Survival is melee/range hybrid that has the same dmg profile as BM (sustained pressure). However BM can do its full damage from a safe 40 yards away while Survival has to weave in and out in a much more dangerous play style. Now when BM and Survival dmg are comparable there is no reason to play Survival due to this so one of two things needs to happen. Either Survival should always be doing more dmg then BM or Survival should have a bit more survivability.
Personally I think having a bit more survivability would be better because it’s something that can distinguish a good hunter from a bad one. I had an idea that I want to share as something that could be cool and help survival stay on par.
Make Raptor Strike/Mongoose Bite give a small armor or damage reduction buff for a small amount of time (6-8 sec for example that refreshes when you use Raptor/Mongoose). My reasoning for this is that Survival needs to be a little more “tanky” but only when it’s in danger (melee) and not when it’s kiting out. I think something like this would be perfect.
I also think it should be a smaller amount due to it still being a hunter. Hunter shouldn’t be able to openly brawl with a warrior/dk/ret, however if during a go (enemy healer is cc’d and hunter’s healer is free healing) I think the survival hunter should be able to brawl then. I think something like this would help with that with out making survival turn into a straight up brawler, which it shouldn’t be.
I think this would be ok in PVE too, though this a PVP focused idea, due to again survival being in melee and being in more danger then its counterparts of the class.
Would slightly rather see high decaying Avoidance + Dodge or %HP shield after starting a movement skill, myself (Harpoon, Disengage, CA, Spearhead, Flanking Strike). A bit more thematic and less likely to be of quite exploitable in PvE (the sheer value of a spammable (per Raptor Strike) shield, even if capped at a use each, against rot damage would be insane and may even preclude more general sustain improvements).
While it would make ToE more worthwhile… I can’t say I mind having further reason to take a fun talent over a mere %damage talent like Tactical Advantage.
This doesn’t do the one thing I’m trying to accomplish, be able to briefly brawl melee while doing a go. Also we already see these types of things with Demonhunter and they’re extremely toxic to deal with in pvp.
Another example of this that was extremely frustrating for people to deal with was the Craven Stratagem legendary from SL. It was probably the most broken mechanic I have ever seen in this game from a pvp perspective. Elusiveness, while certainly the theme of our class, has a very fine line between being useless and absolutely broken which makes it extremely hard to get right.
Has not been true for most of the last two expansions.
Irrelevant due to being a completely different damage profile.
That’s user error unfortunately, bm is one of the best specs to kite with and still do full damage.
Explain. Please let me hear your thoughts.
Define “one of the better” when there is only three specs.
I never understood why they didn’t give survival extra survivability when they made it melee. Like, it’s melee… and the other specs are ranged. But they all share the same class defense kit. How does that make any sense?
I guess survival has mending bandage and sticky bomb. But maybe a big buff to spirit bond, and some other form of damage mitigation would be nice.
For PvP, some functionality buffs to SV would indeed be deserved, but the question then becomes where those buffs should be placed, since you don’t want to force an obligatory bandaid PvP talent yet, over in PvE…
I mean, it gets by far the most self-sustain from its damage dealt (via Predator’s Thirst), which thereby tends to cover exactly the periods in which the SV Hunter is most exposed…
And one of those ranged specs has to turret two-thirds of the time, unbankably, for up to 28 seconds at a time in order to get what (still last place in ST) damage it can manage, yet it shares a defensive kit and has less sustain than the sole completely mobile ranged spec in the game.
This is it right here. Survival needs something otherwise it will always be worse then BM since their dmg profile is basically the same (sustained pressure) but BM can do it while being completely safe the entire time.
The issue is that if it’s too big then survival can play like a brawler and just stay in the entire time, which it should not be able to do vs things like war/dk/ret. The goal is for survival to be able to hold its own during the setups, traps on enemy healer, and I believe my idea would do that with out making survival feel like a tank and not destroying pve balance (this could be a pvp only interaction on raptor strike/mongoose bite but I feel it doesn’t need to be).
This does nothing for survival in pvp, we do not and cannot use leech pets.
Maybe like a short duration medium cooldown deflection ability like old deterrence? Or maybe give fury of the eagle the fist of fury parry treatment?
Or maybe hunters don’t need anything new but just expand on what is currently available. I feel like hunters actually have a decent kit of defensive abilities but they all are short duration, long cooldown, low sustain.
For example survival of the fittest has a 6 second duration but a whopping 3 minute cooldown. Turtle is a long cd. Survival tactics FD is great but again 3 sec duration on a 30 sec cooldown. Exhil to me feels like one of the worst heals in the game with its long cooldown even if you can fit the CDR mechanic into your build.
There is that 10% DR talent that procs from a number of things, but overall the whole kit just doesn’t stand up to that of other MELEE in PvP. In PvE I haven’t done much on my hunter since legion but with the leech and defensive options it feels fine and actually pretty great.
I honestly feel that hunter defensive cds are really good and one of the most balanced set of defensive in the games from a pvp perspective especially when you consider range for BM/MM and to an extent Survival at times.
My issue, and this is a Survival only problem, is that too often there is a scenario where I have an enemy (war/ret/dk mostly and DH now as well due to overtuning)'s healer in a stun/trap/maybe fear combo and my healer is free healing me and I’m still being pushed back. In this scenario I think its fair to say that I should able to push forward in most situations and the enemy team should be pushing back to play defensive. I think my idea would help accomplish that with out giving survival a passive defensive, which we all do not like in pvp.
But you completely ignored this. The line between being useless and completely broken is just too small on being elusive. Also, I’ve established I do not think it should be powerful enough to warrant a CD.
This would not be fine, the parry of FoF is universally hated in the pvp community.
I hadn’t. It simply makes no sense. Having a brief window in which to brawl isn’t likely to come from your suggested spammable small shield per Raptor/Mongoose. That’s roughly the value of Leech. For what you suggested to be at all significant in PvP, it would have to be broken in PvE, precisely because you’ve allowed its value to be added to or refreshed in each of a slight majority of GCDs.
That’s not an effect which would enable one to “briefly brawl melee while having a go.” That’s an effect that’d result in "take Intense Focus and spam until the enemy is dead effect while doing everything in your power to isolate yourself from other enemies because, if the Armor bonus stacks or scales at all with damage dealt, your life depends on that spam.
And if the effect is at all based on damage, you’d avoid melee because of their Armor. Even reduced, you’d still be better off avoiding them and hounding the clothie for your new means of survivability (if it’s even remotely noticeable).
The heck is “Elusive” even supposed to mean? I never suggested a guaranteed dodge. I suggested a decaying %Avoidance and %Dodge chance and/or a decaying %HP shield on movement skill. We’re talking 30% decaying over 4s or so, just enough to provide a CD-based margin of extra eHP by which to “briefly brawl melee”.
And FoF has half its FotE’s CD and doesn’t need such predictable follow-up. They’re not the same. A flurry of spear-strikes providing 50% or even the full 100% parry chance against attacks from the front isn’t unreasonable and can be almost exactly what you’re looking for in regards to being able to occasionally have presence near or avoid being peeled by enemy melee.
I have to respectfully ask what your experience in pvp is, specifically arena, the check pvp profile says none and to be honest the way you speak of the subject makes me tend to agree. I think some experience and knowledge of pvp is really required to have this conversation and I feel like I’m just not getting that from you.
For example,
There has been no mention of 1v1 duels. Arena, specifically the 3v3 bracket which the game is widely known to be balanced around in pvp, almost never has 1v1 duels unless a subtlety rogue with the pvp talent “duel” is in the match.
This speaks to a lack of experience, armor was normalized a bit in pvp recently.
That’s exactly what elusive means.
Would rather keep the RNG out of things as much as possible, no one likes them in pvp.
It literally is unreasonable in the case that’s already present in the game.
I would really prefer to carry this conversation with people who are experienced and knowledgeable in the subject. Much like I wouldn’t try to break down raid mechanics, its aggravating when someone tries to tell me what’s reasonable in pvp with no experience to back it up, while also being completely incorrect.
I brought it up only because it’s the situation in which your effect would see the most value.
You literally just quoted me mentioning that:
If “elusive” means a guaranteed dodge, then I haven’t suggested anything elusive.
The case present in the game isn’t Haste-stacked, reducing the parry duration per use uptime, and has twice the frequency.
If it takes only a single filler attack per 6-8 seconds to maintain your proposed Armor or DR buff, that’s damn near passive. For a passive DR to be significant in PvP when not a focus target, it would more than likely be excessive in PvE. Its influence would otherwise be, again, about as subtle as Leech.
How you took, and may continue to take, that basic comparison to mean that we run Ferocity pets in PvP, especially since what you quoted made explicit reference to PvE in discussing where such sustain can or cannot be added (e.g., to SV talents), I will never understand.
Its very clear you speak from a lack of experience in pvp. Also, you seem emotional about my observation of it. You have taken numbers that is specifically used as just an example and can easily be tweaked and tried to use them as a reason something wouldn’t work.
I’ll keep my replies to experienced pvp hunters because debating with the ignorant is not something I’m willing to do.
Well, yeah, a duration is so far off as to function in a completely different way, it’ll need tweaking before it works as said to be intended. That’s how numbers work.
You’re asking for an effect that can, easily and at no cost to the Survival Hunter’s throughput, have 100% uptime in the situations for which you say it’s needed.
And yet you claim it will be both significant and balanced in both PvP and PvE.
Just… consider: For what other situation would a reasonable person ever assume that’d work? And if this is the godsent outlier for which that’d finally work… why?
If that’s not a question you want to answer at this time, okay. But don’t pretend it’s anything more than that while relying on saying I’ve neglected things that you just quoted from me or critiquing suggestions that I never made.
For my part, I simply suspect that tying the mitigation to CDs (say, our engagement/movement CDs) would allow for a better tuning knob and a greater likelihood of being significant yet balanced than attaching it to a spammable filler.
Things like harpoon are rarely used for engagement in pvp. They are mostly used as a way to peel our partners and help secure trap setups. This is why I really wanted to bounce pvp ideas with someone with pvp experience/knowledge.
/sigh
I would have used only one term or the other if I thought movement and engagement were were one and the same. The first excludes Disengage and arguably Harpoon.
If “for example” before and “say…” and the use of parentheses weren’t indication enough before, I’ll be explicit: they’re spitballs—a “idc; you pick.” The point is merely to allow it to be more impactful while remaining balanced, by tying the effect to CDs rather than a spammable skill.
And who are you most often peeling them from? Whose offense is thwarted by being rooted and can turn around and, if the risk is as you’ve presented it, unload on you instead if denied the first target and having depleted your (Trap)poon?
