Why survival rdps is a bad idea

Classes Hunter
#1

I don’t play hunter. That doesn’t mean that I don’t stay up to date with most class changes and I read the forums from time to time.

There’s been a growing demand for SV to become ranged again. Let me tell you why it is a bad idea.

  1. There are currently 3 classes that can play melee and ranged: druids, shamans and hunters. With that change, it would leave only 2.

  2. There are fights where being a melee is an advantage, and fights where rdps shines.

For the sake of class diversity and the ability to change damage roles depending on the situation, survival must stay melee. Even if I miss the good old SV from cata with its insane multishot.

Also, I found the spec to be the most fun of all while testing a trial hunter.

Yes, they need a boost in the range of 10%-15% to bring in on par with BM or at least between BM and MM, but I find the spec design to be good. It just needs a damage boost.

16 Likes
#2

???

How can you think the spec design is any good if you don’t play it?

Maybe leave the commenting on Hunter design to people who actually play and enjoy Hunters. The entire reason we were saddled with MSV in the first place is because people who didn’t play Hunter thought RSV was too similar to MM.

Will you be advocating for Warlocks to lose Affliction or Destruction as a ranged spec next?

61 Likes
#3

Oh no, here come the paragraph replies that dispute this. One rule on the hunter forums is that you never go against the RSV hivemind making any suggestion that it shouldn’t exist.

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#4

I personally don’t find ranged SV similar at all to MM. MM has always been a slow casting, nuke hitting dps while ranged sv was a dot spec with good mobility.

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#5

Good, it never was.

That didn’t stop people in other classes from memeing about “different colored arrows” being the only difference. That nonsense was echoed by Blizz developers, including Hazzikostas, and is the reason SV was changed to melee in the first place.

If they wanted to give Hunters a melee option, they should have done it without deleting a ranged one.

34 Likes
#6

And I understand that. However I made two points that make it clear why it is good for hunters to have a melee spec. I am not against RSV. But I am against an all-ranged hunter. As Adreaver above said, a 4th spec is the best way.

However I would like if you discussed my two arguments. That’s the focus on this topic.

I loathe Enhacement with all the strenght of my soul, and I really don’t care much for feral. My only other option to play a hybrid dps class is hunter. I don’t want that option to go away.

#7

This will go well.

/popcorn
/subscribed

Also my 2 cents in a nutshell. Regardless of what is said if you don’t play the class you mean nothing to valid discussion about said class.

9 Likes
#8

if you don’t play the class you mean nothing to valid discussion about said class.

I don’t currently play it. Doesn’t mean I didn’t play or dabbled in it in past expansions, don’t have friends who play hunter and keep me up to date, or have seen it played.

However my two arguments have nothing to do with the gameplay of hunter or survival. Just the benefits of having a melee spec. I don’t have to play the class to see that.

2 Likes
#9

There are currently 2 classes that have 3 ranged speccs. With this change, we could bring this back up to 3!

A) Insanely Rare.
B) Ill rather be benched then forced to play SV

Any more arguments?

8 Likes
#10

Is it really a bad idea though? For those who want a similar playstyle like the one we had (or even just the thematic of an elemental archer) we could have a 4th spec.

The way blizz implemented melee into the spec was a mistake. There is room to keep it and let it grow and giving the community what they enjoy back. More options in this case isn’t bad.

2 Likes
#11

Hunter isn’t even a hybrid though… Hybrids can perform multiple roles (dps and heal/tank), hunters are pure dps. If you mean have abilities that are ranged as a melee class, and since you don’t like Enhance or feral (not sure why feral is included, its almost exclusively melee), have you tried DK?

2 Likes
#12

I agree. However, how would you call that spec? also, wouldn’t RSV and MSV have too many thing in common? It would get us to the same problem that made the developers turn RSV into MSV (too similar to MM)

BTW, a typo. SV was not a elemental archer. It shooted poisoned arrows and explosive arrows.

Hunter isn’t even a hybrid though… Hybrids can perform multiple roles

hybrid dps class, not hybrid class. I meant to say that it can MDPS and RDPS in a single toon.

#13

Depends what other talents and themes they decide to put into it. They could give it a new name, call it SV and rename current SV, call it whatever. I don’t think the name is too important in of itself but rather the idea. Arcane Archers are a popular fantasy and something I greatly enjoy in other RPGs like D&D for instance.

MSV and BM currently have too many things in common. Current SV literally took multiple unique things from BM and thematically fills a similar niche to BM of master and pet working together to tear their foes apart. Blizzard’s reasoning was faulty from the get go. But to answer your question more directly, no, I don’t think so at all.

I don’t think the two have to be too similar. One is like a Wildman who uses whatever they can to work together with their pet to strike down their foes. The suggestion of a more focused arcane archer (or something similar) doesn’t really have to share in that niche at all. I’d love talents that choose the different type of elements or magic I’m infusing into different shots to pick the right tool for the job. Or even just using a combination of different elemental damage to watch a foe suffer and be destroyed from afar.

Sure. But it wasnt a typo. The damage it did was specifically magic. Black Arrow was also very much a part of its identity and I don’t think you can say that wasn’t magic. Thematically, Blizz could have absolutely focused on that space going into Legion.

Instead, they removed it entirely and angered a large chunk of the community. I’m glad the people who enjoy MSV have what they want. I actively want it to stay for people who do enjoy it. But there’s room to within the hunter class to satisfy those who enjoyed something they lost. We can have our cake and eat it too in this situation.

#14

I counter your argument of scarcity with the supreme lack of a class that focuses on gadgets. Until we get tinker, I want a hunter class that focuses on traps and non-magical means to do harm.

Survival has some and rogue has some, with bombs and poisons, but I want a whole class with that theme.

4 Likes
#15

Worst argument ever made for melee hunter, I dont want the spec to go but see an addition of a fourth spec like druids. In most pve situations survival is dead last and in most fights favor range or straight melee, being squishy sucks. Pets die way to fast so you would be casting pet rez more often.

How would you like it if they made disc a melee, crap dps, no durable changes, never invited to pvp or pve group.

2 Likes
#16

Honestly I think survival was sacrificed on the altar of making Legion more transformative than it would have been otherwise. I think they had a short list of specs that they felt weren’t “iconic” enough, so it gave us melee hunters and pirate rogues.

Personally I’m not particularly ate up about it either way. I enjoyed ranged survival, and I can enjoy melee survival. I think the current incarnation could really be fantastic if Blizzard would just iterate on it more, but I can also see a ranged survival with an emphasis on traps, jousting, and escape being great fun.

What I am certain of is that with how they handled it, Blizzard has ensured that no matter what they do, there will be a camp that is unhappy. Maybe that was always the case, but transforming a ranged spec in a ranged class to melee galvanized that reality.

6 Likes
#17

Survival has been an undesirable spec in PvE for 5 years straight. Arguing that it’s any sort of competitive advantage to be able to spec into being melee at this point is a farce. 99% of the time you are worse off by being melee. Melee being the preferred option is far too rare to justify a third of the class being melee.

Your first point is not even worth considering. Who cares about how many classes can be both ranged and melee? Most players don’t give a damn. Besides, I can just point to the fact that with Survival being melee we are down to just 2 specs that use a ranged weapon instead of 3.

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#18

I like my survival hunter in melee :s

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#19

What did you hope to accomplish with this thread?

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#20

seriously the easiest thing they could have done if they really wanted a melee added dps to the hunter was to just add the spec , and not delete the SV range spec period . RSV was great in vanilla for pvp ( talent tree upgrades to traps was awesome in WSG) and was great all around in MOP for dps and all around play style. To the poster …please don’t post on classes you dont play , no one really cares about your opinion on a class you dabbled with. Play it live it then comment on something you have become well versed in.

1 Like