it has been two expansions since you changed survival to be a melee specc and removed the ranged dot-based specc option for hunters, which was a huge disappointment for a lot of people who loved this playstyle like me.
Since you probably won´t change survival back to ranged ever again, I have thought of a good compromise for both people who liked the old survival playstyle and people who like being a melee hunter.
My suggestion is to give Marksman talent options that reproduce the old survival gameplay. For example:
Add MOP-Style Explosive Shot as a talent option that REPLACES Aimed shot when you choose this talent. (2 charges, 6 sec cd fire dot etc as it was in mop)
Make Lock&Load baseline, add interaction with Explosive Shot talent choice (procc 2 free explosives as it was back then)
Add Black Arrow (as it was in MOP) and give it´s ticks extra chances to procc lock&load
Change Serpent Sting Talent to a passive that causes Arcane Shot and Multishot to also apply Serpent Sting to all targets hit (I think this was mop or wod where you basically didn´t have to use serpent sting manually anymore)
OR
Make Serpent Sting a baseline ability to Marksman AND add a talent option “Serpent Spread” that causes Multishot to also apply Serpent Sting to all targets hit
(You would still have to use Serpent Sting manually on ST like it was in Cata and this option might be easier to balance, just put Serpent Spread in the AOE talent row)
Since you are already adding back Hunters Mark and Kill Shot (which is GREAT), I don´t have to make any suggestions about them here.
Obviously, these talent options would have to be put in seperate talent rows so you could select them all together, and they could take the place of some of the current talent options that would be changed or made baseline (Hunters Mark, Lock&Load, Explosive Shot, Serpent Sting…)
Additionally, they would have to be tuned to be on par with the other talent options and not be OP of course.
But I think this could be a great way to bring back the old playstyle for those who loved it and still keep the current one.
PS: I´m not entirely sure what I would do with Rapid Fire… Maybe remove it altogether? Never really liked that ability. But I´d love to hear your ideas.
Since this ia a talent option, this is sure to be better than aimed shot. However if the other talents in this row buffs aimed shot somehow, this is a really good idea.
I love this.
I like this even more.
I kind of like the classic wow stings, having to choose between serpent sting, viper sting, scorpid sting etc. I hope we at least get viper sting back. Anyways, your second idea could work, if only the other talents in the same row improve our AOE some other way so that isnt the only way to aoe.
I dont like rapid fire either. Just remove the 2 charges on aimed shot, make it we can use it all we want. With some abilities returning, I think that would be enough for us. Maybe increase steady shot focus regen or our base regen but thats it.
All hunters playing Survival on PvP Leader list .If i want play melee i have more option Rogue,Paladin,Warrior,Feral Druid,Demon Hunter(easy win),Monk,Death Knight… but i don’t want to play melee.Draenor was good for Survival hunter DoTs,traps and Freezing arrow for kite maybe Blizzard can add ranged ( BOW) skills for survival hunter or 4th spect like Druids. We cannot use Aim shot this skill have 2.1 sec cast time (%19 Haste) just 19k damage (No Crit) its not fair.Thank you if you read this.
I want permanent aspects back since warriors are getting stances and palas are getting auras.
Aspect of the hawk can increase hunter damage
aspect of the beast can increase pet damage for bm
aspect of the chameleon can makes you untrackable
aspect of the monkey, bear or eagle increases melee damage
Then have a spell called something like empower aspect which boost that aspects power
So for aspect of hawk you can make a cd thats useful for marksman maybe increases haste like trushot aura
aspect of the beast have it be bigger cd like aspect of the wild is now
aspect of the bear(surv) would be basically coordinated assault
aspect of the cameleon can make you go camouflage but when you are in it you cant even be seen by dh if you stand still
I think with turtle and cheetah, they should retain there current forms but call them something different maybe like survival instincts and wild rush. With cheetah becoming what trailblazer is now but make it an aspect.
I think serpent sting should be made baseline for bm and mm with them both not being on the gcd.
Also Bm should have two pets by default like in legion that was a great idea and you should have stuck with it.
Improve pet families, they are on the right track with how they exist now but we need more useful and varied things that they should be able to do. There is literally no point picking a cat/ wind serpent when you can pick a scale hide and you could even make that argument for a gorilla as well. Also some spec/ability combos have like 4 families in them where as others have 2, so spread them out more. Moreover, I cant state this enough make more useful or fun abilities even if they are just QoL improvements. Right now there is no use in me using 90% of my stable. There is almost no instance where I will need a dragon hawk or a wolf, not saying I should want to bring every pet to raid or they should just be cosmetic but so many of them are useless right now; which is a shame.
Finally since we cant enchant out weapons, we should have different cosmetic default amo types, quivers ,ammo pouches and pet collars(auras). The first couple are self explanatory since and have already been done in legion to a smaller degree it shouldn’t be too hard to expand them with new colours and new models. The pet collar would basically just be the aesthetic effects as big debufs or curses on your pet, so one could be fire another shadow, maybe light etc. its simple and would be easy to implement but would add so much more customisation to pets, there are so many mogs i just cant really wear as bm or surv because there is literally no pet that goes with the mog in a usefull family.
Yes, my goal here is not to have a super OP specc, what I am after is just the playstyle. So the other talents would have to modify Aimed shot somehow to make it competitive.
Great idea, I really loved having permanent Aspects, switching to Fox when you needed to move and Hawk as a go-to.
In regards to the Explosive shot talent replacing Aimed shot that would obviously be very strong because it makes the specc WAY more mobile.
A possible fix for this would be to maybe make Aimed shot castable while moving baseline and turning Steady shot into the stand-still ability, like it was in cata. What I really liked about that playstyle was that you were able to unload tons of damage on the move if you had focus, but once you were focus-starved you had to stand still and cast to get it back.
Sure, I am all for this! I always love to see more cosmetic options. Although the gameplay changes should be a priority of course.
Thank you guys for your feedback so far. Hopefully blizz will see this and maybe take some ideas to give people who liked playing a ranged-dot hunter that playstyle back.
(Oh and yes, I am Tyraetar, I posted this on my DK before I changed to my hunter for some reason, I don´t really use the forums too often so idk if I can change the OP to show my hunter and I don´t really want to make a new post.)
MM hunter sod have a passive buff they can use arcine shoot while mounted and it does not unmout if u use it. cod just run around mounted shoot peoples with arcine shoot.
Jorhaylosh’s other character here. In addition to my first post, I have things to say.
I changed my mind, I actually totally agree with the OP now, including serpent sting working with multishot/trickshots.
I’d also like to see cosmic quivers, we can equip a quiver in “C” and transmog it.
Exotic munitions for MM would be nice.
Currently all stings except serpent sting are extremely situational they arent even worth taking, they need to be improved so its actually worth taking them, or made baseline.
Well, get pets to what they were before Legion. They felt more responsive, more intelligent, and tougher.
Give BM a slow comand for the pet, like “Bite the Ankles” or something like that. In general i think BM is essencially well. Though isn’t a specc i like.
Either make survival be an hybrid of ranged and melee (Like was kiiiiiinda in Vanilla. With a mix of both Legion/BfA with MoP versions), or find a way to make a ranged survival that doesn’t ruin completly and utterly MM (like nearly happened).
When comes to MM…
-Give surivability tools (cuz… nearly everything can kill MM hunters with ease);
-An hard hitting, meaningful, powerful shot with low-mid to mid focus consumtion WITHOUT a cooldown associated (But a casting),
-Allow casting on movement (since we so depend so much of moving), BUT give a buff when still for more like two seconds (don’t remember the name of the ability from WoD but it was essencially that. Was really, REALLY awesome);
-A shot that causes normal damage, but gives a debuff to the target that if used in x time, gives a 20% damage increase, stacked 5 times or more max;
-Remove Rapid Fire, or make it an ability that halves all auto-attack, casting, and cooldown on the spells, plus doubles/triples the focus regeneration;
-Convert Trueshot again into Trueshot Aura, in which boosts crit to all ranged attacks (shots, spells, thrown, etc);
-Boost Arcane Shot damage in exhange for a 1 or 2 sec CD;
-Boost Multi-Shot to do about 30% more damage;
-“Shotgun Blast”: A new ability that causes a short cone of damage, and causes more damage the closest the foes are.
AND FOR EVERY SPECC!
-Return the animal Aspects as an activateable permanent buff, as was on the earlier installments of the game;
-Make the pet an essencial tool for all speccs (or make at least have a pet as MM not as damage punishable as it is now);
-Return small things as snake traps, flame trap, and stings to ALL speccs.
im not a massive fan of trying to split MM Into both catagories, as i feel the balance would just outright upset 50% of the speccs playerbase. i dont think it’d go the way players imagine and feel like if old survival comes back it needs to in a drastic way either
a Fourth SPecc entry
Revert Survival back.
we saw them try to split classes in half prior to facilitate this sorta thing… and generally its flopped everytime… i can just see MM being pulled in two seperate directions and just becoming the New Survival for hunter in SL.
not saying ur ideas are bad… im just saying i’d be concerned to the finished product and be worried that we’ll see MM benched for 2 years in trade for such changes, I think blizzard Need to wake up and really look at where majorities lie in consideration to this.
Survival is at its Lowest popularity currently, and they’ve torn pretty much everything out the specc, its just a Melee BM at this point… which was the opposite they were intending to begin with.
Aye i have seen that Post up and it does kinda evidently show, that the majority want the old Survival back comparitively… i get its a introduced thing… and they’ll have to recreate all the legion skins for those who did them all with survival in legion.
but im ngl… but they released a Specc which was a Minority… and then made the specc so bad in BFA not even the minority want to play it anymore xD
About MM. Its OK, comparing to Draenor (good) and Pandaria (awesome). The best thing is to revert MM to those times which will never happen. So my only wish would be — please, make Trueshot off GCD. Its 15 sec boost and 1.5 sec we spend just waiting to only start (!) casting aimed shot, so if think, the very first damage from Aimed Shot comes at +/- 2.5 sec after we hit Trueshot, its very sad
Personnaly i don’t think bringing back MM hunter from MOP, the main reason is the gameplay don’t reflect the idea of a archer. I mean the gameplay may be good but soo many post of hunter speak about black arrow / serpent sting and other thing as a 4rd spec, and i agree a 4rth spec is pretty good.
Personnaly what i want in Shadowland that can be awesome in the gameplay for Marksmanship is :
Aimed shot cost more focus (45) and deal a way more damage and pierce armor
Rapid Fire now cost focus , 2 focus per shot . Can still channel while moving (ideal for situation in raiding /pvp ) (end until 0 focus).
Volley channeled is back, with a channel that cost focus (end until 0 focus).
A spell that i will cast Focused Shot that spend all your focus for dmg, more focus you have , more it deal damage, can’t be dodged / blocked and pierce armor. 45 seconds cooldown
Double the arcane shot spell dmg and cost, so in pvp situation against team with full armor he can still be efficient.
Adding a talent when using steady shot (or hunter mark ? ) the target got -25% reduced healing, that gonna compense the fact marksmanship don’t have pet that make the power of hunter in pvp. beacause BM and survival got soo much avantage with pet that markman got no utility without pet and if marksman must get pet he can’t get lone wolf so keep lone wolf please blizzard, we love it but we need a talent like that ^^
with this focus is now more important than BFA , where if your rotation is good you don’t need to press steady shot, now steady shot can have a big impact and more the hunter got focus more he can deal damage, hunter will now have a ability to set up kill and not a pure constant gameplay and waiting dampening ( after all that why we play marksman = being a sniper, not a axe thrower.
So with the idea of “sniper” marksman can now being dangerous and like if you take the 3,5 second cast of a aim shot it’s like taking chaos bolt in actual BFA destro lock but with not the healing reduction system.
i want aspect back too , like aspect of the hawk that increase your damage or aspect of the cheetath on GCD that up your speed to 30% and when hit does not slow you , a boolean on aspect as it have to be.
I got soo much to tell but when there will be topic for Shadowland on forum and we got more information about convenant and how it work i will open a full topic only for marksman.
But i pref the marksman of MoP stay in the past or is maked as 4rd spec, no way i want it as the name of Marksmanship
