There are presently 5 other melee specs with Armor values equal to or lower than Survival’s. In most cases, they make up for that via more active means of increasing their eHP atop certain other features that plate-wearing melee DPS may lack.
If we take that as a balance point, would it really be best to budget that space towards passive means, rather than letting SV offer more active survivability advantages over BM and MM, ideally in ways synergetic with or proportionate to their melee usage?
Granted, I’m thinking of this partly in PvP terms as well, where we generally just kite the crap out of those with higher Armor until we can press the advantage anyways.
Even without accounting for the loot drama, I think this would incur a lot of lot of backlash from hunter mains over lost access to their prized transmogs.
I’ll admit, I cannot imagine a single plate transmog that seems like it’d fit the theme of an aborigine tracker, evasive utilitarian, ‘man vs. wild’ primal spear-hunter, etc., so I imagine that’d probably best be avoided regardless??
I agree, but to be honest I hope they rework it back to ranged or at least give us an option to. I know some people enjoy MSV but I really miss RSV and would love to be able to play it again.
I think the question we’re trying to resolve right now is whether MSV suggests a theme that would be compatible with what RSV suggested.
As Allieddeath mentioned, RSV’s theme took a noticeable shift with Explosive Shot, and then continued on that route instead until its being abruptly dismantled in Legion, arguably having more to do with Munitions than with Survival.
If there’s a thematic core that could support both those spans of going from charges set / plan readied / preparation made → all-in primal/predatory/Drizzt-esque “Hunter” mindset… and also support the gameplay (e.g., the casual pewpewing and/or high floor and/or hitting the flashing buttons) or thematic range of RSV (munitions + some combination of scouter + saboteur and maybe guerrilla warfare), then by all means, I think we should go for it.
But unless they seem somehow a match made in heaven, we’re essentially looking at 4 playstyles, and we’d probably have to force 2 of them into the same spec, whether that be RSV into MM, MSV into BM, or whatever else.
The closest I can imagine off the top of my head to a core that could support both MSV and RSV would be to theme it, again, around becoming the beast, with a very wide tree with three opening nodes and…
a left side based around Cunning into which RSV falls (doesn’t necessarily force a ranged weapon, but neither does it force melee, and you can stick to just those no-melee-forced parts and still have a few build choices),
a narrow center built around Tenacity that forces choice of sustain utility en route to a core CD that’d be useful to both sides or CD-choice-node between them, and
a right side based around Ferocity, complete with the best of the best of things previous and new that’d give that feeling of prepared, all-in, engrossed butchery.
RSV builds would still dip into this side for many of their immediately reactive/proc mechanics, I’d imagine, while MSV builds would dip into Cunning for their preferred styles of set-up.
All Hunter specs have similar issues with unavoidable damage, which only Evasive Mitigation can solve. I’ve developed a comprehensive offensive and defensive system with passive and active traits for the entire Hunter Class, both facets designed to work in tandem. It’s a self-balancing equation. I’ll wait until 10.0.7 comes out to see if it’s even worth suggesting, or I may run it by you and Gizolfi in PM.
The core of any one specialization has many facets–said facets themselves compose an overarching theme: the whole of which is the sum total of its constituent parts.
I think the miscommunication here lies in the trick question itself, and what may realistically be gained from asking it. Damage itself is the obvious answer for a thematic core on a DPS Class. I like the sort of quirky admixture of physical ranged and melee damage that they came up with, as it offers a unique flare to the spec (even though CA Kill Shot is only an amplified Classic-Era Multi-Shot, for instance). In fact, they are pushing the spec more towards the Vanilla-era, but with inverted scaling. Initially, ranged dps outpaced melee dps in Vanilla, but now we do several multiples over in melee as opposed to from range. Just add back the Evasive Mitigation and we’re golden.
No problem. I only suggested sharing with Tanais first because he will filter out all the crap. In fact, the idea might not survive his penetrating sight.
If the problem (in the sense of an excessive constraint or one Hunter doesn’t have its own answers to, no matter how indirectly) is shared across the whole class, rather than being a consequence of going melee, then the fix should likewise be shared across the whole class and independent of being melee, no?
Assuming SV naturally receives the same fixes to classwide problems, the only thing the SV-specific stuff would need to fix are problems specific to SV.
Secondly, that unavoidable damage is frequently also non-evadable (literally can’t be dodged).
By “evasion” (or, via “evasive”) do you mean something other than actually dodging (as via RNG-based Dodge chance)?
Or, say, via bursty finely-controllable mobility with little effective uptime cost (which still can’t deal with non-LoSable damage and tends to be redundant where such is possible, with any decent tank positioning)?
Also, I wasn’t aware there was a PM function? And in either case I’d recommend sharing to all even if something seems embarrassingly rough for the time being, as any one poster’s ideas for the spec will of course be idiosyncratic, and depending on only the same few pairs of eyes each time increases the risk of something otherwise obvious being missed.
Hammer things into rough shape wherever you can and once you have an alpha version, so to speak, you may want to start your own thread so that you can later link from there.
I agree, but we can blame my seeing SV as a melee and Baldur’s Gate 3 for that. One of the sort of specializations they gave rangers as a replacement for Favored Enemy (which, funnily enough, was why SV had all those “deal +damage to giants/dragonkin/etc” talents in vanilla) included Ranger Knight, which gives heavy armor proficiency right out the gate. Even those that skip it still end up taking heavy armor proficiency if they go melee ranger, so I figured it should be mentioned.
This said, finding plate that would look good on a hunter would be tough, on top of the restraints of the transmog system.
Edit: Original post deleted due to lower quality presentation.
Yes. I thought about bringing back Deterrence, but mere frontal physical evasion (and at that low of a %) is too narrow in appplication. The game is more complex than ever, and with the more hybridized damage profile available for many classes, dodge and parry alone would not suffice.
A more modern mitigation package could consist of a stacking passive debuff that applies when the Hunter takes damage from any source–that upon receiving a hit, the hit chance of the attacker would go down, capping @ -75%.
Perhaps this effect could be directly tied to the Hunter aura as a passive buff thereby decreasing our chance to be hit by all targets if struck, stacking linearly until hardcapped, and then rapidly decaying to base with a healthy internal cooldown.
I call it: Lightning Reflexes.
Deterrence : Maximizes Lightning Reflexes for 8 seconds.
I think I get what you are saying but I don’t necessarily see using explosives etc as being anti “survival”, in fact I would argue that using any and all tools you have available to you in order to be the last one standing fits the name “survival” perfectly. Which also leads us back to the MSV issue, putting down your bow/gun to go into melee seems anti “survival”, because again, you would think you would want to use every tool you have in your arsenal and not limit yourself to just melee especially considering that in WoW, bows/guns can do their full damage in melee range or at their maximum range.
A hunter spec being changed into melee has never made sense when you look at the class as a whole and here we are 4 expansions later still debating if MSV can even fit with the class. Fans of RSV watched the spec they loved for years get their role completely changed and the result was the popularity of the spec completely bottoming out. Again, I fault no one for enjoying MSV but it feels really bad to have lost RSV in order to make that happen especially when you look at the numbers of people who played RSV vs those who play MSV.
Blizz took away from the many to give to the few in this case and I wish they would at least allow the many to play what they used to love, preferably without costing MSV players the spec that they enjoy but I gotta be honest, if it had to, the numbers don’t lie and they are heavily in RSV’s favor.
RSV has lost a lot of ground politically. It’s hard to sympathize when they continuously push zero-sum tactics against our retail community.
The near constant unsolicited interjection, the zero-sum politics, and the existential contempt they hold for retail SV cannot be tolerated. Psychologically, it reads as an insipid attempt to drown out constructive discourse, as they fear an intact and functioning MSV would eliminate an RSV revival, which is again a petulant zero-sum tactic.
The wisest course of action is to disregard RSV advocates.
If they’re pushing for a 4th spec or a hero class, fine. That’s reasonable as it adds flavor to the game, which is good overall and largely agreeable.
An intact and functioning and damage-wise viable MSV has already exsited and it was still shunned by the hunter community.
People who entertain the delusion that MSV just needs a few tweaks here and there and then hunters will flock to it have lost grasp on reality. The reality remains that a melee version of hunter will always be abandoned by the vast majority of players unless its broken op.
Putting in additional work from the already extremely tight hunter ressources is casting pearls before swine.
There are some who would say that hunters dont “deserve” a 4th spec, but there has been no class before that has burried a formerly popular spec so thoroughly and to amend that, i think a 4th spec would be very much acceptable. However, if this doesnt work, the next best option, for hunters as a whole, is to accept that it was a mistake and revert SV back to range.
This wouldnt be a zero-sum situation since only the very small playerbase of MSV would be hit, while the much larger former playerbase would be helped out. The win is larger than the loss.
You have become enlightened to a 4th spec, which is a good political leaning. With how old and decayed the game is now, you can’t go about destroying communities that still subscribe to it on a whim without adverse reaction. Thousands of people play and enjoy the spec, alienating them further on WoW’s long and steep decline is a terrible choice. Additions to the game would thus be the correct path.
But they already did just that, survival was ranged for many expansions before it was turned into melee, and now you are telling RSV fans that to have the same thing happen to MSV is unacceptable but yet MSV fans are just supposed to accept that it happened to them? Also, I think most would be fine with a 4th spec, they just want to be able to play RSV again.
This has also happened multiple times, and MSV still remained one of the least played specs. It’s not even just the hunter community, the player base as a whole has rejected MSV. I just recently saw a post on Reddit (can’t link or I would) that showed a hunter joining a group to run some M+, the group noticed he was survival and said “Survival, interesting, you don’t see many of those” and then removed him from the group. People bring hunters for their ranged damage etc, not to fill yet another highly sought after melee spot.
No. That was Blizzard’s second mistake with SV. The first mistake they made was retconning the vanilla-era ‘Evasive Utilitarian’: my community, with the Sapper-esque RSV. The second mistake they made was retconning RSV with MSV. The externally imposed suffering was chiefly the result of not adding additional class, spec, or racial archetypes to the game, instead choosing to force new additions into older frameworks with no consideration as to whom it may alienate. This drama can at last be put to rest with a 4th spec. The market share of fans certainly exists for its potential reimplementation, and could prove to be a profitable venture.
But cease with the silly zero-sum politics and instead posit the correct solution.
It wasn’t a blunder. It was a very clever and effective extension of the core Hunter theme.
Hunters have always had that sort of utility. Explosive Trap was a thing from the literal start. “Evasive utilitarian” originally meant having higher dodge and parry chance and additional snaring capability. The latter it kept, the former became less relevant as we got different and better ways to both survive and escape melee range. So to describe it as “forced out” is inaccurate.
Besides, “evasive utilitarian” is great and all until SV needs to be an independent damage dealer. The problem with pre-WotLK Hunter spec design is that they didn’t envision all three specs as independent damage dealers. They envisioned BM as the solo spec, MM as the PvE spec, SV as the PvP spec. It’s kind of like treating the purpose of different specs as what should be variations/paths within one spec. BC’s way of addressing SV was just slapping on a token raid buff (more accurately an enemy debuff) that made it a mandatory inclusion of raids. In WotLK they wisely extended the existing utilitatian theme to exotic munitions because it was a very good fit and it finally made SV its own thing.
“Add back in” implies it lost something significant.
Looking at the BC talent tree, the “evasive mitigation” is:
+6 yards to ranged attacks (oh, hey, a ranged focus)
+5% parry chance
+10% HP
-4% damage taken
+15% resistance to movement imparing effects
Deterrence: +25% dodge and parry for 10 secs
Root effect on traps and Wing Clip
This is stuff that was relevant for the time (although it never amounted to SV being the preferred Hunter PvP spec), but it’s not like this is what’s needed to save SV in modern WoW. It would make hardly any difference at all. Plus, there are important mitigation elements we have in modern WoW that we didn’t have back then.
But it comes back to the fact that evasive mitigation is not a damage-dealing theme. No, improved uptime isn’t enough. I see this fixation with uptime from SV Hunters a lot. Most melee already have very high uptime even without the ranged capability of SV. And let’s not forget that BM and MM also have the highest uptime you can get. Mitigation is PART of a spec, not the whole thing.
Well if we are treating this in terms of politics and PR, what are melee SV’s grounds?
Perhaps the greatest harm to Ranged SV’s PR is that melee SV has been such a consistent flop that people assume SV has just always been that unpopular even in its ranged days.
This would be a much more bland and niche aesthetic.
Bruh.
I don’t think it was a shift. It felt like a natural extension/exploration on what it already focused on before. It had buffed Explosive Trap from the start and it got Wyvern Sting early on, so evidently they already associated it with use of special munitions like explosives and poisons. It’s a good fit for the utilitarian/resourceful archetype.
I only suggested sharing with Tanais first because he will filter out all the crap. In fact, the idea might not survive his penetrating sight.