Ranged Survival Hunter

So, since the Community Council Forum is a thing now I thought it’d be worth bringing this up again. Someone with the ability to post in the Community Council Forum should really bring up the topic of the return of Ranged Survival as a 4th Hunter spec.

To Melee Hunters: The suggestion is for a 4th spec, not to remove Melee Hunter. It’s perfectly fine for you to love Melee Hunter, and for us to love Ranged Survival - and we can both do it at the same time.

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It’s not

Not if you give something to every other class too

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Not in your mind, that’s for sure. But to many others, it definitely would be.

Having said that, I have my doubts about the Community Council initiative, and the idea that it’ll amount to something worth noting.

Not entirely sure what you meant with this, but the assumption would be that you’re arguing that they shouldn’t do something like this, unless they give all classes another spec as well. The problem with that logic is that this isn’t an “all or nothing” type of situation. If it was, it would’ve applied to the time where they thought of adding a 4th spec to druids as well.


Happy new year btw! :champagne:

In pvp I play my survival as ranged vs melee and melee vs casters. It works wonders and i like the playstyle. Just bomb, string and kill command melees with tar trap disengage their gap closers. Harpoon the casters and do my melee dmg on them. I love the concept of survival hunter.

On the other hand i used to play alot old survival. It was a great dot speck. Truth to be told BM was a better choice for melee hunter. We could have a dot speck - old survival, melee speck bm with pet doing way more dmg and mm speck as it is. But hey, they did a great job at the rework. I dont see them implement old survival as 4th speck whatever we do. It should find its place as talent replacements for MM. We can get our rot back replacing aimed shot with black arrow and rapid fire with fire arrow.

At this pont, giving a ranged focus dump would suffice, along with making wildfire bombs slow at range.

Just these changes would shut everyone up about this topic. I LOVED RSV, probably more than most, but can accept after all these years it isn’t coming back and they are not about to give a dps class a 4th spec option.

Edit: They could also utilise AotE and either give it a very short CD like 30s on 15s duration. Alternatively make it a toggle ability, but where the ability changes to Raptor Rush (or something), making raptor strike ranged but doing slightly less damage.

No, because what you’re suggesting isn’t the RSV that people are asking for to come back, not even close.

They will have to come up with a new ranged spec. Allot of the RSV spells have become talents and baseline spells for the other specs.

It’s really only 2 talents in MM; Explosive Shot and Lock&Load, that are elements taken from RSV. They can just take those out from MM and replace with something else, while restoring said talents to their original designs for RSV.

As for the rest of RSV, as a modern version, it could look something like this(not perfect for everyone ofc, but it’s a concept):


Any numbers mentioned are only here to provide further depth to the concept and are ofc subject to change.


Core Abilities

[Cobra Shot] - Instant cast
A quick shot causing X Physical damage.

Generates 7 Focus.

[Explosive Shot] - 20 Focus - Instant cast - 10 sec recharge - 2 charges
Fire an explosive charge into the enemy target, dealing Fire damage. The charge will blast the target every second for an additional 4 sec.

[Black Arrow] - 30 Focus - Instant cast - 30 sec cooldown
Fire a shot infused with dark energy at the target, dealing Shadow damage over 12 sec.

The periodic damage-effect applied by Black Arrow can be stacked up to 3 times on the same enemy.

[Serpent Sting] - 15 Focus - Instant cast
Fire a shot that poisons your target, causing them to take Nature damage over 15 sec.

[Arcane Shot] - 20 Focus - Instant cast
A quick shot that causes X Arcane damage.

[Multi-Shot] - 40 Focus - Instant cast
Fires several missiles, hitting up to 5 targets within 8 yards of your current target for X Physical damage.

Multi-Shot applies Serpent Sting to all targets hit.

[Immolation Trap] - Instant cast - 1 minute cooldown
Hurls a fire trap to the target location that will burn the first enemy to approach for X Fire damage over 20 sec. Trap will exist for 1 min.

Class-wide abilities

[Kill Shot] - 10 Focus - Instant cast - 10 sec recharge - 1 Charge
You attempt to finish off a wounded target, dealing X Physical damage.

Only usable on enemies with less than 20% health.

Major Cooldown

[Munition Tactics] - 20 sec duration - 2 minute cooldown.
Increases your haste by X% and instantly triggers Lock & Load(Passive). When Explosive Shot is used during Munition Tactics, this resets the remaining cooldown of Black Arrow.

Any time Explosive Shot deals damage to a target affected by Black Arrow, during Munition Tactics, this will cause the periodic damage effect applied by Black Arrow to spread to nearby enemies as well.
(This effect is replaced by a different passive effect when engaged in instanced PvP; If your Black Arrow is at any time dispelled or otherwise removed from an enemy target, this instantly resets the remaining cooldown of Black Arrow.)

Mastery

[Mastery Bonus: Toxicology] - Increases all non-physical damage dealt by X%, based on Mastery.

Passive Effects

[Lone Wolf] - Increases your damage by 10% when you do not have an active pet.

[Lock and Load] - Periodic damage dealt by Black Arrow and Immolation Trap have a chance to cause your next Explosive Shot to cost no Focus and trigger no cooldown.

[Trap Mastery] - Tar Trap now slows approaching enemies by an additional X%, and the effect sticks to the enemy for 3 seconds after they have left the tar.

The trigger radius as well as the radius of the effect on your Tar Trap is increased by 25%.

Freezing Trap can now be triggered manually by the hunter once placed, causing it to form a fragile Ice Block that you can stand behind to protect yourself from frontal attacks until shattered. The ice block shatters after 8 seconds or once it has sustained enough damage.
Manually triggering it requires you to stand in close vicinity to the trap.

[Serpent’s Focus] - Using Cobra Shot several times in a row will increase the amount of Focus generated by each shot by 4. Stacking up to 3 times.

[Serpent Spread] - Targets hit by Multi-Shot are also afflicted by Serpent Sting equal to 9 sec of it’s duration.

[Exotic Munitions] - Your Auto Attacks have a chance to increase the remaining duration of either Serpent Sting, Black Arrow or Immolation Trap by 5 seconds, on an enemy affected by either of these periodic damage effects.

Utility/defensives

Includes all other abilities, such as [Tar Trap][Frost Trap][Aspect of the Turtle][Concussive Shot][Counter Shot][Tranquilizing Shot][Misdirection][Pet Utility][Exhilaration][Disengage][Feign Death], and more.

Note that I would prefer if(on a class-wide basis)

[Posthaste] - becomes a baseline effect.
[Master’s Call] - becomes a baseline ability again.
[Pet Specializations] - Ferocity, Tenacity, and Cunning, if they were changeable again.
[Revive Pet] - Cast time brought down to 2 seconds again.
[Camouflage] - becomes a baseline ability again.

Talents

– Level 15 –

[Ever Burning] - If you fire Explosive Shot into an enemy already affected by a previous charge, the remaining duration of the previous charge is refreshed as well as increased by an additional 3 seconds.

An active charge can only have a max duration of 9 seconds.

Exotic Munition-procs now also increases the remaining duration of any active Explosive Shot charges you have on the current target by 3 seconds.

[Noxious Stings] - Increases the periodic critical damage of your Explosive Shot, Serpent Sting, and Black Arrow by 25%, and Serpent Sting now deals increased damage against targets below 30% health.

[Fusion Shot] - (Replaces Cobra Shot) - 1.5s cast time(castable while moving) - 6 sec recharge - 2 Charges
Fire a charged shot into the target, dealing Physical damage.

When your next ability that deals periodic damage hits the target, this triggers a volatile fusion immediately causing it to erupt dealing additional instant damage equal to 40% of it’s total duration. The target will take additional damage of the same type as the ability used to trigger the fusion for the next 12 sec.

Generates 25 Focus.

– Level 25 –

[Death Adder] - Serpent Sting also does instant damage equal to 30% of it’s total periodic effect. Also applies to Serpent Spread(Passive).

Every time Serpent Sting deals damage, you have a chance to gain 3 Focus.

If the passive effect “Exotic Munitions” procs while your Serpent Sting is active on the target, this also triggers the Death Adder-effect.

[Predator] - Casting Explosive Shot, Black Arrow, Serpent Sting, or Multi-Shot reduces the Focus cost and increases the damage of your next Arcane Shot by 30%. This effect stacks.

[Viper Venom] - Whenever Serpent Sting deals damage, there’s a chance that this can cause any other periodic damage effects you have applied to the target to instantly deal damage equal to one tick of their total effect.

If this proc occurs when the target is affected by Black Arrow, this will instantly refresh it’s remaining duration and restore 8 Focus back to you.

– Level 30 –

[Trailblazer] - [Natural Mending]

[Bestial Dicipline] - (Replaces Camouflage as a talent choice) - While your pet is active, you and your pet(s) regenerate X% of total health every 3 sec. Healing done to you and your pet(s) is increased by X%.

Damage taken by your pet(s) is reduced by 15%.

When Lone Wolf(Passive) is active, you continue to heal for the same amount of health.

– Level 35 –

[Cluster Shot] - 25 Focus - Instant cast - 15 sec cooldown.
Fire a shot which explodes on impact, instantly dealing Physical damage to the primary target and all other nearby enemies, and causing them to bleed for an additional X Physical damage over 3 sec.

Explosive Shot-charges which are still active on any target(s) hit by Cluster Shot will instantly erupt, dealing all remaining damage to the affected target(s) at once.

[Wildfire] - 8 sec duration
The periodic damage effect applied by Immolation Trap will now spread to any enemy standing in close range to an already burning target. As long as an enemy is within range of another enemy affected by Wildfire or Immolation Trap, the Wildfire will continue to spread.

[T.N.T.] - Explosive Shot now deals damage to all enemies near the affected target.

– Level 40 –

[Born to be Wild] - [Binding Shot]

[Adaption] - (Replaces Posthaste as a talent choice) Getting hit with an incapacitating effect(Stun/Fear), reduces the remaining cooldown of your Aspect of the Turtle by 30%. This effect has an internal cooldown of X sec.

Aspect of the Turtle is now usable when incapacitated.

When rooted or slowed, the remaining cooldown of Aspect of the Cheetah is reduced by 15 seconds. Aspect of the Cheetah frees you from movement impairing effects and you cannot be slowed below 100% movement speed while it’s active.

– Level 45 –

[Spitting Cobra] - Cobra Shot now deals an additional X% damage as Nature damage and extends the remaining duration of Serpent Sting on the enemy target by X sec.

Cobra Shot now has a high chance of generating double Focus when fired.

  • [Exothermia] (Requires talent: Fusion Shot)
    Increases your critical strike chance against any enemy you hit with Fusion Shot by X% for 12 sec. Dealing Fire damage to the target extends this effect even further.
    Fusion Shot generates an additonal 10 Focus over 5 sec.

[Pre-Heat] - The cooldown of Immolation Trap is reduced by 5 seconds every time Immolation Trap deals critical damage to the enemy target. In addition, if an enemy target dies while affected by Immolation Trap, it’s cooldown is reset.

[Intoxication] - Your ranged Auto Attacks have a chance to grant you 2 stacks of Intoxication. When Black Arrow is refreshed or when it expires from an enemy, you gain this effect as well.

  • Intoxication
    When you use an ability that deals instant damage, it has a 100% chance to be a critical strike.
    When you use an ability that deals periodic damage, damage caused by this ability is increased by an additional X%.

– Level 50 –

[Rapid Recuperation] - Damage caused by Explosive Shot have a chance to reduce the remaining cooldown of Munition Tactics by 1 sec.

Whenever Lock & Load procs, this causes the next Explosive Shot fired to have a 100% chance for each of it’s ticks to reduce the remaining cooldown of Munition Tactics by 1 sec.

Catalysis - Duration 10 sec.
Black Arrow increases any Fire-damage you deal to an enemy by X%.

In addition, Explosive Shot-charges granted by Lock & Load extend the remaining duration of Black Arrow by 1 second every time they deal damage to the affected target.

[Resourcefulness] - Reduces the cooldown of all traps and Black Arrow by 20%. Your Freezing Trap and Tar Trap both have a 100% chance to proc Lock & Load when triggered.

Freezing Trap when triggered manually can now withstand 100% more damage before shattering.

When an enemy breaks free from your Freezing Trap, they will take an additional 10% damage from all sources for the next X seconds.

Critical damage dealt by Immolation Trap is increased by X%.

Bonus effects/Bonus Traits

Got no good names for these traits/bonuses yet but…just wanted to add in some potential fun bonus effects that are spec specific. They can be tied to things such as Set Bonuses or something similar to Artifact Traits/Azerite Traits of the past.

(1) Lock and Load now grants 2 charges of Explosive Shot when it procs, instead of 1.

(2) When you get a Exotic Munitions-proc. It will grant you an additional bonus effect depending on which periodic damage-effect it benefits.

Serpent Sting - Until the current Serpent Sting debuff expires or is refreshed, every time it deals damage to the target, you instantly gain 3 Focus.

Black Arrow - The remaining cooldown of Black Arrow is instantly reset.

Immolation Trap - Your next Immolation Trap will deal an extra X% damage and will also have an increased X% chance to critically hit the affected target.

(3) Arcane Shot now triggers the passive effect “Exotic Munitions” when it hits an enemy target.


I hear you Briz, this is Junglez btw.

Even I can now accept that ranged SV is gone. It is NOT coming back ever. So we move…
I do think that a ranged focus dump and a slow on wildfire would be absolute stella for us right now. Would give back some real ranged flavour without sacrificing the melee spec this time. We have to move on tbh. RSV is gone.

I mean come on bro, we been arguing over here on EU now for 5 years now, you also been at it on the US forums with that other guy (can’t remember his name, the orc). Us 3 have been fighting this battle for a LOOOOOOOOOONG time, and its time to just move on.

Same could be said for MSV for ~10 years (tbh, it was never even a thing in Vanilla so more like ~12 years), yet it happened.

The irony is appalling.

[Remove]

  • Munition Tactics (& Rapid Recuperation)
  • Exotic Munitions
  • Lone Wolf
  • Ever Burning
  • Immolation Trap (& Wildfire + Pre-Heat)
  • Trap Mastery Freezing Trap “manual” effect
  • Adaption
  • Bestial Discipline (just call it Spirit Bond, but Survival still shouldn’t have it - it’s a BM thing)
  • Cluster Shot
  • Born to be Wild

[Add/Change]

  • Level 35 talent connected to Multi-Shot (which does not scale well with <3 targets compared to ST rotation)
  • Posthaste (talent, not baseline)
  • A Murder of Crows (baseline)
  • Wyvern Sting (talent)
  • Resourcefulness (baseline, remove Freezing Trap & Immolation Trap effects)
  • Snake Trap (baseline)
  • L&L 2 charges of Explosive Shot (baseline)
  • 2x Turtle charges (baseline)
  • Binding Shot stun (not root)

Comments:

  • Fusion Shot looks cool
  • Ever Burning is awkward (Cata mechanic that was scrapped for good reasons afaik)
  • Trap Mastery Freezing Trap effect is a bad change (it forces us to use a CC, our niche, as a defensive) just give 2x Turtle instead.
  • Immolation Trap is bad because it’s stationary (uncontrolled) and aimed, and will force its way into the ST rotation. The reason people liked SV was because it was so fluid. Aiming traps as part of DPS rotation/nuke is not fluid.
  • Too many things which will cause unnecessary and uncontrolled AoE in the ST rotation (e.g. entire level 35 talent row)
  • Lone Wolf is an MM thing, Spirit Bond is a BM thing. RSV needs to sufficiently be “its own thing”.

Summary:
It’s an OK-ish proposal but here’s the perfect version of RSV: https://www.mop-veins.tk/survival-hunter-pve-dps-guide

Feel free to elaborate on why/why not.

Why awkward?

I don’t recall that being a thing at any point during Cata, not even in the beta. Feel free to explain what you think is the intention behind the talent.

It’s specifically there to provide us with a choice that we can make, mostly as there are plenty of times/encounters where you have no use for Freezing Trap as a CC, but could very much benefit from what’s described above.

No one says that you would be forced to use it for anything. You use it however you want.

Appreciate the input, though it’s not necessarily a part of your “rotation” as much as it’s meant to be used situationally, hence the increased base CD. I myself never had anything against the use of traps for damage, back when that was a thing to a larger degree.

Besides…

You suggested for this to be added, yet by all accounts, this would also then be used as part of the rotation, for damage.

Cluster Shot is not uncontrolled. Use it whenever you feel that it’s safe/most beneficial. Also, it’s specifically designed primarily for AoE. That entire talent row is.

Lone Wolf is not solely a MM thing. It was originally implemented in WoD, for both MM and RSV. Besides, Lone Wolf’s primary function is to allow players to choose whether they want to fight with a pet, or not. That’s not something that is thematically locked to MM. Any Hunter spec that isn’t designed to revolve around the use of pets, is thematically in line with what Lone Wolf does. Again, it’s there to allow for players to have a choice of how they want to play.

RSV in MoP had no spec specific talents. All talents back then were specifically designed to be class-wide options.

It would be impossible to base the design off of that as the modern game is not built on such philosophies. You need a design that includes spec specific talents for it to fit.


Again, appreciate the feedback. Feel free to get back to me with more in-depth explanations as to why you would/would not want certain things.

Just like there will never be Classic Servers. :eyes:

Gromgarr is my char in the US-forum, just in case.

The most vocal player EU side about RSV coming is actually myself. Along with Bepples on US and Briz/ghorak making a LOT of noise for years.

I would be happy to see it back, but it has been like what? 5 or more years now. I actually think they would either add another ranged class or spec elsewhere before they ever bring back RSV. A reality I have come to accept, especially while not being as invested in the game over the last year. It is gone.

Thats what people also thought about Classic WoW. Yet here we are.
Im certainly not going to go as hard as Bepples, and i know the chances of succes are pretty minor, but voicing your opinion every now and then and stating that SV is still being shunned by the majority is just a miniscule thing to do.

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Go for it tbh. Hopefully something will change. But I really aint gonna scream from the rooftops anymore, as I done it for so many years and still not a thing.

However I completely understand a thread here and there to keep the idea alive.

The ones that are literally dead?

Oh my god, stop taking everything so literally. Go back to US if you want to bicker about semantics. The essence is clear. :roll_eyes:

The hell is wrong with your head?

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