Hunter in Shadowlands

[Kithelle]

I wouldn ‘t be so certain of Survival not being reverted to ranged. It goes completely in line with my idea of this whole “fixing” or getting back to class fantasy over spec fantasy.

Notice how they didn’t get into details on class changes and overhauls, because of how polemic that is and has always been.

Acknowledging for 2 expansions in a row the utter failure I think of melee survival, how hunters are locked between only 2 real specs I like and how badly the game needs popular changes, I really wouldn’t be surprised with this great news: ranged Survival back to what I think is glory!

Also, ranged DK (renamed to Necromancer spec, replacing Unholy) and ranged rogue (replacing Sub). I wonder how would the community receive that...I complain about class identity and how Survival being melee is wrong but I want them to change melee specs in ranged specs because that totally isn't hypocritical right?

Fixed it for you!

[Axram]

Survival Hunter should be more like assassin rogue , the description literally says animal Poisons and traps

its laughable that the only " animal poison " we use is serpent sting and apparently the description gives off the impression we have a wide range of poisons

[Kyphael]

Yeah because your vision of class design has worked out so well and these past expansions are clearly remembered as the pinnacle of class design for all, right?

People have been begging to go back to pre-Legion states for various specs since Legion launched. We are finally making steps to undo everything that went wrong and you are doubling down on the absolute worst class design has had to offer in the past 5 years. Even Blizzard is now moving on, at least to some extent.

My vision or Blizzard's vision? Get a clue and go back to your echo chamber. "We" are not doing anything, class design is cyclical. Pruning was required to both introduce Demon Hunters and implement Legion Artifact weapons and its system. I enjoyed it, I'm not going to pretend I didn't. I enjoyed the hell out of it. There is no more discussion to have between you and me since it's blatantly obvious from seeing you banter with others here that you cannot have a civil debate without attacking people's opinions.

[threads]

BFA survival is a complete mess. Sure maybe it feels the most fun of the 3 but that does not make it a good spec. For one it has too many borrowed traits from BM that just muddy the theme they were going for. Kill Command being a filler on one spec vs a hard hitting signature ability of another is just retarded. What if aff locks shot weak little chaos bolts between dots? Would be dumb as hell just like this spec.

Also shooting a little crossbow thats a copy paste animation of pistol shot, along with throwing a fucking grenade in melee range is mega lame. Doesn't even feel like a hunter, feels like a bad attempt at some tinker spec.

I'll say I honestly don't care what happens to SV anymore. It's clear with MM that if they brought ranged SV back it would be a gutted shell of it's former glory. I also don't care if they delete melee from the class because it has added nothing of value in the last 4 years.

[Donkeywing]

Pruning was required to both introduce Demon Hunters and implement Legion Artifact weapons and its system. I enjoyed it, I'm not going to pretend I didn't. I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Pruning is easily the worst systematic decision they made. There's barely anyone who actively enjoys having their abilities taken away from them. Meanwhile it didnt accomplish anything of note. As wow is a repeatative game, having the classes this pruned means the class itself wont keep your interest for long, nor does the content during farm. Reasonable exceptions exist.
Also pruning wasn't required, at least not the pruning we've experienced. Your argument doesn't make any sense either, legion was the second round of pruning.

Also while on the subject, its shocking how the game play is this pruned (this simplified really), but the theoretical basis has become this complicated. The casuals have it worse now. All the preperation you put into gear/essences/talents etc is 10 times more important nowadays.

[Kaver]

Your personal preference is bad. I can only hope that Blizzard doubles down on their efforts to undo pruning and opinions like yours fall by the wayside. If things went your way class design would get even worse. Your ideas are poison.

How can you call me patronizing and then write this to another person 5 minutes after?! The way you communicate with people is disgusting. Your behavior in this forum is completely delusional and hypocritical. The only toxic behavior here is yours when you clearly are not able to participate in a civil debate and respect that other people don’t have the same preferences as you. Your behavior is embarrassing.

[Monster Hunter]

I don't think any one should get there hopes up for class changes in SL.

The two statements from blizz have been.

To move away from sweeping class changes each expansion.

And

Focus more on class than individual spec.

What that tells me is all we are gonna get is some half assed old abilitys back no one used all that much but with the same crappy spec focused talent systems we have had since cata. And that's it.

Blizz can't properly move back to class based fantasy with the current talent system, and I can't see them Finaly admitting the cata changes were a mistake and moving back to a tree structure that let's you felxibly pick from between specs to properly customise and build out that class fantasy just with the abilities instead of +1agi things. So with doing it properly off the table, half assed is the likely outcome.

[Trumpcat]

I don't think any one should get there hopes up for class changes in SL.

The two statements from blizz have been.

To move away from sweeping class changes each expansion.

And

Focus more on class than individual spec.

What that tells me is all we are gonna get is some half assed old abilitys back no one used all that much but with the same crappy spec focused talent systems we have had since cata. And that's it.

Blizz can't properly move back to class based fantasy with the current talent system, and I can't see them Finaly admitting the cata changes were a mistake and moving back to a tree structure that let's you felxibly pick from between specs to properly customise and build out that class fantasy just with the abilities instead of +1agi things. So with doing it properly off the table, half assed is the likely outcome.

We know they can design great class mechanics judging by past iterations across all their games.

But also judging by the universally disliked specs in BfA we have a good reason to be skeptical.

I would argue Legion classes were great towards the end when you had all legendaries and artifacts maxed out. And what made it cool for me wasn't the return of outdated clunky abilities but the new ones and altering what we already had.

So far Shadowlands promises the return of old abilities and not major class changes?! How do you bring old abilities back without overhauls? All this says to me is: cluttered outdated design.

Got Classic for that sort of thing. I would prefer WoW 2020 to be modern and dynamic. Every other RPG and MMO got more original abilities and class mechanics. They have to step up their game.

[Monster Hunter]

We know they can design great class mechanics judging by past iterations across all their games.

But also judging by the universally disliked specs in BfA we have a good reason to be skeptical.

I would argue Legion classes were great towards the end when you had all legendaries and artifacts maxed out. And what made it cool for me wasn't the return of outdated clunky abilities but the new ones and altering what we already had.

So far Shadowlands promises the return of old abilities and not major class changes?! How do you bring old abilities back without overhauls? All this says to me is: cluttered outdated design.

Got Classic for that sort of thing. I would prefer WoW 2020 to be modern and dynamic. Every other RPG and MMO got more original abilities and class mechanics. They have to step up their game.

Competing philosophys.

Blizzard (and many other games company's) sufferers from a bunch of similar problem's political party's often do in that they have a bunch of individual goals and philosophys to achieve those goals that often can have negative effects on each other and thus cause the whole to fail, this mostly becomes toxic when those in positions of direction or stubbornly tied to those philosophys either by there want to preserve there reputation or emotive reasoning.

Blizz have the goals of:

Try to get as close to perfect class as possible for the pvp players and the high end raiders.

Make all playstyles viable in some way

Make the game accessible in a way that you can't screw up to badly

But

Allow people to customize there chars ability and power.

Have openness to excel at the top

Keep thing fresh for people to keep them engaged.

These goals and the philosophy to achieve them arn't compatible, freedom comes at the cost of balance, and the higher risk of failure.

Blizzards major problem has been they have moved back and forth on these, but have stuck rigidly to the goals dispite the reality always being that every one is dissatisfied. And we now hae a game where choice, player agency and uniqueness is much more limited than original wow, but the promised balance it would bring is still not near where the people who care about that want.

Now we have blizz want a focus back on class not spec.

But that won't happen because blizz also want every one to be viable and balanced which is the reason for the simplistic talents system and spec based focus.

You can't have both, so what we will get is neither, something in between that satisfies no one.

[threads]

I don't think any one should get there hopes up for class changes in SL.

The two statements from blizz have been.

To move away from sweeping class changes each expansion.

the problem i have with this is they choose to stop making changes when we're still stuck with the gutted legion class design. the game really needs big overhauls to be engaging again. so many specs just feel like copy pasted mechanics.

[Monster Hunter]

the problem i have with this is they choose to stop making changes when we're still stuck with the gutted legion class design. the game really needs big overhauls to be engaging again. so many specs just feel like copy pasted mechanics.

Yea. Though it's worth noting when I say changes I mean "class" changes. We're still gonna lose all our rent-a-talents, Azerite and essences, so how our classes play and what we have on top will change to what ever Shadowlands rent-a-talents are. But our base classes will still be the pile of dog shite they were post legion change and as such we will again see the dramatic power drop we complained about during bfa leveling.

The "return to class" will be little more than a few old minimal use abilities comming back and then some Azerite shit being thrown into the talent system to replace any gaps they left. You can't do any real meaningful form of return to class with the current post cata spec/talent system, so my hopes arn't high in this aspect of Shadowlands. Still excited to see the new land and see torgast and see how the jailor Story unfolds, but the classes and changes look like a flop from the get go.

[todzilla85]

I really hope that "return to class" doesnt turn out like it sounds and it ends up being just a piece of of a bigger push to dig deep and fix the core problems that some of the specs are going thru. My wishlist is never gonna happen but....

Survival
- Needs it's own identity, bfa ripped apart any sort of gameplay loop that legion tried to setup. It needs it's own abilities that play off each other instead of just hobbling a bunch of random stuff from old survival and bm.

Bm
- I really want Direbeast back instead of barbed shot, legion pet spam was extremely fun to me, it also felt more immersive, than I shoot spikey shot at bad guy and let attacks faster.

- It would be nice if we actually had active talents that involved our pets.

MM

- Dubt full wod mm will ever fully return but it would be nice if they at least tried to take some of the good from it.

[ozusteapot]

All I want is for old survival to come back as a spec. It doesn't have to take current survival's place, I understand some might have grown attached to it at this point.
BM in it's current state is impossibly boring and uninspired. Whatever happened to serpent sting having a (quick) cast time? It's so weird how far gone it is to how it used to play in MoP for example. Having BM and Survival take inspiration from their MoP iterations and drawing from there would be a godsend.

[Craaazyyy]

revert to cata..

especially cata mm

[bullseyed]

A Hunter spec feeling like something other than a Hunter is a bad thing, you know.

So you're saying you both unfamiliar with WoW lore and the D&D lore that WoW classes are based on? And that your personal fee-fees should somehow trump facts.

- - - Updated - - -

Survival
- Needs it's own identity, bfa ripped apart any sort of gameplay loop that legion tried to setup. It needs it's own abilities that play off each other instead of just hobbling a bunch of random stuff from old survival and bm.

Survival's thing is literally how its abilities build off of each other. You haven't played SV, apparently.

- - - Updated - - -

BFA survival is a complete mess. Sure maybe it feels the most fun of the 3 but that does not make it a good spec. For one it has too many borrowed traits from BM that just muddy the theme they were going for. Kill Command being a filler on one spec vs a hard hitting signature ability of another is just retarded. What if aff locks shot weak little chaos bolts between dots? Would be dumb as hell just like this spec.

Also shooting a little crossbow thats a copy paste animation of pistol shot, along with throwing a fucking grenade in melee range is mega lame. Doesn't even feel like a hunter, feels like a bad attempt at some tinker spec.

I'll say I honestly don't care what happens to SV anymore. It's clear with MM that if they brought ranged SV back it would be a gutted shell of it's former glory. I also don't care if they delete melee from the class because it has added nothing of value in the last 4 years.

Now we're left to wonder if you don't know what a filler ability is or if you've never played SV.

SV is a builder/spender spec, and Kill Command is the builder. The filler ability for SV is Wildfire Bomb.

The main change SV needs is for Wildfire Bomb to be made into an AOE ability instead of a cone ability (and damage buffed on it, this could be accomplished by making wildfire cluster baseline). This would allow SV to compete with DH on more even footing.

[Unholyground]

Awesome!

Feel free to check out the link in my signature below. Wouldn't mind some additional feedback.

Some alterations have already been made in regards to feedback given in earlier replies. Hence why some comments now might seem out of place.

Ya, my hope is that 4th Specs come with the Azeroth revamp after SL. It would be far better than a new class.

Earth Warden Shaman tank is what I want! If I can tank at max level in Classic on my Shaman I should be able to now lol.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, until Legion, using ranged weapons was very much a prerequisite for a Hunter spec. Even in Vanilla. You might argue that this Hunter identity was too restrictive, but the fact is we are the only class that uses ranged weapons to any significant capacity and that's what made the class most unique. Plus, this fantasy of a primitive Hunter that can't use ranged weapons is not compelling to most people and that's evident from Survival's pitiful adoption since it went melee. Yes, it did expand on the WoW Hunter identity but in doing so it made it far more dilute and ill-defined. It also heavily compromises the ability of the game to explore ranged weapon fantasies in favour of yet another melee spec.

Novelty ideas should not occupy entire specs; especially as replacements for previously well-established and widely-enjoyed ranged spec. At most there should be a melee option in a spec that's ranged by default via a talent choice that swaps ranged weapon abilities for melee weapon ones in exchange for a damage and health boost. And that spec should be BM, given that the few melee Hunter fantasies that actually have lore backing are heavily based on a pet. SV spends too much time imitating BM anyway.

P.S. It's important to note how you immediately pivoted from an argument based on gameplay ("it's almost like playing a class altogether distinct from hunter.") to one about identity. Like I said, from a gameplay perspective, if one spec feels like a different class to the other specs in the class then it has failed at the core goal of a spec in the first place: building a unique take on the core identity and style of the class. This Legion/BFA trend of raising the standards of spec differentiation to that of classes is poisoning class design and even Blizzard is admitting now that it was a mistake.

These issues have happened to every class where big changes put people away from them completely. One example is how terrible Shadow Priest feels now (to me and many others), it was far more enjoyable before the insanity and voidfrom garbage but other people still enjoy it. Most people enjoyed it far more when you generated shadow orbs and unleashed devouring plague using them, to us that was the pinnacle of the spec and then they ruined it before Legion.

the same argument can be made as I said with a bunch of specs. I personally love melee Survival but just like people who love the new Shadow Priest it is all subjective.

[Lodravel]

Look at that, people still grasping at straws as to how SV could (and should) be reverted back.
How does the saying go, don't cry over spilled milk? ������

Anywhichway, no matter how amazing SV used to be, the new iteration is arguably one of the most well-designed specs in BfA. That tells us more about the current state of class design, though.

They stated a couple times that there wouldn't be any grand revamps of classes/specs on the scale of SV hunter going into SL. They used SV has an example. So melee is here to stay, at least for SL!
Besides, I don't think SV feels like a different class. There's still plenty of abilities shared between specs and if they add some more baseline spells, it will feel even more coherently like a hunter across the board.
Hunter itself was never a big victim of lost class identity, anyway (apart from the BfA period where they had pruned traps lol). Compare that to mages who barely share any spells between specs and you know what I mean.

[Twistnectar]

Ranged SV is the only important thing. I don't care about getting Kill shot for BM, I don't care about getting Serpent Sting or some shit for MM, both of these specs are relatively fine. Ranged SV was the most fun I've ever had with the class and without it, it's just whatever. Give me my third spec back and get rid of that fucking abomination nobody's ever asked for.

If you wanna keep Raptor Strike and Mongoose bite for whatever fucking reason just give Hunters melee weapons back. Melee SV is a failure, nobody's playing it, it doesn't have a role in a raid and nobody fucking wanted it to begin with. Give me fucking ranged SV back, it's the only thing I care about.

I still can't understand why people keep saying this. We get it, YOU don't like melee SV, doesn't mean we all don't. I don't think the spec is perfect, and yes, i did enjoy the ranged SV spec. However i quite enjoy the new SV build in pvp and pve. I would love changes for sure, but I and many others i'm sure do enjoy playing it. So please stop speaking for the majority like you know everyone's opinion.

[threads]

I still can't understand why people keep saying this. We get it, YOU don't like melee SV, doesn't mean we all don't. I don't think the spec is perfect, and yes, i did enjoy the ranged SV spec. However i quite enjoy the new SV build in pvp and pve. I would love changes for sure, but I and many others i'm sure do enjoy playing it. So please stop speaking for the majority like you know everyone's opinion.

its not really an opinion that SV melee has been unsuccessful though. it had to be redone after only 1 xpac and still isn't wanted for a majority of group content. it's only worked out for arena really and thats mostly because the ranged specs are so gutted and BM is always shit.

Now we're left to wonder if you don't know what a filler ability is or if you've never played SV.

SV is a builder/spender spec, and Kill Command is the builder. The filler ability for SV is Wildfire Bomb.

The main change SV needs is for Wildfire Bomb to be made into an AOE ability instead of a cone ability (and damage buffed on it, this could be accomplished by making wildfire cluster baseline). This would allow SV to compete with DH on more even footing.

ok KC is a builder on one spec and a spender on another, you happy? it's still bad design.

[Bepples]

So you're saying you both unfamiliar with WoW lore and the D&D lore that WoW classes are based on? And that your personal fee-fees should somehow trump facts.

Did you look at what I was replying to you? Someone was literally praising Survival because it felt like a different class. So if you are going to complain about someone saying Survival doesn't feel like a Hunter, take it up with Kyphael because he says that's the case. The only difference between me and him on that point is that he thinks its a good thing because he doesn't understand the role of specialisations in this game v.s. classes and the value that provides to the game.

In any case, the Hunter class in WoW was one that was explicitly defined around ranged weapons. Right from the original WoW manual they said Hunters were unique because they used ranged weapons. It's no secret that it was the most major distinguishing factor and selling point of the class. Taking that away from one spec was bad for many reasons including the fact that it shits all over the established Hunter identity. It might fit well for a D&D character but it was a major, destructive revision to the class identity 12 years into the game's lifecycle and anyone who thought it wouldn't end badly wasn't paying attention or was hopelessly deluded.

Yes, there is Warcraft lore precedence for it. Doesn't change the above. There's also lore precedence for priests using ranged weapons and all sorts of things like that. Lore characters do not necessarily translate into playable classes. The current Survival doesn't even match Rexxar very well at all. Plus, Rexxar was a Beastmaster and his archetype was already represented in the WoW class via pets and the Beast Mastery spec.

Now we're left to wonder if you don't know what a filler ability is or if you've never played SV.

SV is a builder/spender spec, and Kill Command is the builder. The filler ability for SV is Wildfire Bomb.

The main change SV needs is for Wildfire Bomb to be made into an AOE ability instead of a cone ability (and damage buffed on it, this could be accomplished by making wildfire cluster baseline). This would allow SV to compete with DH on more even footing.

Filler v.s. generator doesn't change the point he was making. It's theme as a total mess. The whole point of making it melee in the first place, as alleged by Blizzard and all the melee fans, was to tidy up its identity and distinguish it from other Hunter specs. Yet it has never had a more convoluted and unclear identity than now, and they somehow achieved the impossible by having a spec that lacks connection to the core Hunter identity yet still borrows heavily from another spec.

This isn't going to be magically fixed by making Wildfire Bomb a proper AoE. Survival's core issues are not due to it not being competitive. That stems from being melee, which is actually the core issue. Hunters generally avoid it because it's melee. It is less desirable in PvE due to being melee. It has an unclear identity due to being melee. Its only saving grace is that it competes well in rated arenas, and even then you'll find that's largely in spite of it being melee and not because of it.

Funnily enough, Wildfire Bomb being a cone is probably due to being melee as well. Like threadz said, the notion of using explosive attacks as a pet-based melee fighter is ridiculous. It only really makes sense from a thematic standpoint if it's a conal attack. I can't prove this is why they did it, but in the last two expansions just about every harebrained class design decision they've made in the past 4 years has lame thematic reasoning like this.

Wildfire Bomb is actually something that would have fit really well with ranged Survival. But melee Survival is trying to have its cake and eat it too by having the utilitarian ranged stuff like Serpent Sting and Wildfire Bomb alongside the "knockoff BM" stuff like Kill Command and Coordinated Assault even though they don't fit with each other at all.

These issues have happened to every class where big changes put people away from them completely. One example is how terrible Shadow Priest feels now (to me and many others), it was far more enjoyable before the insanity and voidfrom garbage but other people still enjoy it. Most people enjoyed it far more when you generated shadow orbs and unleashed devouring plague using them, to us that was the pinnacle of the spec and then they ruined it before Legion.

the same argument can be made as I said with a bunch of specs. I personally love melee Survival but just like people who love the new Shadow Priest it is all subjective.

One bad decision isn't justified by other bad decisions. Plus, Survival changed quite a bit more than those other specs. All the other ranged DPS specs are still ranged DPS, and all the other melee DPS specs are still melee DPS. Survival is the only one that ever changed. That puts it far above any other spec change. The only thing that's really comparable is Demonology Warlock, and one could argue (and people do) that it was also a really bad decision.

Look at that, people still grasping at straws as to how SV could (and should) be reverted back.
How does the saying go, don't cry over spilled milk? ������

Anywhichway, no matter how amazing SV used to be, the new iteration is arguably one of the most well-designed specs in BfA. That tells us more about the current state of class design, though.

They stated a couple times that there wouldn't be any grand revamps of classes/specs on the scale of SV hunter going into SL. They used SV has an example. So melee is here to stay, at least for SL!
Besides, I don't think SV feels like a different class. There's still plenty of abilities shared between specs and if they add some more baseline spells, it will feel even more coherently like a hunter across the board.
Hunter itself was never a big victim of lost class identity, anyway (apart from the BfA period where they had pruned traps lol). Compare that to mages who barely share any spells between specs and you know what I mean.

"Crying over spilled milk" refers to complaining about something that can't be undone. Personally I find the notion that you can't voice displeasure with something because it can't be fixed to be nonsense, but never mind that. If Legion proved anything, it proved class design is in flux and can abruptly change direction. Melee Survival can be undone and in my view it should be undone. They probably won't, but that's no reason for everyone to just shut up and never talk about the problems of melee Survival again.

"Most well-designed spec in BFA" reminds me of that joke about winning the special olympics. You know the one.

Yes, if they added more shared abilities between specs it would feel more coherently like a Hunter. But having a melee weapon instead of a ranged one inherently makes it feel less coherent. It's a barrier to having those shared abilities in the first place, and it will only be more and more jarring as they continue to fall back on that nonsense idea of the sidearm crossbow for the ranged weapon abilities ESPECIALLY when that ability is Kill Shot which we know to be returning.

We did "lose class identity" because it used to be based around having ranged weapons. They can't do that anymore because one of our specs doesn't have a ranged weapon.

I still can't understand why people keep saying this. We get it, YOU don't like melee SV, doesn't mean we all don't. I don't think the spec is perfect, and yes, i did enjoy the ranged SV spec. However i quite enjoy the new SV build in pvp and pve. I would love changes for sure, but I and many others i'm sure do enjoy playing it. So please stop speaking for the majority like you know everyone's opinion.

What's hard to understand? People lost their favourite spec and it was replaced by something totally different that is aimed at a different audience for the most part (admitted by Blizzard). That new spec has also been consistently unpopular yet high-maintenance. They had to remake it after just 1 expansion and in both the Legion and BFA testing phases it got vastly more attention and effort from the devs as a result, and it's easy to perceive that as coming at the expense of the remaining ranged specs.

It's no surprise people look to how Survival was before Legion and want it back. It had much stronger appeal among Hunters and it was built up over several expansions rather than being the product of an expensive, rushed remake in one expansion. As a ranged spec it was also generally more useful in most areas of content. Personally, I miss a time where Survival was viewed as a popular, effective Hunter option played by many rather than some quirky fringe niche spec with a small but dedicated following.

Also, lol at "many others".