No results? Is it not true that several ranged abilities have appeared in this latest revision of Melee Surv? I have wondered if those inclusions were possibly a result of the lobbying.
Really, what defines the spec as Melee? For me, I guess it’s any damage I do, it is done with a ranged weapon, no matter at a distance or up close. Even were I to equip a melee weapon, if I stayed in the MM spec, white noise auto-attacks would be all I had, mostly.
Me, as a ranged spec, has no melee dps abilities.
You, as a Melee spec, have many ranged dps abilities, and if you change your weapon, you get several more. 
What is it that makes Surv a Melee Spec?
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No, I’m not…
Please read what you quote.
Like I’ve said multiple times before, there are certain criteria which needs to be met for a new/additional spec to be justified(to be added to an existing class). Ergo, no, it’s not just about how we can bring forth X new ideas or partial fantasies and, automatically, they should all be turned into their own specs.
- From a design perspective, would the new spec come with it’s own type of niche/theme/fantasy? Would it adequately focus on a part of the class that isn’t necessarily explored in-depth in other specs(of that same class)?
- Does this new idea/spec adhere to the core fantasy of the class, as historically presented in-game?
- Would this new spec provide its own set of strengths and weaknesses for the class as a whole, looking at the mechanical implementation? Weaknesses/strengths that aren’t necessarily there in the other, existing specs.
- Within reason, is this new spec/idea expected to cater to a large enough audience, to be worth the time and resources required to make it a reality?
If you want to apply the criteria to the idea of adding a completely new class, rather than as a spec to an existing class, then you’d ofc have to adjust them for the game as a whole, and all other classes, instead of just that one class.
That’s not what I’ve been saying, not at any point in the past…
If this is what you think I’ve said, then you haven’t read my posts/replies at all.
Unfortunately, certain individuals have been doing this for years. When the next xpac is announced in April and SV isn’t mentioned as changing back to ranged or getting a 4th spec, the only thing that will change is we can look forward to several more years of the same derailing of threads.
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And you believe derailing Survival threads and fighting with anyone you can on the internet to be this criteria?
When there is no sign of RSV in 10.0 will you guys finally end your crusade
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If you re-check my post history, you can see how I never engage in arguments like these unless it’s to reply to what someone else have already brought up. Most of the time, it’s some MSV fan with the usual nonsensical take on the history of the class, they just have to bash on RSV, when it’s clear that they have no clue about the history/design.
Either way, as you can also see, no I don’t count anything of this as a criteria to justify bringing RSV back. Feel free to actually read what people are saying…
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Perhaps not verbatim, but in order to justify RSV as a 4th spec, we must justify MSV as a 4th spec. That’s really what we are saying. That RSV should return, because MSV should have been a 4th spec. So lets check off the boxes for MSV, shall we?
So, should MSV be a fourth spec?
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so, to derail it?
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You’ve said similar thing many times in the past You and the rest of the anti SV crew
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“the melee spec isnt popular enough and is a handicap and doesnt fit the class fantasy and was a bad idea from the beginning and nobody wants it and its stupid to fight bears in melee”
When have I ever said this? In short, I haven’t.
What I’ve said is that the implementation, how it was done, was a bad idea. I’ve also outright said that I do think that the idea of melee-combat does fit the class fantasy. What you interpret as “similar” is just me saying that the idea of a spec(playstyle) that focuses primarily on melee-combat, has never been a thing in the past, in this class. And basing this new spec on the primary theme of melee-combat, is not in any way catering to the roots of the class(or SV as a talent category). This is not “similar” at all.
When it comes to its popularity, the actual hard numbers, this is less important than the fact(yes, fact) that the devs did make this melee-spec, not for then-current hunters, but for players of other classes that were actually, more so, interested in melee-combat. Something the devs themselves have outright said to be the case. The actual numbers, while the exact reason as to why said players of other classes also choose to stay away from it might vary, these numbers just happen to support it even further. “it” being the presumption that MSV wasn’t really that good of an idea to begin with, again, the way it was done.
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If you are to work off of what the devs have said was the reason as to why RSV was removed in the first place, then no. Not in it’s current form. The devs have literally made MSV into BM + some melee, and a bomb. Again, this is based on what they said themselves regarding the concept of creating unique identities.
Ironically, what they accused RSV of, what they said to justify removing it, was never actually true. It was also extremely hypocritical considering they did not apply the same logic to other classes/specs, and considering what they’ve done since.
Having said that, I’m not going to argue for the removal of MSV. While it’s current form does not necessarily meet the criteria, it can be reworked to do so. This being my main point of it all; I have no interest in removing an entire playstyle that players do enjoy playing.
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I’m sorry you feel that way. That doesnt say much for SV or BM considering that pets only do about 10% of SV damage.
This is part of the problem with the 4th spec argument. In order to limit the number of specs, some fantasies need to be discarded.
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Hi. Watermist, you weren’t a Council member mid-May 2020, right? Or, maybe you were/are…
Watermist
1159 posts
WoW Community Council60 Tauren Hunter21910
I think this point require a little clarification.
I am assuming that you meant Blizzard had to come up with abilities and talents for MSV from scratch. However, I suspect that people would misread this.
That being said, I found your OP to be clear and concise (and your argument seems solid). Nicely done. 
The only thing I would say is maybe add a little more to the introduction? Set up the problem so that people know what you’re talking about. I knew because I was following your discussions with Azagorod in multiple threads. But they might won’t.
For some reason, couldn’t include a picture. The important thing is:
You have the power to change the present by changing the past!
So, do you and Chromie see much of each other? Tell her I said hi!
Thanks, see you.
blizzard will change suv hunter back to a ranged class when they change outlaw rogue back to combat…lol.
in other words its not going to happen…lol.
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Hi. Pets doing 10% of MSV damage, that’s about the same as MM pet damage. I’ve read BM pet damage is estimated as about 50%.
As MM, I can dismiss my pet and get a 10% damage buff. Or, I can put my pet on passive, and just lose the 10%. A MSV and BM could do the same, forgo pet damage by tabbing their pet passive.
As a MM, 70% or more of the time, I could get by like this.
Could BM? Could MSV? Not likely, I think. Am I wrong?
If I’m right, then
is not too far off.
I should add I didnt pull that number out of thin air. I took it from SV hunter Doolb’s guide on wowhead. It could be a typo or some other mistake.
That said, the point wasn’t that SV hunters dont use pets to a large extent. I think they should. The point was that BM really should have more beast centric identity than kill command and a lackluster spirit bond.
BM should have craptons of pets! And moc should be theirs alone. Exotic pets should be OP… every one of them. Utility pet families should have their utility made party wide for BM.
SV stealing BM pet identity with basic pet usage is a problem with BM design, not sv.
I feel like I missed something. Why are we talking about the pet DPS for MSV? Last I checked, the pets are important for the focus regeneration, not necessarily the DPS they put out…
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I think we’ve talked about this before. I sincerely doubt Explosive Trap amounted to much AoE. It had pretty weak scaling and a pretty long CD.
It’s also not like using Explosive Trap was some super obscure and unknown tactic. This was a common strategy for all Hunters, not just Survival, in those times. Explosive Trap never amounted to very much damage even with Survival’s +~40% damage to it but it was nice to have on large uncapped AoE pulls. Volley in WotLK amounted to far more of a Hunter’s total AoE damage, however, and Marksmanship had a talent that buffed its damage by quite a bit making MM The best Hunter AoE spec in that expansion.
What, like Survival is very complex? With the 4 set it’s almost a 2 button spec with almost the entire damage profile being just Wildfire Bomb.
In any case, in Survival’s glory days (i.e. ranged Survival) it had no problem being just as represented if not even better represented than BM if it did decent damage. In Siege of Orgrimmar the spec was actually a bit behind BM in damage output yet saw more play in that raid. In tiers where Survival had a lead in damage, similar to how it has a lead now, it would be the most popular damage spec in the entire game. Now it’s still far behind BM and MM in representation even in content where it has a large advantage. As I’ve been saying this whole time: performance was never the major barrier.
Yes I am under the impression that Hunter specs should cater to Hunter players and they should not be abruptly and arbitrarily remade to chase a different audience entirely. Crazy, I know.
Huh? Evidently it’s not a popular niche if it’s so poorly represented. In fact all signs point to ranged Survival providing enjoyment to many more people.
Right, but if a formerly very popular spec struggles to pull in many players at the best of times evidently something went very wrong along the way.
Yes Hazzikostas did say this and I like to use that statement in arguments because it’s an explicit acknowledgement that they knew most Hunters wouldn’t like it and they were chasing new players/rerolls (not that it got much of those either), but one thing that’s important to note is that the interview happened a year after 7.0 launched. Knowing Hazzikostas it could have been a face-saving statement and they might have expected it to be more popular. I remember reading a lot of forum/reddit commentary in that period from Legion’s announcement and 7.0’s launch and it seems like many people genuinely believed that melee Survival would be extremely popular; in fact some were expecting it to immediately become the most popular Hunter spec. The blind hype was strong at the time.
Sure there are. It would require less maintenance and less awkward compromising. It would help make the identity of the spec and the class as a whole more coherent. It would see more representation and therefore provide enjoyment to more people.
The only “objective reason” to keep it melee is that it would require some work to make it ranged. Aside from that every other reason is centred on pride. Few people like Survival, fewer like it enough to play it, and even fewer like it specifically for the melee. In fact the spec’s ability to fight at range is one of the main selling point. Imagine that; all the hype around melee Hunter and yet here we are with the best part of the melee Hunter spec being how much it isn’t melee.
Breaking news: Blizzard doubles down on bad decisions all the time. I’m not sure why you stake so much pride in Blizzard’s stubbornness given it’s strangling the game to death.
The game has 12 other melee specs, all of which are better established and have more coherent identities than Survival. We also have 3 other pure DPS classes: two of which are all ranged, one of which are all melee. Meanwhile those two Hunter ranged specs are the only ones in the game to use ranged weapons, therefore being more unique by default. “Hunters already have 2 ranged specs” is not a real argument. If anything it’s an argument against having a melee spec in the Hunter class. What variety does it offer other than being a handicapped Hunter? After all, BM and MM can also fight in melee.
The rest of your post focuses on tuning. I don’t know if this occurred to you, but tuning is utterly independent of the design of the spec as a whole including whether or not it’s melee. You can have a well-tuned ranged spec. As a matter of fact, Survival’s height in PvP representation was in WoD when it was a ranged spec. So I’m not sure why you concluded that Survival’s strength in damage tuning is a result of it being melee. They could buff Survival by 1000% thus bribing the entire playerbase into playing it and melee Hunter would still be a terrible idea.
Yeah that’s because the other 90% is all Wildfire Bomb; such is the nature of this “well designed” (i.e. overtuned) tier set.
I can’t blame the tier set alone, though; Survival’s core is 4 utterly unrelated damage abilities with no mechanical or thematic relation to one another so it would be unwieldy to come up with a tier bonus that involved all of them.
Ridiculous statement. SV stealing BM’s identity is a fault of SV. It should not have Kill Command, Coordinated Assault, or Spirit Bond. It should get it’s own stuff. The only reason it leans on BM’s identity is because any melee Hunter in WoW lore necessarily depends on pets so as not to be a knockoff Warrior. So like all other major issues with Survival it goes back to the melee rework.
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Yeah, we talked and I didnt have resources becoz I cant see a Wrath Survival Calculator last time.
The 3 sources of AoE from a Hunter were …
- the overpowered Volley which MM has too.
- The AoE DoT - that’s where Survival spices came in (Survival has Noxious Stings?)
- And Explosive Trap to reach OP AoE levels of overpowered DK’s
Survival had Trap Mastery 3/3 increased periodic DoT by 30%, TNT 3/3 increased damage done by Explosive Trap, Resourcefulness 3/3 Reduced mana cost of all traps and Glyph of Explosive Trap , the periodic damage can now be critical strikes.
I am not making up this. I was there. Yeah, I have an OP DK too. And I found a way to have my Hunter had DPS levels of my DK. MM on ST and Survival on AoE. And it came out that my MM/Surv Hunter was better than my Unholy/Frost DK. And I was MM too but why would I switch to Survival if MM has it all? I found MM sucks on AoE and Survival had OP AoE DPS. So I switch to Survival on 2 Boss fights on ICC… one of them is the LK fight.
I cant see much from old Survival Calculator. Looks like Survival has better Serpent Sting damage than MM. Serpent Sting is computed from Range Attack Power. Survival has Lightning Reflexes 5/5 with 15% more Agi and has Expose Weakness 3/3 increased Attack Power 25% of Agi. And when you Serpent Sting all the mobs on an AoE, that’s where Survival shines. It’s like how Unholy DK do their AoE… they have 2 DoTs and Hunter has a Sting. Mobs should always be sting’d.
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