Will the mobile, ranged, and DoT playstyle of Survival ever come back?

[Karamin]

There's going to be a live Q&A session with Watcher, so I took my chance to send him a tweet about this issue. I would have liked to post the question on the official forums too, but I'm not subscribed.

However, here is the problem: they did try by bringing in lock and load, explosive shot, and black arrow. But it's simply a far cry from the survival iteration that a lot of people including loved. The huge inherent problem is that they want MM to be a "sniper" fantasy. To be immobile and to punish moving, especially when they made aimed shot cancelled when moving.

However, the play style of being a guerilla fighter, taking pot shots at enemies to whither them down and retreating into the background whilst laying a plethora of traps really appealed to me. Well that can't happen anymore because of the removal of traps and because hunters have no DoT, nor are they mobile.

I think Legion did a fair job on melee survival, however, I don't want to see a spec. play style that took years, 5 expansions, to evolve to the point where it became a legacy to hunters. I think melee survival should stay, but there should be a method to bring back ranged to survival to MM. Talents/glyphs, I'm not sure.

What do you guys think?

[satimy]

They will never change survival, it would be an admission of failure

[DeicideUH]

They will never change survival, it would be an admission of failure

Did you even bother to READ the OP's text? He says himself that Survival should stay melee. He's talking about the old Survival playstyle being added as an option to MM.

What do you guys think?

My opinion is that MM should have been customizable throught talents. There should be options to emulate old MM style (slow, not so mobile, heavy hitting burst) and old Survival style. Instead, they made a monster spec that not only does no justice to those older designs, but also fails at maintaining its class fantasy (you are a sniper super-archer... who shoots snakes and is bad at single target damage.)

Recently, just for fun, I've made a thread with a how I'd redesign MM's skills and talents. It's far from perfect, but check it out:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...sign-MM-Hunter

[Smorelax]

Like Deicide said it should be customizable. Instead we got a bland mix. For people that liked mobile ranged spec there should be more options other than BM where the pet does all the job.

[Deleted]

Quoting myself from another thread since it pertains well to this thread (& was largely ignored there).

What a lot of these threads about Melee SV boil down to is that many people liked the old SV and are sad to see it gone. They also clearly feel that the new MM and BM don't fill the niche that they have lost in SV (fully mobile, DoT-based, pet-user but not pet-reliant). I hope I'm not mis-representing their views here (since these views are not my own), I'm just attempting to paraphrase the views I have seen.

I also believe I am right in saying that if MM (the marginally closer of BM & MM to 6.1 SV) could achieve a similar playstyle via talent selection (and not be sub-par as a result of these choices) then the need would be met since (I hope) it is not simply the name of the spec that matters but they playstyle.

This appears to have been somewhat the design intent in Legion, with Black Arrow, Lock 'n' Load & Explosive Shot (albeit with a lot of re-design) all part of MM talents now. Sidewinders also has a distinctly 6.X SV feel to it's design too. What all of this tells me is not that SV has been a failure but that MM & BM have been.

BM is widely derided (rightly imo) as un-engaging, lacking in complexity & with acres of boring downtime. It might meet some of the designer's intentions regarding class fantasy but fails spectacularly from a playstyle perspective.

MM, if I am right about design intent, was meant to play like old MM or old SV depending on talent selection but talent choice is simply not a thing in MM at the moment and even if it was, they haven't done a good job of capturing either but especially not with regards to 6.X SV.

To summarise, I think the design intentions were;
1. Keep BM mostly as it is
2. Make MM play somewhat like old MM or old SV based on talent choices
3. Create new Melee SV

Essentially 4 specs in 3. It didn't work for Feral hence Guardian. It didn't work for Gladiator Prot warrior (well, it did before nerfbat).

It feels like part 3 is the only bit they got right albeit with a lot of bugs & new-spec teething problems.

My hope is that they don't give up on the idea that the new MM can fill the niche that has been vacated. I'd suggest a 4th spec but that is unrealistic with regards to development time & a 4-spec pure dps class seems somewhat ridiculous to me.

[Deleted]

What I would like is for the developers to introduce "sub specs" inside of a spec. Not just talent rows but thematic/pure gameplay decisions that strongly change your playstyle.

Thus for example for survival: baseline spells+choose either ranged oriented or melee oriented.

MM would be for example sniping oriented or fast paced with weaker utility shots,etc...etc...

[DeicideUH]

What I would like is for the developers to introduce "sub specs" inside of a spec. Not just talent rows but thematic/pure gameplay decisions that strongly change your playstyle.

Thus for example for survival: baseline spells+choose either ranged oriented or melee oriented.

MM would be for example sniping oriented or fast paced with weaker utility shots,etc...etc...

I also think that it would be good to include extra talent rows that are just gameplay styles ("choose your fun", instead of "choose your damage"), with all options modifying the same base skill and offering around the same benefit.

[Karamin]

What if there's a level 100 talent replacement that makes aimed shot an instant, stackable, DoT with reduced damage?