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  1. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by JaoStar View Post
    Yeah I a agree, SV seems to have an identity problem. Is it a trap master, a munitions expert, does/should it use its pet in tandem with its melee abilities? And focus was originally designed for ranged combat not melee.
    I mean I can see what they're going for... but it just doesn't flow very well. They're trying to think "What would Rexxar do in a fight?" and make that the spec but like... The things Rexxar would do if he were real are a lot more fluid than when you're pushing buttons on a computer. Laying traps, commanding pets, and fighting hand-to-hand is hard to do with individual abilities and they went out of their way to make all of those things viable at once. They also gave it too many stacking Buffs or DoTs. I think traps should be relegated to AoE/CC and they should alter some of the talents that give more buffs to upkeep.

  2. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by Eapoe View Post
    Players did want melee Hunters.
    Quote Originally Posted by Mirishka View Post
    On the contrary. Over the years tons of people have asked for melee hunters, e.g. 'omg I want melee spec so I can b like Rexxar!!!??!!' Though more often people requested that spec be BM, not Surv.

    Also, you do not speak for the 'majority' of hunters.
    Like most of your posts on the matter, you're both full of it here. Yes, people have asked for a melee Hunter spec in the past. People have also asked for a melee Mage and a tanking Shaman. You still have people who ask for the return of archaic bullshit mechanics that add nothing but inconvenience like ammo and weapon skills. You even have people demanding outrageous Everquest-style death penalties where you drop all your shit when you die.

    People ask for stupid crap all the time on the forums. You can come up with any flawed-to-the-core idea and post it on the forums and you can guarantee that you'll find at least a small number of people on the forums who agree. I've said it before: you could go on the forums and demand that Blizzard remove the Druid class from the game and I guarantee you will have people support that idea with 100% sincerety. God damn, I guarantee you'll have actual Druid mains supporting the idea. Sure, it will be almost no one but they will still be there.

    Does that description in the last sentence sound familiar? It should, because it perfectly describes the demographic of "Hunters who like melee". The problem with these ideas is that they are all very unpopular and pursuing any of them would end up pissing off far more people than those they satisfy. You can't just entertain every idea that people come up with, especially those that actively infringe on the playstyle of others as changing one of the Hunter spec to melee does. A melee Hunter was one of those niche forum ideas that would pop up every once in a while. Obviously changing one of the Hunter specs to melee would piss off the ranged Hunters, and those Hunters far outnumber the ones that want melee. And this isn't even hypothetical, anymore. This has all happened now: they made melee Hunters, it's flopped pretty spectacularly, all the obviously-correct predictions have been proven correct, and there are a lot of pissed off Hunters. Even Blizzard is now admitting the melee Hunter idea was a niche one that wouldn't appeal to most existing Hunters. There's simply no pretending anymore that this was ever a popular idea. That ship has sailed.

    As @SnowTang said, you can absolutely speak for the majority of Hunters when you say a melee spec wasn't wanted because the vast majority (i.e. ~98%) of Hunters are not playing it and they sure as hell aren't showing any signs of warming up to it. Even when Survival was the numerically superior option they weren't switching. How much longer can you pretend that this spec has an audience? How many more times are you willing to be proven wrong?

    Quote Originally Posted by Killigrew View Post
    I love how PvE'rs cry over losing their "main" spec but PvE'rs are NOTORIOUS for changing raiding spec as soon as Marksman/BM pulls ahead 1-2%. Sorry, but SO MANY specs got a total revamp which is just as "upsetting" as losing a hunter spec. I used to love balance and unholy but I can't stand them in Legion. I lost them too.

    The reason they made it melee was that it was their goal in Vanilla beta. It was the original fantasy.
    Boy is this a lot of misinformation packed into one post.

    Firstly, the current most popular Hunter spec is the one that performs worst out of the three, so you are shown to be talking out your ass immediately... as in, on the very first sentence. Moving on from that, Survival itself was the most popular spec during Siege of Orgrimmar when it was outdamaged by BM for that tier. Meanwhile, Survival as melee failed to move beyond 3% of Hunter parses in mythic raiding even when it was the very best Hunter spec for 7.1.5 and Nighthold. Numerical performance is no longer an excuse when it comes to Survival.

    Secondly, you can't act like any other spec revamp holds a candle to the total removal and replacement that was Survival in Legion. Even largely changed specs like the ones you mentioned retain at least some of their prior playstyle and theme; Survival does not. The only thing it has in common with its former self is utility that is core to the class and shared by other specs. Every. Single. Mechanic. Is. Gone. Extent matters here; don't pretend that it doesn't.

    Finally, no Hunter spec has ever been fully melee before Legion. Not even Survival. Legion Survival is the first time any Hunter spec has not had a ranged weapon. Even in early Vanilla when Survival had the utterly-useless Lacerate as its final talent, it still primarily used a ranged weapon with Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, and Serpent Sting. The spec augmented your melee capabilities but it certainly didn't try to make it the sole focus. That was never the intention. Plus, the whole "some ranged, some melee" approach didn't work out and that's why they moved away from it. Why the fuck should we be returning to a failed design?

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    *raises his hand*
    Name me one reason why I need 3 different range specs.

    I'd go nuts over a melee-mage spec that summons arcane weapons, too.

    Talents should be used to allow specs to feel different enough by themselves and thus SV could've been built into MM. They obviously tried exactly that (@BA + Explosive shot talent), but failed.
    Why did we need a melee spec? We already had 3 ranged specs and people had developed their favourite playstyles, what pressure was there to take people's favourite spec away and turn it to something nearly no one wanted? Be careful when you use the word "need" in this debate because, given the circumstances of the introduction of the melee spec, you can guarantee it will come back around to fuck you up.

    You may go nuts over a melee mage spec, but a) it's doubtful you will actually ever sink much time into it (look at all the "I would definitely play a melee Hunter" people who were total no-shows to Survival this expansion) and b) that would be fucking over all the people who like whatever mage spec gets cut for the melee one to happen, just for the sake of the mild interest of people like you. Survival has proven that this sort of class design is crap. Proponents of it are in no position to push it further.

    Also, I distinctly remember this being explained to you many times in a number of different threads over the past year. Cramming two specs in one is a bad idea. You end up with one or two watered-down options and completely limit the ability to iterate on either design. In reality, instead of deflecting blame to another spec, the criticism should be focused on the spec at fault, which is unequivocally Survival.

  3. #43
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by FpicEail View Post
    Why did we need a melee spec? We already had 3 ranged specs and people had developed their favourite playstyles, what pressure was there to take people's favourite spec away and turn it to something nearly no one wanted? Be careful when you use the word "need" in this debate because, given the circumstances of the introduction of the melee spec, you can guarantee it will come back around to fuck you up.

    You may go nuts over a melee mage spec, but a) it's doubtful you will actually ever sink much time into it (look at all the "I would definitely play a melee Hunter" people who were total no-shows to Survival this expansion) and b) that would be fucking over all the people who like whatever mage spec gets cut for the melee one to happen, just for the sake of the mild interest of people like you. Survival has proven that this sort of class design is crap. Proponents of it are in no position to push it further.

    Also, I distinctly remember this being explained to you many times in a number of different threads over the past year. Cramming two specs in one is a bad idea. You end up with one or two watered-down options and completely limit the ability to iterate on either design. In reality, instead of deflecting blame to another spec, the criticism should be focused on the spec at fault, which is unequivocally Survival.

    Survival didn't proof anything other than that the spec is no fun to play.

    You saying it's because it's melee doesn't change that. I tried SV out, I'd still play it, it's just not fun to play for me because it's poorly handled and not easy enough, and it doesn't deal enough damage either.
    And no, cramming two specs in one isn't a bad idea... you just say it is by saying it's going to get watered down, but there is no reason to think that's going to happen, other than you saying it would be that way.

    We already have artifact traits and talents that replace skills and change depending on what talent you pick. It's all about balancing them
    You could create a talent that will replace AiS with ES, that's more mobile, has a DoT character and deal slighly less damage to offset advantages.
    Or Trick shot could turn ES into having AoE ticks on targets that got hit by Marked shot - depending on what skill you use.

    Etc.etc.etc.etc.

    It's stunning that you can't use your ability to think about talents/skills that are currently not included, you are basing your idea of a SV/MM hybird on talents and abilities we currently have but a spec that would actually utilize this would look completely different.
    Last edited by mmoc96d9238e4b; 2017-09-10 at 12:04 PM.

  4. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by FpicEail View Post
    Like most of your posts on the matter, you're both full of it here. Yes, people have asked for a melee Hunter spec in the past. People have also asked for a melee Mage and a tanking Shaman. You still have people who ask for the return of archaic bullshit mechanics that add nothing but inconvenience like ammo and weapon skills. You even have people demanding outrageous Everquest-style death penalties where you drop all your shit when you die.

    People ask for stupid crap all the time on the forums. You can come up with any flawed-to-the-core idea and post it on the forums and you can guarantee that you'll find at least a small number of people on the forums who agree. I've said it before: you could go on the forums and demand that Blizzard remove the Druid class from the game and I guarantee you will have people support that idea with 100% sincerety. God damn, I guarantee you'll have actual Druid mains supporting the idea. Sure, it will be almost no one but they will still be there.

    Does that description in the last sentence sound familiar? It should, because it perfectly describes the demographic of "Hunters who like melee". The problem with these ideas is that they are all very unpopular and pursuing any of them would end up pissing off far more people than those they satisfy. You can't just entertain every idea that people come up with, especially those that actively infringe on the playstyle of others as changing one of the Hunter spec to melee does. A melee Hunter was one of those niche forum ideas that would pop up every once in a while. Obviously changing one of the Hunter specs to melee would piss off the ranged Hunters, and those Hunters far outnumber the ones that want melee. And this isn't even hypothetical, anymore. This has all happened now: they made melee Hunters, it's flopped pretty spectacularly, all the obviously-correct predictions have been proven correct, and there are a lot of pissed off Hunters. Even Blizzard is now admitting the melee Hunter idea was a niche one that wouldn't appeal to most existing Hunters. There's simply no pretending anymore that this was ever a popular idea. That ship has sailed.

    As @SnowTang said, you can absolutely speak for the majority of Hunters when you say a melee spec wasn't wanted because the vast majority (i.e. ~98%) of Hunters are not playing it and they sure as hell aren't showing any signs of warming up to it. Even when Survival was the numerically superior option they weren't switching. How much longer can you pretend that this spec has an audience? How many more times are you willing to be proven wrong?



    Boy is this a lot of misinformation packed into one post.

    Firstly, the current most popular Hunter spec is the one that performs worst out of the three, so you are shown to be talking out your ass immediately... as in, on the very first sentence. Moving on from that, Survival itself was the most popular spec during Siege of Orgrimmar when it was outdamaged by BM for that tier. Meanwhile, Survival as melee failed to move beyond 3% of Hunter parses in mythic raiding even when it was the very best Hunter spec for 7.1.5 and Nighthold. Numerical performance is no longer an excuse when it comes to Survival.

    Secondly, you can't act like any other spec revamp holds a candle to the total removal and replacement that was Survival in Legion. Even largely changed specs like the ones you mentioned retain at least some of their prior playstyle and theme; Survival does not. The only thing it has in common with its former self is utility that is core to the class and shared by other specs. Every. Single. Mechanic. Is. Gone. Extent matters here; don't pretend that it doesn't.

    Finally, no Hunter spec has ever been fully melee before Legion. Not even Survival. Legion Survival is the first time any Hunter spec has not had a ranged weapon. Even in early Vanilla when Survival had the utterly-useless Lacerate as its final talent, it still primarily used a ranged weapon with Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, and Serpent Sting. The spec augmented your melee capabilities but it certainly didn't try to make it the sole focus. That was never the intention. Plus, the whole "some ranged, some melee" approach didn't work out and that's why they moved away from it. Why the fuck should we be returning to a failed design?



    Why did we need a melee spec? We already had 3 ranged specs and people had developed their favourite playstyles, what pressure was there to take people's favourite spec away and turn it to something nearly no one wanted? Be careful when you use the word "need" in this debate because, given the circumstances of the introduction of the melee spec, you can guarantee it will come back around to fuck you up.

    You may go nuts over a melee mage spec, but a) it's doubtful you will actually ever sink much time into it (look at all the "I would definitely play a melee Hunter" people who were total no-shows to Survival this expansion) and b) that would be fucking over all the people who like whatever mage spec gets cut for the melee one to happen, just for the sake of the mild interest of people like you. Survival has proven that this sort of class design is crap. Proponents of it are in no position to push it further.

    Also, I distinctly remember this being explained to you many times in a number of different threads over the past year. Cramming two specs in one is a bad idea. You end up with one or two watered-down options and completely limit the ability to iterate on either design. In reality, instead of deflecting blame to another spec, the criticism should be focused on the spec at fault, which is unequivocally Survival.
    So, just to clarify, you say my post about people asked for melee Hunter is full of it, then go on to agree and admit that people did, in fact, ask for it?
    In my defense, I even pointed out people did not want to lose a spec, but most people who did ask for a melee Hunter probably wanted a 4th spec.
    So, thank you for agreeing with me and pointing out I am correct that people did ask for it.

  5. #45
    Obnoxious Patriots Fan Darth Belichick's Avatar
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    Said it once and I'll say it again: if they are adamant about keeping it a melee spec for some god awful reason, make it a tank spec. We don't need anymore melee DPS.

  6. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by Eapoe View Post
    So, just to clarify, you say my post about people asked for melee Hunter is full of it, then go on to agree and admit that people did, in fact, ask for it?
    In my defense, I even pointed out people did not want to lose a spec, but most people who did ask for a melee Hunter probably wanted a 4th spec.
    So, thank you for agreeing with me and pointing out I am correct that people did ask for it.

    Your comprehension skills need to improve.

    Read it again.

  7. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Geran View Post
    Your comprehension skills need to improve.

    Read it again.
    There's nothing to read again. I stated that people asked for melee Hunter. He then went on to say I am full of it and then his very next sentence said that people asked for it. Anything he says after that is invalid. He either makes the statement that I am full of it and states that no one asked for it, ever, or he agrees and then proceeds to argue with himself by saying "people asked for it, but that's bullshit because people didn't ask for it."
    As stated previously, my post stated players asked for a melee Hunter spec. I even elaborated in the next post that those that did were probably wanting a 4th spec added and not a rdps spec to be replaced by it.
    That's the end of the discussion. Players asked (confirmed by the person who said I was full of it in the very same post), and they didn't want to lose a spec in the process.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Belichick View Post
    Said it once and I'll say it again: if they are adamant about keeping it a melee spec for some god awful reason, make it a tank spec. We don't need anymore melee DPS.
    They could keep it melee, but they need to prune back its abilities AND let it keep up with other melee. Doesn't even need to be a god, but if it was within 1-3% difference it would be in a much better place.
    I would enjoy it being a tank spec, but that's because I enjoy playing Hunter and would like not having 20-50 minute queue times. Just have to wait and see what they do with it next xpac, whether simplifying it and making it competitive, changing it to tank, or reverting back to rdps (which being honest would make the most players happy).
    Last edited by Eapoe; 2017-09-14 at 12:09 AM.

  8. #48
    Dreadlord Kelthos's Avatar
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    I like Survival, but they probably should have added it as a 4th spec. I wouldn't mind if they made it a tanking spec. I think if they did that all the survival haters would quiet down because the class could perform an additional role.

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by Kelthos View Post
    I like Survival, but they probably should have added it as a 4th spec. I wouldn't mind if they made it a tanking spec. I think if they did that all the survival haters would quiet down because the class could perform an additional role.
    No, they wouldn't. People want the spec back. I like melee dps SV, but even I have stated in other posts it was a mistake to replace rdps with mdps. I would enjoy tanking with it as well I think, depends on how it was implemented.
    For instance, I love tanking with a Warrior and DH, I find the other ones flat out boring (personal preferences obviously). If Blizzard even went the route of a tank I would hope they'd get away from the button bloat and disconnectiveness of the current ability interaction. Feels like the spec would definitely work better as a tank though with the way the abilities are setup. Using ExT and Butchery/Carve for AoE packs, combine FS/RS together for a small self heal like other tanks have, get rid of Lacerate/Eagle completely, and change Aspects to just give some extra damage reduction like other big CD's. MB could be reworked as just a filler ability or something to press when FS/RS are on CD.
    But, with Blizz, I don't see them changing it and will probably just sit in a bad, messy spot like Enhance Shamans were for a few xpacs.

  10. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Belichick View Post
    Said it once and I'll say it again: if they are adamant about keeping it a melee spec for some god awful reason, make it a tank spec. We don't need anymore melee DPS.
    it will be like every other tank spec where only tank players bother with it and we are in the same position where 1 spec is basically dead and irrelevant.

  11. #51
    I wish they would instead make old survival the new marksman

    Survival is in a pretty horrible state, but not nearly as awful and boring as marksman is at the moment.
    The proper waifu is a wholesome supplement for one's intrinsic need for belonging and purpose.

  12. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    Survival didn't proof anything other than that the spec is no fun to play.
    Hazzikostas himself has now admitted that they knew Survival would be unpopular among Hunters because Hunters prefer ranged. You can NO LONGER deny this fact. I guess you can argue that the matter of shafting and excluding the vast majority of people playing a class by changing one of its specs to something totally unfamiliar is only subjectively "crap" but at that point you are stretching the meaning of "subjective".

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    And no, cramming two specs in one isn't a bad idea... you just say it is by saying it's going to get watered down, but there is no reason to think that's going to happen, other than you saying it would be that way.

    We already have artifact traits and talents that replace skills and change depending on what talent you pick. It's all about balancing them
    You could create a talent that will replace AiS with ES, that's more mobile, has a DoT character and deal slighly less damage to offset advantages.
    Or Trick shot could turn ES into having AoE ticks on targets that got hit by Marked shot - depending on what skill you use.

    Etc.etc.etc.etc.

    It's stunning that you can't use your ability to think about talents/skills that are currently not included, you are basing your idea of a SV/MM hybird on talents and abilities we currently have but a spec that would actually utilize this would look completely different.
    Things that old SV had that current MM does not:

    Explosive Shot signature (6 sec CD)
    Black Arrow DoT tied to Lock and Load, baseline (+ Lock and Load's interaction with traps)
    Serpent Sting DoT baseline (in WoD it was applied by Arcane Shot)
    Arcane Shot as a focus dump
    Cobra Shot as a focus generator
    Multi-Shot as a focus dump AoE, + Serpent Spread
    MoP/WoD talents that complemented SV particularly well such as Glaive Toss and Thrill of the Hunt
    Trap Mastery (more minor, but makes a big difference in PvP)

    Things that new MM has that old SV did not:
    Windburst, a stationary cast
    Aimed Shot, a stationary cast
    Arcane Shot/Multi-Shot as a focus generator
    Marked Shot
    Vulnerability

    Now look at the talent system.
    3 tiers (45, 75, 90) are utility tiers that are shared by all specs. That leaves [b]4[b] tiers to construct old SV's playstyle. You would have to achieve all the above in 4 talent tiers (notice there are more than 4 items in each list) and not double up on any row because that would turn two things that the old SV had baseline into mutually exclusive options. Which, may I remind you, has already happened with the current half-assed effort and only 3 old Survival abilities.

    A good first step would be Explosive Shot replacing Aimed Shot and merging Lock and Load and Black Arrow so at least that part aligns with old SV. Now you have to somehow phase out Windburst, which is given by the artifact, and Vulnerability, which whether we like it or not is core to the current Marksmanship style. Talenting out would leave Marked Shot in limbo and also remove a major component of Trueshot + several Artifact traits. So a massive rework of MM just to accommodate this approach is already provably inevitable, so any argument that the current Marksmanship can live "in harmony" with old SV is out the window.

    But say you go ahead and do that anyway. You dumb down Marksmanship and remove multiple baseline mechanics which can never possibly reconcile with Survival's old playstyle. That means you can't have ANYTHING that focuses on being an immobile but hard-hitting sniper with high focus costs... which is exactly Marksman's themes. So you might have one or two mechanics, but now Marksman's theme is diminished and so is Survival's, because Survival was a highly mobile, light-hitting and low-cost spec. At this point a rational person clues in to the fact that Survival and Marksmanship always had this thematic and mechanical distinction and this is why we say it's fallacious to claim they were "identical specs" like so many pro-Blizzard drones and class fantasy acolytes do.

    But it gets worse. What if I want to expand on Survival's playstyle? For example: Survival had trap mastery and being able to guarantee a Lock and Load from a CC trap was great, but what if I wanted the damaging traps to matter too? Blizzard never really did make Immolation Trap/Explosive Trap worth it besides a couple momentary exceptions (in which case they still failed to synergise with ANYTHING and were only ever situationally worth the GCD). One idea I always had for Survival was to make Explosive Trap apply a debuff to all enemies affected that made Explosive Shot do splash damage to all that are affected. Distantly similar to Vulnerable, but different in that it's deterministic and therefore less obnoxious. Also, this would replicate that massive blob of AoE splash damage that you would see with the original Explosive Shot in 3.0, which was a big part of what drew people to the spec in that patch (a first, really, for Survival). How would you add this? By talent? Add it to the already-crammed list of mechanics you have to fit into 4 talents.

    If Survival were its own spec, I could make talents that enhance that old playstyle for particular fights like Cleave/Council fights v.s. Patchwerk fights. I would have the freedom of a clean slate of baselines, talents, and traits to work with. What about that unique cooldown that Survival was promised in 5.0? Survival-lite in MM would be stuck with Trueshot unless you also make a talent for that (add it to the list, again). What if I want to make Survival's abilities synergise with each other and have complementary effects to make the gameplay feel more deep and comprehensive? Can't do that because talents can't explicity interact with each-other given that you might not take all of the Survival options.

    We haven't even mentioned the balance issues, either. Look how piss-poorly Blizzard handles balancing between talent options (cough Chimaera Shot). How the hell do you expect them to keep 4 different talent options relevant enough? Look at the state of Black Arrow/Explosive Shot right now: both outclassed in their tiers and not worth taking in most cases (Explosive Shot at least has the meme build but Blizzard seems to be discouraging this with set bonuses). Either SV or MM would end up the clear choice for everything, whereas different specs are at least nominally easier to tune.

    So you would have to exclude parts of SV's old playstyle, or worse: exclude parts of both to compromise as much as you can. Back to square one: you are now watering down at least one of the options. This approach of incorporating old SV into new MM either leads you to making unfavourable compromises or taking you down a path of thematic and balancing issues from top to bottom as you try to cram two entirely different playstyles and themes into a handful of talent tiers. This is why I always say it's a bad option. It would honestly be easier to have 4 specs for Hunters, and that itself is a massive undertaking. What's really "stunning" here is how you insist that you can just waive all these problems away and pursue this flawed-to-the-core idea, all for the sake of propping up a melee spec that less than 3% of the class is willing to play.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eapoe View Post
    So, just to clarify, you say my post about people asked for melee Hunter is full of it, then go on to agree and admit that people did, in fact, ask for it?
    In my defense, I even pointed out people did not want to lose a spec, but most people who did ask for a melee Hunter probably wanted a 4th spec.
    So, thank you for agreeing with me and pointing out I am correct that people did ask for it.

    You have to be smart to be a smart-ass. #threadz said "nobody wanted melee hunter except like 10 people that lie about playing it in vanilla". Obviously that's hyperbole, but the point is that a very insignificant minority of people wanted a melee Hunters. You apparently think that the fact that the number of people wanting melee Hunters was at least 1 warrants pursuing the idea and calling us wrong when we say hardly anyone wanted it. I have seen people on this very forum suggest with full sincerity that Survival should become a healing spec. I've only seen it twice, but they're there. That would be a fucking awful design decision for a litany of obvious reasons, but according to your logic the support is there and you can't turn around and say it doesn't matter.

    And in my experience, any of those old threads asking for a melee Hunter were usually asking for melee capabilities to be returned to the Hunter class, e.g. deadzone for every spec with Raptor Strike etc (which is also a terrible design decision, by the way). Very, very few people actually asked for a purely melee Hunter without a ranged weapon and I've never seen any of those old threads clarify that they wanted it to be a new, additional spec rather than a replacement. In fact, many explicitly ask it to replace an existing spec.
    Last edited by Bepples; 2017-09-21 at 01:11 PM.

  13. #53
    Deleted
    I'm just going with this part of your post because it's much easier

    First of all, Marked shot and Vulnerability doesn't have to be removed just because old SV didn't have it. Legion SV wouldn't be supposed to be a 1:1 recreation of WoD SV. The heart of the spec (mobility, dots) is what has to be kept alive.

    Quote Originally Posted by FpicEail View Post
    Explosive Shot signature (6 sec CD) -> Current talent reworked

    Black Arrow DoT tied to Lock and Load, baseline (+ Lock and Load's interaction with traps) -> LnL can be baseline for MM too, picking BA will change it from Autoattack to BA ticks. Maybe with a higher tickrate or an instant proc on application

    Serpent Sting DoT baseline (in WoD it was applied by Arcane Shot) -> Spammable abilities that proc abilities and thus have 100% uptime are boring, but well, what's stopping MM from having that too and make it available on Arcane and Multi? But I have a better idea than that later (sidewinder change). Just remove Volley, a talent that is basically the most boring in history of WoW and put in Serpent Sting instead

    Arcane Shot as a focus dump -> ES would be your focus dump. Change Sidewinders to become another dump, maybe even limiit serpentsting automatic application to this talent

    Cobra Shot as a focus generator -> doesn't matter whether it's AS or CS now

    Multi-Shot as a focus dump AoE, + Serpent Spread -> can stay as a builder, it never was about the multishot dmg anyway, the new sidewinder talent can pick this up

    MoP/WoD talents that complemented SV particularly well such as Glaive Toss and Thrill of the Hunt
    Trap Mastery (more minor, but makes a big difference in PvP) [b]-> these talents didn't complement SV "particularly" well, Thrill of the Hunt was an important MM talent too and it's gone and no one cares. This is just a matter of tuning, so it doesn't matter


    Things that new MM has that old SV did not:
    Windburst, a stationary cast -> very minor to boot - I'm reminding you of Focusing shot, which was very important to SV for AoE
    This is the only ability where I'm willing to say "you got me!"... if you were serious however, you'd admit how this ability is absolutely not limiting our movement in any significant way.. in fact it's actually boosting it right now ... not to mention that Windburst doesn't have to remain the artifact ability


    Aimed Shot, a stationary cast -> reworked ES talent will switch this one out

    Arcane Shot/Multi-Shot as a focus generator -> see the above
    Marked Shot -> remains the same for both "talent builds"

    Vulnerability -> remains the same for both "talent builds"
    That way,the SV-talent build will become very mobile and spammy with lots of yellow ticking-dots and won't be braindead to play.
    The MM-talent build will hit harder than the SV-build, gets a new talent, get's LnL baseline (both things are nice) and a DoT if they have chosen Volley before (which is exactly that... a dot).
    Other changes can be introduced too obviously.


    Pretty easy imho to make both playstyles work in one spec.



    Hazzikostas himself has now admitted that they knew Survival would be unpopular among Hunters because Hunters prefer ranged. You can NO LONGER deny this fact.
    But who cares? That guy doesn't know what he's talking about, in the next sentence he said how spec and class representation tells us little about how a spec performs and plays out. Maybe they should actually fix the spec first and make it playable on a level that is similar to the other specs before he says something like that?

    How come warlock spec distribution in EN was pretty much 33/33/33 but 70/13/17 in Nighthold?
    And on the other hand, how came barely anyone played Sub in EN, even though it had similar numbers to Assasination?
    Because Rogues obviously don't want to play a spec that has a stealth theme to it? Who would pick and create a rogue and want to play that, am I right (/s)?

    yeah, no...
    Last edited by mmoc96d9238e4b; 2017-09-21 at 10:47 PM.

  14. #54
    Deleted
    Survival, as name suggest, should be tank spec.

    Even rexxar, the iconic hunter in warcraft lore, is classified as a tank in hots.

  15. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    Legion SV wouldn't be supposed to be a 1:1 recreation of WoD SV. The heart of the spec (mobility, dots) is what has to be kept alive.
    So there we have it. We have to water down at least one of the playstyles (here, SV) if one spec needs to be able to maintain both. Which is what I've been saying since the beginning, so I'm glad we cleared that up.

    The rest of this part of your post isn't worth reading, then.

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    But who cares? That guy doesn't know what he's talking about, in the next sentence he said how spec and class representation tells us little about how a spec performs and plays out. Maybe they should actually fix the spec first and make it playable on a level that is similar to the other specs before he says something like that?

    How come warlock spec distribution in EN was pretty much 33/33/33 but 70/13/17 in Nighthold?
    And on the other hand, how came barely anyone played Sub in EN, even though it had similar numbers to Assasination?
    Because Rogues obviously don't want to play a spec that has a stealth theme to it? Who would pick and create a rogue and want to play that, am I right (/s)?

    yeah, no...
    There are people swearing up and down that SV is one of the most fun specs in the game, so you should take your "unplayability" claims up with them. There are plenty of other specs in the game with shit playstyles, including both other Hunter specs, so this simply cannot be the only issue keeping SV unpopular.

    Also, comparing with other unpopular specs is useless because none of them are nearly the unpopularity level of Survival. Subtlety is the only one that ever came close, and it took extremely pronounced gameplay and performance issues from a spec belonging to the least-popular class in the game to do so. Survival, on the other hand, is part of one of the game's most popular classes and at that time outperformed many other specs and had a set bonus that patched up the gameplay considerably. Even then, it was only briefly (i.e. ~1 month) over the 14 months of melee Survival's existence.

    Quote Originally Posted by bargh View Post
    Survival, as name suggest, should be tank spec.
    This is an extremely moronic idea. If people don't want to play it because it's melee, and tank specs are generally not as popular as DPS specs, how the hell do you think a tanking Survival will work out? It's a good way to piss off both sides of the Survival debate simultaneously while appealing to nearly no one, ensuring that the spec will need to be remade yet again in 9.0. Are you going to argue for it to be a healer at that point? Third time's a charm when it comes to shitty niche spec ideas, right?

    Jesus, just taking in the fact that Survival was fully remade in 7.0 and will certainly have to be remade again in 8.0 whether it stays melee or not... people insist that Survival has been historically unpopular and always changing radically, but this shit only started once they tried to force it into being something it wasn't. Just stop with the niche spec ideas. You are killing good specs. No shaman tank, no melee mage, no healing warlock or tanking priest or any other pants-on-head retarded idea you people come up with. It will never work. Stop demanding people's favourite playstyles get forcefully taken from them to prop up experimental, exclusive crap.
    Last edited by Bepples; 2017-09-23 at 03:58 PM.

  16. #56
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by FpicEail View Post
    So there we have it. We have to water down at least one of the playstyles (here, SV) if one spec needs to be able to maintain both. Which is what I've been saying since the beginning, so I'm glad we cleared that up.

    The rest of this part of your post isn't worth reading, then.
    Actually, both style's would've been expanded, but you are too stuck up to notice because for some reason, your idea is that specs are never allowed to change. As soon as something is different, you spout that nonsense about it not being the same... guess what, people don't want to play the same things 10 years in a row.

    WoD MM is different from Legion MM too, what's the big deal? I'm glad it is actually, because WoD MM got really really boring by the end of it.
    I'm also glad that BM is different from BC BM too and so on and so forth, who wouldn't be? Were you annoyed with how WoD BM turned out to be and how it's not the same as it once was compared to BC BM?

    That's nonsense. Whenever this discussion comes up, you start ignoring every single argument and go back to your "WoD supremacy" talk, it's really starting to get boring... not to mention how annoying it's to deal with your attitude.

    Why don't you start with how my talent suggestions would be so much worse? Or why they are not even better than the old survival?

    Mobility ? check
    Dots ? check
    Focus generators ? check
    Focus dump ? check
    Dot spread ? check

    Just because it would also use vulnerability? Which is by itself actually an interesting design, even more so if you have a focus dump with a cooldown (explosive shot) or a ressource in general?
    What makes you think that the new SV, if it had remained range, wouldn't have used a similar design?
    Has there been a single expansion release where rotations and playstyles did not change, at least somewhat?

    And please don't get started on how they wouldn't be able to balance it... it would be *so much* easier to balance than a whole spec with different artifact traits and talents. In the end, the "new-old range SV spec" would've had 1 and a half viable talent choices that change depending on patchbalance-fotm. Just like MM has right now. So we've got plenty of room to make the other talents work first and making them more mobile and with DoTs and if you use the checklist above (feel free to add something), you would already get you to what SV has been about.

    If you don't want to have a discussion about it, why do you even bother to reply.
    It always sounds as if you think I disliked SV (the range version) or something, but I actually don't.
    I played SV for most of WoD, in fact I only played SV and MM and very, very rarely BM. I even parsed really well with it.
    Right now, I can only play MM in Legion (it's good that I like it) because I'm not good enough in playing the melee version of SV.
    But I wouldn't need another spec when it's rather obvious that MM could fit in old-SVs playstyle and it's strength and weakness via talents.
    Not only would that boost the Specs versatility overall, it would also make talent choices interesting. It's also pretty obvious that this is exactly what they intended when they made explosive shot, lock and load and BA available to MM.
    Which brings me back to the original statement I made back when we discussed this in another thread -> They failed miserably.
    They failed at doing that and they failed at making Melee-SV a thing.


    Also, comparing with other unpopular specs is useless because none of them are nearly the unpopularity level of Survival. Subtlety is the only one that ever came close, and it took extremely pronounced gameplay and performance issues from a spec belonging to the least-popular class in the game to do so. Survival, on the other hand, is part of one of the game's most popular classes and at that time outperformed many other specs and had a set bonus that patched up the gameplay considerably. Even then, it was only briefly (i.e. ~1 month) over the 14 months of melee Survival's existence.
    I don't even know whether you talk about WoD or Legion now because you are all over the place.
    And I don't know what you want to tell me with this. Does it even matter whether the *class* is the least played, or the most played?
    I don't see how it matters when we see one spec being played two or three times as much as the other.
    And how could I take that Devs statement serious when we see this happening mostly whenever a spec is doing more DPS than the other.


    Yet, even when a class fits the description perfectly (sub rogue) and the numbers are fine (unlike SVs), people don't play it for some reason. SV is really not practical at the moment, but unless they change that how could we know for sure whether it's because they are melee and people who played hunter expect to play range, or whether it's because melee is melee, or whether it's because the class is too difficult to play, or because the class is missing several major QoL adjustment (which it *certainly* does).
    First and foremost, his statement was stupid as fuck. If blizzard really thought that, they wouldn't have released SV as a melee.
    "we knew that people would stop playing SV if we did that, which is why we did it"
    Last edited by mmoc96d9238e4b; 2017-09-23 at 05:54 PM.

  17. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    Actually, both style's would've been expanded, but you are too stuck up to notice because for some reason, your idea is that specs are never allowed to change. As soon as something is different, you spout that nonsense about it not being the same... guess what, people don't want to play the same things 10 years in a row.

    WoD MM is different from Legion MM too, what's the big deal? I'm glad it is actually, because WoD MM got really really boring by the end of it.
    I'm also glad that BM is different from BC BM too and so on and so forth, who wouldn't be? Were you annoyed with how WoD BM turned out to be and how it's not the same as it once was compared to BC BM?

    That's nonsense. Whenever this discussion comes up, you start ignoring every single argument and go back to your "WoD supremacy" talk, it's really starting to get boring... not to mention how annoying it's to deal with your attitude.

    Why don't you start with how my talent suggestions would be so much worse? Or why they are not even better than the old survival?

    Mobility ? check
    Dots ? check
    Focus generators ? check
    Focus dump ? check
    Dot spread ? check

    Just because it would also use vulnerability? Which is by itself actually an interesting design, even more so if you have a focus dump with a cooldown (explosive shot) or a ressource in general?
    Expanding a spec's playstyle does not start and end at adding new mechanics. If those mechanics clash with the existing theme/gameplay, it holds the playstyle back more than anything. Mechanics like Windburst, Aimed Shot, and Vulnerable are irreconcilable with ranged SV's playstyle. It's meant to be highly mobile, versatile, and focus-efficient. Those mechanics contradict those things, therefore any form of ranged Survival that includes those things is a compromised form of what it used to be. There were plenty of mechanics that could have been added to Survival to further its gameplay and theme. They could have expanded its multidotting capabilities or involved trapping more. You can't do those things when you just cram remnants of SV into another spec. Not to mention it takes away from that other spec too. It's a lose-lose situation for the ranged specs. The only spec that wins out here is the melee spec, and there should not be any favourable compromise in favour of a melee Hunter spec.

    On the note of expanding a spec's gameplay style, your idea completely falls flat and you make no attempt to defend it. If they end up bending over backwards and cramming SV into MM through talent juggling, re-arranging and compromising, they've created a house of cards which can't be touched without risking one or both playstyles. What if they want to revise one of the playstyles or expand to it? They would have to jump through additional hoops and do more rebalancing and re-organising for every single change. There's a term in programming known as "spaghetti code" where code makes unsafe assumptions and dependencies on one or more other areas of code, resulting over time in a delicate ecosystem (read: unmaintainable mess) where any slight refactoring can lead to a butterfly-effect of unpredictable and hard-to-remedy changes. What you are championing here is a "spaghettified" talent system where it's so complex and interdependent as a result of trying to do two entirely different things at once that it a) worsens both and b) becomes unmaintainable. And remember, every additional cost here is for the sake of propping up a melee Hunter spec, and the justification for that even being a thing is shaky (that's me being overly generous; what I really mean is "non-existent").

    What you're not understanding is that you're presenting multiple avenues where all of which involve screwing over one group of ranged Hunters or another. The only difference between each path is who gets screwed over. They're all ranged players, though, and melee Survival is the one that wins out at their expense. Utterly unacceptable for a historically ranged class. Melee players have vastly more choices than existing Hunters when it comes to their preferred playstyles and the ranged players were here first.


    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    What makes you think that the new SV, if it had remained range, wouldn't have used a similar design?
    Has there been a single expansion release where rotations and playstyles did not change, at least somewhat?
    I'm sure they would have tried to re-invent the wheel and falling flat like they did with BM and MM, but it would still be a hell of a lot more recognisable and easy to fix than what they ended up doing. SV didn't change much from Cata to MoP or MoP to WoD because it didn't need to. Blizzard's immature new developers saw this as "stagnation", but the reason SV (and the Hunter specs as a whole) had such a consistent design over that period is because it was extremely effective and well executed.

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    And please don't get started on how they wouldn't be able to balance it... it would be *so much* easier to balance than a whole spec with different artifact traits and talents. In the end, the "new-old range SV spec" would've had 1 and a half viable talent choices that change depending on patchbalance-fotm. Just like MM has right now. So we've got plenty of room to make the other talents work first and making them more mobile and with DoTs and if you use the checklist above (feel free to add something), you would already get you to what SV has been about.
    There are already a ton of talents in the game that are utterly unviable and have been as such for the whole expansion (sometimes longer). My faith in their ability to keep multiple options viable is at an absolute minimum. Fucking hell, they already tried to incorporate SV into MM and they couldn't even do a half-decent job with the THREE talents they actually bothered to give the light of day, yet you think they can pull off this delicate balancing act that would still leave everyone involved (again, other than the handful of melee players) with shittier options than they had before. Pure fantasy. Maybe that's why you people use the buzzword "fantasy" so much; you're living in one.

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    They failed at doing that and they failed at making Melee-SV a thing.
    Exactly. And the correct course of action is to roll back the class to what worked instead of trying yet more, experimental options that are bound to fail. These developers clearly do not have the expertise or experience to pull any complex class reworks off with any appreciable level of success. They should have quit while they were ahead. Having failed to do that, they should cut their losses and start depending on their vastly-more-competent predecessors again.



    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    I don't even know whether you talk about WoD or Legion now because you are all over the place.
    And I don't know what you want to tell me with this. Does it even matter whether the *class* is the least played, or the most played?
    I don't see how it matters when we see one spec being played two or three times as much as the other.
    And how could I take that Devs statement serious when we see this happening mostly whenever a spec is doing more DPS than the other.
    The paragraph you quoted literally outlined the 14-month period being discussed (i.e. everything post-7.0) so you are in no place to play dumb here. You are trying to argue on a purely categorical basis here to draw equivalencies between situations that aren't equivalent. Subtlety was an unpopular spec; it had a very widely disliked playstyle which couldn't be cloaked by its throughput alone so it was very much unplayed by most rogues until 7.2.5. It still remained more popular than Survival throughout that time. Much more popular. Survival comes from a vastly more popular class, has outperformed other specs of the class in that time (it was the very best in 7.1.5, and it still currently outperforms BM), and is routinely praised by whiteknights on the forums for being the "most fun and well-designed Hunter specs". Yes, they're whiteknights and they will bend over backwards and readily twist reality just to defend Survival while Blizzard still supports it, but understand that this is the angle your side takes on this issue. Survival is unique in its unpopularity. No other spec can boast a 1-3% acceptance rate in its own class. That's downright historic.

    You can't deflect this to perfomance anymore. Survival outperforms BM. MM also outperforms BM. BM still retains a commanding lead over those two specs in representation, however. You must understand that throughput and playstyle acceptance are both factors in a spec's representation, and a spec's representation is the sole and primary objective means for judging a spec's design direction. A spec can have good throughput but if the playstyle is disliked by most of the class, it needs to have performance so stunningly high it can't be ignored in order for people to hold their noses and accept the spec. Similarly, a spec can have a great playstyle but if the damage is bad the playstyle needs to be good enough to make up for it in order for people to tolerate the performance hit. Survival's an interesting case because it's been through both situations back to back. Survival was very popular in Highmaul when it's performance was at a peak and it's playstyle was widely enjoyed. In Blackrock Foundry, it's performance was lower than both other specs but the playstyle was enough to keep a sizeable amount of Hunters hooked. In HFC, the performance gap was so huge that it simply couldn't be ignored, and everyone was playing Marksman instead. In Legion, Survival is competing with other specs again and oftentimes beating them, but it's still extremely unpopular. The only logical conclusion is that the playstyle is disliked by most Hunters. The fact that more people are playing BM right now despite it being the worst-performing Hunter spec disproves your attitude that a spec's representation is entirely or even mostly dependent on its performance; BM is more played because a) the playstyle appeals to more people than the other two specs and b) the performance gap is small enough for it to be acceptable.

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    Yet, even when a class fits the description perfectly (sub rogue) and the numbers are fine (unlike SVs), people don't play it for some reason. SV is really not practical at the moment, but unless they change that how could we know for sure whether it's because they are melee and people who played hunter expect to play range, or whether it's because melee is melee, or whether it's because the class is too difficult to play, or because the class is missing several major QoL adjustment (which it *certainly* does).
    First and foremost, his statement was stupid as fuck. If blizzard really thought that, they wouldn't have released SV as a melee.
    "we knew that people would stop playing SV if we did that, which is why we did it"
    I'll be honest: I also think his explanation is a post-hoc attempt to save face. However, that's conjecture. What isn't conjecture is that Blizzard's official stance on SV is now that it is unpopular specifically because it's melee. And while their means of coming to that conclusion are flawed, the conclusion itself is demonstrably correct. I think they did expect SV to be more popular than it was and that this attitude was driven by the melee favouritism that has come to characterise this whole expansion.

    Finally, you are still arguing as if we are in Emerald Nightmare and Survival was actually the worst DPS spec by a considerable margin. That hasn't been the case for pretty much the entirety of 2017 with a couple weeks worth of exceptions. Survival currently outperforms BM, it outperformed MM in 7.2, and it outperformed both other specs in 7.1.5. It is absolutely a viable spec. If it weren't, BM sure as hell wouldn't be either but the majority of raiding Hunters are taking that spec and being accepted without any trouble. This isn't HFC; we aren't looking at >40% performance swings between the top and bottom specs anymore. Unviable means the spec is functionally worthless in raids and ends up dragging down the raid more than it contributes. SV is most certainly not that level.

  18. #58
    Make the spec more like this and more people would play.



  19. #59
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by FpicEail View Post
    Expanding a spec's playstyle does not start and end at adding new mechanics. If those mechanics clash with the existing theme/gameplay, it holds the playstyle back more than anything. Mechanics like Windburst, Aimed Shot, and Vulnerable are irreconcilable with ranged SV's playstyle. It's meant to be highly mobile, versatile, and focus-efficient. Those mechanics contradict those things, therefore any form of ranged Survival that includes those things is a compromised form of what it used to be.
    How is windburst and vulnerable irreconcilable with SVs playstyle and why did you List Aimed Shot, when the SV talent spec wouldn't even have that skill? And on top of that, Vulnerable is pretty much what focus efficiency is all about.
    If I were to act like you do, I'd have to stop reading here (that's what you do all the time) , even more so because of that gigantic wall of text, but since you bothered to write something I'll at least glance through some of it.

    There were plenty of mechanics that could have been added to Survival to further its gameplay and theme. They could have expanded its multidotting capabilities or involved trapping more. You can't do those things when you just cram remnants of SV into another spec. Not to mention it takes away from that other spec too. It's a lose-lose situation for the ranged specs. The only spec that wins out here is the melee spec, and there should not be any favourable compromise in favour of a melee Hunter spec.
    Sure thing you can, I made an example as to how you could do that earlier.

    On the note of expanding a spec's gameplay style, your idea completely falls flat and you make no attempt to defend it. If they end up bending over backwards and cramming SV into MM through talent juggling, re-arranging and compromising, they've created a house of cards which can't be touched without risking one or both playstyles. What if they want to revise one of the playstyles or expand to it? They would have to jump through additional hoops and do more rebalancing and re-organising for every single change. There's a term in programming known as "spaghetti code" where code makes unsafe assumptions and dependencies on one or more other areas of code, resulting over time in a delicate ecosystem (read: unmaintainable mess) where any slight refactoring can lead to a butterfly-effect of unpredictable and hard-to-remedy changes. What you are championing here is a "spaghettified" talent system where it's so complex and interdependent as a result of trying to do two entirely different things at once that it a) worsens both and b) becomes unmaintainable. And remember, every additional cost here is for the sake of propping up a melee Hunter spec, and the justification for that even being a thing is shaky (that's me being overly generous; what I really mean is "non-existent").
    Why? It's no different from current talent balancing. It's no more difficult than that, it's easier than to balance a whole new spec with even more variables. And why does it matter whether you think Blizzard could pull it off or not... if they can't, they suck, but how do you know if range SV would've been any better than it was during WoD-HFC? You are telling me it's easier to balance a whole spec than to balance talent choices of 1 spec... but why? It's not even important unless they are ~20% apart from each other. After all, current specs and talents are 10%+ apart from each other too and that's to be expected.

    It's also not like talents always have synergies with each and every talent. Right now, there are merely niche talents. Considering that SVs strengths basically cover MMs weaknesses without these niche talents (spread cleave, mobility) it would be a much better approach.

    What you're not understanding is that you're presenting multiple avenues where all of which involve screwing over one group of ranged Hunters or another. The only difference between each path is who gets screwed over. They're all ranged players, though, and melee Survival is the one that wins out at their expense. Utterly unacceptable for a historically ranged class. Melee players have vastly more choices than existing Hunters when it comes to their preferred playstyles and the ranged players were here first.
    Well, there is no Melee class that involves fighting together with your pet. Which is what Rexxar did and also what people wanted to do.



    There are already a ton of talents in the game that are utterly unviable and have been as such for the whole expansion (sometimes longer). My faith in their ability to keep multiple options viable is at an absolute minimum. Fucking hell, they already tried to incorporate SV into MM and they couldn't even do a half-decent job with the THREE talents they actually bothered to give the light of day, yet you think they can pull off this delicate balancing act that would still leave everyone involved (again, other than the handful of melee players) with shittier options than they had before. Pure fantasy. Maybe that's why you people use the buzzword "fantasy" so much; you're living in one.
    So you believe they'll succeed in balancing a whole new spec properly, but not 3-4 talents? No.. I don't think so.
    The "cardhouse" you speak off wouldn't exist. We shouldn't expect perfect balancing (as in "every class/spec deals 333.337 dps now! They did it") but we should expect much more than what Melee-SV is currently at, and also what MM talents are currently at.
    I'm pretty sure the class design team was simply not ready. If we take a look at how the hunter specs played out early in Legion, it pretty much confirms that (SV unfinished, MM nearly unplayable without SW, BM absolutely horrible gameflow without the correct legendary.)

    I'm obviously not in denial that a 4th spec would've been better than 3 specs if they had bothered to invest time in each of them. But I'm also convinced that SV and MM could work in a single spec, both balancing wise and in terms of interactions.
    After all, we *do* have talents that replace skills right now, and artifact traits that change depending on talents. I'd still like to hear why my talent suggestions couldn't possibly work with somewhat decent number balancing, these talents should be designed in a way that if you choose "A" you will automatically chose talent "B" because they have the most obvious synergy. After all, it's not much different now.

    Why would I want to choose the "new extra focus dump" (which replaces SW) with MMs playstyle, I wouldn't. But I'd certainly pick it if I decided to pick Explosive Shot (6s CD, instant cast, low focus cost, lower damage than AiS)
    Obviously, this is a "what if" scenario, but that is also due to my standpoint of how blizzard sucked at implementing the specs and talents.

    The paragraph you quoted literally outlined the 14-month period being discussed (i.e. everything post-7.0) so you are in no place to play dumb here. You are trying to argue on a purely categorical basis here to draw equivalencies between situations that aren't equivalent. Subtlety was an unpopular spec; it had a very widely disliked playstyle which couldn't be cloaked by its throughput alone so it was very much unplayed by most rogues until 7.2.5. It still remained more popular than Survival throughout that time. Much more popular. Survival comes from a vastly more popular class, has outperformed other specs of the class in that time (it was the very best in 7.1.5, and it still currently outperforms BM), and is routinely praised by whiteknights on the forums for being the "most fun and well-designed Hunter specs". Yes, they're whiteknights and they will bend over backwards and readily twist reality just to defend Survival while Blizzard still supports it, but understand that this is the angle your side takes on this issue. Survival is unique in its unpopularity. No other spec can boast a 1-3% acceptance rate in its own class. That's downright historic.


    You can't deflect this to perfomance anymore. Survival outperforms BM. MM also outperforms BM. BM still retains a commanding lead over those two specs in representation, however. You must understand that throughput and playstyle acceptance are both factors in a spec's representation, and a spec's representation is the sole and primary objective means for judging a spec's design direction. A spec can have good throughput but if the playstyle is disliked by most of the class, it needs to have performance so stunningly high it can't be ignored in order for people to hold their noses and accept the spec. Similarly, a spec can have a great playstyle but if the damage is bad the playstyle needs to be good enough to make up for it in order for people to tolerate the performance hit. Survival's an interesting case because it's been through both situations back to back. Survival was very popular in Highmaul when it's performance was at a peak and it's playstyle was widely enjoyed. In Blackrock Foundry, it's performance was lower than both other specs but the playstyle was enough to keep a sizeable amount of Hunters hooked. In HFC, the performance gap was so huge that it simply couldn't be ignored, and everyone was playing Marksman instead. In Legion, Survival is competing with other specs again and oftentimes beating them, but it's still extremely unpopular. The only logical conclusion is that the playstyle is disliked by most Hunters. The fact that more people are playing BM right now despite it being the worst-performing Hunter spec disproves your attitude that a spec's representation is entirely or even mostly dependent on its performance; BM is more played because a) the playstyle appeals to more people than the other two specs and b) the performance gap is small enough for it to be acceptable.
    Finally, you are still arguing as if we are in Emerald Nightmare and Survival was actually the worst DPS spec by a considerable margin. That hasn't been the case for pretty much the entirety of 2017 with a couple weeks worth of exceptions. Survival currently outperforms BM, it outperformed MM in 7.2, and it outperformed both other specs in 7.1.5. It is absolutely a viable spec. If it weren't, BM sure as hell wouldn't be either but the majority of raiding Hunters are taking that spec and being accepted without any trouble. This isn't HFC; we aren't looking at >40% performance swings between the top and bottom specs anymore. Unviable means the spec is functionally worthless in raids and ends up dragging down the raid more than it contributes. SV is most certainly not that level.

    I'm not sure if Subs 5% was any better. And I don't see why Subs playstyle issues are a thing, but SVs isn't. SV didn't really get much better to play in NH.. It's still suffering from the vast amount of skills, the skill tracking ceiling and the whole stacking system.
    SV isn't performing well either, most encounters are horrible to play as SV. The SV playstyle is absolutely trash and unrewarding for most bosses
    So it is indeed the worst DPS spec by a considerable margin for most of the playerbase. I applaud people who can do decent numbers with it, it's much harder to do than with MM or BM.
    Why do you think BM is still one of the most played specs atm? I'd say it's because it's *extremely* easy to play and very versatile and deals decent damage on top of it, so it's extremely useful in raids.
    Name me one reason why I'd even want to touch current SV right now if I can have *everything* SV has to offer with a much easier and less punishing spec.
    Last edited by mmoc96d9238e4b; 2017-09-24 at 06:32 PM.

  20. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    How is windburst and vulnerable irreconcilable with SVs playstyle and why did you List Aimed Shot, when the SV talent spec wouldn't even have that skill? And on top of that, Vulnerable is pretty much what focus efficiency is all about.
    If I were to act like you do, I'd have to stop reading here (that's what you do all the time) , even more so because of that gigantic wall of text, but since you bothered to write something I'll at least glance through some of it.
    Survival was all about versatility (not the stat): it was good in any situation and didn't rely on ramping up or waiting for opportunities; it made the opportunities. It was fully mobile and it also had mostly magic damage options. Marksman's base toolkit clashes with that in every what. Vulnerability has nothing to do with focus, for one, but it also reduces versatility because it makes you reliant on an RNG-based damage window in which you are largely immobile. Long-casting physical damage shots are Marksman's thing, not Survival's. This is one of the key differences that you people consistently fail/refuse to understand.

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    Sure thing you can, I made an example as to how you could do that earlier.
    You showed me a watered-down Survival relegated to talent options with no opportunity for expansion and unaddressed balance issues.

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    Why? It's no different from current talent balancing. It's no more difficult than that, it's easier than to balance a whole new spec with even more variables. And why does it matter whether you think Blizzard could pull it off or not... if they can't, they suck, but how do you know if range SV would've been any better than it was during WoD-HFC? You are telling me it's easier to balance a whole spec than to balance talent choices of 1 spec... but why? It's not even important unless they are ~20% apart from each other. After all, current specs and talents are 10%+ apart from each other too and that's to be expected.

    It's also not like talents always have synergies with each and every talent. Right now, there are merely niche talents. Considering that SVs strengths basically cover MMs weaknesses without these niche talents (spread cleave, mobility) it would be a much better approach.
    It's no different from current talent balancing? That's exactly the problem because current talent balancing is complete ass. Every spec in the game has several completely unviable options, some that have been as such for the entire expansion. You're banking on all of the Survival remnants being viable. Even with their botched "attempt" they have now you only ever take Lock and Load; Explosive Shot is falling out of favour even now and Black Arrow is worthless in most situations compared to Lock and Load. It's extremely wishful thinking to think they will suddenly snap out of their crap talent balancing and be able to juggle two different playstyles like this.

    As for different specs: consider the fact that there are several other non-Hunter specs that massively outperform the Hunter specs. You don't see Hunters leaving the class en masse because it takes a lot of effort to change classes. It takes less effort to change specs, and far less effort still to change talents. The lower the effort, the more prone to "picking the best option all the time" people are. Look how there are currently more BM players than MM even though MM performs well, but those BM players overwhelmingly take the Stomp/One with the Pack build as it's measurably better than the Dire Frenzy build (even though the difference isn't huge). A raid leader isn't going to tolerate BM players taking massively suboptimal talent options but they will likely tolerate them being BM over MM for the time being because of the amount of effort it takes to swap in each case. Let's be honest: should they try to add more Survival talents to MM, at least one of them will be massively underpowered (again, as many talent options are now) and you are back to having a compromised, watered-down playstyle. Again, for the sake of a melee spec that hardly anyone wants.

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    Well, there is no Melee class that involves fighting together with your pet. Which is what Rexxar did and also what people wanted to do.
    Sure there is: Unholy. Sure, it's a different type of pet, but you're now venturing into the territory of demanding every slight variation of melee weapon user to be in the game as its own spec while every variety of ranged weapon user is crammed into two specs; one of which doesn't even use the ranged weapon much at all. That's not a fair trade, and no: not a lot of people cared about Rexxar and wanted to play like that (hence the lack of excitement over Survival).

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    So you believe they'll succeed in balancing a whole new spec properly, but not 3-4 talents? No.. I don't think so.
    The "cardhouse" you speak off wouldn't exist. We shouldn't expect perfect balancing (as in "every class/spec deals 333.337 dps now! They did it") but we should expect much more than what Melee-SV is currently at, and also what MM talents are currently at.
    I'm pretty sure the class design team was simply not ready. If we take a look at how the hunter specs played out early in Legion, it pretty much confirms that (SV unfinished, MM nearly unplayable without SW, BM absolutely horrible gameflow without the correct legendary.)

    I'm obviously not in denial that a 4th spec would've been better than 3 specs if they had bothered to invest time in each of them. But I'm also convinced that SV and MM could work in a single spec, both balancing wise and in terms of interactions.
    After all, we *do* have talents that replace skills right now, and artifact traits that change depending on talents. I'd still like to hear why my talent suggestions couldn't possibly work with somewhat decent number balancing, these talents should be designed in a way that if you choose "A" you will automatically chose talent "B" because they have the most obvious synergy. After all, it's not much different now.

    Why would I want to choose the "new extra focus dump" (which replaces SW) with MMs playstyle, I wouldn't. But I'd certainly pick it if I decided to pick Explosive Shot (6s CD, instant cast, low focus cost, lower damage than AiS)
    Obviously, this is a "what if" scenario, but that is also due to my standpoint of how blizzard sucked at implementing the specs and talents.
    Yes, I do believe that because people can tolerate damage variation between specs but talents are a different story, like I said above. Plus, talents are generally more minor and superficial additions/modifications to a spec's base playstyle. What you're asking for is a set of talents that turn one spec into a totally different spec. Yes, that's harder to balance than the current talent system (which is already riddled with balance issues). If the talent selection makes a whole spec's worth of difference, it should be it's own spec. You're trying to make talents achieve something they were never intended to achieve.

    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZee View Post
    I'm not sure if Subs 5% was any better. And I don't see why Subs playstyle issues are a thing, but SVs isn't. SV didn't really get much better to play in NH.. It's still suffering from the vast amount of skills, the skill tracking ceiling and the whole stacking system.
    SV isn't performing well either, most encounters are horrible to play as SV. The SV playstyle is absolutely trash and unrewarding for most bosses
    So it is indeed the worst DPS spec by a considerable margin for most of the playerbase. I applaud people who can do decent numbers with it, it's much harder to do than with MM or BM.
    Why do you think BM is still one of the most played specs atm? I'd say it's because it's *extremely* easy to play and very versatile and deals decent damage on top of it, so it's extremely useful in raids.
    Name me one reason why I'd even want to touch current SV right now if I can have *everything* SV has to offer with a much easier and less punishing spec.

    Subtlety's population WAS a problem and required significant reworking and buffs to make it any good. Even before then, it was coming from a much less popular class yet still had much higher raw representation than Survival. You're thinking entirely categorically here and ignoring extent. Not all unpopular specs are equally unpopular. 7.1.5 did produce tangible improvements for Survival, even though some of them (e.g. T19) were temporary. It didn't stop the spec from being massively unpopular, though.

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