tbh would make pugging and m+ in general a lot nicer
Just by nature of not being anything other than a DPS?
But wouldn’t the same be possible from, say, support optionality (not Aug-like in how indirectly we contribute, but just in terms of cheese utility), which wouldn’t require the Survivalist (someone who is generally overcautious, if anything) purposely taking axes for others?
Granted, if they could somehow make a decoy / devices / traps / active evasion-based tank work so that it’s truly novel and at least roughly fitting… Sure, I’d take that option, too.
I’m just not that optimistic that anyone involved class development team has the time/interest/perspective to actually pull that off, and so I have to assume it would indeed be a downgrade.
- …Though I do feel a little tempted to do a mock-up at some point…
fwiw one would expect someone who has survive in it’s name to be able to survive more than say a regular dps
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Not if thinking about the theme it entails, though.
In modern terms, a survivalist is your doomsday bunker dude with layers upon layers of traps, stashed weapons, etc.
They’re not exactly the kind that have a lot of faith in their ability to take damage personally.
In older uses, too, the term still didn’t imply any additional hardiness. It was just someone whose survival didn’t depend on civilization, often because they trusted none but themselves and perhaps their very small pack of individuals. Caution, isolation, and preparedness were still the dominant themes, not “Bring it on; I can take it.”
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Survival has always been a weird name for the spec. It was weird and ill fitting in 2004 and it’s weird and ill fitting now
It’s fine as long as people don’t look at a spec clearly meant for survivalism and assume it should be solely be for survivability.
Yes, “survival” is in the name, but the implied suffix/context is obviously not in solely surviving hits. The complaints feel like “Why is this called Marksmanship? My Hunter’s Mark is barely more [later: no more] significant than the other specs’!”
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What this guy said, Hunters are so screwed. Imagine the dev who draws the short straw to work on the Hunter design for TWW coming to the forums to look for ideas and reading this thread.
Might as well start dusting off those alts to find a new main.
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Just want to preface that there’s already been great feedback and thoughts of concern surrounding Hunter so far from TWW, and yet I still feel so compelled to speak up as someone from the silent majority. Long time Hunter player in high rated PvP, m+, and AOTC Raider.
First off: There’s a clear need for spec reworks for SV and MM. Both of these specs feel band-aided together and completely flat. Would love some of the great reworks coming to the other classes make its way to Hunter. Or at least some communication on this.
Mainly I want to give feedback on my concern with the Hero Talents, especially thematically.
Dark Ranger (Should be SV/MM)
This tree doesn’t fit BM at all and needs to swap with Survival in Sentinel. Black Arrow works as a cornerstone to this tree, but too many of the nodes will cause overcapping of Aimed Shot and Barbed shot.
I think this tree could play more on this theme of dark ranger by introducing community “wants” like (PLEASE) allowing SV to have the option of playing ranged. While allowing MM to make use of damage filling rotational abilities like proc Explosive or chimera shot from the spec tree.
Pack Leader Tree (SV/BM)
Should be inspired by Rexxar. The Shadow Hounds talents from Dark Ranger should be moved here to at least breathe in some life. Again, play on the theme and give SV the option to (PLEASE) Dual Wield here with some incentive. Den Recovery should be baseline to the class. I think the capstone and signature ability should be Stampede or a play on the spell. As it’s a dead talent in the spec tree and fits the theme. Or at least give some type of pet specialization theme.
Sentinel Tree (Should be BM/MM)
This tree needs a lot of design rework imo, but I don’t have a lot of ideas. Thematically I get the idea, but the passiveness of sentinel and its effects are lackluster. Maybe replace this with Murder of Crows and design it to do more damage faster within execute (this used to be in the game) along with %chance of more crows based on rotational procs. . I think lunar storm can stay, but maybe it should be a choice node for aoe or ST. Otherwise it makes it way too niche as a capstone.
Overall, very appreciative of the Devs recently and direction of the game but hunter needs love, or I’m prob rerolling.
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You’re acting like Blizzard doesn’t control the drop ratios? Step 1: Add dual wielding capabilities to survival. Step 2: Turn the drop ratio knob for 1 handed agility weapons. Step 3: Profit.
You think every time a glaive, bow, or gun drops there’s a lot of people excited? I don’t see you complaining about not allowing other specs to use bows, since only 2 out of the entire game can use them. So having weapons drop that 1 extra spec can use is bad, but having weapons drop that only 2 specs AT ALL can use, is okay?
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Really sad on the state of Hunters coming in the War Within, there seems to be 0 love on the devs side towards the Hunter Class. They just don’t care.
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Best feedback so far! I couldn’t agree more.
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Are they also going to make the drop counts dynamic for each raid fight? You’re making more classes require twice the number of weapon drops, after all, all to make it so that Survival can take on a second weapon enchant and inadvertently make Lunge look even funkier.
The rest is of your response just a weird whataboutism and has nothing to do with your increasing the drop count required to gear a raid team with the spec you’ve made capable of DWing (which then, short of a 2H Agility legendary, becomes obligatory for its second enchant).
Should I, in kind, remind you of Hunter’s actual issues as if they were likewise mutually exclusive with any cosmetic change you desire?
- (Mind you, their correction may well be similar in the effort required to making your suggestion have no ill effects.)
Again… why not just transmog it?
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You act like they care currently whether you bring 1 rogue or 3 versus 1 survival hunter or 3. They don’t currently balance the number of drops around how many windwalkers are in the raid. If it’s good enough for ww then why not survival? If transmog were an option then fine, but they had to do all kinds of hoop jumping to fix the artifact weapon transmogs, you think that’s going to happen for all the 1h agility weapons in the game? The transmog rules seem attached to the item you transmog into.
They don’t. But that’s the point.
For that very reason, the more specs you have who are obliged to carry two pieces of weapon gear —be that by DWing, sword and shield, or weapon and offhand— the longer it takes to provide weapons to a raid.
If you add another spec with that issue, you add to that issue, no?
I’d recommend a compensatory drop chance modifier based on those specs, but the fact is that the relevant drops are spread across multiple bosses for whose kills entirely different players may be present.
Again, it’s not a big deal either way, but I just don’t see the appeal of adding DW as anything more than a transmog option if it’s only meant to be a cosmetic distinction anyways.
If you go beyond transmog choice that without 2H-only enchants returning or two-handers uniquely getting a second enchant slot each, you oblige DW anyways, which then simply discourages cosmetic choice in using a two-hander — the frankly much more visually fitting choice for a spec with enhanced melee range and who needs a free hand for throwing grenades and traps and shooting its handcrossbow or Cricket 
pistol for Explosive Shot. It defeats its own purpose.
Not necessarily, it depends on what you’re raid comp. Do you have a raid who’s exact comp never changes that currently runs a plethora of survival hunters or something? I mean, do you not have a rogue spot that sometimes is filled by someone else? You must have the most static raid comp of all time to be worried about such an issue. It’s not like guilds are bursting at the seams with survival hunters. Not to mention, like I said, step 1 is for them to increase the ratio of 1h agility weapons to 2h agility weapons if that becomes an issue, which they can certainly tune.
You also need to do a little research. Enchants aren’t really a problem either because they can make them, and have done so already, so that 2h weapons have a higher proc rate than 1h weapons. Can you put 2 different enchants on 2 weapons? Sure. But the first one you put on is your strongest, so why would you put on a weaker one?
Across many tiers and many guilds I don’t think I can remember any guild runs that wouldn’t have at least 1 rogue. Different story for pugs, but in ± every guild run i’ve been in we’d have at least 1 rogue.
Almost every single class that can DW or 2hnd dps has ± always favored one of the sides on performance and it would be suboptimal if you wanted to play around the looks.
With anecdotal evidence as strong as this, why even bother having a conversation?
So? Suboptimal by how much 0.5%? 10%? There’s a difference. When 2% matters that much, you all better be swapping to the class that does 5%+ more before you worry about what type of weapon is doing 2% more or less. Also, not everyone plays the game to play optimally, some just play for fun dude.
I mean, Rogues being atrophic poison, so you’d want at least one 
You mean like :
Do you use enchants / consumables in raid ? Just wondering
That’s not anecdotal evidence. That’s a plausible scenario, not solidified proof of concept.
We often don’t use vantus runes, augment runes, and if people don’t have the highest costing enchants for a slot we also don’t care, as long as they have something. Again, not everyone plays to min/max. It’s amazing how many top 500 guilds play like they’re top 10. You min/max so hard that 2% matters to you, and yet, you can’t achieve top 300 even… So much stress over a game for 0 benefit. You’d have more fun if you just played for fun.
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