I will disagree with you 100% on the tank part. If it was a broken, piece of shit mess that was terrible then no, you would not see it played much in raids or m+. However, even if it was broken and terrible, it would still be decent enough to do LFR, random heroic dungeons, and even mythic 0s, you would see them as abundantly as every other tank class in the game simply for fast queue times and bonuses from things like the dungeon/LFR queue.
As much as I like melee SV, I still maintain it should have stayed rdps and Blizz could have added a 4th spec; but, a lot of problems with SV stem from more than just rdps->mdps transition. The implementation is piss poor in Legion and didn’t start to get decent until midway to the end of the xpac, and by then it was near impossible for anyone that played casually to switch without feeling powerless. And with BfA and Blizz reimplementing their “bring the class” mentality, they have given no reason to bring SV over any other mdps.
Don't want to step into the whole back and forth.
But I kinda want to give my 2c here.
IMO it was a bit different.
Yes, back in WoD the survival and marksman spec were getting a bit too similar rotation wise.
Aesthetically and gameplay wise they had some decent differences, but the rotation looked quite a lot like one another.
Both specs used and generated focus in a similar matter; dump with aimed/arcane, generate with steady or cobra.
Both specs had a "main ability" that you used on cooldown every 10 or so seconds (Chimaera vs Explosive shot).
Both specs had some proc play, where you had to slightly adjust your rotation to make use of that proc (Lock and Load and Thrill of the Hunt)
So there were some complaints that these similarities needed some cleaning up. There needed to be a bit more diversity.
HOWEVER
Hardly anyone, other than what can only have been an extreme minority, wanted this to become a melee spec.
The people that did want it, had some kind of rose tinted longing for a Vanilla WoW melee survival hunter that never even existed in the first place (anyone who claims that survival was melee in vanilla;, clearly never played vanilla, is talking out of their ass, or just remembers wrong. Outside of meme-ing survival wasn't melee)
What people DID want was for blizzard to accentuate the differences between marksman and survival more.
Make the rotation different;
Focus more on physical damage with marksman and more on DoT play and Proc play with survival;
Maybe change things around so that the generation and consumption of focus felt a bit different.
I love melee as well. I have a rogue I frequently play. I have a DK that I frequently play.
Melee survival isn't bad; but it simply wasn't needed. The playstyle isn't half bad, but it's nothing special either.
There is no niche, there is nothing that makes it stand out really.
In a game with 12 melee specs, we didn't need a 13th.
And in a game with 11 ranged specs, we could have kept the 12th
Look at the composition of raids, dungeons and any other kind of group play and tell me straight faced that making another melee wasn't a bad decision on that front. It was.
There were ways to make survival unique and keep the ranged gameplay; and a large majority of the player base would have been happy.
Last edited by Nythiz; 2019-03-17 at 12:57 PM.
i always laugh at the thought of blizzard designing demon hunters, while at the same time making a goofy hunter with a stick nobody wanted. it was doomed to fail yet they did it anyway.
yeah, and the wrath private servers are likely more popular then cata when it was live.
change for the sake of change has always been a problem with blizzard, rather then making a new class out of the new spec designs they come up with from time to time they've entirely reworked specs over and over again to the point many only superficially resemble what they started out as, and no not all of it was good either with several examples of community outrage as long-time played characters were suddenly changed into an entirely new gameplay dynamic.
melee was NEVER a intended viable option for hunter, and if you claim otherwise you're lying, it was intended as a replacement for the induced weakness of our ranged weapon's minimum range so that while we won't have our high damage attacks we'll have utility attacks to use on people until we get away and switch back to the ranged.
MoP ranged Survival was so much fun to play. I miss it so much.
In vanilla/TBC survival was a melee spec. It was also easily the worst spec in the game and played by nearly no one. It wasn't good at PVP or PVE. A few of the low talents were used in some BM and MM builds, but largely it was a dead spec.
If the deadzone hadn't existed back then, it is possible SV could have been viable.
SV first became viable when they redid it as a ranged spec and threw in black arrow and explosive shot. After BM overnerfs in early WotLK, MM and SV traded off as the viable raiding spec for a bit, based on tier and buffs/nerfs. It was decent, but not unique in any way, and certainly not a multi-dot spec.
I can't speak for MoP thru WoD, as I didn't play those expansions.
But I was world top 20 public parsing hunter in BM, MM and SV during TBC, WotLK and Cata. So I certainly know how the specs worked in those expansions.
Making SV melee makes great sense for the vision for the spec dating back to classic. It also matches the class design as taken from D&D for ranger. Only thing we're missing is the option to dual wield hand crossbows.
Making SV melee doesn't make as much sense for the meta of the game, with melee being often limited by mechanics and overcrowded. But, if BM and MM were buffed to the top of the meters like they should be, fewer people would need or want to play melee. That's likely part of the goal with warlocks, shadow priests and boomkins all being at the top right now.
But, on that note, making monks and demon hunters wear leather gear didn't make sense for the meta either. One of them should have been set to mail gear (or maybe both). That seems like a more worthy item to complain about than hunters. Or just go back to letting hunters wear leather again, like they often did in classic and TBC (and D&D).
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Just keep reporting every post and sooner or later someone will have to do their job.
Snarky: Adjective - Any language that contains quips or comments containing sarcastic or satirical witticisms intended as blunt irony. Usually delivered in a manner that is somewhat abrupt and out of context and intended to stun and amuse.
Nothing lands a point more talking about the game today then constantly repeating how you think you were relevant from an era that no longer matters or that you posted on EJ forums "back in the day". Lol.
SV and DH play very similarly. DH is essentially an AoE SV hunter, SV hunter is essentially a ST DH.
Could SV be made a 3rd DH spec? Probably, yeah. Would be better to buff SV though with the 5% debuff DH gets so that DH would be potentially unnecessary in raid.
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Yeah, sure, in a discussion about the intention of class design in classic and TBC, surely the people who actually played in classic and TBC are irrelevant.
Snarky: Adjective - Any language that contains quips or comments containing sarcastic or satirical witticisms intended as blunt irony. Usually delivered in a manner that is somewhat abrupt and out of context and intended to stun and amuse.
Funny thing, I played in those eras as well, as I'm sure many others have, yet I don't go around talking about it like it's particularly relevant today. Pretty sure the thread is about current day survival which is in no way very reminiscent of what it was in any of those versions of the game.
Big ol' nope there. Was not a melee spec, maybe in beta. Wing clip and mongoose bite doesn't make it a melee spec.
Also a very big nope. A lot of raids like to use at least 1 Survival Hunter for things like Expose Weakness when you had enough agility.
surv is just like a bm or mm hunter but instead of being ranged you hack and slash with a polearm . Maybe if surv could dual wield swords it would have been better . Polearms isnt a popular weapon in wow and in IRL i dont see hunters use it , they use knifes and bows and guns
Snarky: Adjective - Any language that contains quips or comments containing sarcastic or satirical witticisms intended as blunt irony. Usually delivered in a manner that is somewhat abrupt and out of context and intended to stun and amuse.
Umm...you're deciding my current 3-year account on MMO Champion (second account btw,I would be over 10 years by now) is representative of how long I have played WoW? LOL. That's cute. Hunter was my main in vanilla. I still have my Rhok/Lhok in my bank.
All the 'melee' abilities in vanilla for hunters didn't make any hunter specs melee specs. All those abilities were for cc'ing, slowing with wing clip, raptor strike, and getting back to range.
All the 'melee' abilities in vanilla for hunters didn't make any hunter specs melee specs. All those abilities were for cc'ing, slowing with wing clip, raptor strike, and getting back to range.[/QUOTE]
I am for sure not going to judge you on your account Anyways, while you may be partly correct, whenever I dust off my WoW Bradygames guide book (oh the memories) the talent tree clearly shows that Survival hunters get, oh boy, a melee bleed as their final talent. No, Wyvern Sting was not it on release. As of 1.12 sure, but not initially. I think it's fair to say that survival hunters were in fact intended as a melee or hybrid heavily-leaning-on-melee spec.
Convince me otherwise
Cheers from a fellow keeper of Rhok and Lok
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