I’ve said for years that hunter is the most gutted class when you compare all classes today with their classic-wotlk iterations.
Every expansion I hope they turn it around, and every expansion they make it worse.
It is abundantly clear that no one at Blizzard actually likes Hunter, and they just do the absolute bare minimum because they know they can ride the “bow/gun” fantasy forever. People will always play the class because it’s the only one that satisfies this very sought after fantasy. Blizzard doesn’t have to make it any better.
If they ever introduced another bow/gun class, hunter population would plummet.
Ive always said one of the worst things they ever did was make surv melee. Period.
Now, it might be that poor developer has nothing to work with, but a little freaking imagination would have done them a LOT of good. Bombs are not hard to build a theme around. Besides, if he was having such a hard time, why did he leave bomb clusters AND mad bombadier out when those two are the only reason why surv has been viable in YEARS.
PLUS, i blame quality assurance. Someone at blizz should have looked at the tree and said "wait, this is the smallest tree, all of the nodes are 2/3 point, one side of the tree doesnt make sense, the middle is garbo, and the other side has a harpoon spread out like peanut butter, has crit (horrible for surv), and the only new talent. You need to fully rework this tree, expand it, and come up with new crap already.
I have looked at the tree so far and the only changes I can think of the main hunter tree should have is the 3 points 2/4/6% movement speed should be buffed to a 1 point 6% movement speed talent.
But on the Survival side…we have to start the tree with zero choices and we have to pay for it. Raptor strike should be baseline and the start should be a choice of Ferocity or Harpoon to start the tree.
Terms of engagement should be merged with harpoon as part of base harpoon and Lung should be moved into its spot as a 1 point for the 3yds melee range buff. Then Fury of the Eagle should be moved into the old Lung location closer to the carve/butchery part of the tree and Wildfire Cluster or another old ability that buffs wildfire bombs should be added to the bottom of the tree where Fury of the Eagle is currently.
Aside from that id like to see a lot of the damage % buffs spread around the tree changed so change all the 2-point nodes to 1-point and 3-point nodes to 2 points except Lung as I said its value isn’t worth more than 1 point especially if rogue can get it for that much.
So for the hunter tree that will free up 2 points and for the survival tree that will free up 12 points, I believe, and if that allows us too much choice they need to add in more abilities or passives that change up current abilities.
There need to be more changes than this but id leave this to someone with vast knowledge of hunter abilities that have been retired or going to be retired to added to the tree.
Id just move it up and off to the side of a better option as a side talent or do you have another ability that you think fits better there to remove completely if its just bad?
Some very valid concerns in this thread. To bring something old into the tree, what if they brought back something similar to old lock and load where serpent sting ticks proc a charge of bomb? It could add some fun back into this spec, as the current tree looks to be 2 very boring playstyles for st and aoe.
I am not, in no way shape or form, saying I think the tree is acceptable. I am actually very happy about the outcry from the hunter community and from the professional players, validating my own feelings about the tree.
I don’t think that the community has ever been this unified since they remade RSV into MSV. I am simply trying to accept that hey, MSV is probably here to stay so let’s not focus on that infected topic (bringing back RSV in some way I am totally behind discussing) and I think we need to stop crying/being outraged at the poor state of the hunter class tree (compared to other classes it’s still quite bad), MM and SV spec trees. And instead perhaps… I don’t know? Give some actual feedback and suggestions.
I don’t know if Anyone, especially the guy or gal that designed Hunters trees, at Blizzard is reading the forums but I am pretty sure that if what they see is reasonable discussion, critical feedback and actual suggestions (I’ve seen some of it but mostly outrage) they’d be much more inclined to take it to heart.
I disagree with the start. I think it is a perfect opportunity to give us choice talent between raptor strike for a melee tree and a ranged shot for a ranged build. Then just adjust the abilities to correspond to the chosen talent. Wishful thinking.
But if not, then I’d rather see them make it a choice between Mongoose bite or Wildfire bomb. With the theme and builds they seem to push for (I dislike the bombs but oh well) I think Raptor should be baseline and the first choice we make is either do we want to focus on ST with MB or on AoE with bombs? Besides having those two clearly spec defining abilities so deep down? Boring!
With that first talent row sorted they need to look at all these damage multipliers and CDR talents. Sure, keep em! Always nice with utility or extra damage. But most need to become cheaper. Most are just worth one point for sure, like Lunge. Others are ok-ish as 2 points.
Then they need to bake more of the KC talents and the god awful harpoon talents into fewer talents. For example spending 4 points in 3 talents just to get our normal harpoon back? Pass! Same with KC, it is already “just” our focus builder… why does it need like 7 talents and god knows how many points?
After that the designer needs to seriously fix the issue with Spearhead/Coordinated assault. Their idea of inventing a new ability is to take a charge and add coordinated assaults dmg buff to it… subpar!
My suggestion: Return the Coordinated assault damage multiplier and rework the synergy it’s supposed to have. That includes removing/reworking Coordinated kill. And rework Spearhead or keep as is I guess (at the moment it’s honestly quite weak with only pet damage and some bleed from 2 abilities, tuning will tell tho.)
With this done they need to bring back some old stuff and invent new abilities! What we badly need is:
More survivability. There is a ton of good suggestions on the forums and in the history of SV. We need to become Survival again.
More Utility, the amount we have as hunters are bad considering we were considered The utility class together with druids back in the day. I would love to see the return of raid utilities like Aspect of the Fox, Battle ress. or most of all the return of WoD era where we got to pick the pet family and got different raid buffs with this. Having all this utility from your pet made it feel really good and like your pet mattered. Good days.
Also traps, whatever happened to traps? Where is snake trap, caltrops, immolation trap? Why is steel trap a row 10 class specific talent? And why is there literally 0 actual trap related talents besides the abilities themselves? And Nesingwary’s… but that doesn’t count!
We need more actual rotational abiltiies that synergies well with the builds. If you pick wildfire bomb on row 1 there must be a clear path down the tree where you pick abilities and talents that gives you a rotation and some synergy in that rotation. Same with the Mongoose Bite path, that one needs something akin to a rotation with at least Some synergy more than “spam MB during this small window then wait”… that is what our long DPS CD’s are for already.
If we get the above three core areas filled out in the tree and then fill in these filler talents we have now in Good places (let’s not put for example MB related talents over in the WFB part of the tree…) and then perhaps sprinkle in some other talents we have and could get to example make synergy with Kill command or make it a strong hitter but give lower focus etc then I think we’d get a much better tree!
While I personally is not a big fan of the whole fish for WFB procs of the current build (it is powerful tho…) that is more about the ability itself. I don’t feel like a hunter one teeny tiny bit when I run around in melee chugging bombs left and right. Spamming my second out of two rotation abilities to fish for more bombs…
But to have something like your suggestion or the old Lock and load talent back would be a improvement for sure. I personally would like them to give us another way to cleave/AoE than bombing ourselves… Like having that ability that makes serpent sting hit 3 targets (forgot name) and perhaps buff it a bit. Then make carve/butcher hit for much more or for example explode the poisons or something for big damage. To give us some AoE rotation with synergy between poisons (traps could work in tandem here for example) and our actual melee AoE attacks.
But bar that, something else than spend 15 points in the tree to get the same stale “carve for WFB CD” would be good. I dread the return of our “old” AoE “rotation”. At least the current one is boring but strong.
There is synergy right now and in DF between our aoe kit. Carve reduces the CD of WFB. This is already fast paced enough, you barely have time to keep your DoTs up on an average AoE pack.
Not many specs have more than 3 button hectic AoE priority system. Anything beyond that would just be bloat for the sake of bloat.
Rotational / Damage traps are usually not very fun to play with as it requires a ground targeting reticle as well as an enemy physically moving over the trap. I’m more than okay with them moving away from traps.
I feel like these are conflicting statements? Current AoE is boring but strong cause you’re waiting for a proc to refresh a charge of WFB.
Wouldn’t these dreams of Lock and Load be the exact same thing except you’re waiting on a proc from a passive dot? I feel like that sort of RSV mechanic that people keep clamoring for could easily be added to Marksmanship and frankly does not have any relevance to the current discussing regarding how abrasive the current Survival talent tree is (for Dragonflight) compared to other DPS specs.
A spec design from 14 years ago is better than what they’re making now.
Blizzard class design exposed.
Bruh it’s already been thorouhgly discussed and many constructive suggestions have been made… at least “constructive” from the point of view of people who think melee SV can be/is worth salvaging. Don’t pretend that no one is giving valuable feedback.
Tone police are the most obnoxious people on the forums.
What’s so hard about just bringing back the old spec again, lmao. Why keep doubling down on an idea that isn’t working. The fact that an iteration of the spec from over 10 years ago was better when the developers at the time had far less experience and precedent to go on is shameful. Yes SV being melee is the primary reason. It’s silly to keep up the delusion that it isn’t; it just means we will continue to see SV design flounder like this expansion after expansion.
Committing to SV being melee is committing to SV being the circus freak of class design, plain and simple.
The way ranged SV did traps once they got Black Arrow tuned properly in Cataclysm was good. You could force a Lock and Load with a Freezing Trap/Ice Trap and Explosive Trap was a minor damage boost on large AoE so you could play around traps in certain situation to squeeze out a little extra damage but you could also mostly ignore them. As per usual the older design got it right…
Also it’s a little strange that people still discuss traps as if they’re an SV thing. SV hasn’t had any baseline trap improvements since Legion and it looks like DF is getting rid of the couple remaining trap talents. In fact it seems DF is the first time in WoW’s history where SV has absolutely nothing to do with traps whatsoever. And we’re meant to believe this is a thematic improvement over ranged SV
there’s going to be a point where you’re going to have to let go. 6 years is a pretty long time, and every day we get farther and farther from ranged survival.
In fact since being made melee in Legion it’s only been getting closer to being ranged again. Next expansion the vast majority of its toolkit will be ranged abilities; most of them will just be using the fake animation-only crossbow. The few melee abilities that remain are extremely generic or outright pulled from other classes. At this point melee is a sidelined tokenistic inclusion that only serves to derail the spec’s development and theme time and time again.
Keeping it melee will mean you’ll all be here bemoaning SV’s directionless development expansion after expansion like you all have done for Legion, BFA, SL, and now DF. I’m just here to point out the obvious.
Well the 3.0 SV tree came out and no one was dooming; in fact everyone was very excited for it, it released to great success, and the spec was widely played and enjoyed based on that 3.0 model for 8 years. Meanwile the current class developers manage to screw it up every expansion despite mountains of precedent and constructive feedback. So yeah it does seem like it was better 14 years go.
The few melee abilities that remain are extremely generic or outright pulled from other classes.
What does this even mean? You could say that about everything and anything.
Keeping it melee will mean you’ll all be here bemoaning SV’s directionless development expansion after expansion like you all have done for Legion, BFA, SL, and now DF. I’m just here to point out the obvious.
I can say the same thing about Ranged Survival. Directionless hodgepodge of “exotic ammuntions xd”. But I’m sure it’s “different” to you since it was a thing when you were a younger man and less jaded.
