Like others have said plenty of times. In 6.2, SV was gutted to the point where it performed worse than most tanks. This wasn’t a case of “slightly below optimal”. This was one of those cases where “viability” was in question.
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Yep this was correct. Literally the difference between killing a boss or not.
For the first month of 6.2 the idea was we would wait out until the SV nerf was reverted or the legendary ring was thrown away. Then Legion was announced and it was clear why they spent the last year removing stuff from SV.
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Im aware. I was, I think obviously, being facetious. However, the argument has been made that performance isnt an issue. Only being melee is an issue for SV, and I think that these numbers are evidence that the issue for SV representation is a little more complicated (as I have said before) than just one aspect. It can’t all be pinned on the spear. It cant all be pinned on performance. It can’t all be pinned on public perception. There is evidence that clearly challenges any of these assertions. It is likely a combination of factors… but including the percieved focus on melee supported by the mainhand weapon.
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With the heavy nerfs SV received most Hunters had to switch to MM to have a spot. As Bepples explained:
“not only was SV behind, it was behind in simulated environments which are sustained single-target situations over a few minutes on a boss. That’s what SV was meant to be good at; it was the ideal situation for SV, yet it still came up significantly short of MM which also had all the priority add burst.”
Blizzard had killed SV and wanted it to bleed out of players before Legion. It really did become the least played spec.
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As others have said we will never know for sure. That also means we can’t say that’s how it happened for sure.
It isn’t relevant one way or the other. WoD and the old SV aren’t a part of the game we are playing today.
every ability that is currently in melee survival has no relevance to the meaning of survival that ranged already did.
ranged survival should be brought back to the exact way it was in siege of orgrimmar in mop.
if melee is to stay then fine but make it a 4th spec like the masses were saying upon its first inception with legion.
but change the name call it engineer or some crap similar to that where it deals with explosives etc… because currently it is just borrowing half of its best abilities from a spec that would be much better.
ranged survival with all of its dots and poisons was blissful now in melee its just gross. its like changing the actor that played jon snow when he stabbed daenerys targaryen. you dont do that without ruining it for the masses.
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I thought as much, but I figured I’d give an answer anyway, as certain people love to cling to such takes, thinking they can be used as perfectly sound arguments.
Ofc it can be. But in the case of SV/MSV, it’s been here for 2.5 expansions, and it has seen both highs and lows in terms of performance. No matter which, still only a few(proportionally) stick to it/choose to play it.
If you look at the historical data, the only time where RSV ever went down in representation, to the levels where MSV has been, more or less since its’ inception, was in 6.2. For reasons already explained. And no, I’m not including SV from Vanilla/TBC, that era is irrelevant to RSV, in this scenario, the scenario where RSV was a defined playstyle(Core Specialization).
To a degree, this argument holds true yes. But as we can see from the data, the tuning/performance argument cannot be used to excuse the poor numbers seen with MSV. The spec has, like I said above, seen both highs and lows in terms of performance, and as evident, whichever it is, it doesn’t matter.
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I think that SV needs to perform consistently well for about an entire expansion, not a patch or two. It needs to do well in both m+ and raid. And not just in comparison to other hunters. It needs to do this to overcome the perception that it consistently underperforms (which is more true than it consistently overperforming) it needs to do this to overcome the perception that it is a meme. It effectively needs to be so good for so long that the players who dont come to these forums to argue about it, become aware, because it is obvious. That people need not go to Trueshot Lodge to ask how SV is doing in this patch or that patch. SV performance (as a possible contributor to its popularity) cant be compared to fury warrior, or sin rogue, or frost DK, and it definitely can’t be compared to pure ranged specs, like the rest of the hunter specs. If a new player comes along, and says “I like hunters, and survival sounds cool”, the chances that his advisors say “Nah, SV is a meme and isnt any good” is likely, even when it is good. Those same advisors would probably say “Fury is consistently viable.” Even when fury isnt doing well.
Edit: It also can’t do this, as all of us have already expressed. Hunters feeling compelled to be melee would be a PR nightmare. There is no fixing the perception of MSV, and therefore performance is irrelevant because the perception is that it is bad.
Well, if a big factor to the lack of representation for SV is that it needs to have its’ performance boosted for an extended period of time, and if the melee-factor isn’t as much of an issue as we(many here) like to argue, then why would it be a PR nightmare to boost SV numbers, to the point where people “feel compelled to be melee”?
Sorry if I misunderstood what you said, but this logic just sounds…wrong.
Look back to forums when Uldir was new content.
Yes, I’m aware.
Basically, right now in the hunter class you have people who love to play SV and people who don’t. THAT seemingly, mostly boils down to people who are opposed to melee and people who like it. Mostly. There are also those who just really like BM, or MM, like Lazyguide-area-52 or Watermist-skywall. A lot of people from all of those categories, are just not going to change their minds, there is nothing anyone can do to change that.
But there are other people who might like a hybrid or melee adjacent hunter. They fall in to a number of categories… people who quit hunter when melee weapons were removed (not that many and even less that stayed with wow because the game hemorraged players consistently since cata) people who wanted to try hunter but preferred melee dps and had no option for a melee hunter, and people who are just starting wow and looking for a melee DPS…
Those players might not give a crap about “the vanilla game manual said hunters are ranged!” They may have no stake in the ranged vs melee argument. They are just trying to find out which specs are good. Consistently good. Not which specs performed well in the hunter class on Uldir. If they ask someone it might not be the forums, or trueshot lodge. Its going ro be their guildmaster, or trade chat or their uncle. The answer they are looking for, or will recieve is a generalization.
Even if my kids ask me “Should I make a fury warrior or an SV hunter?” I would tell them fury warrior. Its a safer bet, if its going to be good. If its going to get them invites. If they will be able to figure it out. I would tell them fury warrior even if SV was temporarily topping the charts. (Even though I would still encourage them to try it as an alt.) There is just too much likelyhood that SV will be bottom soon, or reworked soon. Or wont get much attention. That, at best, it will be the middle hunter, and even the bottom hunter will be ranged and preferable to a raid leader.
But, like I said, the other hunters have already signaled that they are mostly not interested in SV, and compelling them to switch to SV would be a nightmare.
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As long as they don’t get rid of melee SV, I don’t care.
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Nice suggestion but hunter doesn’t need 4th spec. Giving a ranged dot class to hunter would be asking for glass of water while holding bottled water in both hands.
I just hope blizzard won’t change to much under Microsoft, and SV hunter is included in that “to much”
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You need to understand that players in WoW tend to easy specs and high damage. Sadly SV is none of these two. It has good potential in M+ and I saw my share of SV rocking the charts, so it’s just how people see it.
Yep, agreed.
While this can certainly hold up in certain conditions, this isn’t where we’re at right now, and haven’t been at any point prior to now. Don’t get me wrong, ofc there are those that fall into the categories you mentioned, but we haven’t at any point seen that those categories make for any substantial numbers, to realistically warrant consideration.
Like I said, MSV has been here, several iterations, for about 2.5 expansions. Like the other hunter specs, it has seen highs and lows, in terms of performance. If there was a large number of players, or potential players, who are interested in the melee hunter fighting style(or hybrid as some like to call it), where are they?
Indeed.
This is a problem that challenges our pre-suppositions. There are TONS of people who like melee. And TONS of people who like hunter/ranger fantasy. We know this for a fact. Why they dont seem to be overlapping in WoWs hunter class is a conundrum.
Like I said in the other topic, there are probably many reasons.
- Perhaps people don’t like the core structure and design of the class enough to go for SV.
- Perhaps they don’t like how SV builds onto the core fantasy.
- Perhaps they don’t like that SV focuses so much on pets.
- Perhaps they don’t like how the spec focuses on pets.
- Perhaps it’s about the individual mechanical elements of the spec.
- Perhaps they just like the other classes/specs even more.
Etc.
Either way, again, why should this experiment of theirs result in something that was already well established, well liked, to be removed, just so that they can start throwing things against a wall to see what sticks? Despite how, based on their own words, they didn’t think it would be as well received, when you account for their chosen method of implementation.
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Which basically matches what I have been saying. Melee isnt the problem with SV. The problem is clearly multifaceted.
Melee is the source of the problem with MSV.
The ranged weapon gives us range AND mobility. A combination unique to Hunters.
It’s a perk too strong to abandon.
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