Survival vote?

Classes Hunter
832

Perhaps, but I personally know a number of people who mained feral because it could effectively fill both the tank and DPS roles. It was also the animal shapeshifting tree. Animal shapeshifting was the theme, and speccing heavily feral had an exclusive identity. Splitting it into two was at least as bad as giving SV some BM style abilities.

And its not like splitting the spec when they decided to actually have specs solved the balance issues. Classes are still imbalanced. Furthermore, they split feral because it was “too hard” to balance a spec that could fill both roles, then gave Warriors Gladiator Stance which is still one of the most requested features for return.

So whats my point? People (at least some people) like being able to fill more than one role in one spec. Feral is now regularly one of the least represented specs with SV down from its hayday as one of the most popular specs. Not only do I think balancing around ferals dual role capability would have been worth it to preserve fun, uniqueness and identity, but I also think that dual role capability would be a boon for SV and even easier, considering current SV is more of a hybrid anyway.

And bring back Glad stance… thank you.

833

Could call it Trapper or Trapmaster?

834

this is literally the definition of subjective, dude
all anecdotes are subjective

either way splitting the spec makes it significantly easier to target a buff or a nerf without adversely effecting the other role or causing bugs, while balancing will never truly be perfect due to the nature of classes and damage/mitigation/healing profiles, it makes it a lot easier than having to also go over an entirely other spec to make sure you didn’t accidentally break or trash it

my heart wants it, but my brain knows blizzard would ruin it

835

?

836

I don’t think removing challenges should be the goal of a studio like Blizzard, but rather overcoming them.

If something is fun, and cool (which many people felt was true about feral’s ability to fill both roles) then efforts should have been taken to accomodate that.

All specs have challenges in balancing while maintaining the features that make them cool, and Blizzard consistently fails by removing what is cool in favor of simpler balancing… and they rarely accomplish the stated goal. I mean, Brewmaster monk (still reasonably cool) has lost a lot of what made it unique in so many thematic abilities. What it was, was a guy that has to keep getting drunk to shrug off damage (stagger) dodge attacks (shuffle) and then drink a hair of the dog to get rid of the hangover. What it has become is a guy with a couple potions for removing damage that has been passively and magically transformed into a dot, and who generates threat in no small part through a circus trick and two ox based pets (one of which happens to be a statue). To put it even more simply, they removed the drunken master theme in favor of a shield block potion and a shield wall potion, coupled with a dot cleanse. Why? Because it was “too hard” to make staying drunk feel similar to other tanks. It was too unique and that felt to some people like an unfair chore they were required to perform to be effective… but not just effective, in BFA it was in many cases OP, allowing the BRM to completely cheese some mechanics. So instead of balancing the brew management, and perhaps reducing the monotony (simplicity) of the drinking, they dumbed it down… and you still hit a brew whenever you can, you just dont have to to stay drunk anymore. You still drink as often as you used to hit ironskin brew. Its just not really thematic. It feels less meaningful. Because it is easier to balance.

Rogues are a challenge to balance. How do you make a melee that is effective DPS in settings where DPS is all that matters (at least competing with classes that don’t have stealth), but keep the stealthy assassin gameplay for PvP and world content, without making the rogue feel too cheesy and powerful? Games have struggled with that forever. If there is PvP, having a class with unlimited stealth makes people feel helpless. But you dont remove that, you buckle down and find ways to balance it. You have to for rogues. Its not just a wow class, its a cornerstone of the genre. You make a multiplayer fantasy RPG without a stealthy rogue and you make a flop.

To me, favoring ease of development over class themes is folly. Its a bad development philosophy. To use a slippery slope fallacy, what is to stop them from deciding that DKs shouldn’t have undead minions because it’s too hard to develop for? Just balance the friggin spec.

All of that said, almost none of those challenges apply to making SVs major DPS
rotational abilities (pretty much bombs, serpent sting and KC) fit with a fully ranged loadout. The DPS on a dummy could easily be practically the same. Ranged would have an advantage over melee, because it would be ranged. That’s easily balanced by melee exclusive group utility.

Now, you can’t just give current MSV a unique utility that other hunters dont have, because the spec is already controversial. It is melee and a lot of hunters dont want to be melee and could be forgiven for feeling like the melee spec gets something special and they dont. But if it’s not melee, if it’s switch, it’s different. It’s still not perfect, and the easiest fix is just to switch it back to ranged, but I dont think thats the best fix. Ranged enthusiasts get 3 fully functional ranged DPS specs. Also, hunter gets a spec that can fill both the ranged and melee role… can switch between fights even to bring a unique utility for one fight or more ranged DPS for another, with nothing more than a weapon swap. In PvP, the “melee” spec gets more survivability in the form of said utility and the ranged version gets more survivability in the form of greater range.

With my suggestion for SV, it’s like feral… in that it can feel like a dual role spec, but its still just a DPS. What Im suggesting is that, with little more than a weapon swap (out of combat I think?) it could be a more effective melee than it already is (with unique utility) and a fully ranged DPS. The weapon choice is effectively a free talent.

837

You purposely ommited the first word of my sentence that conceded your point that my statement was subjective.

838

saying perhaps isn’t a concession, first of all, and it wasn’t worth including because everything exceeding it was against any form of acknowledgement or understanding
dunno why you’d continue on about it after ive explained that i essentially won’t be looking at it, i wholeheartedly disagree with your opinion about how cool having two specs inside of one is

@your other thesis statement
it’s nice to try and ‘rise up to the challenge’ in a video game but class development and balance are their jobs, not a hard platforming game that needs practice
you shouldn’t be devoting development time to do something that could easily be achieved by just doing the smarter, and more efficient option that allows you to grow into the future
you have to be realistic about game development, you can’t build a game on lofty philosophy alone
you can easily give it a unique identity, blizzard has already demonstrated they don’t care how controversial their decisions are by making survival melee in the first place

but @ the weapon swap thing
ive brainstormed the idea before but it was more or less in the vein of bringing back the relic slot and having a hunting knife and a hand crossbow as stances with some abilities changing based on which one is actively being used with a cooldown to enabled limited use for both
but i ran into the practical issue of it having just way too many keybinds
hunters already have an insane amount of binds as it is

839

Well, in my idea its the same spec, with the same keybinds, but when you change weapons (if you change weapons, its not meant to be part of a rotation) the ranged shot that fills the same role as carve, replaces the melee ability, carve. Its not even giving hunters back a secondary ranged or melee weapon slot. Its saying “Hey! Want to do your entire DPS rotation from range? Cool. You do the same DPS, but lose unique utility, which is OK because you are no longer competing for a melee spot in the raid and we can bring a melee that has unique utility.”

840

No. Absolutely not.

Ranged survival is two skills, just put them in BM or MM or something, there’s no reason for any class to have 4 dps specs.

Which frankly is what ranged survival was in Legion already.

Druid can get away with 4 specs because it covers literally every role

Besides Hybrid survival that we have now is literally Wrath SV builds

841

No, ranged Survival was not just “two skills”. It was a number of unique interactions and mechanics that gave it a distinct utilitarian, resourceful identity that meaningfully built on the base class. There’s no sense cramming watered down fragments of that in other specs where they don’t fit nor see good representation.

Comparing current SV to WotLK SV is ridiculous. In WotLK SV had a ranged weapon and used Explosive Shot and Black Arrow and preferred to stay as ranged as much as possible unless you were forcing a Lock and Load proc with a trap (uncommon after 3.1)

Like most melee SV fans you seem extremely misinformed about ranged SV… and also a melee main.

3 Likes
842

Since when is a lowbie alt in the mid 30s a main

Explosive Shot and Black Arrow is literally all the people begging for ranged SV have to define the spec other than whining that it’s not like Mists anymore so yes it’s two skills because everything else it had to offer was for a hybrid range/melee

1 Like
843

Lock and Load? Serpent Spread? Improved Serpent Sting? Entrapment? Trap Mastery? A spec isn’t just the unique active abilities it gives on top of the baseline. All these things plus the two you mentioned made for a unique spec that added a lot of value to the class. It felt like the resourceful, utilitarian Hunter that used every tool at its disposal. That’s a great fit for the “Survival” concept. Arbitrarily ignoring the strongest part of the Hunter class and sticking to the vastly-more-dangerous melee range is NOT a good fit.

“Hybrid ranged/melee”, which doesn’t adequately describe old SV or even the current one very well, does not add value to a class that is otherwise a fully-capable ranged DPS. It’s just a handicapped Hunter. Here’s a table to illustrate:

Spec Melee Range
BM 100% 100%
MM 100% 100%
SV 100% 70-80%

Defining a spec by making it a worse version of the baseline class is nonsense. To put it in terms someone like you would understand: all three Rogue specs use Stealth and dual-wielding. You wouldn’t say “this is all the same” and take Stealth away from 1 Rogue spec to make it different. Because then you would just have a worse Rogue.

3 Likes
844

I think you’ve spent too much time on Ranged Hunter.

BM and MM are so easy to play that any other spec in the game is “vastly more dangerous” by comparison. SV design is perfectly fine for people who can handle playing outside of the ranged Hunter comfort zone.

4 Likes
845

Melee range is “vastly more dangerous” to such an extent that SV has been sat on several world first kills this tier in favour of the other Hunter specs despite being ahead in all forms of damage.

In any case I was mostly talking thematically. SV historically has been about resourcefulness, avoidance, and control. A reliance on melee range is a horrible fit for that identity. Even in Vanilla and TBC you would strive to get out of melee range as soon as possible.

3 Likes
846

In order

  • MM talent
  • Survival still multi-dots
  • How are a %damage increase and a %efficiency increase flavor

Like I’d happily take a more hybrid approach to ranged SV that also let you pick a secondary ranged weapon, but a hybrid melee/ranged spec is the perfect representation of a ranger

847

SV historically has been melee since 2016, though.

3 Likes
848

I never got to play it, but based on how many keep yelling for its return, Id like to see it as a fourth spec myself

849

While I have warmed quite a bit to your perspective of melee just not working for the modern hunter class without considerable contortionism, I think this is a false equivalence.

I dont think melee should be inherently weaker than range. Classes that are meant to fight exclusively from range shouldnt wear medium armor as a rule, with some exceptions… But what we have is melee that is less optimal than range, not as a fantasy but as a group PvE mechanic.

In a world where that balancing failure didnt exist, ranged and melee are just weapon categories, except in the case of casters. It would be like saying all rogues use melee weapons, lets make sub spec use ranged weapons. I personally think getting rid of one of the dagger rogue specs in favor of a sniper rogue spec would be fun.

1 Like
850

But that was a part of the fantasy. You have to be in melee range, to use your tools to get out of melee range, and you have to survive it, to get out of it.

Weapons are a huge part of visualizing the fantasy. Melee weapons help us conceptualize the ranger as a martial class, and they took those away. At least Survival has both even if one is a crappy hand crossbow.

1 Like
851

Pre-Shadowlands I’d have said Sub would be the best spec to go ranged rogue, but since Assassin lost its poison exclusivity…

In practice though, a ranged rogue may run a little too close to MM territory, or even RSV. :slight_smile: