As most melee hunters are specced into Beast Mastery I think that making the survival tree a viable option for melee dps would be ideal. So a thought on survival that focuses on the hunter, not the pet.
For dual wield we really need a weapon throw like Rexxar in WCIII, something where the hunter throws both weapons in an arc and damages all enemies in their path, maybe causing more damage or causing a stun at the focal point.
Making 2 handed weapons viable for melee dps could make trap launcher a good choice over dual wield master and could lead to a play style that utilizes ranged, melee and trap mastery, furthering the ranger fantasy.
Adding utility to a melee hunter that would aid with the dead zone and survivability. Some ideas for survival hunters that could accomplish this are:
A melee attack with a range and no dead zone (example as the weapon throw listed above)
Melee hunters NEED a way to engage combat (Harpoon)
Survival Hunters NEED a way to survive combat (Modern Disengage)
Survival tree isnt bad at all i run it with 2 handed weapon and trap launcher tge pluse to crit anf agi make it hit really hard with slowercwepons pluse added trap damage. Andcentrapment for pvp. Its great i normaly kill de hunters cause they cant deal with entrapment and getying truckrd by a 3h raptor strike.
Would really like to see them make an interesting and enjoyable to play melee rotation before they touch something as intricate and complex to develop as an entire skill tree
I think if they added a gap close ability or any utility to melee it would be absolutely busted though in PvP
Most, if not all, melee hunters run some variation of 33/0/8 for pve. Survival is not a viable dps spec. I wont disagree that survival is great for traps and the like, but 2h doesn’t compare with dual wield currently.
making surv a “viable” dps spec, will just see BM killed off.
Get a little more creative and think of a way to revive surv without killing another spec
Totally! Can we please have a rotation that isn’t just raptor strike?
rogues and warriors both have a way to enter melee combat, that said, a way out of melee would be useful as well and allow access to ranged abilities they already have.
I mean Survival is arguably a dead… “Killed” dps spec. BM would always be available for those who want to foucus on their pet.
Why does it make sense that if melee hunters are specc’ed into BM, Survival should also be melee-centric?
I personally feel like the Survival tree, and allocating a majority of one’s talent points into it should lead to being the best trap-centric PVP focused, ranged hunters.
You seem to be coming from a perspective that going deep into any tree should result in a spec with equally viable raiding DPS output as any other. I’m not sure there has ever been a case made that shows that that is a desirable design goal.
Make SV focused on melee and ranged weaving. So BM is melee or ranged with pet, MM is more ranged focused, and can have pet (but shouldnt be forced into it, we need a viable lone wolf option in the same slot as focus fire, tnt is an absolute joke at best) and SV can be the weave spec that melees, and ranges and they feed off of eachother.
Example, raptor strike causes your next arcane shot to cause the target to bleed for 30% ranged weapon damage for 9 seconds, stacking indefinite, using arcane shot causes your next raptor strike to increase move speed by 10% for 9 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.
So going back and forth will cause an infinitely stacking bleed (similar to deep wounds) and keeps up a conetant move speed buff to improve the transition between ranged and melee
Yeah, that does seem to be the case. In SoD, the devs seem to be pushing people to get to max-level to focus on raiding.
The most compelling game/mini-game seems to be getting prepared to raid, whereas everything else is just supporting that. And while for sure I think there’s an amount of fun to be had preparing buffs for raids, and putting together teams that will do well in raids, they really destroyed BGs and the fun of playing them by catering to throwers.
I think I’m done with SoD, and since it’s the off season in Wrath and it’ll be some time before the next Arena season in Cata, I think this is where I depart my journey with WoW.
Why would you want to play a tank hunter spec when there are ample other classes that can go tank already and will do much better.
Yahhh lets cut our dps by 50% just so we can have a taunt with literally no defensive abilities besides deterrence in survival tree which is a 5 min CD and still get one shot by a boss if the attack goes through. There are more things to tanking than just having a taunt ability which hunters do not have built into their kit.
because hunter is the only class without a healing or tank off spec and healing is lame
hunter is the only physical class in the game that cant tank
hunter is the only melee class that cant tank
and trying to make surv work as a dps spec will just kill BM or MM. 3 dps spec’d classes have never been balanced in the 20 years of wow history
1 - 2 well designed runes is enough to put surv tank on the same level as any other tank. Rogue and warlock tank require 4+ runes to work because they have no built in talents to tank like surv has. not to mention they can just piggyback off tank shaman itemization
