Nordic Hunter/Ranger with spec focused on winter/cold/frost resistance?

[Shakana]

The thought of a hunter in the winter and surviving to cold has always fascinated me.

My whole Hunter fascination is related to this, having a wolf (that you can have already, hati) imagining them walking in a place that you need to use warm clothes and surviving, setting traps etc. Would make more sense for survival to be ranged/melee mixture, surviving is about adapting, and having a pet by your side, being a beast mastery on it's own just commanding pets, seems like you barely like animals and you're just commanding animals like they mean nothing to you and make damage for you being a beast tamer, instead of helping you and have a companionship with.

BM not only makes survival forgotten as it takes a big part of that spec that is to be as well a ranger. Bow and quiver and a pet, on winter, with warm clothes, surviving, getting fishes on the lake to eat with polearms, defeating enemies with polearms, being a bit more strategic and wanting to hunt from distance so you can hunt strategically and use ranged abilities and send your pet to lure your prey where you have set a trap, if you want to catch it from it's back, working as a team.

Also for being able to survive on cold areas, and being used to it, would have more resistance to frost abilities, well not immunity because that would be too much unrealistic. But having a certain ability to resist, like Hunters could resist more to Frost DK's and Frost Mage abilities and having a certain abilities against it, to protect themselves, like a arrow that when thrown makes the frost ability have a chance to fail without using interrupts but instead make the ability not have such huge impact even if that ability is supposed to be OP. There's no resistance to magics, cold or fire sense almost in the game. Frost and Fire for example, fire mage should win a frost mage? let's see: fire melts ice and turns into water and water extinguishes fire. It's funny how in the game nothing has a reaction... But anyway, let's forget about this for the minute.

Hunter BM should just stop exist and give Survival ranged attacks, mix both things in one, BM incorporated into Survival and Survival being a interesting spec to play that has resistance to cold.

I miss survival to be a hybrid weapon specialization and have both polearm and ranged skills. Would remind me of a Viking Huntress that could even tame a dragon, that would be sooo damn cool. Or just having the typical huntress/hunter/ranger that survives in the woods and uses polearms to defend itself, more primordial.

Take a look into this image and try understand my point (imagine aswell she is a archer and has a bow and quiver on her back and removing shield part of the image):



She would put the bow like this to grab the melee weapon (but with bow on opposite sideway):



MM hunter:


Crossbows for dragon/flying mobs Hunt. (this would even be better for MM imo)
Polearms for physical Hunt.
Quiver and bows for strategic hunt and guns serves for this too. Can be one or another equipped just like in BM atm.

The weapon slots could be like a tank, instead of having a sword and a shield. Hunters would have a melee weapon and a ranged weapon.

This at least is how i see hunters. Marksmanship Hunters could be like the hermit that likes challenges and practices the aim more than hunting, just for sport and having less survival abilities with pets. In Legion i got a bit shocked that the only appearance with quivers are MM. Like??? Why you do this. Bows don't serve to Hunt, just guns?

(Also would be nice to have this with our Loque'nahak <3 that is a perfect example of a pet helping a hunter with healing and surviving more than just having a pet just to have it and command them and it would synchronize with the archtype of hunter you want to be. Also why does hunters survival even want to use a staff as melee? Would be more inside the context to use a sword? Why a staff? Polearms and swords or dagger.)

There's a lot i feel like talking about when coming to Hunters, but i think a hunter could definitely have some resistance to cold. Even more on Survival spec and BM. What do you think?

[Alanar]

Make Vrykul playable and then just roll a vrykul hunter and you got just what you wanted!

Ps: I want Vrykul to be playable

[Blackmist]

If you like hunters, but think WoW is getting a bit old and crappy, Horizon Zero Dawn is the game for you.

[Shakana]

If you like hunters, but think WoW is getting a bit old and crappy, Horizon Zero Dawn is the game for you.

Never heard of that, Skyrim is nice too but i just can't play it over and over. I love wow and it's lore, would like to have a bit of that in it. Going to give a look on that game, i mean, what forbids me to try new stuff anyway?

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Make Vrykul playable and then just roll a vrykul hunter and you got just what you wanted!

Ps: I want Vrykul to be playable

I love Vrykul too. They are the closest to nordic style we have in game. And they can be mages due to use of runes, they can be warriors, they can be archers/hunters, death knights and even Paladins (Holy warriors). Wouldn't be a bad race to play imo. They could have a racial passive with frost resistance.

[Maxilian]

Never heard of that, Skyrim is nice too but i just can't play it over and over. I love wow and it's lore, would like to have a bit of that in it. Going to give a look on that game, i mean, what forbids me to try new stuff anyway?

You're a shame to your people!

We have mods for that!


O.T: I... personally completely hate your idea, you wish to take down the most popular subclass of Hunter (BM) for a whole new one with a resistance to a damage that may not be really relevant and many of the things you point out is something that the Survival spec already give "Fight with your companion using a polearm to defend yourself", also in the past i wouldn't call the old Survival hunter a Hybrid as your melee attacks were fillers (mostly useful in PVP for CC)

Note: Though i understand the want for a change in the Survival spec (it makes me sad cause i really like that spec, have been playing that spec since Legion) but a lot of people ask for a change, there should be a reason for that

[Shakana]

You're a shame to your people!

We have mods for that!


O.T: I... personally completely hate your idea, you wish to take down the most popular subclass of Hunter (BM) for a whole new one with a resistance to a damage that may not be really relevant and many of the things you point out is something that the Survival spec already give "Fight with your companion using a polearm to defend yourself", also in the past i wouldn't call the old Survival hunter a Hybrid as your melee attacks were fillers (mostly useful in PVP for CC)

Note: Though i understand the want for a change in the Survival spec (it makes me sad cause i really like that spec, have been playing that spec since Legion) but a lot of people ask for a change, there should be a reason for that

The point is that the hunters are supposedly used to survive in a surviving spec. Why would you want a BM spec? What is so fascinating about only commanding your pet and mostly don't use any of your abilities as a hunter? I mean, why just be a simply pet class, when you can be an archer with a pet? Why would you also just want to be a melee with a pet? I would like both together, and preferably with the resistance they got by surviving in the wild, mostly cold. Would make a whole lot more sense. BM is only popular, doesn't mean it's a perfect spec. I personally don't think it is. And i feel Survival could be all things that BM has in it. Just not only revolving about it. I like to be a damn archer too! Use my bow for something else not just throwing a arrow to get more focus and one only ability called Cobra Shot!

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You're a shame to your people!

I'm sorryy!!! Put me in a stake!

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@Maxilian
Oh not forgetting as well that hunters have the ability to tame animals because they passed too much time in the wild. Seeing how they are, how to tame them, how to make friendship with them, what they eat, how they fight. The Hunter itself learning to fight too and eventually, without a pet help before taming them, they would grow some skills in being an archer, hunting from far. Being a beast mastery is part of the survivalist part too.

[Maxilian]

The point is that the hunters are supposedly used to survive in a surviving spec. Why would you want a BM spec? What is so fascinating about only commanding your pet and mostly don't use any of your abilities as a hunter? I mean, why just be a simply pet class, when you can be an archer with a pet? Why would you also just want to be a melee with a pet? I would like both together, and preferably with the resistance they got by surviving in the wild, mostly cold. Would make a whole lot more sense. BM is only popular, doesn't mean it's a perfect spec. I personally don't think it is. And i feel Survival could be all things that BM has in it. Just not only revolving about it. I like to be a damn archer too! Use my bow for something else not just throwing a arrow to get more focus and one only ability called Cobra Shot!

To be fair, i'm not that big of a fan of BM, but people do like the ability to have a lot of pets and stuff, and if you want to be an archer with a pet, you have MM, so yeah...

I understand that you want a spec that is a mix between melee and range without having to sacrifice your pet, the Survival spec in the past tried and failed (reason why it was then changed to the DoT spec of the Hunters and finally a melee spec)

Oh not forgetting as well that hunters have the ability to tame animals because they passed too much time in the wild. Seeing how they are, how to tame them, how to make friendship with them, what they eat, how they fight. The Hunter itself learning to fight too and eventually, without a pet help before taming them, they would grow some skills in being an archer, hunting from far. Being a beast mastery is part of the survivalist part too.

But Survival Hunters can also tame a beast, just that they won't have many, so i don't see why you think that Survival doesn't have "beast mastery" (heck it uses it pet more than MM, it even have a couple of attacks that are based around your pet and your connection with it to make attacks)

[Th3Scourge]

Player a Human hunter and just drop traps all day?

[Shakana]

But Survival Hunters can also tame a beast, just that they won't have many, so i don't see why you think that Survival doesn't have "beast mastery" (heck it uses it pet more than MM, it even have a couple of attacks that are based around your pet and your connection with it to make attacks)

So, i just woke up so i might do some typos. Ofc they can have a pet, i just don't see the utility of having 2 specs one meele, one that is only commanding pets, and one that people will always sacrifice their pet to be a proper archer, because that % of damage bonus is always welcome. You use your pet open world but i still want that % so i get like a lonewolf most of the time, and even MM i don't like a lot of aspects of it. What i think it's an amazing spec is survival that with ranged attacks would be complete, if you take BM out of the picture. I do love having a pet. I'm a pet lover, i'm BM atm and i don't like survival as it is yet as i don't like raiding or do m+ with it. BM also got popular back in Legion a lot, because of legendaries made it so OP that you could not resist but play it as main spec the entire expansion. And even then, when survival wasn't buffed spec, people still used it and loved it, yes i know that it was even more melee than now, There is like 4, 5 classes that i feel it has 1 extra spec that could be combined, hunter is certainly one of them, survival and BM. If you pay attention to hotfixes for classes, they always leave one a side when it's only a class with 3 dps specs. They literally can not balance them, if they focus in joining some of them, they could pay more attention to those specs. DH's for example will be always quite balanced, they only have 1 dps spec, which is a relief for blizzard to balance between tank and dps, and also Havoc has really not much spells, so DH will be always balanced.Obviously, this is just my whole prespective on how it could be done, not saying they will, or hoping for it. I'm n ot hoping to be a person that blizzzard will hear, they never do regardless. So not expecting it at all. But in a general discussion, on the forum i think we can all express our thoughts and have a healthy discussion about specs, classes and how the game could work. Some people even do fanart works here that are great. We express our thoughts and desires, and discuss them. This is why this forum has been visited by blizzard since years. People have a lot creativity. It will always be subjective and volatile to changes that we didn't want on live game, because in the end of the day, it's blizzard's choice and we can't do nothing about it.

And the point of thread is still having more resistance to cold. So talking only about how Survival and BM should be combined ain't my goal, but something i feel like talking about when it comes to hunter, many people i know has hunters and don't bother playing because they say it's not fun, BM they say it's not fun, MM they say it's still weak, and only good for raids. Survival no one mentions it. Literally BM is top choice and BM is always a bit more balanced than the other 2 specs.

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Player a Human hunter and just drop traps all day?

I'm a hordie always and forever
Don't want to play as a human when i am one

[Caperfin]

The hunters during Wotlk very much had a Nordic/winter aesthetic.

[Toxuvox]

In lore, BM hunters do more than just command their pets to attack. They work in concert with their animal companions to bring down their enemies, and have a much broader connection to the beasts of the wild (reflected in their ability to tame exotic beasts). I agree that more could be done to reflect the "Master of Beasts" class/spec fantasy in game, like the Zoo build that was popular in Legion. That, at least, gave the impression of BM hunters fighting as the alpha in a pack with 2 permanent companions, added to with how Dire Beast worked during the Legion expansion.

Survival Hunters have always struck me as being less about numbers, and more about cunning, guile, stealth, and strong defensive capability. That will always be better achieved with either a Hunter alone, or with a single pet (again, working in concert to achieve the kill). In fact, with Survival, the pet almost becomes disposable, since survival is the name of the game.

Your idea to take BM and roll it into Survival is, in my opinion, a bad one. Taking away the fact that BM is the most popular Hunter spec (with Survival some way behind), rolling the 2 together breaks that all important class/spec fantasy entirely. The player backlash would be both immediate and devastating.

[Shakana]

The hunters during Wotlk very much had a Nordic/winter aesthetic.

Ye, but it was a different talent system, where you could be a hybrid of the 3 specs. And now they are quite specific, so it's a whole lot different, i'm probably the one and only person that misses tree talents and miss even aspects! Yes aspects, mostly that aspect of the cheetah that i miss seeing people getting dazed instead of speeding up to run, was quite fun to watch lol You even touched the subject of one of my favorite expansions, WoTLk was great and was when i stayed playing the most, before Legion and i felt like coming to the game 24/7. I will always have a certain love for tree talents because of WoTLK and hunter in that time too. And how many macros i used for hunter. And yep on a place full of cold that is northrend you CAN TELL that my fantasy of loving nordic stuff was fulfilled but unfortunately now there's nothing more related to it.

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In lore, BM hunters do more than just command their pets to attack. They work in concert with their animal companions to bring down their enemies, and have a much broader connection to the beasts of the wild (reflected in their ability to tame exotic beasts). I agree that more could be done to reflect the "Master of Beasts" class/spec fantasy in game, like the Zoo build that was popular in Legion. That, at least, gave the impression of BM hunters fighting as the alpha in a pack with 2 permanent companions, added to with how Dire Beast worked during the Legion expansion.

Or that too could be done, i just don't see why a beast master needs to have only 2 archer spells. Basically only Chimaera shot to gain focus and Serpent sting. But you barely see the player there reflected, you even open the meters and see on top "beast" damage. I feel like i'm playing my pet more than i have a companionship and work with them in order to bring an enemy down.

Survival Hunters have always struck me as being less about numbers, and more about cunning, guile, stealth, and strong defensive capability. That will always be better achieved with either a Hunter alone, or with a single pet (again, working in concert to achieve the kill). In fact, with Survival, the pet almost becomes disposable, since survival is the name of the game.

I see your reasoning. And it's obviously not wrong too. Reason why we have Camouflage as survival because of stealthing and hiding. And yes. Totally see it, but then make BM not just about commanding pets, you know what i mean? Make a proper long live companionship with true archer or gun slayer that has not the components of a survival and needs a pet to help it out.

Your idea to take BM and roll it into Survival is, in my opinion, a bad one. Taking away the fact that BM is the most popular Hunter spec (with Survival some way behind), rolling the 2 together breaks that all important class/spec fantasy entirely. The player backlash would be both immediate and devastating.

I accept your judgement but at same time i don't think the hunter class spec fantasy would be broken, the backlash being immediate and devastating i can see that as many people don't like sudden changes, i think it would give balance to hotfixes and more.

So in your idea, what could be done exactly to make the 3 specs more interesting as a whole class, like, what would be the synergy that would work the best as specializations for a Hunter, imagine survival, BM and MM didn't exist, you just had this hunter idea, what specializations you would think about?

(For me i would do a mix, as i expressed myself.)

[Toxuvox]

Ye, but it was a different talent system, where you could be a hybrid of the 3 specs. And now they are quite specific, so it's a whole lot different, i'm probably the one and only person that misses tree talents and miss even aspects! Yes aspects, mostly that aspect of the cheetah that i miss seeing people getting dazed instead of speeding up to run, was quite fun to watch lol You even touched the subject of one of my favorite expansions, WoTLk was great and was when i stayed playing the most, before Legion and i felt like coming to the game 24/7. I will always have a certain love for tree talents because of WoTLK and hunter in that time too. And how many macros i used for hunter. And yep on a place full of cold that is northrend you CAN TELL that my fantasy of loving nordic stuff was fulfilled but unfortunately now there's nothing more related to it.

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Or that too could be done, i just don't see why a beast master needs to have only 2 archer spells. Basically only Chimaera shot to gain focus and Serpent sting. But you barely see the player there reflected, you even open the meters and see on top "beast" damage. I feel like i'm playing my pet more than i have a companionship and work with them in order to bring an enemy down.



I see your reasoning. And it's obviously not wrong too. Reason why we have Camouflage as survival because of stealthing and hiding. And yes. Totally see it, but then make BM not just about commanding pets, you know what i mean? Make a proper long live companionship with true archer or gun slayer that has not the components of a survival and needs a pet to help it out.


I accept your judgement but at same time i don't think the hunter class spec fantasy would be broken, the backlash being immediate and devastating i can see that as many people don't like sudden changes, i think it would give balance to hotfixes and more.

So in your idea, what could be done exactly to make the 3 specs more interesting as a whole class, like, what would be the synergy that would work the best as specializations for a Hunter, imagine survival, BM and MM didn't exist, you just had this hunter idea, what specializations you would think about?

(For me i would do a mix, as i expressed myself.)

The reason we don't have a good represntation of the class/spec fantasy comes down to the decisions Blizzard have made in pruning abilities, then adding some of them back in as either talents, or procs from gear drops (Legion legendaries were infamous for this). BM ranged abilities boil down to Concussive Shot, Counter Shot, Barbed Shot, Cobra Shot, and Multishot as baseline, with the addition of a few other abilities as Talents that are either CDs, such as AMoC, or rotation additions, such as Chimera Shot. I've always felt that Chimera Shot, Dire Beast, and AMoC should be base line abilities, especially given how Chimera Shot is a focus generator for a spec that has horrendous dowtime without the extra focus, but also because of the BM flavour of Dire Beast and AMoC. It just feels weird being a Beast Master, and not having a solid visual representation of that on screen.

With regard to MM, I'd have made that a Ranger style petless spec from the start, and have it based completely around sniper and marksmanship abilities mixing solid ranged physical damage with some inteplay with a couple of DoT abilities, with ambush based initial burst damage and add supression.

Survival would've been a pure Melee class from the start in my bok, and most likely a tank spec to boot. I'd have the suvivalist buffed by animal aspect auras to deal damage, and mitigate incoming damage. I'd retain the 2H face tanking approach (Axe or Polearm), and stay away from any animal shapeshift shenanigans in favour of visible beast auras overlayed on the hunter (or something more elegant) to show which "Aspect" was in effect.

[Shakana]

The reason we don't have a good represntation of the class/spec fantasy comes down to the decisions Blizzard have made in pruning abilities, then adding some of them back in as either talents, or procs from gear drops (Legion legendaries were infamous for this). BM ranged abilities boil down to Concussive Shot, Counter Shot, Barbed Shot, Cobra Shot, and Multishot as baseline, with the addition of a few other abilities as Talents that are either CDs, such as AMoC, or rotation additions, such as Chimera Shot. I've always felt that Chimera Shot, Dire Beast, and AMoC should be base line abilities, especially given how Chimera Shot is a focus generator for a spec that has horrendous dowtime without the extra focus, but also because of the BM flavour of Dire Beast and AMoC. It just feels weird being a Beast Master, and not having a solid visual representation of that on screen.

With regard to MM, I'd have made that a Ranger style petless spec from the start, and have it based completely around sniper and marksmanship abilities mixing solid ranged physical damage with some inteplay with a couple of DoT abilities, with ambush based initial burst damage and add supression.

Survival would've been a pure Melee class from the start in my bok, and most likely a tank spec to boot. I'd have the suvivalist buffed by animal aspect auras to deal damage, and mitigate incoming damage. I'd retain the 2H face tanking approach (Axe or Polearm), and stay away from any animal shapeshift shenanigans in favour of visible beast auras overlayed on the hunter (or something more elegant) to show which "Aspect" was in effect.

Don't you find weird that MM is all about sniper/Hunter's mark and that they gave BM the Guns appearance in Legion?
Also how strange is to have a staff weapon for survival in BfA? Instead of just axes and polearms or even a sword and a dagger?
How strange it is that BM and survival both using pets but that one needs to stay melee and other is like as we spoke for the past posts, just a simple visualization of pet control?

I think the conclusion we can take from this is that it could be add a 4th spec as someone suggested but instead of BM/Surv mixed it would be MM/BM (https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...l-Spec-Fantasy)

or BM could be changed to a more synergy between pet and player as teamwork, survival being pure melee and camouflaging/traps, master of deception to survive. And Marksmanship should be the kind of counter-strike, dragon/flying animals hunt, that goes alone everywhere and get their prey from aiming either with guns or crossbows? Does this sound better?

[Shakana]

Sounds good, definitely a lot more interesting than the current iteration of hunter which is basically

"very good shot"
"really likes doggies"
And "feckin bushwacka cunt ah shit yeah mate"

If you ask me, BM should be a pseudo druid with a bow

MM an elemental or arcane archer

And survival? I don't feckin know

Loool always cracks me when you talk like a dwarf xD are you scottish?

Ye MM since it doesn't have any special protection could use arcane shots aka arcane archer, or be a simple counter-strike aiming but that wouldn't work for PVP tbh. On a going combat between a warrior and a "just aiming, no pet, no survival abilities" and just aiming stuff wouldn't be enough, so adding some magical arcane resource abilities would be good.
"Feckin' survival" as we spoke up there could be just pure meelee. xD i'm still laughing at the "feckin bushwacka cunt ah shit yeah mate"

[Toxuvox]

I see no point in adding a 4th spec when Blizz can't successfully equip the specs we currently have with well themed abilities. I'd say no more new classes or specs until the ones we have (across the board) are fixed and fully functional. Adding new classes or 4th specs is just compounding the issue.

Undoing the spell pruning that has been rampant the last few expansions, and sensibly removing the actual bloat would be a good start.

[Shakana]

I see no point in adding a 4th spec when Blizz can't successfully equip the specs we currently have with well themed abilities. I'd say no more new classes or specs until the ones we have (across the board) are fixed and fully functional. Adding new classes or 4th specs is just compounding the issue.

Undoing the spell pruning that has been rampant the last few expansions, and sensibly removing the actual bloat would be a good start.

They only add pruning because the truth is that they can't calibrate all specs of all classes, so they got a option to make them play almost the same to be easier to balance some specs and gameplay. But i too agree it's horrible.

[Shakana]

Hah well it was more trying to mimic an Australian Crocodile Dundee way of speaking but I'm glad it made you smile.

There's loads of ways to make an Arcane archer work, and also make it more than just arcane shot.

A few examples:

Warp shot: You open a portal and fire and arrow through it, a portal opens near the boss and the arrow emerges, hitting a gap in your target's armor, increasing the damage you do to them.

Split shot: You fire an arrow that splits into multiple arcane projectiles could be single target spell like arcane missiles or aoe like arcane version of volley

Living arrow: You fire an arrow that upon hitting a target, goes straight through, and continues to penetrate them at several points, dealing damage over time. Think Yondu's arrow from Guardians of the Galaxy

Violet arrow: You fire an arrow that curves, evading your target's guard

DPS cooldown could be Amplifying screen: You raise an arcane barrier in front of you every projectile you fire through it is empowered dealing more damage.

Arcane mine: You sling a trap at an enemy's feet, if hit by Arcane shot the mine explodes dealing arcane damage to enemies caught in the blast.

Arcane tether: You fire an Arcane anchor at a target, that links to surrounding enemies, linked enemies take a percentage damage of what the main target takes

Those are just a few quick examples off the top of my head.

In all honesty though for MM I could accept Blizzard just making more animations, other specs get to have different avility animations but there's apparently only one way to fire a bow.

You're a cute crocodile i'm telling you! AND HOLY SHIT i love that spec you just did, where and when can i play it? Really i love it. I love the concept.

Violet arrow: You fire an arrow that curves, evading your target's guard

This is like the troll arrow, that you want to always have like: Oi where you think you going mate!

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A very simple way to make a hybrid would be to give harpoon access to melee abilities that deal additional damage and disengage access to ranged abilities that deal additional damage.

What you'd end up with is a rotation where you dive into melee to duke it out, and then jump back out to deal damage from afar.

Harpoon! We have Harpoon kind of to just get close, if the harpoons gave a proc to some melee ability when using it, you could just give instant attacks then after using the procs your character would jump back. Kind of Death from above from outlaw rogues but that would empower your melee attacks by giving a proc to a melee ability.