Hunter suggestion: Retail vs Classic

Classes Hunter
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I’ve played hunter since the beginning and played through the class changes on every xpack since then. It’s been my main in classic, TBC, then dropped untill MOP, and kept as an alt some expansions. However, the class has always been tried out at every expansion start. There is something about this class I think is forgotten.

And now a second time when I got to play this class again like it was, the feeling is even more so. I have some suggestions on how to bring back what made me like this class in the beginning.

In the beginning you basically have 2 buttons to click; multishoot and aimedshoot. You time them between auto-attacks or can use addons/macro’s to do it for you - and they had long CD’s.
It’s not a playstyle I think is very hard to maxemize, but as we all know in gaming: Nerds always find a way!
With a long AA-time on your ranged weapon, you could be creative. Those that wanted to push their dps harder, could play a melee-weaving playstyle to increase the output.
If your not familiar with what that is, you do your hunter range-rotations, then when during the wait for next auto attack; run into melee range and swing a slow wpn at the target, then run back out. This was retired already in TBC when you got the introduction of steadyshoot to fill the “wait” in range instead.

Now why would I bring that up? My suggestion isn’t to reintroduce melee-weaving as a thing, but it reminds of a time when you had to aspect dance on boss fights. Or even in pvp. It’s kind of odd, but the “dead-zone” is something I like. The need to swap aspects when in melee and range is engaging. It gives the players more to think about and be creative in. Even if the melee-weaving was gone in TBC, you still had to pay attention to range and aspects to move out of danger. What aspect reduces my incoming melee hit and dps output.
Not a plain buff-and-forget that’s now been here since Cata.

What I suggest; is introduce melee weapons and dead-zone for hunters. I’d ideally want to see a aspect dance that also swapped your abilities with weapon swaps, ie swapping concussion shoot to wing clip - aimed to raptor - etc, mid-fight, and allowing the hunter to play in different style over a pvp battle and boss-phases.

I’d not say both dps outputs should be equal, but allowing the possibility of entering melee for a quick burst of dmg for a short time, then retreating to range for max dmg output sounds like fun to me. When you stack in deadzone on a bossfight in vanilla - you have to be creative to keep dpsing, or move wisely.

I suggest a defense CD that only works with melee weapons - ie have 100% parry like re-worked deterrance, when useing 1h swords, or transforms to a dodge when using 2h weapons, and both parry and dodge have different abilities to activate when you do them. Like initial mongoose bite and counterattack.

It would not be too hard to allow monks and warriors have similar stance dance abilities to allow such constumization. Warriors must have a shield in their old “range” spot and spell-reflect does dmg based on said shield armor?

As it is now, I seems like the class is rather stale… Please give feedback on what you think of my idea =)

3 Likes
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the only way this would be accepted if melee weapons used the same skills ranged used and it was just a swap of animations (arcane shot swaps to some strike, aimed swaps to some long hit animation etc…)

And even then people would cry about having to collect multiple weapons

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You seems to be confusing melee + ranged doesnt equal to deadzone.

If it is 0-5 melee range and 5-40 ranged range then its fine. However if it is 0-5 melee range and 8-40 ranged range, then 5-8 is the deadzone.

I am not asking for this playstyle to come back, but I would be fine with it, if there was NO deadzone. If it DID come back, our melee abilities would have to be almost as strong as our ranged abilities because the game is much more fluid and fast paced than classic.

Having said that, I doubt they would to this because it would require a huge overhaul for all 3 hunter specs, also homogenizing them in the process. Instead of the whole class, changing only SV to this playstyle would be easier and more fitting in my opinion.

I’m not asking for this; just expressing my opinion if it was going to happen.

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This so this and this is very important this is called the deadzone because it is the zone where you can not do anything Melee or Ranged.

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good reply, thx!

Yeah ur prob right about the fanbase now not being willing to accept a true dead-zone return. However what you pointed out would be very interesting. If you have SV change to a hybrid like this, I imagine it would feel alot more unique than it does now.
That would allow some interesting dynamics, ie the balance druid build star-power with sun spells, you could build melee-power with range wpns as a SV hunter.

Its frustrating to see a SV hunter beeing a master of melee, but MM and BM are suddenly clueless and can only equip them for show? Seems more than a little odd…

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Me too! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

It’s been my main forever except for a 2-3 month stint in TBC when I somehow brainfarted and mained a paladin. Blegh.

Wut? Ooooh this is an MM rant… Ok, nevermind.
Couldn’t care less about that spec. Beastmastery is the one and only. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: :wolf: :fox_face:

No thank you.

No thank you.

No thank you.

I love beastmastery as it is. So again; no thank you.

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I’m going to play devils advocate to those who hate this idea. The dead zone is ‘broken’ because there are too many melee classes and encounters are too fast paced, event / movement driven and complex (and therefore there is a PVE and PVP relationship for dead zones).

I’d like to see melee weapons return in some capacity, but I don’t know how to meaningfully implement these, short of adding new abilities or redesigning old ones. I like the idea of using the melee weapon as a stat stick / utility weapon, e.g. Spear Throwing, Wing Clipping, Anchoring for Jump Manoeuvres (like a mage blink).

Anyway, you have a point in here, but short of a redesign of the actual class dynamics, I don’t see it happening.

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I had played hunter since vanilla too. I miss the deadzone and being unable to use ranged weapons in melee range. Hunter has changed so much that I had to reroll in Legion. However in classic I have mained hunter and find it so much more fun.

The deadzone and having melee and ranged weapons (and needing to use both) is what makes (made) hunter so unique. In terms of playstyle currently you are just a warlock with physical damage, or a warrior with a pet. In classic you have to kite mobs including wing clipping in melee range. Personally I find that so much more fun than just bashing around killing 10 mobs with my ranged weapon in melee range.

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Deadzone is the area where you can not use melee attacks and you can not use Ranged attacks. I can not belive this has to be said in the same thread but it is very clear you did not read a little further up.
Melee range is 1-5yard Deadzone is 5-8yards Ranged is 8-40yards (or as far back as you can shoot)

What it sounds like you miss is that you can not use ranged attacks in melee.

Also warlock and hunter does not feel anything alike and warrior and hunter does not feel anything alike.
I can make generalities and make them the same but then i can also make a priest the same as a mage using the same things.

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You have just interpreted what I said how you wanted. Theres a reason I said the dead zone and melee weapons instead of just saying I missed the deadzone.

I miss the deadzone as you describe, however I recognise that thats not really possible anymore it would just be way too easy to exploit in pvp.

Bringing back melee weapons only being usable in melee range would however be possible as well as making kiting important again.

For a lot of people this is what made hunters fun and unique.

Edit: Sorry commented on my classic char

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The thing is not being able to use ranged weapons in melee is just very odd.
A gun A crossbow and a Bow all will have maximum power right when it exits the weapon, as long as you can actually operate the weapon in the space.

But if they can make it good to play and have bosses where you can do this in pve i am fine with it, however as someone who also play melee and tanks i know the melee hitbox is massive on somebosses, take shad’har as an example he would be very hard to play hunter where you want to stay at ranged on. And if blizzard made the hitbox smaller for hunters that is bad for all the melee specs.

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Yeah, this.

As mentioned above aswell, if you put a “cannot use in melee” on ranged attacks, but not having a “deadzone” of the old 3 yards between melee and ranged.

PS: Just ignore the cow. Everyone with a brain see’s the special hunter=)

@ Tahra
Thx for the nice reply!

Not to undermind your BM love here, but which itteration of BM are u refering to?

Go back to WOD, then all 3 speccs were the same. Go back to MOP and traps were revamped with a very similar SV (ranged) and BM specc. Before Cata and you had deadzones and some very strange interactions on all speccs.

Legion was “ok”, its what I mained with MM, but BM has been the go-to spam CD’s specc since this time, and that’s fine, but its not been unique in a long time.

As mentioned in another post, the idea of a pure “deadzone” as it was is not very engaging, but bringing back a melee and range swap seems like a flavour many miss from the hunter class.

We are still talking MM, or perhaps SV, but since you mentioned BM - how do you like Stampede as it is now, vs how it once was? I mean the LK version where you could customize the pet abilities that would be released.

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