This constant bickering back and forth about MSV and RSV is for sure not helping the class or the community. It’s like, shall we perhaps accept that Blizzard owns the IP and do as they wish? And instead give them serious and mature feedback about the changes they make? 6 years of bickering hasn’t really made Blizzard take the hunter community seriously, I’d imagine.
I like MSV and I like RSV. I personally think it was a big missed opportunity to not add MSV as a fourth spec. Considering how much MSV steal/borrow from other specs/classes it’s not like there isn’t room for both?
With that said it does seem like Survival will be going forward as melee and what we should do is advocate to get Back RSV in some form. And to give feedback about how horribly bad the Survival tree is. I spent some good 60 minutes today trying to get any sense of a build for survival. But the closest I get is “take all melee/trap options in class tree and go for all KC/RS talents in survival” or the “take all the shots and ranged attacks in class tree and pick up KC/WFB in survival tree” giving me 2 “builds”, one ranged/AoE and one Melee. And neither of these “builds” or different variations of them feel even remotely good!
Taking aside that we have a horrific amount of 2-3 point talents and that we have a horribly large pool of X% damage or X CDR talents we still have NO synergy between anything in the tree more or less. Things are connected yes, but all those connections is about Main ability A getting 5 talents all boosting it’s damage or shortening it’s CD. There is no rotation and no synergy. This saddens me greatly because this is Exactly what Survival have been struggling with. It’s a spec completely lacking identity, core or synergy. It is just bad. And if they made a good MSV I’d be perfectly fine with playing that… even if RSV is missed. I was really hoping they’d finally take this expansion (which core focus is to get back to the core gameplay and get rid of borrowed powers etc) and use the resources to get a good, functioning well thought-out survival hunter into the game. So far I am not convinced.
TL;DR Stop the bickering already, it’s been years and years of you guys cluttering the forums to the point that most I know won’t even go here. Just to argue about RSV/MSV. A decision you have zero say in. Let’s spend our energy into actually advocating for a good Spec, however it is. Please.
The talent giving a DPS boost would be a given. It would then be up to tuning it so it would be a decent trade off without either being so undertuned as to be a dead pick or so overtuned as to be a necessary pick.
If they can’t keep it balanced having it more on the undertuned side would be preferable so as not to force the majority of BM Hunters who don’t want to be melee to have to pick melee to compete.
Notice this is the exact same design dilemma as what we face with melee being available via an entirely separate spec.
The ONLY valuable feedback for SV is to make it ranged. Everything else is a waste of time that feeds into Blizzard’s delusion.
Bepples for the love of god, this is becoming ridiculous. You take my whole post about how the “adamant blind-eyed ignore every other opinion than mine” approach is really tiresome to everyone else and how it’s bad for the community and class and you throw back “my feedback is the only valuable feedback”?
If you really feel like it is and that god be damned it’s ultimatum and it’s your ultimatum or may the class and the world burn, could you please keep it to threads Only pertaining to the very exact subject of “survival hunter melee or ranged?” please? Because it’s spilling into pretty much every single damn post and it’s sucking the life out of the community. People just want to play a good/fun class. And if it changes or if their taste changes they change with it.
P.S. I know this thread is specifically about survival being melee so I guess go ahead and bicker here. But You and toxiktraktor and your respective posses have been having the same immature arguments about RSV/MSV in pretty much every single thread I’ve read the last week. And pretty much none of them are about the MSV/RSV subject. Please keep it where it should be, if you want to argue ad nauseam.
They’ve been bashing their heads against a brick wall for 6 years trying to make melee SV work. It isn’t going to work. It’s a fundamentally bad idea. Telling them everything’s fine and feeding into the delusion by trying to tweak melee SV into making it work is not the answer and that’s how we got here with SV being a mess and DF’s SV talent tree being a disaster. There is NO way out of this other than going back to the last iteration of SV that actually functioned and working from there.
Yes it has caused a ton of bitterness and anger on the forums. Shame. That’s another reason why they shouldn’t have done it and shouldn’t continue with it.
I know a lot of people ask for ranged survival back but tbh, I already play survival mostly as a ranged character in PvP so no difference to me. All that matters is that the spec is designed well.
MM isn’t, nor has it ever been themed around enhanced traps. That was always what SV built on in the past.
While I’m first and foremost an advocator for the 4th spec route for those of us who want old SV back, like I said in the other topic, if they are to keep with the idea that a melee-focused playstyle for the hunter class should also be themed around the use of hunter pets, it should be a part of Beast Mastery. They would have the perfect opportunity now with the new talent system, and with these choice nodes they’re implementing, to allow players to go into BM, get all the choices there are to focus on pets, but then also be able to, as an example, pick between Cobra Shot vs. Raptor Strike, Barbed Shot vs. Lacerate, and so on. See this post for more details: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/en/wow/t/community-council-discussion-on-hunter-design/1268014/34
Obviously we now know more about what they’re planning for BM, in terms of pet themed talents and effects, than I did when I posted that. But it would still apply more or less the same, with the ranged shots vs. melee strikes.
Moving on from that, to what a modern version of “old SV/RSV” would look like. I made this concept a while back(see below), before they had announced anything about Dragonflight, and the rework to talents as a system. So the foundation of the concept is still based on what we have now in Shadowlands. But it can ofc be restructured to suit the updates we are getting for our classes/specs with 10.0. I haven’t had time to do so yet, but at some point, I will take another look at the concept to see how it could be reworked to fit with the DF spec/talent structure.
As usual, any numbers mentioned are only here to provide further depth to the concept and are ofc subject to change.
Core Abilities
[Cobra Shot] - Instant cast
A fast shot that causes X Physical damage.
Generates 7 Focus.
[Explosive Shot] - 20 Focus - Instant cast - 10 sec recharge - 2 charges
Fire an explosive charge into the enemy target, dealing Fire damage. The charge will blast the target every second for an additional 4 sec.
[Black Arrow] - 30 Focus - Instant cast - 30 sec cooldown
Fire a shot infused with dark energy at the target, dealing Shadow damage over 12 sec.
The periodic damage-effect applied by Black Arrow can be stacked up to 3 times on the same enemy.
[Serpent Sting] - 15 Focus - Instant cast
Fire a shot that poisons your target, causing them to take Nature damage over 15 sec.
[Arcane Shot] - 20 Focus - Instant cast
A quick shot that causes X Arcane damage.
[Multi-Shot] - 40 Focus - Instant cast
Fires several missiles, hitting up to 5 targets within 8 yards of your current target for X Physical damage.
Multi-Shot applies Serpent Sting to all targets hit.
[Immolation Trap] - Instant cast - 1 minute cooldown
Hurls a fire trap to the target location that will burn the first enemy to approach for X Fire damage over 20 sec. The trap will exist for 1 min.
Class-wide abilities
[Kill Shot] - 10 Focus - Instant cast - 10 sec recharge - 1 Charge
You attempt to finish off a wounded target, dealing X Physical damage.
Only usable on enemies with less than 20% health.
Major Cooldown
[Munition Tactics] - 20 sec duration - 2 minute cooldown.
Increases your haste by X% and instantly triggers Lock & Load(Passive). When Explosive Shot is used during Munition Tactics, this resets the remaining cooldown of Black Arrow.
Any time Explosive Shot deals damage to a target affected by Black Arrow, during Munition Tactics, this will cause the periodic damage effect applied by Black Arrow to spread to nearby enemies as well.
(This effect is replaced by a different passive effect when engaged in instanced PvP; If your Black Arrow is at any time dispelled or otherwise removed from an enemy target, this instantly resets the remaining cooldown of Black Arrow.)
Mastery
[Mastery Bonus: Toxicology] - Increases all non-physical damage dealt by X%, based on Mastery.
Passive Effects
[Lone Wolf] - Increases your damage by 10% when you do not have an active pet.
[Lock and Load] - Periodic damage dealt by Black Arrow and Immolation Trap have a chance to cause your next Explosive Shot to cost no Focus and trigger no cooldown.
[Trap Mastery] - Tar Trap now slows approaching enemies by an additional X%, and the effect sticks to the enemy for 3 seconds after they have left the tar.
The trigger radius, as well as the radius of the residual tar patch left by your Tar Trap, is increased by 25%.
Freezing Trap can now be triggered manually by the hunter once placed, causing it to form a fragile Ice Block that you can stand behind to protect yourself from frontal attacks until shattered. The ice block shatters after 8 seconds or once it has sustained enough damage.
Manually triggering it requires you to stand in close vicinity to the trap.
[Serpent’s Focus] - Using Cobra Shot several times in a row will increase the amount of Focus generated by each shot by 4. Stacking up to 3 times.
[Serpent Spread] - Targets hit by Multi-Shot are also afflicted by Serpent Sting equal to 9 sec of it’s duration.
[Exotic Munitions] - Your Auto Attacks have a chance to increase the remaining duration of either Serpent Sting, Black Arrow or Immolation Trap by 5 seconds, on an enemy affected by either of these periodic damage effects.
Utility/defensives
Includes all other abilities, such as [Tar Trap][Frost Trap][Aspect of the Turtle][Concussive Shot][Counter Shot][Tranquilizing Shot][Misdirection][Pet Utility][Exhilaration][Disengage][Feign Death], and more.
Note that I would prefer if(on a class-wide basis)
[Posthaste] - becomes a baseline effect. [Master’s Call] - becomes a baseline ability again. [Pet Specializations] - Ferocity, Tenacity, and Cunning, if they were changeable again. [Revive Pet] - Cast time brought down to 2 seconds again. [Camouflage] - becomes a baseline ability again.
Talents
– Level 15 –
[Ever Burning] - If you fire Explosive Shot into an enemy already affected by a previous charge, the remaining duration of the previous charge is refreshed as well as increased by an additional 3 seconds.
An active charge can only have a max duration of 9 seconds.
Exotic Munition-procs now also increases the remaining duration of any active Explosive Shot charges you have on the current target by 3 seconds.
[Noxious Stings] - Increases the periodic critical damage of your Explosive Shot, Serpent Sting, and Black Arrow by 25%, and Serpent Sting now deals increased damage against targets below 30% health.
[Fusion Shot] - (Replaces Cobra Shot) - 1.5s cast time(castable while moving) - 6 sec recharge - 2 Charges
Fire a charged shot into the target, dealing Physical damage.
When your next ability that deals periodic damage hits the target, this triggers a volatile fusion immediately causing it to erupt dealing additional instant damage equal to 40% of it’s total duration. The target will take additional damage of the same type as the ability used to trigger the fusion for the next 12 sec.
Generates 25 Focus.
– Level 25 –
[Death Adder] - Serpent Sting also does instant damage equal to 30% of it’s total periodic effect. Also applies to Serpent Spread(Passive).
Every time Serpent Sting deals damage, you have a chance to gain 3 Focus.
If the passive effect “Exotic Munitions” procs while your Serpent Sting is active on the target, this also triggers the Death Adder-effect.
[Predator] - Casting Explosive Shot, Black Arrow, Serpent Sting, or Multi-Shot reduces the Focus cost and increases the damage of your next Arcane Shot by 30%. This effect stacks.
[Viper Venom] - Whenever Serpent Sting deals damage, there’s a chance that this can cause any other periodic damage effects you have applied to the target to instantly deal damage equal to one tick of their total effect.
If this proc occurs when the target is affected by Black Arrow, this will instantly refresh it’s remaining duration and restore 8 Focus back to you.
– Level 30 –
[Trailblazer] - [Natural Mending]
[Bestial Dicipline] - (Replaces Camouflage as a talent choice) - While your pet is active, you and your pet(s) regenerate X% of total health every 3 sec. Healing done to you and your pet(s) is increased by X%.
Damage taken by your pet(s) is reduced by 15%.
When Lone Wolf(Passive) is active, you continue to heal for the same amount of health.
– Level 35 –
[Cluster Shot] - 25 Focus - Instant cast - 15 sec cooldown.
Fire a shot which explodes on impact, instantly dealing Physical damage to the primary target and all other nearby enemies, and causing them to bleed for an additional X Physical damage over 3 sec.
Explosive Shot-charges which are still active on any target(s) hit by Cluster Shot will instantly erupt, dealing all remaining damage to the affected target(s) at once.
[Wildfire] - 8 sec duration
The periodic damage effect applied by Immolation Trap will now spread to any enemy standing in close range to an already burning target. As long as an enemy is within range of another enemy affected by Wildfire or Immolation Trap, the Wildfire will continue to spread.
[T.N.T.] - Explosive Shot now deals damage to all enemies near the affected target.
– Level 40 –
[Born to be Wild] - [Binding Shot]
[Adaption] - (Replaces Posthaste as a talent choice) Getting hit with an incapacitating effect(Stun/Fear), reduces the remaining cooldown of your Aspect of the Turtle by 30%. This effect has an internal cooldown of X sec.
Aspect of the Turtle is now usable when incapacitated.
When rooted or slowed, the remaining cooldown of Aspect of the Cheetah is reduced by 15 seconds. Aspect of the Cheetah frees you from movement impairing effects and you cannot be slowed below 100% movement speed while it’s active.
– Level 45 –
[Spitting Cobra] - Cobra Shot now deals an additional X% damage as Nature damage and extends the remaining duration of Serpent Sting on the enemy target by X sec.
Cobra Shot now has a high chance of generating double Focus when fired.
[Exothermia] (Requires talent: Fusion Shot)
Increases your critical strike chance against any enemy you hit with Fusion Shot by X% for 12 sec. Dealing Fire damage to the target extends this effect even further.
Fusion Shot generates an additonal 10 Focus over 5 sec.
[Pre-Heat] - The cooldown of Immolation Trap is reduced by 5 seconds every time Immolation Trap deals critical damage to the enemy target. In addition, if an enemy target dies while affected by Immolation Trap, it’s cooldown is reset.
[Intoxication] - Your ranged Auto Attacks have a chance to grant you 2 stacks of Intoxication. When Black Arrow is refreshed or when it expires from an enemy, you gain this effect as well.
Intoxication
When you use an ability that deals instant damage, it has a 100% chance to be a critical strike.
When you use an ability that deals periodic damage, damage caused by this ability is increased by an additional X%.
– Level 50 –
[Rapid Recuperation] - Damage caused by Explosive Shot have a chance to reduce the remaining cooldown of Munition Tactics by 1 sec.
Whenever Lock & Load procs, this causes the next Explosive Shot fired to have a 100% chance for each of it’s ticks to reduce the remaining cooldown of Munition Tactics by 1 sec.
Catalysis - Duration 10 sec.
Black Arrow increases any Fire-damage you deal to an enemy by X%.
In addition, Explosive Shot-charges granted by Lock & Load extend the remaining duration of Black Arrow by 1 second every time they deal damage to the affected target.
[Resourcefulness] - Reduces the cooldown of all traps and Black Arrow by 20%. Your Freezing Trap and Tar Trap both have a 100% chance to proc Lock & Load when triggered.
Freezing Trap when triggered manually can now withstand 100% more damage before shattering.
When an enemy breaks free from your Freezing Trap, they will take an additional 10% damage from all sources for the next X seconds.
Critical damage dealt by Immolation Trap is increased by X%.
Bonus effects/Bonus Traits
Got no good names for these traits/bonuses yet but…just wanted to add in some potential fun bonus effects that are spec specific. They can be tied to things such as Set Bonuses or something similar to Artifact Traits/Azerite Traits of the past.
(1)Lock and Load now grants 2 charges of Explosive Shot when it procs, instead of 1.
(2) When you get a Exotic Munitions-proc. It will grant you an additional bonus effect depending on which periodic damage-effect it benefits.
Serpent Sting - Until the current Serpent Sting debuff expires or is refreshed, every time it deals damage to the target, you instantly gain 3 Focus.
Black Arrow - The remaining cooldown of Black Arrow is instantly reset.
Immolation Trap - Your next Immolation Trap will deal an extra X% damage and will also have an increased X% chance to critically hit the affected target.
(3)Arcane Shot now triggers the passive effect “Exotic Munitions” when it hits an enemy target.
I don’t know how much effort you put into all this, but we have to take into account that ammunition and bombs have no appeal to hunters in lore, they have more to do with engineers.
from the perspective of lore hunters they don’t blast enemies, they hunt, they don’t hunt ashes from their prey.
from a gameplay perspective, we basically have a spec that shoots a different color compared to the MM. MM shoots blue missiles, your SV shoots yellow missiles. I couldn’t imagine anything more boring even if I tried.
This sounds like you’re working with the assumption that hunters in lore are only defined by the use of bows and arrows. In the most primitive of ways possible.
I definitely agree that something like Wildfire Bomb has nothing to do with the hunter class. But the idea of explosive arrows/ammunition isn’t at all far-fetched, not even in Warcraft history.
We all have our personal takes and subjective views on what things are ofc. But…I can’t help but notice how you here have chosen a reductionist view on the theme of hunting/fighting using ranged weaponry, and how it could apply to the hunter class in WoW.
It would be the same as if I was to say that “I see no difference between Arms and Fury warriors, they just beat enemies with large sticks”.
Or Rogues, “all 3 Rogue specs are based on beating enemies with 2 small sticks. There’s no variation there”
Mages? All 3 Mage specs focus on casting spells with different colors.
Warcraft has only one class that uses bows and guns, maybe in the future tinker could fit a bow/gun explosive spec. But not survival, it just makes no sense.
I’m genuinely pointing out that your SV version will just shoot another color, this is unhealthy for the class, neither in terms of lore nor gameplay.
Your suggestion fits a little bit better in MM tree.
Are you saying that it’s not possible to make explosive ammunition?
You know that from the moment they started adding more defining features to the respective categories we had, back in WotLK, they introduced the abilities that made for the foundation for the munitions expert and trapper-fantasy that became RSV? Before then, the categories weren’t meant to build on individual sub-fantasies. They were designed to build on a common core class fantasy, one that was the same no matter what you chose, in terms of talents(talking Vanilla and TBC).
And again, that logic of yours can be applied in the same way to the following classes/specs, and would then serve as motivation to remove a significant amount of them, or at the very least, rework them to something with little resemblance to what they currently are like.
Warrior:
Arms
Fury
-Both are just about beating enemies with large sticks, one must be removed.
Rogue
Outlaw
Assassination
Subtlety
-All 3 are just about beating enemies with 2 small sticks, and jumping in and out of stealth. 2 must be removed.
Mage
Arcane
Fire
Frost
-All 3 are about casting spells with different colors. 2 must go.
Warlock
Demonology
Destruction
Affliction
-Demonology focuses on demons, so it can stay. But either Destruction or Affliction has to go.
Again, this is your own logic, how you view what it means to define different class fantasies, and what is, or isn’t, enough. Are you saying that we should do the above to those classes?
The theme of Marksmanship is that of a skilled sharpshooter.
The theme of RSV was that of a munitions expert and trapper.
Mechanically, MM is, and has always been about heavy front-loaded damage, and burst potential.
Meanwhile, RSV was built on the idea of rot gameplay and concistency, of sustained pressure.
Those aren’t at all the same thing. Again, this is why I’m saying that you’re looking at it with a reductionist mindset, one that does not take any(almost) details into account. Only the most superficial things matter.
You’re posting this from a class and spec that revolves around Wildfire Bomb, a literal grenade. Do you even understand at all the spec you’re defending so much or are you just posting from a Hunter because you think it gives you more credibility on the Hunter forums? It looks like you hardly play that character at all, to be quite honest, so I wouldn’t put it past you to have forgotten that SV uses bombs.
This is just a mixture of concern trolling and projection. The Hunter class was generally in a much better state when SV was ranged while melee SV has been a 6 year dumpster fire.
Let’s ignore all Wardens, Headhunters, Rexxar, Vol’jin, Huln, warcraft 2 and 3 content.
Rename the Hunter class to Archer.
So we can put the third spec that shoots yellow missiles instead of blue ones.
In this scenario you will be able to have your third spec that shoots colored missiles. Otherwise they will just have to accept the lore that has always existed.
You do know that not a single class or spec in this game is modelled 1:1 after major lore characters, don’t you?
Heck, take some of your own examples:
According to your lore, Rexxar was initially envisioned as a Beastmaster, not what you’d call a “Survival hunter”. They retconned him to Survival with Legion, just as motivation for the SV rework.
According to lore, are portrayed as a mix between what you’d call hunters, and warriors/berserkers.
In lore, is portrayed as a Shadow Hunter. Shadow Hunters aren’t the same as regular hunters(the class). They’re a type of high shaman, with proficiency in the use of voodoo and dark spiritual magic, influenced by shadow magic.
Shadow Hunters do ofc have influences of what you’d call “regular hunters”, but this is the literal reason for why we say that classes/specs aren’t 1:1 portraying major lore characters. Major lore characters do not 1:1 match the playable classes/specs we have in game, nor should they define what our classes should/shouldn’t have.
So your problem is logistic. Explosive shot are not suposed to be on MM spec but on survival, melee are not suposed to be in survival but in the spec made for pets.
First off…
If you ask me, the name Survival, serving as the title of a sub-fantasy of this class, no longer fits with the original vision for the category. It was meant to be about increasing survivability for us, in various ways, by increasing our utility, defensives, and even damage in certain ways. It was designed to build on that side of the core class fantasy. That theme was made to serve as a second, once they started to introduce more defining elements to allow us to focus on different sub-fantasies of the class. What we saw in WotLK, and especially with Cataclysm, when they implemented Core Specializations.
Explosive Shot should not be in MM because the theme of MM is that of a master archer, and sharpshooter. Like you said, explosives have no connection to such a theme.
Does this mean that explosives have no connection at all to the use of ranged weaponry? There’s a difference, because like with differences in fighting styles using melee weapons, etc, there are also differences to how you can utilize said ranged weaponry. What you can choose to focus on. That is literally why they set out to create these Core Specializations in the first place.
As for what you said about melee…the reason I said that melee should be included as a part of BM, is because, as you can see for yourself, they’re building SV around the idea of a “beast companion guy”. This was literally how they presented Beast Mastery from the start. If you look in game right now, and in the talent tree reworks presented for 10.0, you can see that they’ve “borrowed” a multitude of abilities and effects from Beast Mastery, in an attempt to create an identity for Survival.