Trust me, i did. Too bad forums won’t update my live character.
They were updated to work more fluidly. Not like that kind of redesign is exactly new to the class. Last time i checked i don’t have a manabar on retail.
Traps were brought back because their absence made the specs close to unplayable in Arena. Lone Wolf is “optional”. Look at any MM Logs. You won’t find a pet anywhere.
I don’t fully disagree and i’m glad they’re giving back some ranged skills back to Surv as a supplement for their current kit for the exact reasons you mention (even if i feel it will push the spec into even more of a niche as i imagine this will require awkward weapon swap macros like Warriors used to have).
I don’t enjoy new Surv because its melee, i enjoy it because of its focus on gadgets/bombs/traps and feel like a proper pet spec, not the zoo-keeper monstrosity that became BM.
And i don’t see the benefit of losing all of that just to rewind the class 4 expansions back so you guys can play with ES/BA instead of AS/AiS.
They used a lot of the same abilities with different effects tied to it. You couldn’t tell them appart visually or in combat unless you looked at damage sources, that was the issue. Its not the case for Locks. Only other class that had that problem was Combat Rogues, which is why they also got changed.
Yes, same reason melee was removed from Hunter in the first place. Updating the class for the better.
You know what isn’t optional? Using a ranged weapon in melee SV. The spec wouldn’t even work. Why are you defending blatantly terrible design and the pruning of a class so much? Why on earth would you defend Blizzard removing traps for MM and BM, and removing pets for MM? I doubt you played Hunter even more now. You want them to remove the ranged weapons, traps and pets? Then you shouldn’t be playing a Hunter.
Why would it feel good to be a melee DPS spec that throws bombs at people at point blank range? All Hunter specs felt like proper pet specs before Blizzard butchered pets and boiled them down to the nothing that they currently are.
These things that you describe that you like about current SV has nothing to do with melee, and they all make more sense in a ranged spec.
Losing all of what? Wildfire Bomb? You know what else was an explosive? Explosive Shot.
Why exactly do you not see the hypocrisy here? All you are doing is insisting that the spec we all want back was just bland and boring, and therefore it shouldn’t exist, all while posting excuses about why melee SV deserves to exist. How can you say “I don’t want to lose what I have!” while also saying “You shouldn’t get back what you had!”?
I like SV because it’s fun to play, and it lets me use all the cool 2H melee weapons I collected over the years without having to level a warrior or paladin.
It was removed because they had to remove the dead-zone to keep up with the mobility power-creep introduced in MoP.
Where…did i say any of that? The fact i’m fine with one of the specs being melee means i hate everything about the class i have 400 days/played on…wat?
Idk, Engineering being part of the class for me since Wrath probably has something to do with that. Its a fun fantasy to me to rely on bombs/traps/trinkets.
Pets were there for Roar of Sac and Web/Pin in arena for MM/Surv. That’s literally it. Not what i’d call a strong fantasy.
I don’t see how it makes more sense one side or the other.
I said multiple times that i feel they should give one of the specs the old ES/TNT/BA setup. I just think it fits MM better now. Would also just require a handful of talent redesigns (dead talents for the most part), instead of rebuilding, yet again, another spec from scratch. Its certainly more realistic anyway.
Or are you saying you just can’t enjoy that old playstyle if it literally doesn’t say "Survival’ on your character sheet?
Why would the dead-zone need to be removed because of a mobility power-creep? That doesn’t really make sense.
You thought it was good for MM and BM to not have traps, right? You thought it was good for MM to not have a pet, right?
Sure… but we have Engineering for that. If you want a Tinker class (which would be awesome and I would play it) then ask Blizzard for one rather than trying to shove it into the Hunter class where it doesn’t belong.
Why are you talking about PvP? Since when has this discussion been about PvP?
Bombs - Why would you want to detonate an explosive right in front of you?
Gadgets - The vast majority of Engi gadgets are ranged, and the idea of gadgets are much more accustomed to ranged use.
Trap - It’s in the name. You lay them down and coax/lure people into them. You don’t attack people in melee range and just throw it at their feet. That’s not what a ‘trap’ is.
Do you not understand the problem here? Why should MM lose its talents for the sake of Ranged SV? If they did introduce ranged SV this way, then ranged SV wouldn’t have any talents of their own, and would be dragged down by the MM kit and MM talents.
They don’t need to design another spec from scratch. Just copy paste the one from MoP! It’s that easy!
Heck, I made a thread about a four Hunter spec with all the abilities/talents: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/potential-design-for-four-spec-hunter-all-spellsabilitiestalents-and-how-to-make-pets-engaging-again/529382
The spec is already there. It required way more work to delete ranged SV and introduce a completely new melee spec to the class.
Just queue into a BG and try to shake a Monk, or Feral off you (and now the DHs). Some classes being balanced around having near 100% uptime on you in PvP meant that the deadzone wasn’t a possible design anymore.
Plus it was awkward in PvE too. Clearly remember it pissing me off in Firelands specifically.
I think these having a more limited access to them is a good thing, yeah. Leaves space in their toolkit for other things. Not that it was a good thing to remove them entirely. Exactly why i’m glad ranged combat is coming back to Surv in a limited capacity.
How it doesn’t belong? Traps have been their since day 1. Traps are just another form of explosives
Honestly was kind of trying to help your argument here because in PvE your pet was even less interactive. Just needed to have a wolf with his howl on Auto lol. Current Pet design for Surv is definitively much better.
Most of this is semantics, you know like me that friendly fire (including yourself) isn’t a thing in this game. There’s a few classes that would blow their own faces off otherwise, not just Surv lol.
Because once again half of the MM talent tree is crap as it is. Its not a loss if nobody is using it.
Can only wish. I’d take Cata MM over any of its other iterations any day but that doesn’t take the whole picture into account at all.
And no the class doesn’t need a 4th spec. Its something unique to Druids and its fine.
You are missing your snare and interrupt, Kill Shot requires polearms for some bizarre reason, and SV doesn’t have Multi-Shot, but for pure single target above 20% health, there is a fully functional ranged option within MSV. Just swap Raptor Strike with Arcane Shot and skip the melee talents.
Maybe if they added a lone wolf type spell that allows you range OR melee and renamed some of the spells instead of changing them this whole MSV vs RSV crap goes away. They tend to not do anything right so they won’t.
Isn’t that more a sign that melee Hunter didn’t make sense?
I agree. The specs should place more emphasis on certain aspects of the class. For BM that is pets. For MM that is the ranged weapon. For SV that is poisons, explosives and traps. But they should all have access to them. All specs should have pets baseline. All specs should have ranged weapons. All spec should have serpent sting, traps, etc…
But melee SV is not a ranged spec. So long as it needs to be in melee range to auto-attack, it will be a melee spec. It needs to use the ranged weapon by default, just like MM needs to have the pet by default.
Traps come in multiple varieties, one of which is explosives. They serve a more tactical use, as their name implies.
Current pet design for SV is essentially just taking BM’s abilities and slapping a new name on them sometimes. Pets were more engaging and interactive when their sole purpose wasn’t to just auto-attack and bite. They used to have special family abilities that were actually useful and unique. But Blizzard gutted them, and now pets are in the worst spot they’ve ever been.
Doesn’t make it make any more sense. Throwing a bomb from a range will always make more sense than just lighting the fuse and dropping it a foot in front of you.
So Blizzard should therefore fix the MM talent tree. How is that not immediately obvious?
What ‘whole picture’? The whole picture of Blizzard not admitting they messed up?
Yes its a very easy thing to say when one of your favorite specs in the game wasn’t deleted for no reason. Do you have an actual reason as to why Hunters shouldn’t be allowed to have a fourth spec? Just cuz?
Well yes. Because we provide reasoning as to why ranged SV should return. Then you say “No”. Then we say “Why?”. Then you say “Just cuz”.
Imagine if they added Explosive Shot, Black Arrow and Lock and Load, just for the lulz.
The Venthyr Covenant ability for Hunters is Flayed Shot, a 15 second DoT on a 30 second cooldown with a chance on each tick to make Kill Shot usable at any health.
It plays almost exactly like Black Arrow did in WoD, except that it doesn’t have BLP or the CD reset on target death mechanic.
It’s actually pretty awesome, especially for MM, especially when paired with the Dead Eye talent.
So they’re willing to introduce abilities that behave very similarly to Survival abilities/passives, but not the Survival abilities/passives themselves? Why?
The logic was that shooting with a bow point blank didn’t make any sense actually, but flavor had to sit back in favor of gameplay for that one.
If the past 2 expansions are anything to go by, i’d trust them more if that came in the way of reusing old ideas than coming up with new ones. Remember Sidewinders? Snek thrower !
Actually my second favorite spec (Feral) got butchered in the split so i kinda get where you’re coming from. Bearcatting was the reason to bring a Feral in PvE. They have been down in the gutter ever since they made Guardian a thing as their “hybridness”, or whatever’s left of it seemingly prevents them from being allowed to do competitive DPS.
Kind of why i don’t think butchering yet another specs that works well as it is is the answer to your problem.
I feel like this has a lot to do with the removal of RSV. Note that the removal of RSV came with/shortly after the elimination of most “castable while moving” from every other ranged class. Remember how before WoD they had been going in the direction of giving casters freer mobility? Most ranged DPS could cast at least their filler spell while moving, some like Marksman (with slight damage penalty) and KJC-era warlocks (with a slight speed penalty) could move and cast almost as freely as BM.
Then all that got shot down to make way for the mongo melee train. Suddenly almost nothing that does significant damage is castable on the move, except under short-term long CD buffs in rare cases. BM gets to keep its mobility at range because its damage output is dependent on a fairly fragile pet that’s in melee range of the target and mongo melee can just keyboard turn around and 3-shot the pet.
No matter what excuses the devs gave us, it was a PvP issue - bad melee players (the most played classes/specs are by far melee DPS, thus the majority of terribads are going to be melee DPS as well) get frustrated when they’re constantly kited while mobile ranged players blow them up. If it were a PvE balance issue, BM wouldn’t have gotten to keep its mobility either, at least not without a DPS tax.
But RSV posed a problem - no real dependence on the pet, and all its major damaging shots are instants. If you toss cast timers on ES/BA it really does just feel like a reskinned MM. So it had to go away entirely, and since they didn’t want to drop Hunters down to a two-spec class, why not replace it with another melee DPS spec to try and appeal to the melee masses the ranged mobility changes were made to placate? Also explains why RSV was so numerically undertuned during WoD - they just nerfed it into uselessness while they were deciding what to do about the only ranged class that did 90% of its damage through instant casts.