Yea, SV did undergo changes after changes, it certainly doesn’t help. However, it is possible to deal with those class. People been doing it, but you do need to not mess up a trap or cc.
On open world, for sure ! But said talent was more for a PvE Raiding situation.
Its more complicated, you dont have the pet sit to tank it the whole time. Simply put, its a fetch game with kitting.
Because its fun and you (not you directly) love to play it. It doesnt do better nor worst than other melee, it plays differently, just like a rogue… plays differently from other melees too.
The current SV already his different from other melees, enjoyed by many and does good. Some people just seem to have that need to say other melee does better? At that point it aint how the class is or anything, its merely “Numbers” that keeps changing every patch, which goes for every class in the game.
That manuel is a relic, a base template and became irrelevant mere moments after the game launch. They would sound find out that a big factor would alternate a lot of things.
“Players”
They’d play things differently, use other methods that not even the team thought of or knew to be possible.
A manual is a manual, gets outdated fast since it cannot update itself. There was melee hunters in Vanilla, much like other class special specs. Like their brothers the shaman tank, they would be few in numbers to play it… but it was there.
Is that why Blizzard made sure to add the link to it to the current classic wow page? There would be no reason for the link to exist if it wasn’t relevant. I’d like to see you prove otherwise.
Another case of just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Enhancement Shaman weren’t real tanks, just like SV hunters weren’t real melee dps. Brothers indeed.
Did you know that you can play current SV with a ranged weapon?? Hell you can even play it with no weapon at all! Sure, its not optimal, but it can be done.
If i equip a ranged weapon and use ranged damage boosting talents, does that mean that current SV is a ranged spec?
Simple hunter Specs… Pet(BM)/Range(MM)/Melee,trap,survival(Survival) that’s it… stop reaching LOL. Current Survival is missing that Survival and trap feel, but it is back to its ORIGINAL state. In fact, ya’ll should be mad they took away the old school Survival and made it range. If YOU don’t want to play melee Survival don’t. If you don’t like it, don’t play or look at it. You want range Survival spec back, look at what I wrote 600 times that many of ya’ll gloss over. Whine about that instead of an old spec being brought back. Jeez when you thirsty you thirsty. Bringing me a manual doesn’t change what is added into the game. Shoot, EVEN the old spec icon has a melee icon on it like how MM has range and BM has pet charm. What more you want?
Surv isn’t popular with the average hunter because surv is the highest skillcap hunter spec with the largest margin of error, and we’re a class that is traditionally not picked by people looking to be challenged.
That’s not the only reason, of course, melee vs ranged and all of the metric-y fluff is absolutely a factor too, but that really is the predominant reason.
SV is a (relatively) high risk, low reward big brain spec in a (relatively) low risk, high reward low brain class in an expansion littered with low risk, high reward classes that outperform the less big brain hunter specs. It’s not at all surprising that we’re underplayed.
Those of us that actually main surv are for the most part quite happy with the spec, if let down by the greater quality of the game in total.
Not entirely sure what you meant with this but, tuning/balancing of the different talents is a matter of numbers, it has little to do with the actual design and what you’re intended to focus on mechanically.
1 ability intended to use to deal damage against an enemy that came to close. You were never meant to deliberately move into melee to use that as long as you still had ranged abilities ready to be used.
Mongoose Bite was entirely situational. Not something you could rely on in most types of content.
There was no “hybrid”-intent behind the design. The Hunter class is a damage dealer, and if you stopped using your ranged abilities in favor of moving into melee range, you severely lost out on your damage output.
Ofc we had certain areas where players utilized abilities in different ways due to mechanics and such, PvP being one example, areas where you would do well to not always focus solely on pumping(trying to) out as much damage as you could at all times.
But again, this doesn’t really have anything to do with the design itself and it’s intent. More with player methods and choices.
It wasn’t. Prior to Legion, no matter how many talents you picked from SV, it never made you into a Melee-hunter. Your ranged toolkit was still, by design, meant to be your main focus as much as possible.
We aren’t denying that there were talents within the old SV category that focused on melee-combat. We’re just saying that even if you picked said talents, the result wasn’t that you suddenly became a melee-hunter that did not want to use ranged attacks.
If that was the actual intent behind the category back then, they would’ve done more than adding a talent/an ability which required secondary conditions to be met in order to be usable(required the enemy to parry an attack).
The same goes for Mongoose Bite as a baseline ability. It was only useable due to secondary conditions being met.
In most areas of the game, you would almost never be able to use those abilities anyway. Again, showing that it was not intended for this to be something to focus on over ranged combat.
Never said that you couldn’t. Just saying that no matter what talents you picked, you weren’t meant to favor melee over ranged as a hunter, by design.
Again, prior to Legion, we never had a design which suggested that we would do well to stop using ranged abilities in favor of moving into melee range to fight as hunters, especially not permanently.
The fact that this was something you could do back then, has nothing to do with it. That’s called “method of play(ing)” and not “intent of design”.
Let’s try again: We had talent categories back then, containing many talents for us to choose from what we wanted to specialize in.
No matter what talents you picked back then, no matter the desired category(or specialization if you so wish), we still had our basic toolkit consisting of mostly ranged abilities that were, by design, our strongest attacks, not just by tuning numbers.
If we compare today’s specs that are actually designed for us to “re-design/re-configure” our very core/basic toolkit depending on which spec we choose. This wasn’t something that we had back then.
For hunters it would refer to all baseline abilities yes. Including ranged, melee, other utility/abilities(traps/pets).
Even if we were to look at the numbers, the design did not intend for us to deliberately stop using ranged abilities to instead move into melee-range and use the 1 regular damaging melee-ability we had.
And yes, we also had Mongoose Bite and the talent Counterattack. But neither could be used unless the enemy was actually hitting you, and even then, only sometimes. So it was not a viable(for lack of a better word) playstyle to favor melee over ranged.
If you wanted to be a “melee-hunter” back then, this was ofc up to you. You play however you want to. And yes, in that case, you’d do well to pick more talents from the SV category.
But this again has nothing to do with the intended general design of the class as a whole. As a damage dealing-class, hunters gimped themselves by intentionally moving into melee-range.
Like I said above. “Work”, or in this case, “choice of method(of playing)” has nothing to do with what the actual intended design is.
You could as a Mage back then decide to only use your wand for damage instead of your abilities. You could say that it “worked” for you. But it still wasn’t intended(by design) for Mages to use only their wands…
And improving defensive capabilities. Etc. Etc.
And again, it still wasn’t favorable to use only your melee abilities. Again, picking those SV talents did not make you a “melee-hunter” by design.
Which is what we’ve been saying all along.
Not what he meant with that. Read between the lines.
He said that the Hunter was the only class which had a major focus on utilizing ranged weapons as part of the toolkit.
This is how:
You’re basically saying that we should only have 1 specialization that focuses on the ranged weapon itself.
You’re saying that it’s okay to severely diminish the current intended design/theme/fantasy of MM(being that of an sniper/sharpshooter) in favor of switching out many of it’s talents and effects to add in a secondary fantasy/theme(being that of a munitions expert and trapper).
You would essentially end up with 2 halves of two different themes/fantasies.
And for what? Just because you don’t want there to be more than 1 hunter spec that focuses on the ranged weapon?
You tell me mate, could something like this(link below) fit into MM without essentially having to cut half of both that concept and MM in order to combine the two into one? Or just remove most of current MM altogether…
That is what RSV could’ve been like if brought into Legion like all other specs were with the increased focus on individual spec fantasies and identities. Or at the very least, something along those lines.
See above. If you think that the design of the class in Vanilla/Classic somehow has options to make you a “melee-hunter” then you’re wrong.
Again, you choosing to fight in melee as a hunter, is not the same thing as the intended design.
Like I said above: What players choose to do, is not the same thing as what the intended design of the class is/was.
Or like I mentioned earlier.
As a Mage, you could choose to only use your Wand for damage. Or your melee weapon.
Does this mean that the design intended for you to be a “Wand-Mage” or a “Melee-Mage”? No, it did not.
You mean where you suggested that we should just remove half or more of current MM and put in old RSV instead?
So basically “Don’t you dare touch my spec! But go ahead, change other specs any way you want to”…
Jeez man I tell you. Read what I wrote, but i’ll write it again since you didn’t get it. What I wrote “You can incorporate the whole old “Survival Range” into the Current, or new expansion, MM (Range) spec. Keeping all of the old Range Survival abilities, while maintaining all the MM abilities, and hopefully bringing back the MM abilities that were around in WOTLK, since I did few months of Cataclysm to remember.” You can either add the core abilities of both and keep the core ability (Aim Shot / Explosive Shot) on the same CD with allowing you to use one over another, while changing some of the talent tree to the old Survival abilities. It can be like this or how ever they intend to “fix” it to give Hunters both usable specs for that “RANGE” spec. Adding a 4th spec to an already Mastered Ranged spec is useless. Druid spec is an example of 4 specs because they not overlapping their specs; Range, Melee, Tank, Heals, and Hunter being Pet, Range, Melee - not Pet, Range (physical), Range (physical, with fire, magic dmg), Melee. Mage is Range (Fire), Range (Frost), Range Arcane), but they focus on 3 different schools of magic, so that’s different.
From your argument/perspective you want them to make another range spec when they could just add that into an already Mastered Physical range spec; that’s your argument? Giving that Marksmanship will now give two builds you can choose from MM/Survival (Like rogues Poison/Bleeds). In the end you’re going to use the same Range survival abilities except change those abilities back to MM/Survival when you want to play said build, or in your case, switch specs. So, you’re basically still complaining even though you’re getting the same ranged Survival spec put into MM, because you want it as another spec? As for the 4th spec, I rather them waste that on, maybe, Dark Ranger.
To the rest of the responses you wrote I’m just going to summarize it here and be done. First off, as I wrote above, and has been established, Hunter specs are AND has been this regardless of some “manual” when WoW began; Pet (Beast Mastery with a Charm icon), Ranged (Marksmanship with range icon), and Melee/Survival/Trap (Survival with a melee icon from Vanilla). I don’t need to go into detail with these specs, because you can do read up on that yourself, or experience it through Classic. Going to the basic abilities, which it seems you’re being confused or missing what I’m trying to say, so let me elaborate.
The “basic” abilities are what we learned through leveling; ranged, melee, pets, survival, traps, etc. In order to “enhance” the damage of these or gain other abilities in respected specs, you have to talent how you want or depending on where your talent(s) go to get said skill(s) enhanced. For example; I want to increase my range crit change, so I put points into Mortal Shots, or add range damage, so I spec into ranged specialization; therefore, enhancing my ranged abilities from the basic version they were. Those that are/were not enhanced are basic abilities we know.
All specs from Vanilla - till when they took them out had the knowledge of melee. Only spec able to enhance melee damage was… Survival. All specs had the knowledge of range. Only spec able to enhance range damage was… Marksmanship. All specs had the knowledge of pets. Only spec able to enhance pet damage was… Beast Mastery. You could put points into certain fields in said spec to gain a buff for all around, but each spec was designated to enhance mainly those abilities, learn strong abilities in respected field to become a Master of it. Without them being enhanced they were all basic. That is what I’m talking about. If you want to call it something else do that, but I see them as basic until you master them in their respected “specs”.
Also, think what you want about that. If that is what you got from it… jeez I’m done with this conversation, but thanks!
it’s only a “melee spec” in pve. in pvp it is still very much primarily a ranged spec when played correctly, considering the value that 3x latent poison has. From a pvp perspective, we’re only a true melee in the sense that we have a shorter CD melee-range-only kick, so we’re gonna want to hug casters closely. Against other melee? We’re mostly staying at range until burst windows.
ThE MaJoRiTy Of HuNtErS WaNnA Be RaNgErS larping elf headass.
If you keep it up, you shall summon he who shall not be named, who will write a dissertation to tell you your opinion is wrong, and only his opinion matters.
Why is that different? I can just as easily dismiss those differences and claim that it is all just variants of magic. Just put Fire, Frost & Arcane in the “Range” mage spec, and make the specific type of ranged magic selectable as a talent.
Lets put all that redundacy in one spec, and make some niche specs for mage!
I’ve seen justifcation for melee hunter based on Aragorn & Legolas from LotR. Lets try that with mage. Gandalf heals Theoden, so we definately need a healing spec for mage. He also uses sword and staff for melee, so we definately need a melee mage spec. The ranged magic specs can all be combined in one spec since the magic is all the same. Doing this would expand options for mage and make the class more diverse, right? I’m sure no mage mains would mind.
Don’t get me wrong, SV is a blast to play, and I love using it as my Vision spec. but let’s be realistic here, for most endgame activities, nobody really needs SV.
The tree literally had a talent called “Melee Specialization.” Unfortunately for Survival and melee in general were never balanced to deal competitive damage. Also, traps had many limitations. You couldn’t place more than one at a time, and they couldn’t be set in combat. You had to make creative use of Feign Death to set them during a fight, which wasn’t often worth the mana or the GCDs. In fact Survival Lacerate, which was the final talent in the Survival tree, was unquestionably the worst 31-point talent in WoW at the time. It didn’t scale as you leveled, and did such a pathetic amount of damage few people ever took it for anything other than a joke.
Even so, the concept of the Survival tree was never particularly bad. The problem in classic was that melee damage was far inferior to ranged damage, so the spec couldn’t compete with Marksmanship for raw DPS. Survival had its niche in PVP, but it wasn’t a strong spec for PVE.
So, in patch 1.7.0, that is 10 months after launch, Blizzard gradually moved Hunters away from melee. They heavily revised the Survival tree about halfway through classic. Many melee-focused talents got the axe or became relevant for ranged attacks also. Then during The Burning Crusade the dead zone went away . Mists provided the biggest shift away from melee: Hunters could no longer even equip melee weapons after patch 5.0. The minimum range for ranged attacks was removed, too.
Blizzard seemed to want Hunters to be a ranged-only class, but if you only focus on Survival’s tree before 1.7.0 then it makes sense that Survival should be the only viable option for being change to melee.
If this is what you got from what I wrote by wanting to add three different schools of elements into a single spec, jeez I’m definitely not digging deep into that conversation, so you can deter from writing more on that, though you can, but I wont respond. By said, your logic, may as well combine all specs into 1 single spec, if that’s the case. LOL… combining 3 schools of magics into one to justify having another Physical Range (Survival) spec that shoots explosive/magic arrows as a 4th spec WHEN in fact you can “STILL” <---- play that spec in the MM spec as a secondary build, while leaving that 4th spec as a lore for unlocking Dark Ranger, maybe. The mess… YOU’RE still getting the spec what are ya’ll not understanding? So basically, to summarize ya’ll complaints, ya’ll “just” want a 4th spec for Hunters to be Ranged Survival? Separate? Even though you’re getting it, ya’ll just want it separate? confusing “AF”.
I bet on the release of Dark Ranger, ya’ll going to complain it should have been Hunter spec, but hey you got your 4th spec as Survival. Probably complain to have it has a 5th spec, too. No matter how you try to reason, they still want it as a 4th spec… I’m done boy, girl… bye
Yeah okay. This could be done ofc. But keep in mind that the current MM isn’t really designed for a second theme/playstyle to be put into it(that new playstyle being RSV with a focus on DoTs and not instant attacks and burst).
Even if they were to add a lot of things from RSV without removing things from current MM, it would be a giant mess really. On the same level of how Feral was before they decided to split the two playstyles.
Yeah sure, that was a case of one style focusing on damage while the other was focusing on defensives and tanking.
But just because this for us hunters would be a case of two playstyles that focus on damage, it still would not work well together.
For it to be made somewhat functional or even more so, be made to feel fluid and satisfying, the amount of work that had to be done would far surpass that of implementing a 4th spec option for the class.
Combining different playstyles/core mechanical designs rarely works out well. It would be the same even if both would focus on damage, simply because they deal said damage in very different ways.
Why?
I noticed that you didn’t actually check the link out that I posted earlier.
Here it is again:
How would something along the lines of such a concept not be a good addition for those who might not want to be snipers/sharpshooters but still want to focus on the weapon rather than pets or melee combat?
Again, they could do this but it would require even more work to actually combine a proper playstyle that focuses on DoTs with that of current MM which is focused on big hitters and burst potential.
You can’t just tack on a few old RSV abilities and talents/passives and expect it to work with the current MM. Because the very base model that is MM is not designed to handle DoT-management/focus.
That’s the thing. You wouldn’t get that through MM. If that was the goal then you would essentially have to make changes to MM that equal that of an overhaul, even if you actually kept most of current MM in the process.
Dark Rangers aren’t actual hunters.
You could ofc add in a 4th spec which provides a lot of the mechanics tied to Dark Rangers. But for one, those don’t fit hunters due to DRs focusing so much on unholy magic/necromancy and other magic/abilities that aren’t in line with the ways of Hunters(being them who preserves the balance of life).
Having said that, you also now have the fact that a big part of the fantasy behind actual Dark Rangers, is how they become just that. A regular hunter with some DR-styled abilities is not a Dark Ranger. It’s just a hunter with some niche abilities.
Dark Rangers become what they are due to having died-followed-by-being-resurrected. And then, abandoning most of their former teachings(while also losing some due to their new state of being undead).
Take this whole process/part of the fantasy away and you no longer have a Dark Ranger.
If anything, a type of magic archer is better suited as an entirely new class rather than somehow being crammed into an already existing one.
I did play in Vanilla so no need to go there again.
The problem with your argument is that you only focus on individual talents and what they did. You fail to recognize what they formed when looked at as an entire category/theme.
The theme of old Survival, was that of Survivability. And yes, you achieved that through different talents focusing on what you said. Be it melee abilities/enhancements along with traps and passive damage or defensive talents.
But it was all still there for the general purpose of survivability.
The design was not focused on making you a melee hunter but with some more survivability and utility.
Yes, I already agreed on this.
The problem, like I said above, is that you seem to argue that the design of Survival talents back then somehow made you a melee hunter with more survivability and utility.
When in truth, all it did, was simply adding more ways for you to survive various encounters no matter the kind. Encounters where you risked ending up in melee range is just one example.
It still did not intend for you to intentionally seek out melee combat. You still wanted to focus on ranged combat as much as possible.
*Category.
But yeah, like I said, we’re not denying this.
We’re just saying that even if you picked those talents from SV that improved your melee capabilities, you still did not, by intended design, become a “melee-hunter”. Despite some players that chose to play as hunters in this way.
Even if you picked those talents that focused on melee enhancements from SV, you were still a ranged fighter, by design.
And on a final note, as some others have already pointed out:
If you think that we should just combine the theme/design of current MM which is focusing on big hits and burst with that of the old RSV which focused on DoTs and consistency.
Shouldn’t the same be done to Warlocks and Destruction + Affliction?
Or Warriors with Arms + Fury?
Rogues with Assa + Sub?
Etc. Etc.
I’m not suggesting that, I think that would be a horrible change. But it seems like this is what your logic would result in…
MM and RSV were not the same even though both focused on using a ranged weapon.
RSV wasn’t even that much about actual physical damage. (And no, it did not make you a caster/magician). The fantasy of old RSV was that of fire/explosives and poisons/animal venom + trap enhancements. Magic infusions such as Arcane Shot was just a minor part of the general focus.
And yet, this still did not make you the same as a sharpshooter(Marksman).
Even though you seem to argue that you cannot distinguish them both enough to warrant them being different specializations.
See my response to Mardomus further up in this reply.
That’s…literally the current fantasy of “melee” survival, particularly in a pvp environment where 3x latent poison is the go-to build. Trap enhancements are pretty much the only thing we fall short on, unless you count hi-explosive trap, diamond ice, or tracker’s net as “trap enhancements”
Feel like half the people that hate “melee” surv have literally never played it in an actual game environment after appropriately gearing for it. What you want has always been playable, you just never paid attention to what traits are available to the spec and got caught up in the type of weapon that is sheathed on your back and the classification of mongoose bite.
The secret is that mongoose bite isn’t actually your primary builder, serpent sting is. Mongoose bite is more like a finisher that also builds.
As for the 4th spec, I rather them waste that on, maybe, Dark Ranger.
