Hunter Vanilla was melee. It was first designed like that.
Raptor strike was one of the first skills you learn…
post vanilla hunter sv was more an elementalist, using every kind of element in traps and shots with dots.
Its easyer to let survival more gore with bleeds and steel, and implement an explosive 4th spec focused on real bombs and traps.
SV Hunter in Vanilla was not melee. You’re projecting a modern understanding of how specs work into the past.
At level 1 you did not yet have talents. You started with Raptor Strike but you also started with a ranged weapon. The intent was to kite and attrition down with a ranged weapon and finish with Raptor Strike if the enemy got close (you could not shoot in melee range).
When you got to level 10, you didn’t learn a specialisation that defined your entire identity and playstyle like you do now. You gained talent trees and 1 talent point per level and you spent these in ways that gradually and iteratively built your character’s strengths. You can see how given that you start off as a ranged weapon user it’s not really feasible to represent and accommodate a melee playstyle this way. It doesn’t make sense to talent out of being a ranged weapon user. Survival being melee necessarily depends on the modern implementation of specialisations. It doesn’t work with how Classic talent trees were implemented.
At max level Survival was a PvP utility tree with mostly CC enhancements, bonus agility for scaling, and yes: a buff to melee attacks (Savage Strikes: +20% crit chance to Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite). You did NOT, however, stick to melee range. Melee was situational; after all, you did a lot less damage and were a lot more vulnerable. When caught in melee, you popped a Raptor Strike and did everything you could to get back to range. Again, this was true for all specs; Survival just had the best tools for pulling it off. In fact most prominent BM and MM PvP builds also picked up Savage Strikes from SV, and most Survival PvP builds picked up Aimed Shot and Mortal Shots (probably our highest DPS talent) from the MM tree; that should tell you how ranged Survival was.
The elemental shot stuff from later was an iterative extension of Survival’s roots. They needed to take a tree that was about support and utility and make it a standalone, independent, unique DPS spec. Going into the realm of special munitions was a great way of achieving that; it was distinct, exciting, and felt like a natural next step from the themes of resourcefulness and utilitarianism. You can especially see that in how Lock and Load could be procced from traps. There wasn’t an abrupt change from a formerly melee spec to ranged Explosive Shot user like a lot of melee SV fans imagine; there were iterative additions to what was originally a utility spec into a damage-dealer theme that made sense.
7 Likes
[quote=“Forumgoblin-thrall, post:807, topic:1176104”]
You know better than I do, that we HAD a spec that did exactly this, the Survival spec till about mid-WoD.
We HAD a wonderfully “complicated” iteration of the Marksman spec until WoD patch 7.03, the Legion pre-patch. This same patch was when what was left of the ranged version of Survival was removed, making room for the melee version of Survival.
Prior to Legion, the MM spec was complex, the skill ceiling as high as the stars. The skill floor was pretty high too. At the time, Surv. was the same, but with a somewhat higher floor.
Remember “Huntards”? MM, and to a lesser extent RSV, birthed most of the Huntards. With the dumbing-down of MM and the re-write of SV, its not a word used much any more and NOT because Hunters have gotten better.
Melee range? Hell no! Hunters were/are built to avoid melee, the idea that a Hunter, the kiting Class, would want to enter melee range is a tremendous change, much bigger than the “Lone Wolf” for MM, possibly a Class-splitting change.
Maybe a new Class? a Ranger, melee capable, with an option to play without a pet?
I’m going to have to disagree with this. MM in WoD was a very easy spec. The only really complex thing about it was managing Sniper Training which itself wasn’t that hard. Legion MM was leagues more complex than WoD MM.
2 Likes
Well, anybody could get by, playing MM, their pet could get them out of most things, or playing dead, not what I would call competent.
Legion MM was unplayable until the first patch, when they got their pets back, or so I’ve heard, I tried for the first few weeks, then didn’t touch the class till the last few months before BfA.
Legion MM had sidewinders, bells and whistles…
Pre-legion, the spec didn’t have to be played in a complex manner, but it could be, the tools were there.
For many (not all) of the Prior expansions, yeah. It’d be great to get this back.
MM today feels like it’s for people who aren’t able to handle other classes (this is coming from someone who plays a lot of MM).
Were is correct
It’s not 2004 anymore
I said: "With the dumbing-down of MM ".
Well, that’s how I feel, like the spec has been “dumbed down”.
Why the spec would be treated like this, idano. When I speculate on it, “it’s for people who aren’t able to handle other classes” doesn’t make the list.
I know what year it is. What year was it, that Hunters became more able to handle melee damage? What was the improvement? Was it Class-wide?
I disagree, in a sense.
Legion MM wasn’t complex — but it was very, very, very reliant on RNG just in order to function! You spammed Arcane Shot for focus, throw out Windburst on CD, and you pray for Marked Shot to activate so you can hit it — and in the first half of Legion, you had to cast Marked Shot three times before Aimed Shot was even worth hitting.
It was “complex” in that you had to take multiple steps before you could cast Aimed Shot, yeah. But there wasn’t much skill involved in my opinion.
MM was more “complex” (AKA more involved) in Cata and MoP, if you ask me.
But really, complexity is subjective. That’s why I prefer using the word involved (or think “actions per minute”).
2 Likes
While that is true to an extent, mail armor begs to differ.
It might be more accurate to say that hunters were built to survive melee until they could slip away to range.
I think this sounds pretty on-brand for hunters, except for the mail armor part.
I think the only reason hunters are a mail class, is because of game mechanics - that being, they didn’t want shamans to be the ONLY class wearing mail, otherwise why even have that armor type?
Back in the day you didnt have to wear one type of armor. You were capable of wearing a variety of armor types and you wore whatever you class was proficient in. Blacksmithing produced mail armor as well as plate later on. Fury warriors would often wear leather pieces if they provided better stats. Mail armor could be worn by 40+ hunters and shamans as well as warriors and paladins.
Mail armor was just a more protective armor than leather. Shamans (who have a melee spec and were originally planned to have tanking capabilities) could wear mail at high level, as well as hunters.
There is no current design thought that goes into who wears what armor, or monks would wear cloth. Its pretty random.
putting specs inside of other specs is a balancing nightmare
it should 100% be a fourth named like ranger or something and rsurv should be restored or reworked based on it’s 5.4 iteration
4 Likes
No. Let it go. Hunters do not deserve a 4th spec. Play MM and enjoy what you got.
2 Likes
I don’t play any of the ranged hunter specs G
I’m strictly a msv player
Current SV could definitely fit a fully ranged option, allowing them to make SV more attractive without needing to be OP.
As I suggested in my post
Really, all SV needs to be ranged capable is a ranged bomb cooldown reducer coupled with full power unpruned range abilities. To make the melee option viable you need only attach a group utility to melee for SV and you would have a spec that can adequately fill either the ranged DPS role or the Melee DPS role, not unlike how old feral had role switching as a major spec strength.
old feral was separated into current guardian/feral because it was insanely problematic to balance as both DPS and a tank within the same spec because any form of balance changes would/could unintentionally impact both of the micro specs, both positively and negatively, and in unforseen ways
2 Likes
This is the prevailing narrative, but I dont buy it. Every spec presents balancing challenges, and feral was always popular in no small part because of its dual role capability. It was split because it didnt fit the Legion borrowed power system.
it was split long before legion though…
3 Likes
Wow. I totally remember it being a thing that was announced before legion, while watching American comedian Sinbad play a genie in Shazam and learning of the tragic death of Nelson Mandela. What universe am I living in… Gary Johnson is still president, right?
That gaff aside, I still think it was the weak move instead of playing it up as a strength. Because it was.
that’s extremely subjective
1 Like