Seems like a really bad loss of QoL just for some aesthetics.
They have just given us a transmog cloak that looks like a spear for people who think archers need to carry a 2 handed weapon.
They could have given us back Wing Clip without needing a melee weapon to cast it. A bow can be used as a melee weapon in a pinch.
Maybe Im ignorant but I fail to see how this is inherently a QoL downgrade.
To maintain a second weapon is just another way of saying that you need to get more loot. This expansion proved that they are able to turn that knob pretty independently now, and they decided we needed way less loot than we were getting. Adding a second weapon to one class is such a small thing, especially considering that prot war and paladins, rogues, fury wars, elem and enh sham, any priest/mage/lock that uses an offhand, healer specs that decide to use an offhand, frost dks, potentially every spec of monk, and DHs all maintain a second weapon. If it turned out to change the speed of gearing up in any way (which they already determined was too fast) they could very easily increase the frequency and quality of drops.
Getting 1 high level weapon is hard enough.
Getting 2 would be twice as hard
Needing 3 would make hunters to slowest class to gear in the game.
It’s totally unnecessary. Just let us transmog bows into melee weapons for weirdos who want to play an archer class with a 2 handed axe.
This makes a few assumptions. One is that problems with time to BiS couldn’t be adjusted. We know that is a knob that is easily and recently turned. The second completely ignores specs that dont even have 2h weapons as an option. Its not like those guys choose to leave the offhand empty. Its not like 2h weapons are more rare than 1h weapons and that somehow balanced hunter gearing. Tons of players earn 2 weapons (or shield or offhand) and no one seriously worries about it. Getting rid of the ranged weapon slot and taking melee from hunters was never meant to and/or never effectively solved the issue of finding enough weapons. It was meant to deal with need/greed issues, that have since been remedied, but better.
Third, maintenance of 3 weapons would be a choice. Either you lucked out and got two good 1h weapons, or you really like the dw aesthetic, or you havent yet found the 2h wep you want and have 2 1h weps that do the job. All of those are options, which are good. It inherently adds no work to gearing/maintenance that anyone else doesn’t already have.
tbh i would be fine with stat sticks if it meant RSV came back.
I still think Beast Master when I think melee with pet, like Rexxar. Also, waiting for the Dual Wield option for either.
Disclaimer: I played Beastlord in EQ following Luclin.
I think that’s the case for most people. Having a melee weapon doesn’t hurt anyone, and it is no longer bad for balance due to the evolution of gearing. Most MSV advocates don’t give up on MSV when mongoose isnt performing well. So obviously, hitting things with our spear isnt the be-all-and-end-all of our melee weapon hunter fantasy.
You bring back basically old RSV and find a way to fit bombs back in… bring back melee weapons to all specs and make the old defensives baseline, and you probably have the least offensive fix to the issue that anyone can hope for.
100% of your argument is “it’s not that bad”. What has to be answered is “why is it GOOD?”. Why would having an actual melee statstick be better than just having a cosmetic melee weapon that isn’t actually a gearing burden in any form? They could still have abilities like Wing Clip using that weapon.
Why is having an actual ranged weapon better than having a cosmetic ranged weapon that isnt a gearing burden in any form?
Because its an RPG.
“It’s an RPG” is used to justify all sorts of terrible mechanics. It doesn’t mean anything by itself. You’re still not arguing why it’s good to have a statstick over a cosmetic-only melee weapon given the melee weapon isn’t actually being used.
As for the ranged weapon: because I’m actually using the ranged weapon and improving it represents improving my character. A melee statstick is just there and nonsensically improves my ranged ability due to the nature of in-game gearing and not because it makes any sort of role-playing sense.
Ok…
Even though we like to refer to the melee weapon for a hunter as a statstick it isnt just that. It is the visual representation of our ability to use certain spells. Wingclip… raptor strike, whatever. It is also a category of collectible transmogs.
We could get rid of “tame” and replace it with a generic pet that can be “changed” aesthetically via a collection of appearances like Nightfae souls. But it’s not the same. The same way you cant just replace all weapons in the game with generic appearances. That would peobably be best, but doom the game.
What do you mean it would “doom the game”? We haven’t had melee weapons at all as BM or MM for 8 years and it hasn’t doomed the game. You’re just declaring “it’s not the same” without explaining why it isn’t the same. People want the melee weapon for purely aesthetic reasons so it should remain that: purely aesthetic.
You might think it’s not a big deal to have to maintain a statstick but I think it is and I’m getting a bit tired of your empty demands to return a mechanic that not many people would like to see return.
I’d like to see it return.
I’d like to also see stats removed from weapons, except DPS.
Unfortunately, they broke the way damage works on skills. The metajoke being, the game is already broken and stopped being an RPG around 2009.
Oh, really? Because it’s still rewarding and significant to get a weapon upgrade so really it just sounds like you’re spouting purist nonsense.
I know its not a big deal. Its a piece of gear that drops from whatever content you are going to do anyway. You don’t have to seek it out. It just drops or it doesn’t and almost every other class and spec maintains more than one weapon. The amount of time it takes to maintain it has nothing to do with how many weapons you need, nor how bad you want it. It is deliberately controlled by the devs.
I said you could remove all weapons from the game but it would doom the game. Thats just a prediction but I stand by it.
You are contradicting yourself. Which is it? Useless to have melee weapons and just a pain to maintenance, or rewarding? Or am I weasel wording again?
I have never heard of a raid lead asking a hunter to go SV. If you actually did need another person in melee, you would just have the hunter go stand in melee, no need to actually change specs
Having to maintain an extra item is absolutely an extra burden, even if you think it’s “small enough”. Imagine gearing up via conquest; the weapon is always the most expensive part. No one is going to be happy about having to spend an extra >2k conquest, which takes weeks to get, because some roleplayers thought it would be a good idea to force melee weapons back onto a ranged class. Beyond that it dilutes loot tables; look how Hunters are already upset how just about every single world quest has been giving us a melee weapon just because Survival exists. There is literally no gain at all to having the melee weapon be a literal statstick v.s. just a cosmetic aspect and you still haven’t justified your weird obsession with going this particular route.
The difference is all those weapons are actually in use. None of them are statsticks. They are core to the strength of our characters. A melee weapon for a Hunter would NOT be. BM and MM do not use melee attacks and they don’t have any need for such a thing. Requiring them to use a melee weapon and tacking on any melee attack to justify that dilutes their identities once again.
Besides, extent matters. You keep pretending not having a melee statstick is equivalent to just removing all gear. It’s not, because we still have gear. What you’re applying here is a slippery slope fallacy; somehow going from 16 gear pieces to 15 is equivalent to going from 15 to 0.
Yes, you are. You are in fact generally a manipulative person; I don’t know if you’ve noticed that. I have to wonder if you admire Hazzikostas because you see yourself in his manipulative attitude or if you’re just emulating him.
In any case: I’ve already said a trillion times it’s rewarding to get a weapon upgrade for a weapon we actually use i.e. a ranged weapon. The melee weapons pe-MoP always felt crappy because it felt like the class was better off without melee in general and we were having to maintain a melee weapon just for the hell of it. Keep it cosmetic or GTFO.
Isn’t it amazing how melee has always been bad news for this class?
Shoot man. I forgot that casters do so much melee damage and monks. Boy, how could I forget all the weapon use monks are doing. Thats why BrM wanted dual wield back… so they could do more weapon damage. Oh man… shield bash is so important to the elemental shaman rotation! /s
I can’t even read more than two lines in his posts without thinking he’s simply being contrarian… it’s a struggle to get through.
I honestly feel a lot of the conflict boils down to people that just want the combat simulator with the easiest elevator to the top (Action-based PvE MOBA), and people that are trying to feel a level of immersion into the game world (RPG).
And I really don’t feel the game has been much RPG since 2009, and is closer to RAID: SHADOW LEGENDS today than it is to expansive adventure games like Breath of the Wild, Skyrim, Everquest, or even Vanilla World of Warcraft.
In terms of business decisions, they’re trying to maximize their market, so I can’t fault them for consistently servicing the Action crowd. But they’re going to create their own competitors in the long run…