survival tree for hunter.
whats it for? traditionally, melee and trapping. trapping is now an MM feature with lock&load, and melee is a BM feature.
should the surv tree become useful in some way, it would have to synergize with Lone wolf rune, to make a no-pet hunter (more) viable for pve - it is somewhat viable in pvp, depending on grp comp and duties.
or, redefine what the trees should apply in terms of features.
every itteration of wow where hunter has been strong (enough) to be viable from TBC to now, (in classic) its been with BM tree.
i would love to play a melee spec based on more crit and with an execute attack instead of wyvern sting. that sleep is dispelled in pvp so fast its not worth using, and pointless in pve. make it a nice execute attack similar to warriors execute instead. add another attack as well, by getting rid of improved feign death - who has ever used that? - its a 20 year old placeholder for something worthwhile.
i like the melee dps but it is booring to play, spamming raptor strikes endlessly, with no mechanics to worry about. no rotation really, now that we prio it over flanking, making that a filler for the 3 sec CD when we dont proc. and it does feel silly to add wing clip in a dps rotationā¦ but we have to fish for procs of wild strikes, so there we are.
put in its place a strike that becomes active when raptor crits, that does AoE/cleave damage or leaves a stacking bleed on single target.
i prefer the latter personally.
make a couple changes to teh BM tree to make it more tanky instead of dps, solving teh whole pvp -nerf hunterzz-issue - once n for all. still leaving pets useful for solo play, and maybe even viable as OTās if specced BM, but also making a more agile and critty hunter that doesnt rely on a bot-dot for more than half his dps, for once.
melee dps should be in the surv tree, after all.
then the option to use lone wolf to replace the pet would be viable as well, something its not when teh pet is 50% of the dps.
for those confused
aggrend actually asks us for suggestions - awsome dev!
Survival tree is dead on classic, MM is better. Simply adding a tanking rune that increases threat and gives crit immunity would revive it and make use of the many defensive talents.
Survival was my PvP Spec throughout Classic, its a phenomenal tree if utilised well. Its a largely hybrid melee and range tree.
I would love to see Hunter go in 2 directions.
Keep Survival a heavy utility and PvP based tree, donāt gut it and turn it into a parsing tree. Its strength lies in utility, just bring some of those abilities to the forefront and make them useful. Such as Wyvern Sting, this ability would be incredible with some tweaks but it has anti-synergy with traps and scatter.
Survival should stay a Utility Based, Melee & Range Hybrid tree.
Create a tanking spec for Hunters. We only need a few additions to allow the class to tank, upto the devs on this one how creative they want to be, but ultimately so long as its a Rune solution and not a talent tree solution I reckon we will be fine.
Again donāt change the talent trees too much, just add runes for tanking like other classes and maybe add additions to certain talents that work with a new tanking rune.
And I just want to reiterate it again, Survival should not be a solely melee tree. Range / Melee Hybrid playstyle is one of Hunters biggest strengths as a class.
Itās just a fact, unless they modify the talent tree somehow (SoD uses the Era client) ranged will remain better as MM and melee as BM (you can still reach savage strikes).
SV however has a bunch of defensive talents which would make the spec relevant if we had a tanking rune.
ive had a few dogs, they die in just a few years. and looking at ol rexxar, i think he could handle stuff on his own, if he had to. and thirdly, im not and orc, nor a horde, so rexxar isnt in my perview at all, tbh - thats a factionside fantasy if anything. we have had rexxar fantasy til now, maybe switch to legolas goes melee? he was pretty good with a sword, too, and no pet.
thing is, my ol penpal sally, this is the first time we jaded pessimists on the forums, actually get told by the master-dev him self, that they WILL read forums for suggestion, in the comming weeks. This is that oppertunity we have been waiting for, like tired greyhaired goldminers pickaxing a small creek insisting that ONE DAY, we will strike that ore!
take the oppertunity to post your own suggestions?
yea, mite bump it then, and maybe rename it using aggrends name, so that it gets read? i dunno what % they will read, but they prolly wount dig very deep. also, good post, but the question they ask, is āwhat to do with survival treeā - very spesifically. hinting they dont really want to change BM & MM very much - (but seems like the talenttree itself, is debatable at this point) which ofc both steal from the surv treeās talents already - so a rebalancing is whats required. 1000s of threads to read after all. anyways, work becons, have a sweet day
Personally I feel like Trapper and Tribal hunter should be separate trees all together. It feels a bit weird for both of these to be put into one tree and then neither gets the full talents it needs to āfeelā complete.
Iāve always felt like Survival is an odd tree. Even in TBC and Wrath which was when I primarily played it just felt like an odd wildcard that I couldnāt wrap my head around.
From a gameplay perspective however if it is meant to be the āmelee hunterā then it should functionally be different from rogue and warrior and as it stands a melee Hunter is just a storebrand Warrior. Raptor Strike is just Heroic Strike, Mongoose Bite is just Overpower (except worse), Wing Clip is just Hamstring.
And since we donāt use energy or combo points or generation of rage to spend we have to deal with cooldowns as our limiting factor. But thereās not enough melee abilities to weave interesting rotations into.
Melee Hunter is still just a meme spec, itās just an overpowered meme spec now.
I have ideas for what could be done to make it different but thatās gonna be a wall of text which I just donāt have time for at the moment. All Iāll say is this, if it is about āsurvivalā then make the abilities about survivalism. (proper) Disengage and Harpoon would be a good start.
Looking over the Hands runes on Rogue it seems like thereās a bunch of āhereās an attackā runes.
As someone who just dabbled in rogues I dunno how much my armchair development ideas is worth taking into consideration. Each one of these need to offer something different that all feel worthwhile to press. If one is just ābetterā then all others are just āworseā.
Shadowstrike should be able to still be used in combat, just for less damage.
Main Gauche is a tanking ability so I have no idea what is good about it or not but the 3 combo points seems to be the selling point of it.
Mutilate should either be lowered in its damage and do some other kind of a debuff to a target or keep its damage but not award 2 combo points. Itās too beefy.
Saber Slash should enhance all other bleed effects onto a target so that with group comp it can make a bleed teamās bleed damage crazy high. Or give the rogue some kind of talent/rune where bleed ticks give the rouge energy or a % chance for a free combo point.
Shiv seems useless to me, I just apply poison through Deadly Brew constantly so giving up any of the above abilities for something that will happen anyway just seems pointless to me.
ALSO Aggrend, can you please make the dragon spawned by dragons cry sword, attack the target of the wearer, even if it doesnt have aggro? its useless for melee hunters as is, we have pets holding aggro, or tanks doing this. it only works on aoe from a target in pve, and since thats intermittent, it rarely does much at all as it procs from wearers damage, and doesnt attack until wearer is hit.
pretty sad proc. watching the dragon just flap like a vanitypet.
