SV in Shadowlands

Classes Hunter
126

What’s this supposed to mean?

I wasn’t necessarily accusing you specifically of revisionism since you clearly heard this often-repeated myth from other people, but OK.

There is a widespread misconception that Survival has always been an abandoned, forgotten spec. This is basically projection from melee Survival. It’s true for melee Survival but the ranged version was a very popular spec in its day.

It’s also propped up by the fact that ranged Survival was pretty much deliberately made to be completely awful in its last patch, 6.2, and that patch lasted a full year before Legion came out. So people just assumed it was the “red-headed stepchild” for all the years before that.

There really was no general complaint of the sort other than memeing about the spec’s name, e.g. the Darkmoon Faire fortune card that says “Survival Hunters aren’t guaranteed to survive”. It’s survivability was usually better than the other specs due to its better CC utility. At one point it also had a large passive stamina boost, too.

Survival had substantial differences to the other specs. For one, it had unique abilities: Explosive Shot and Black ARrow were unique to the spec, as was Serpent Sting later on. Additionally there were important passive effects like Lock and Load and Serpent Spread.

It could be called only minutely different back in Classic and BC when all Hunter specs were mostly the same playstyle but after that they diverged more and more every expansion.

OK? And what does this guarantee about your knowledge of Hunters? Because so far you have indeed indicated that your experience with Hunters is limited. If it weren’t you would know the difference between Survival and the other two specs.

The specs were indeed very similar in classic WoW but Survival was a pretty good PvP spec that many Hunters played. You would have definitely seen some and probably mistook them for Marksmanship since there was no obvious way to tell at a glance whether they were MM or SV.

Once again, this is specific to classic. In later expansions they were very different specs.

He called someone pathetic because they posted on a different character and pretended to be a different person. That’s a pretty apt and reasonable description. It takes some heavy bias to think the fault lies with the person saying “pathetic” here.

It doesn’t make sense to treat all Survival iterations as the same. The Hunter specs weren’t really intended to provide totally unique playstyles back in Classic and BC; that’s a standard that developed later on. They were very much meant to be enhancements to specific areas that already existed on the baseline class. Survival didn’t have unique rotational abilities until WotLK. When people are talking about ranged Survival they are generally talking about the versions of the spec that had Explosive Shot, Black Arrow, and Lock and Load which existed for 4 expansions.

I’m just going to say right now it’s very hard to accept you’re being genuine when you’re continually asking the same two questions, repeating the same misconceptions, and ignoring all answers given to you.

I’ll put it bluntly: if you are being genuine then you’re memory is failing you in a big way here.

Maybe what he means is that ranged Survival was a fun and complete spec that didn’t depend on excessive amounts of borrowed power at max level, so therefore it doesn’t fit the new WoW approach to class design.

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127

Well then feel free to put me on ignore. You don’t need to answer my questions if you have so many problems. It seems other people already providing solid enough answers, and they are doing so in a much nicer fashion. Have a terrific life however.

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Weird that they took away a lot of SV’s cc and control moving from legion into BFA when they gave it more ranged abilities. I just think we need entrapment and stronger traps back, also i see no reason why SV can’t have concussive shot back as well. Long range slows should be key for a melee class that afford to stay melee with other melee.

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Why not? Because it reflects badly on Blizzard? Because it reflects badly on the decision to delete Survival? How is this not obvious to most people? The biggest loss of players was due to the biggest most controversial change more than anything else. What is the alternative explanation?

False. All of these reasons, save the deletion of SV, would have affected all classes, not just Hunters. If the deletion of SV had effectively zero impact on the loss of Hunter players then we should expect to see Hunters losing numbers much more comparable to the other classes, but we don’t. Something was different about Hunters that caused such a huge disparity in player count. This is the logical deduction; you shouldn’t just write off such a huge disparity to ‘coincidence’, especially when there was a massive hugely controversial change to the class in the deletion of SV. You are ignoring the elephant in the room and trying to explain the sudden appearance of massive elephant sized turds by suggesting that the house cat has had some stomach issues lately.

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130

The previous post of yours mentioned nothing but references towards Classic/Vanilla. If you meant the version(s) of SV we had from WotLK up until the end of WoD as well, then, my bad I guess.

But since you did not mention it, and specifically referenced Vanilla several times, that was basically what I had to go with as a basis for why you were asking those questions.

That was actually the first time I ever mentioned that word while pointing towards another player. And if you knew of that particular player’s post history, you’d learn that it’s very much a warranted thing to do. Especially considering how that particular person has on numerous occasions accused us(people who speak positively of RSV) of doing that exact thing.

If you felt that I dismissed you/your questions by the way I answered you, sorry. Not the intent, I answered based on what points it seemed that you were making towards SV.

Again, it seems that part was just a misunderstanding?

Since the moment when they actually added Core Specializations to the game/all classes in Cataclysm, we have seen many changes being done to further the individual fantasies found within each one.

Beast Mastery, has held a history of being more focused on pets/pet management. The ranged weapon, has served as support rather than a major focus.
This particular part, has become more and more apparent the more time has passed.

Mechanically, BM has always been/and is even more-so nowadays, focused on empowering pets + you through your pet, managing multiple types of CDs and your resource(Focus) + the pet. This resulted in a semi-bursty nature/setup.

Marksmanship has been the spec to focus on our ranged weapon, specifically, it has held an ever-increasing theme of you becoming the sharpshooter. Certain practical/gameplay-related perks/mechanics have caused the “aiming” part of the fantasy to vary in length.

But in the end, the theme revolves around you, taking your time to properly aim your weapon in order to hit that perfect spot. The result? Big hitter-abilities and a lot of burst potential.

Survival while still being what people refer to as RSV, was the playstyle we saw in the game from WotLK up until the end of WoD. In WotLK, it wasn’t an actual Core Spec, but it still had most of the abilities and effects we then saw were being made part of the Core Spec that came later on.

Like MM, RSV was focusing primarily on the ranged weapon. Both MM and RSV held a certain focus on pets and pet management, but like with ranged weapons for BM, pets for the other specs, served as support rather than as main points of focus.

However…

There was one way in particular which made RSV stand out from that of MM. That was in how it’s way of focusing on the use of the ranged weapon, was done through the enhancement of arrows/ammunition. RSV wasn’t about having perfect aim. It wasn’t about being a sharpshooter.

The theme of RSV was to weaken the enemy target over time. This was done using various animal venoms, poisons along with explosive attachments for the previously mentioned ammo/arrows. Or…DoTs. Resulting in the approach for a playstyle focused on consistency rather than big-hitters and burst.

RSV was also always THE spec to focus on improving Hunter traps in various ways. It held much of that even before it became a Core Spec(like back in Vanilla/BC) but that part became even more prominent the more expansions they added, up until the point where they started to prune most things they did not feel were…“necessary”.

I cannot comment on that as, you simply can’t dispute anecdotal evidence. What you’ve experienced, is just that. It’s your personal experience.

However, in terms of facts, the old SV(RSV) was since the moment we got it as a defined playstyle, on similar levels to that of the other ones as well. Sometimes it even outperformed them. (And sometimes, it didn’t)

The only time when it just wasn’t worth going with RSV over the other specs for anything but maybe world content or perhaps the occasional 5-man dungeon, was during HFC at the end of WoD where they literally destroyed it’s potential for performance.

They did this as a pre-act before they removed it completely going into Legion(when they instead gave us the new MSV).

In short, RSV was about dealing damage over time(DoT-based abilities), by the enhancement of arrows/ammunition as well as traps.

This part alone made it stand out from both the other hunter specs.
The fact that it was a ranged focused hunter spec without the mechanical theme of being a caster(cast time/channel time on abilities) also played a big part in it.

For me personally, I don’t particularly hate current SV. I simply don’t like to play a melee-based spec.

For me, it’s more the fact that they removed something unique, something that actually held a lot of potential for the modern game(and the changes made to all specs, going into Legion).

IF they had just put the same Spec Fantasy-focus on RSV as they did with all other specs, it could very well have had a perfect fit for the game today.

Anyway, we have no way of knowing what the devs could’ve made it into as, they never showed us anything towards that end.

But if you ask me, I would’ve wanted it to become something along the lines of this(Link below):

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131

Do you’re reaching back into beta? That’s a stretch. Here is what the original manual said.

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Its was a super easy spec (easier than DH) where everything was instant cast and long range. Most of its dmg was magic as well. You had plenty of tools. Essentially it had everything to make you win easy. No interrupt counter, an answer to almost everything, no casting time needed.

It was like trying to put a affliction lock into a hunter in someway. But at the samething it was the same thing as MM but without casting and having magic dmg.

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i dont know where you heard this because it was quite popular in cata, mop, and wod.

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134

I suppose he opposes the return of ranged SV because he is just bitter. Throwing out the strengths of a spec and suggesting therefore that they always won, lol.

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A lot of people believe Survival’s current abandonment is just how it’s always been and I think melee Survival lovers want more than anything for that to remain the common belief.

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Blizzard still did not have a clear direction of were they wanted to take most classes this is showed in our trees. Giving players more flexibility on how they wanted to spend their points let them create specs that the developers had not intended. As expansion moved forward Blizzard wanted players to be locked down into one spec until by MoP they just removed talent trees and gave us tiers so players would have a clear understanding of their roles.

In Patch 2.3 the hunter dead zone was effectively removed.

Kalgan on Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:19:53 PM PDT

We’re planning to shrink the min range on ranged attacks to reduce or eliminate the “dead zone”. The only point to the dead zone was to ensure the min range on ranged weapons was enough such that ranged weapon attacks wouldn’t be used while also being melee’d (at least by mobs… players have a bit of slush built in).

Mostly a technical/immersion issue. I mean if you’re standing at 6yards, and I have a gun, I wouldn’t wipe out my sword, I’d just fire my gun. From a design perspective it could break some player’s out of the games, but from a RP perspective if a class was meant to be a fully range they should be already prepared or had a experience were they had a enemy in their face.

What I had stated multiple times was the SV tree before patch 1.7 was completely focused on melee, and stated that was cause Blizzard had plans on making SV the melee focused spec. However, this was changed when they came to the understanding that Hunters were not strong in melee combat and finally gave SV a range ability.

Hunters at the beginning had six melee abilities: Raptor Strike that gave your next attack bonus damage. Mongoose Bite but had the limitation on that it require you to preform a dodge before it would activate, and was very weak. Counter attack that only activated after a parry, but would root the target for six sec letting you get back to a safe distance. Wing Clip which was hunters best melee ability as it had a slowing ability and would let Hunters get back to range. Lacerate that was so useless Blizzard removed it by patch 1.7, and last Disengage that was a weak threat reduction ability then later made your target attack something else. We also had Aspect of the Beast that increased melee attack power by 10% for the hunter and the hunter’s pet.

Hunters had melee abilities they may not have been all that good, but some gave support to Hunter playstyle. Did Blizzard have larger plans for them and just run out of steam, or figured players picked Hunters cause they were one of the only range classes?

If a designer intends on people to play Hunters as a range class just means they will find a way around it. Blizzard gave them melee abilities so they experimented until they created a melee spec. You can argue that not how Blizzard intended Hunters to play, but as long as the player enjoys playing in that style then it should not matter.

This is why we had such things as Tank Shamans, Elemental Mages, and Melee Hunters. We could completely screw up a class by using talent points in the wrong place, but you also had more freedom with your choices. Now if a player finds a new playstyle, like Drain Tank, they do a quick fix to put players back in place.

Before 1.7 SV Tree only focused on melee abilties and giving them more support. After 1.7 Blizzard reworked the trees and made it more clear that Hunters would be range focused.

In Vanilla Blizzard did not have a clear identity for each spec and just wanted each to strengthen one area of Hunters. It would appear they wanted for a short time for hunters to be more than just subpar in melee combat. However, instead of overly generalizing hunters they focused on the key playstyle, and made melee less of a core part and just for support. Then they just removing it all together after when the Dead Zone was eliminated.

The issue is you see everything in absolutes, you have to fully hate it or fully love it. And the only opinion you want to hear are those that agree with yours.

I am trying to show that the design team had to find the concept behind Melee Hunters from some point in WoW history, and why they went with SV. There evidence that SV was suppose to be heavily focused on melee combat and Hunters did try melee combat as a playstyle. The original designers though wanted to make it clear that they just had not fully flush out Hunters yet, and made it clearer that Hunters were to be a range class.

This is what happens when someone takes over not fully understanding each class. They do not see the settle differences in playstyle and want to make a clear distinction.

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Sorry, I meant the <8 yard range where ranged attacks were impossible. I always get it confused with the dead zone.

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It had certain talents that improved melee-capabilities, yes.

But completely focused? No.

And still, no matter how many of those talents/ranks you picked, it did not intend for you to stop relying on your baseline toolkit which was designed to focus on ranged combat whenever possible.

What the actual intent was from a Dev-perspective, we don’t know.

We only know what design we got. And the design did not intend for a melee-focused playstyle for hunters(one where you wanted to stop using ranged attacks/abilities).

I said “1 offensive damaging-ability, in certain areas of the game”.

By that I meant that, unless the enemy was actually hitting you, you would never get to use either Mongoose Bite or Counterattack.

Wing Clip wasn’t a damage-focused ability. It was meant for utility. The damage it dealt, was negligible.
Also, as you pointed out:

Lacerate? Okay fair enough, 2 damage-focused melee-abilities then. Despite it being horrendously bad.

Disengage? Not a damage focused melee-ability.

AotB? Same.

Think you misunderstood me there.
Or maybe my bad for not making myself clear on what I meant?

I wasn’t talking about what the developers intended for us to do or not. We have no idea what went on in their heads, talking about melee vs. ranged.

I’m talking about what the design we actually got, what that design meant for us to do.

Some examples…

It wasn’t until WotLK where we saw changes made that pointed heavily towards their intent for what each talent category was meant for us to want to do.

At least not, talking about more defined playstyles.

As for “identities”…

In Vanilla it was actually clear what identity each category meant to focus on.

Beast Mastery - talents focused on strengthening the pet aspects of the class.

Marksmanship - talents focused on strengthening your capabilities with the ranged weapon itself.

Survival - talents focused on increasing your survivability through various means, depending on what content/part of the game you wanted to focus on more.

People can argue that "the original SV talent tree/category held certain talents that somehow improved our melee-toolkit, because of that it meant for us to be ‘melee-hunters’ by intent, all they want.

But you have to take into consideration WHY the talents were there, what they actually meant for the class as a whole.

Example:

Counterattack was a talent that gave us a melee-ability.

But…why? Why did we get Counterattack?

The design of it meant for us to, on occasion, get to use that ability to deal more damage and immobilize the target for a short period.

Thus allowing the Hunter to gain distance to start firing ranged attacks again. Or just in general, get away from the target.

The talent “Improved Wing Clip” held the same intent - based on the design. Allowing for WC to have a chance to immobilize the target so you could escape/gain distance for your ranged attacks.

Again:

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139

Are we still doing one page dissertations on this topic because if so I’d like to submit mine please:

I want Mongoose bite replaced with a melee applied short duration DOT,

That’s all

Thank You

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Perhaps in early design Blizzard had based Hunters on the basic solid, generic hunter archetype, not that that means it’s a flat archetype by any means. They’re survivalists used to going out into the woods for days or weeks at a time. They know where to lay traps and what to bait them. They know how live off of the land eating whatever they’ve caught or gathered.

They prefer to eschew other company finding only loyalty in their pets, and probably don’t worry too much about which weapon they use that being a bow or axe, as they’re likely rather utilitarian and use whatever works best. Whatever the weapon, it is always well cared for.

This could be why Hunters had melee abilities that we were designed to be survivors in a harsh, and it did not matter what tools we had at our disposal we would always come out of it alive.

You want Lacerate back then.

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The same universe where there are melee shaman melee warriors who fight people who weild said magic. Some hunters hunt close and personal for the thrill of the hunt? Come on…

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That’s not the thrill of the hunt, that’s the thrill of battle. Hemet Nesingwary is in it for the thrill of the hunt, and he uses a gun. Finding thrill in melee combat is what warriors or rogues do.

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And survival hunters with that spear ^^ rather then it being against mammoth its against the enemy. I mean in the end its a fantasy game and the classes are what blizz want them to be. I’m sure if they wanted they could turn outlaw rogue into a range spec lol

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Yes, and Arcane into a melee dps spec, and Shadow into a tanking spec, and Fury into a healing spec. It is a fantasy game so if Blizzard wants to delete Affliction and replace it with a spec that heals people with diseases and curses then hey obviously we should just accept it and be happy because Blizzard knows best and we don’t really know what it is that we want.

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No lacerate wasn’t short duration it was like 12-15 secs similar to Serpent sting. A short duration dot that can replace a spender like mongoose bite would be like 3-5 secs so you’d have to keep reapplying it and weaving it in.