Survival Reworked as Tank

[Ghorak-laughing-skull]

@Allieddeath-blackrock

If you can link a quote in this thread where I assert a primary dedicated mDPS role for VSV then I’ll delete my account.

To be fair towards you, this was one of the earliest posts where you spoke about vanilla SV. Sure, in this post you did not say that it was mDPS in role…but, yeah.

The spec-centric theme of SV was actually short-term avoidance tanking (30%+ parry & dodge with Aspect of the Monkey/Tier 1 BM talents & Deflection)

Here, while you did make note(sort of) of how SV could be played at range, you certainly pointed to how there was an option for a dedicated melee playstyle as well. Or in other words, you’re saying that it was intended by design for players to choose whether they wanted to fight in melee or from afar:
Ignoring the fact that if one chose to do so, especially in PvE, your throughput potential, and available abilities to use, would plummet into barely anything at all.

@Allieddeath-blackrock

@Bepples-barthilas

He’s still extensively depending on ranged attacks. He seems to decide at random to stick to melee; in fact it seems like he’s deciding to fight melee classes in melee, which is just a bizarre choice.

That’s the point. We are a complete class with several options in terms of engagement.

You’ve also said this:

That said, which was hopefully conveyed without malice, let’s carefully take a look at the post-launch Hunter Specialization symbols, which more accurately shows the finished product, here: /www.wowhead.com/classic/talent-calc/hunter/

We see the Tame Beast icon, representing BM.
Pet DPS.

We see a Bull’s-eye icon, representing MM.
Ranged DPS.

But what do we see for Survival?
What was its original capstone talent?

The rest is for you to investigate.

And then, this:

Allieddeath:

But it is here where we do encounter some ideological friction.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Was the purpose of the melee-oriented talents to make you want to intentionally go toe-to-toe with your enemies? Not at all, the purpose was to make us more efficient at dealing with situations where we would find ourselves forced to enter melee range. Why? Because we had hard restrictions put on our ranged weapons, where we could not use them at all when we were closer than 8 yards to an enemy. And in certain types of content(mainly PvP), you were naturally forced to spend more time in melee range of your enemies.

In terms of Vanilla SV, there wasn’t a hard, implicit bias towards escaping melee range. Escaping melee range was but one of several leverageable options that the Survival talents offered, those options being Imp. Wing Clip and Counter-Attack, which are not singularly constrained to setup a kite, but were certainly and effectively used to do so nonetheless.

My message is to think in terms of flexibility, not hard or rigid mental structures.

If this isn’t you saying that it was perfectly viable, and intended by design for us to choose whether we wanted to fight in melee or from afar, I don’t know what is…

@Allieddeath-blackrock

rather than making an honest effort to absorb information because you are afraid to admit that you may actually agree with me.

Feel free to elaborate on what you mean here.

@Allieddeath-blackrock

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

So yes, it did make the case for RSV, because RSV was designed as an extension of said focus on ranged combat.

Not at all.

It certainly was, because back then, it was depending on baseline core abilities of the class as a whole in order to function at all. Those, again, being designed to promote ranged combat over anything else.

@Allieddeath-blackrock

Explain to me how that’s true to VSV and I’ll delete my account.

See above. Again, vanilla SV was designed to rely on the core gameplay of the class, the core playstyle of the class as a whole. Without said core playstyle, it wouldn’t really be anything at all. Just some passive effects and a few conditional talents(nearly useless in PvE content), + the pure survivability oriented talents ofc.

Again, without the baseline core toolkit of the class, you wouldn’t have a complete playstyle at all. Not even close.

@Allieddeath-blackrock

That changed in BC, where for the first time in history, Survival talents were forced to lean on the basic ranged skills provided by Marksmanship instead of carving out it’s own utilitarian identity by improving its own skillset.

SV, like I said just above here, relied on primarily ranged attacks, which were baseline to the class, from the very start. Without those, you wouldn’t even have a functional, complete playstyle to engage in.

In PvE as an example, if you take out those ranged abilities and attacks, you were left with:

• Melee auto attacks
• Raptor Strike(added damage to your next melee auto attack, with a 6sec CD)
• And nothing else. Unless ofc the enemy was hitting you consistently, which certainly wasn’t intended.

@Allieddeath-blackrock

What other Hunter specialization could get away with BS like this when faced with an HWL Warrior:
youtube clip

Yeah, that’s the same clip/video you linked a while back.

First off, that’s a TBC video, not vanilla. But since I did not point that out in what you quoted, sure…

Like I said the last time you linked it…in what way is there a substantial difference to your gameplay, and what abilities you had to fight with, in that video, versus what a MM hunter would? As an example.

@Allieddeath-blackrock

I spent most of the time in both Vanilla and BC as undergeared. In those videos, I mainly sported Tier 1 PvP gear, and the Tier 2/3 Blacksmithing Axe for high main-hand damage with the Mongoose Enchant, with the Karazhan Tanking Axe (that was Hunter Looted in a raid) as an off-hand that was equipped with a Weapon Chain to prevent disarm effects.

The video you linked me shows you with PvP gear, equivalent to the T5+T6 season of TBC.

Merciless Gladiator's Chain Armor

Vengeful Gladiator's Pursuit

The warrior you referenced, I believe he’s using(couldn’t make out the rest):

Vengeful Gladiator's Bonegrinder