arcane Shot – survival has a whole different suite of integrated damaging abilities.
ETA: I don’t know why they didn’t just remove Steady Shot and Arcane shot, like they did for Beast Mastery. I suspect it’s for that transitional period from levels 10-12 where you can select Survival but don’t have Raptor Strike yet. Personally, I think they should have just replaced Arcane Shot with Raptor Strike, but shrug.
That’s the biggest problem we all know that is. Diablo 2 wouldn’t be the success that it was if it had that philosophy. It should be more like SoD Runes(yet another shameless self-promotion) where you can choose how to perform in your role.
Yes, any and all talents in the survival tree
are usable with a melee weapon. You’re overthinking it.
They couldn’t do this because Quick Shot talent makes your kill command casts have a chance to cast Arcane Shot at 100% effectiveness so for clarity you need to be able to go into your spell book and see what/how hard hitting Arcane shot is