I want them to buff Chakrams so I can be more of a melee/ranged hybrid on my SV hunter
They should just add a version of ranged Survival back as a fourth spec and end the debate.
I enjoyed ranged Survival and currently enjoy melee Survival.
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We might get it. Weapon types was a specific thing mentioned when they announced the unpruning.
Dw suvival, among other things dreams of my sword and board warrior returning, might be a thing. We have to wait and see.
Only reason i went surv hunter for my alt was because they changed it lol.
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I’ll compromise with you and say we should go back to Legion SV.
Legion SV was one of the greatest specs of all time. Was enormously fun to play, and it was GOOD. I would take it into Antorus and wipe the floor with other hunters, who would just be flabbergasted - they hadn’t even considered that SV was anything more than a joke.
Come back, Legion SV… BFA SV can’t hold a candle to you.
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Lol no it didn’t.
The new melee Survival overlaps a helluva lot more with BM than the old one did. But I digress.
Ranged Survival was the most popular spec for years upon years until they killed it during Hellfire Citadel. It was unique, it was fluid. It was fun. Granted, I enjoyed the WoD style for BM(choosing whether to use Frenzy or leave it on your pet, and the old Stampede) too. But to say old Ranged Survival overlapped a lot with BM is laughably false. Especially considering how much melee Survival overlaps with it, even to the point of taking BM’s iconic abilities like Kill Command.
Regardless, while I feel people who want Ranged SV back have every right to say kill Melee SV, since in essence, our spec was killed for it. But I don’t advocate the removal of any content, which includes specs in this case. Plus, a small percentage truly enjoy melee SV. But considering it’s representation across the board is something like 1%, they should definitely add ranged SV back, at least as a fourth spec. Because again, it was the MOST POPULAR HUNTER SPEC AND ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR SPECS IN THE GAME. They want people to come back? Bring ranged SV back. I personally know several folks who quit over Ranged SV becoming Melee SV alone, hell I damn near did.
It felt bad having your spec of over a decade ripped out from under you, for yet another melee spec that doesn’t do anything that the other melee specs can’t do better and has no utility. So yes, fourth spec or whatever, just bring Ranged SV back. We tried having Melee SV for two expansions, and thus far for Legion and BFA, it’s representation has been among the lowest out of ALL specs for ALL content. If that doesn’t scream failure then I don’t know what does.
Melee SV has no identity. It’s literally a BM wannabee albeit melee. Ranged SV had a lot more of an identity than the current one does. How you people can’t see that yet somehow think the current SV is some mega unique spec is beyond me.
9 Likes
I’m in agreement with this. Current survival (speaking personally) is fun as hell. It’s the most fun I’ve had on hunter, and I was willing to enter the competitive scene with it, which is something I’ve never done on hunter before.
A fourth spec makes the most sense with old survival being the focus point of it, but not a carbon copy of it considering most of the abilities (like explosive shot) went to other specs.
2 Likes
Right, let’s get into it…
(TL;DR and suggestions at the bottom)
I get where you’re coming from. I am in the same boat. Ranged SV was the most fun I’ve ever had as a Hunter. I played it from the moment I went into the Cata pre-patch up until they tanked it at the end of WoD.
Technically yes, it was there in WotLK as well. I just kept with MM for the majority of that expansion. Didn’t actually look into SV until the pre-patch.
Having said this. Reverting current MSV back to the old ranged version, I would say is far from the solution we should advocate for. Why?
It would not solve anything. All it would result in, is the people here on these(and other) forums switching places in the whole ranged vs. melee discussion.
It would then be the RSV players who are happy, while the MSV players are not…
And like many have replied here already, the best solution for us who lost our beloved spec/playstyle, is for it to return in the form of a 4th spec option.
And I see that you noticed this as well:
Anyway…
In short, it did not. Nor did it overlap a lot with MM at the time.
Sure, they were all ranged weapon specs. Much like how all Mage specs are magic caster specs. And how all Warlock specs are also Magic caster specs.
Or Rogue specs are melee DW weapon based specs.
But the thing is…that’s not all that they are. The same goes for the old ranged SV.
It was a ranged weapon spec like MM and like BM. But that’s not all that it was.
How it catered to the fantasy of enhancing ammunition/arrows by using animal venom, poison and even explosive attachments, not to mention how ranged SV was the only spec that focused on enhancing hunter Traps to any serious degree.
These things are exactly what made it stand out from the other hunter specs.
Beast Mastery - the spec that did/does focus the most on interacting with and relying on the wild beasts we can tame in the world.
Marksmanship - the spec that focused on the archery side/sharpshooting. The spec where you took the time to find that perfect stance, that perfect aim where you knew that your shot hit that exact spot.
Survival(ranged) - the spec that focused on enhancing ammunition/arrows. It held the theme of “a rugged tracker who favors using animal venom, poison and explosives as deadly weapons”. You perfected the art of creating deadly traps to aid you in combat.
They could easily have done that while still maintaining that theme of a munitions expert.
In short, no. Every hunter spec did not use Serpent Sting. That went away with WoD. Does this mean that only ranged SV should be the spec that makes use of Serpent Sting? No.
However, ranged SV could easily have been designed to be the spec where you can focus on enhancing Serpent Sting as a core ability. Because this actually fit the theme of ranged SV(RSV).
Yes. And RSV was the spec that focused on enhancing traps.
Survival back in vanilla did not intend for you to forget your ranged weapon in favor of going melee, full time.
Having said this, yes, there’s a partial fantasy in the game that caters to the Hunter class being able to fight in melee. Through multiple examples.
How you feel, is how you feel.
But speaking objectively, what you’re saying isn’t true.
The class doesn’t have to be a hybrid to have a high level of diversity. Out of the pure dps classes, the hunter class is the most diverse of all. The one with the largest amount of varying fantasies tied to it.
The things you could do with MM talents as a base are severely limited.
And also, the more you add in from RSV, the less you would get to have that is about the fantasy of MM.
The class can very well have a spec option that caters to melee combat. It fits.
But taking away ranged elements from the one class in the game that fights with ranged weapons(is not a magic caster), is not/was not the right way to do it.
Very much this.
Now, to end this reply…
We often hear arguments that ranged SV wasn’t unique enough or that it did not have a niche of it’s own. Despite the fact that I and A LOT of other hunters disagrees with such a statement, in the end, arguments such as that one, does not matter.
Arguments where people make comparisons between RSV and other specs for how they were at the time, are not valid. Not even a little bit.
Why?
Because we were going into Legion with a massive change to the design paradigm and to classes/specs in general. They were going to double down on spec fantasy and spec identity.
They could’ve done the same to ranged SV as they did to both BM and MM.
What could ranged SV look like in the modern game? Feel free to check my own suggestions here:
If you like a playstyle such as that one, is up to you alone. But what you cannot say, is that it would be too similar to either BM or MM as those specs are today in the current expansion.
What you cannot say, is that it would not provide the class with additional strengths and unique design elements such as the capability to better deal with multiple spread out targets at once/multi-dotting. Something that the class is currently quite bad at.
And…a spec such as that in the form of RSV, very much caters to the general class fantasy as well.
I will revisit those suggestions once we learn more about what Shadowlands as an expansion has in store for classes. Such as adding Hunter’s Mark and Kill Shot into the core toolkit. Along with adjusting some of the suggested designs that involve other types of execute-damage.
7 Likes
The old ranged SV was arguably my favorite hunter spec. Sadly, once the melee was introduced it makes it a decision that’s near impossible to reverse. I think the best course would be to rename melee and reintroduce ranged Survival as Survival. Hunter does not need four specs and melee hunter was a mistake; but four specs seems the best solution.
9 Likes
MSV is fun in PvP, hit as hard as a Ret Pally with more tool kit? Sign me up
Trust me, you don’t.
Legion managed to wreck SV and MM in one expansion, which were the only hunter specs I played. Melee SV should have been a 4th spec.
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I will always think the best answer is to give MM a talent that swaps MM abilities and Mastery with ranged SV abilities and Mastery or give MM a choice between one of two paths: Path of the Marksman or Path of the Survialist and each path would represent either Marksmanship or old ranged Survival. That practically adds a 4th spec, though, so I think a level 15 talent called Path of the Survivalist that fundamentally changes Marksmanship into the more mobile ranged survival would be the fantastic.
I do hope the dev team gives this another look because they were thinking in the right direction by adding SV abilities to MM in Legion, they just did not follow through.
1 Like
Also this as futile as The Rogues asking for old combat.
Back in the day I played MM and only MM which I was very good at. And I’ll tell you old MM was terrible.
Old survival was better by default because it was the only spec that had good consistent dps as MM was more tailored towards PvP.
The problem with that is that there’s only so much you can do via talent options for another spec.
For one, it would affect what MM looks like.
And it would also result in a subpar version of RSV being available only through talents. Which in itself would be a pain to balance.
Correction: “a pain to even attempt to balance”.
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You’re right. They also can’t add one talent on one tier and another further down like they tried becausr that not only has to balance against the other choices kn that tier, but they would need to balance against all choices on both tiers to become favorable, and even then you would only be adding abilities to the Markmanship spec and still have to deal with that playstyle.
I would much prefer a 4th spec and do it right, though I hope they would atleast be able to just add one talent that swaps all the core MM abilities and Mastery for Survicals core abilities and Mastery. Then we would have a Marksmanship that plays like old SV with the mastery to scale the shots. We just wouldn’t have lock and load and trap mastery.
Edit: Sorry for the typos. I typed this out on my phone and I must have fat fingers.
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No. I can tolerate playing a hunter only because of the current iteration of survival.
Get stuck In alongside your beast buddy and enjoy it.
Back when the change hit I made a lot of comments that it should have been a 4th spec. I do not want melee removed for the dozens that enjoy it (hahaha only kidding) because I’ve had a spec pulled out from under me and it sucks. Wouldn’t want it to happen to someone else.
I’m guessing Fire will be changed to melee soon…
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That’s talent the dev team no longer has.
Dark ranger/shadow hunter could fit the bill.