If you want to play ranged, you have BM and MM to choose from based on whether you want to be pet based or not. And MM with all of it’s lone wolf tricks feels a hell of a lot like old school SV anyway. Having a melee spec balances things out perfectly and gives people another options for the hunter class fantasy instead of what it used to be, which was a diluted mix of MM and BM with a DoT or some extra trap flavor.
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Or you could play an actual melee class. Hunters didn’t have proper melee until Legion. Before then, melee was what you did when someone was in your face and couldn’t shoot them. In fact, starting in MoP, Hunter stopped using melee entirely.
DoTs and enhanced traps at least worked with the class. Now we have a spec that operates entirely separate from the class.
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Hunters started out with melee back in Vanilla but it was reduced and removed over the years. Having a melee hunter spec with an interesting identity makes way more sense than having a third ranged spec without one.
That being said, I think they should change wild bombs to something else because I don’t really think that fits the hunter aesthetic at all. But a spec based on melee, traps, and pets would be the ideal 3rd hunter spec.
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Because it was ranged in the class and people liked that spec a lot.
There are more possible variables to using a ranged weapon than “using a pet or not”. It’s nonsense to assume that there’s only one possible identity and gameplay style in the whole game that focuses on a ranged weapon and doesn’t depend on a pet, especially since we saw from ranged Survival that there is another way.
No, it doesn’t. It feels substantially different; just as Affliction feels different to Destruction. MM is primarily physical damage and spends a lot of time casting. It’s the sharpshooter/sniper spec. Ranged SV was about utilitarianism with damage via special munitions. It was more about rot damage via explosives and poisons. That’s a significant distinction and it gave more in-depth exploration of ranged weapon archetypes. Why get rid of that for yet another melee? The game already has tons of melee.
SV was not a “mix of MM and BM”. It didn’t have anything from BM. If you want to look for a spec that awkwardly copies abilities from BM like Kill Command and Bestial Wrath you have to look to the current melee SV. It also didn’t use MM’s iconic abilities like Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot. It had a focused identity around special munitions like Explosive Shot and Serpent Sting.
Having a melee spec doesn’t “balance things out perfectly” nor does it provide a good option for most of the class. Hunters in WoW are heavily themed and built around ranged weapons. It’s the central foundation of the class. It’s literally the class icon and you start with one at level 1. It’s what sets us apart from other classes the most. Having a spec that specs out of having a ranged weapon is like having a Rogue that specs out of having Stealth. It doesn’t come across as specialising in one of the core capabilities of the class but rather abandoning the core capabilities just to be a special snowflake.
As for options of the class: the overwhelming majority of Hunters were not interested in a melee option. BM and MM can already do 100% of their damage in melee range so it’s not like we’re gaining any capability by having a spec that can’t do 100% of its damage beyond melee range. It’s purely for thematic value, and as I said above most Hunters find no thematic value in a spec that just takes away the core capability of the class. SV’s audience is mostly rerolls from other classes. Even then its audience is limited and niche, and the only way to get people to play it is to spoonfeed it broken uncapped AoE damage in an expansion where they’ve capped the AoE of most other specs i.e. bribing with tuning. That’s not a sign of an “interesting option”.
In reality the interesting option is ranged weaponry, because outside of Hunters there are 12 other specs in the game that use melee weapons but NONE that use ranged weapons. It never made any sense at all to remove one of three ranged weapon options to add a 13th melee weapon option.
They also had a ranged weapon and a complete ranged toolkit that all specs used as their primary source of damage. The melee toolkit in Vanilla, which was in fact part of a handicap of the class in that it couldn’t use its powerful ranged capability when up close, is not comparable to a spec lacking a ranged weapon. That melee toolkit was “reduced and removed” because it ultimately detracted from the distinct RANGED identity of the class… All iterations of all Hunter specs before Legion had a ranged weapon. Appealing to history won’t work here.
I always laugh at these claims. The come up often and they expose how farcical melee Survival and its fanbase are. Wildfire Bomb and Serpent Sting are ill-fitting of the spec in that the spec has no coherent identity and is instead at least three fractured identities competing for prominence; the budget Arms Warrior (Raptor Strike, Carve), the BM Hunter (Kill Command, Coordinated Assault A.K.A. Reskinned Bestial Wrath, Spirit Bond), and the utilitarian munitions expert (Wildfire Bomb, Serpent Sting)… kind of like what SV used to be back when it was a real Hunter spec. WFB and SS in fact fit the class very well. We’ve always used explosives and poisons. They just don’t fit with being melee. You incorrectly identify those abilities as the problem… when in fact the problem is the melee.
In any case, Wildfire Bomb represents the majority of SV’s aesthetic prominence, mechanical interaction, and numerical performance. The spec revolves around WFB and without it the spec is nothing. It takes an unreal level of melee favouritism to look at that and think that it’s worth getting rid of WFB just to accommodate melee better. On the contrary the spec should be ranged to accommodate WFB better. It’s the bomb that’s truly unique and exciting. The game already has FIVE other physical melee DPS (3 Rogue specs, 2 Warrior specs). We don’t need another one.
I’m also not sure why you’re still identifying SV with traps. SV has no baseline trapping benefit over the other specs whatsoever and the only inklings of a trapper identity are Steel Trap and Diamond Ice, both talents. If you want to look to an iteration that had a good trapper identity you have to look to ranged Survival with its baseline Trap Mastery and Entrapment.
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P.S. As I’ve said in other posts, it’s not like there’s absolutely no place for melee Hunters at all. There is lore precedent for it as well as precedent from other RPGs. It just doesn’t make sense to have an entire spec dedicated to it… especially when that spec doesn’t actually dedicate to it like you identify with Wildfire Bomb. A melee Hunter identity is two things:
- Incredibly niche. Ask yourself how much of SV’s playerbase is there because it’s melee or in spite of being melee.
- Dependent on a pet. Everyone’s notion of a melee Hunter is influenced by the likes of Rexxar. After all, what is a melee Hunter without a pet? That’s both Hunter building blocks removed. At that point it’s just a Warrior variant.
We already have a pet-based spec. That’s Beast Mastery. Having a separate spec for melee just means we have melee Beast Mastery and ranged Beast Mastery in the same class. Nonsense. Yet you see that in SV’s design. It has elements copied straight from BM. Kill Command is the obvious one. Coordinated Assault is just a variant of Bestial Wrath. And the mastery Spirit Bond is literally stolen from BM; it used to be a unique BM thing (aside from being a classwide talent in a couple expansions) yet now it’s SV only. If the whole reason of making SV melee was ostensibly to make it distinct from other Hunter specs, what business does it have borrowing/stealing from BM’s identity to such a degree? So they could make BM melee instead, but that would be pretty egregious since they would be taking one of the game’s most popular specs and applying the most unpopular niche concept to it. There’s also the whole oddity in that it’s defining itself around a handicap i.e. removing a core capability of the class rather than specialising in one.
There’s another option, though. They could just make a talented melee option within BM. BM already has little focus on the ranged weapon in favour of focus on the pet. Why not just have a talented stance that swaps out the few ranged attacks for melee ones in exchange for a damage and health boost? Cobra Shot to Raptor Strike, Barbed Shot to Lacerate, Multi Shot to Carve, etc. This is the fairest solution for everyone. Ranged players don’t lose a valuable spec option and we keep the 3 unique ranged weapon specs we had originally. We don’t have separate ranged BM and melee BM specs. Melee roleplayers still maintain an option; one that doesn’t nonsensically mix in several different competing elements. It makes more sense in terms of representing Rexxar.
It’s not the ideal solution for everyone but that’s part of compromise. Every time I hear about suggested “compromise” it’s always just awkwardly and haphazardly cramming ranged SV elements into MM and calling it a day while melee players keep everything they want. That’s not compromise. That’s just more concessions for ranged Hunters i.e. the majority of the class. It’s favouritism and it’s nonsense.
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“entitled”…
wow…Man.
2022 everyone. Welcome.
Asking for something is now an entitlement.
Not being happy with something is now crying.
eh…whatever.
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Seems DF’s talent tree coming up in 10.0 will have limited cross spec talent capability, easiest solution would be to have both SV and BM be able to choose ranged or melee, and have the rest of the build built around that: example if you choose melee for BM no arcane shot or any of the other ranged dependent abilities and vice versa for ranged SV.
If the new talent trees work this way than that would be a great solution for both sides. MSV players want to assume that asking for range SV means they want to erase the other spec, but most just want to see it come back costing nothing to the other side. Others have suggested same option of using the talents to recreate RSV so it is not a new concept.
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Because the hunter defensive utility is made for kiting so ether make it so we can do both or change survivals defensive skills to reflect it being melee.
You make some interesting points, but you’re also reaching with some and flat out wrong with others.
First of all, saying that survival has an identity focused around “special munitions” like explosive shot and serpent sting is not really true. The origins of the spec were based primarily around traps, CC and surviving damage.
In BC, they built upon that idea with more trap talents, and also adding in the theme of debilitating or exposing you enemies weaknesses with talents like “Expose weakness.” I play SV in BS specific so my guild could have the expose weakness buff and that was a really fun role to have. If we’re going to talk about the most fundamentally unique themes of SV that have been eroded and bastardized over the years it would be traps and expose weakness, which aren’t dictated by being ranged or melee.
It’s really only when we get into wrath that we see this “special munitions” you’re talking about. Which were black arrow and explosive shot, but hardly the defining aspect of the specs. They kept adding more trap based talents, SV still had counterattack, as well as talents that buffed raptor strike and mongoose bite etc. As far as SV feeling vastly different or not using MM abilities like aimed shot… what hunter didn’t spec aimed shot if they could?
You’re really reaching with the “explosive shot therefore wildfire bomb makes sense” logic. I think wildfire bomb, and especially Wildfire infusion is one of the most interesting mechanics in the game. It feels like what roll the bones was supposed to be for outlaw. But rather than being “Bombs” it should play more into the aesthetic of traps, or poisons, that have been long term themes of SV.
You are right about SV just copy/pasting some BM abilities over and that’s MY least favorite thing about how the spec plays. I think Coordinated assault just straight up needs to be replaced with something else entirely.
Ideally for me, SV would be a melee spec, with a pet(something interesting and unique in the game), based around the themes of traps, and weakening/debilitating your opponent with poisons, dots, and pheromones. That is a far more interesting spec than Explosive shot/black arrow dot spec, which is the entirety of ranged survival spec if you take out the stuff I mentioned and make it a “special munitions” spec.
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I want to play ranged yes, but specifically, I want to play ranged with the mechanics and theme that was found within RSV, prior to Legion.
An empty argument that fails to address the major reasons as to why people played it(RSV), and want it back. RSV did have Lone Wolf in WoD, so did MM, but Lone Wolf on its own have nothing to do with the actual core mechanics and theme of the spec itself.
Also, what you seem to refer to here when you say old-school, Lone Wolf wasn’t a thing prior to WoD. The “old-school” class did not include Lone Wolf.
Purely subjective…
You really have no idea what you’re talking about, do you? Why people want RSV to return.
Yes, but again, melee in the early days was nothing more than a situational mechanic, mostly used for us to get back to ranged. This is evident if you look at the baseline + talent-based abilities we got that, in some slight way, focused on melee.
Melee was never designed to be a primary focus of your core gameplay, prior to the rework in Legion.
Again, read up on the core specialization that was RSV between Cataclysm and WoD. Even before Cataclysm, during WotLK, much of the playstyle was already there within the Survival talent category, before they introduced Core Specs.
Before they actually added elements that were intended to provide us with multiple options for more defined playstyles(they did this in WotLK), SV as a category was about survivability, through enhanced traps, CC, and defensives. However, from the moment they began focusing on more defined themes and playstyles, SV was picked for the idea of a munitions expert and trapper, while in some ways still adhering to the origins of utilitarianism and resourcefulness.
To your main point in that quote, RSVs core abilities(shots) consisted of:
- Cobra Shot
- Explosive shot
- Black Arrow
- Serpent Sting
- Arcane Shot
- Multi-Shot
With passives such as:
- Seprent Spread - applied Serpent Sting to all targets hit by Multi-Shot.
- Lock and Load - provided a chance to proc more charges of Explosive Shot when you dealt damage with Black Arrow, and also when certain traps were triggered/dealt damage.
- Mastery Bonus - all non-physical damage increased.
- Along with various other improvements to traps etc.
Again, not what people refer to when talking about RSV.
The SV category before Cataclysm, and in some ways, WotLK, wasn’t in any way a core spec/playstyle, like what we see today. It was merely a category that consisted of talents which added to your core class functions, specifically the ones that were about survivability.
Pretty ironic statement considering what they did in Cataclysm when they actually added Core Specs to the game.
And considering how what you mentioned was found deep into the SV category, in WotLK, where things could be found that they wanted to be exclusive to those who did in fact invest most of their talent points into SV.
This is your subjective opinion yes.
You conveniently ignore that they could do the same to RSV as they did to all other specs in Legion, where they added more depth and defining elements to each one.
7 Likes
You’re basically just asking for a transient version of a spec that existed for a few expansions. Melee SV has now existed for nearly as long as the version of ranged SV that you claim so many people revere and want to see back.
It existed for 4 expansions.
Well, the version of MSV that came with the Legion-rework only existed for that one expansion. They overhauled it again, going into BfA. So in short, MSV as we know it has existed for 2 expansions.
Anyway, what’s your point here? You said nothing to refute/counter anything I said.
And thirdly, I’m not saying that they should remove current SV from the game, that it has to be a case of “either/or”. In the past, I’ve specifically petitioned for the case of bringing RSV back as a 4th spec option for the class.
5 Likes
if you want to play melee, you have paladin, warrior, monk, rogue, shaman, death knight even druid to choose from. having all these melee specs balances things out perfectly and gives others who lived and died in the ranged survival spec a happy place to be. melee survival diluted the hunter class and turned it into a joke.
oh wait what? hunter had melee abilities since vanilla? oh yea i was there. you probably werent however. hunters only had melee abilities because there was a dead zone back then, where if a REAL melee class would come into you then you could not attack with you ranged weapon. so you could wing clip and disengage out so you can ranged them again.
you are fighting a battle you will not win. there is no such thing as a melee hunter not in life and never should be in this game. it stinks and is wrong on every level, class wise and fantasy wise.
but please dont come to the forums whining about melee hunter or if it ever gets taken away. because it got taken away from all the REAL hunters with no say in the matter.
and we are entitled because it was our spec for years. its the only spec in any class that we would play and it got destroyed and we want it back.
melee hunter lol what a joke.
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I dont see why ranged sv cant return as a fourth spec so both parties can be happy rather than removing one for the other.
Melee SV players get their spec.
Ranged SV players get their spec.
Both sodes are happy and get what they want.
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Having Survival as melee makes the class smaller as a whole for me. It feels underwhelming to melee as survival, since i can stand in melee range as other specs. It just feels a lot worse to be chasing creatures to be able to hit them.
I would hope for some more diversity in doing ranged damage than a neutered melee hunter.
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How does that make it not true? By the time we got to Legion, most of SV’s history included Explosive Shot. Just because it didn’t have it at the start doesn’t mean that’s not where its identity ended up.
It didn’t have much of an identity in Vanilla because the goals and philosophy were different and generally much more limited. They saw SV as a PvP utility tree. That’s something that worked for Classic (although not really because, contrary to popular belief, the spec actually wasn’t great at PvP) but later on they wanted each spec to have its own independent identity; no support specs and no utility specs but rather tank, healer, or damage dealer. So SV got the special munitions stuff because it derives neatly from being resourceful and utilitarian.
BC in fact added several ranged-exclusive talents including Expose Weakness itself. So if you’re trying to build an argument that SV in BC had an identity that was ambiguous between ranged and melee it won’t work. It still built on the core class, which was ranged, and it was meant to be resourceful. “Resourceful” does not mean “arbitrarily ignore the single greatest and most unique strength of the class”.
Calling SV “bastardised” would also be egregious if referring to ranged Survival (but accurate for melee Survival). Firstly, it kept its trapper theme. You seem to forget that not only did it keep and expand upon the unique trapping bonuses it had from Classic but the crucial Lock and Load mechanic was also tied into trapping. Ranged SV did a very good job at preserving that.
As for Expose Weakness: I don’t think there was much thematic significance to a single passive talent. It kept it in WotLK (albeit not in a form that buffed the whole raid) but not afterwards because it just didn’t matter that much. It was just a remnant of a time when Blizzard’s idea of good class design was slapping a mandatory must-bring utility, buff, or debuff on ill-equipped and unpopular specs to force raids to bring them i.e. bandaiding without fixing any fundamental problem.
How were they not the defining aspects? They were unique offensive abilities that only SV had. It didn’t have anything of the sort before that. Explosive Shot was a major addition that put the spec on the map in a way Expose Weakness failed to achieve. WotLK was the first time that we saw broad adoption, enjoyment, and excitement for Survival.
They really didn’t keep adding trap-based talents after that. Lock and Load tied into traps and SV kept Trap Mastery (damage increase to fire traps, CC duration increase to frost traps) and Entrapment (additional root effect for some traps); that was the paradigm until Legion. Counterattack was already falling out of prominence in BC and was virtually unused by anyone in WotLK and Cataclysm (I heard that it was actually impossible to use in Cataclysm as they forgot to remove the mana cost from it but I don’t know this for sure). “Talents” (plural) is the incorrect term to use because as of 1.7 (even before BC) there was only one talent that directly buffed melee damage: Savage Strikes. Like Counterattack this quickly lost prominence.
You’re not going to successfully rewrite history to pretend these elements were more important, iconic, and prominent than what was represented by Explosive Shot, Serpent Sting, and Black Arrow.
As for Aimed Shot: it was available as an early talent in MM but in Cataclysm it became MM-specific and has remained so ever since. So WotLK was the only expansion where SV had both Aimed Shot (which was an instant cast in that expansion) and Explosive Shot.
How is that a reach? SV has literally always involved explosives. Aside from Explosive Shot from WotLK to WoD, it had Explosive Trap from the beginning all the way up until the end of Legion.
Wildfire Bomb as a concept is not only fine but great. It’s a good fit for the class and the spec’s traditional identity of resourcefulness. It’s just not a good fit with being melee; certainly not as a Rexxar-style melee companion of beasts. The answer to that is not to phase out the bombs but phase out the melee, as I said in the last post. Let BM be our pet spec and represent melee as an option within that spec. We shouldn’t be striving to create a class with ranged BM and melee BM.
The problem is it will always be dependent on pets in some way and therefore it will always infringe on BM’s identity.
Ranged SV had the liberty of not depending on pets too much, to the point where it could actually spec into Lone Wolf when it was first added in WoD. Melee SV can’t do that. For one, Hunters are all about ranged weapons and pets. If a spec has neither of those things it ceases to be a Hunter; its ties to the class are so limited it would be feasible to group it in with something like a Warrior or a Rogue albeit with traps (which are themselves not enough). Secondly, just about everyone’s idea of what a melee Hunter should be is a bestial companion. That’s the concept that makes more sense with melee, and that’s where the lore precedent is.
What you’re describing sounds a lot like a Rogue with pets. Rogues also weaken opponents with poisons in melee i.e. a physical melee spec with some flavour on top. It’s not nearly as unique as something that does that sort of thing with ranged weapons and, additionally, explosives. You might not find it interesting but that just speaks to your personal melee preference. Ranged SV was a very interesting and broadly enjoyed spec in its time.
You’re contradicting yourself one sentence apart. You can’t portray melee SV as less “transient” as ranged SV including Explosive Shot when it’s existed for less time.
Because it would be a huge and dubious expendature of time and resources. Blizzard has stated since Legion that if they were to start over they would have 2 specs per class and not 3; thus Demon Hunter and Evoker being 2-spec classes. Granted, that’s the less-competent Legion-onwards class developers speaking, but if a 3-spec class is now off the table they sure as hell are never making a 4-spec class again.
Plus, even if they had infinite time and resources, it would still be flawed. Melee Hunter is still so niche a concept as to barely warrant its own spec to itself, and it’s still likely to heavily infringe on BM’s identity no matter what. This is why it should just be an option within BM.
1 Like
My wife wanted to play around on a new server. I made a warlock because I wanted to play ranged. I wanted to summon a heap of demons so I spec’ed Demo. I am happy with him. But I also wanted to have instant cast ranged abilities with better mobility and a capable tanking pet. So I also made a BM Hunter. That’s all. No real point. Just wanted to share.
It is but there are people, such as myself, that genuinely enjoy melee hunter and want it to stay but I would like to see the ranged SV that everyone else enjoyed return as well.
They did say one thing but because they say something doesnt mean they will do it. There is precedent for a fourth spec because Feral was split into Guardian and Feral, so they could return Ranged SV as a fourth spec.
Im also one of the weirdos that wants a tank shammy and gladiator spec for warrior though so…
If it had the same gameplay and damage profile but with a ranged weapon instead of a melee weapon would you still enjoy it?