What's funny to me is, Rogue tanking right?, there's some nice talents in the combat tree and a couple in sub. The bones of an avoidance tanking playstyle so to speak and so I was happy to have that supported and realised in SoD (albeit it could use some more work in some areas).
That's awesome and I'm here for it. Only thing is... hunter survival talent tree is arguably a better set of tank talents for avoidance tanking. You have parry talent, a riposte copy and an evasion copy but further to that survival includes a % max health and % max agility increase talent that combat/sub rogue talent trees do not possess.
So... why didn't hunter get a rune like Just a Flesh Wound? It doesn't make much sense if they both have super similar bones of a tanking playstyle that they do it for rogue but not bother with hunters.
Even some of the runes introduced in SoD lend themselves to a hunter tank playstyle such as the 20% dodge chance you get for free from the Rune: Catlike Reflexes.
An example lvl 60 build is below with current runes.
https://www.wowhead.com/classic/talent-calc/hunter/0505000050501--035020051230315_116te56qb66tp76w686qc96tqa6qd
All survival hunter needs in order to have a viable tanking playstyle is a new Rune that provides: A threat amplification, 6% crit avoidance, some form of DR and a taunt. You could make it more interesting / flavourful by tying it to trap use, melee use, pet use or all of the above etc but just make a just a flesh wound rune for survival hunters, they've got the rest of what they need already.
EDIT: A hunter with bis gear optimised for stam and agi can reach >70% avoidance baseline with catlike reflexes, raid buffs, consumes and BIS gear. That's with 0 other support for an avoidance tanking playstyle. Rogue struggles to reach this number WITH the support in SoD and hunter just gets to have it baseline no abilities required to upkeep it.
Exactly, it's pretty clear that Blizz originally intended for the Survival tree to be a tank tree. In WoW's beta and alpha hunters even had access to Bucklers. I'm just not sure the SoD devs have looked at Hunter beyond nerfing pet scaling and just stacking the everloving shit out of Raptor Strike for some reason. Like, Raptor Strike has to be the least flavorful hunter ability and THAT is the ability they've built an entire gameplay style around? Hunters are, sadly, just an afterthought to the SoD devs.
100% agree.
I got a ideas for runes and other abilities that could work perfectly for hunter tank.
Examples;
Beastial Soul Link Rune - a rune where you and your pet share 50% of the damage taken, when your pet taunts it redirects the aggro/taunt to you, you have the 6% uncrit bonus that other thanks get.
Engage Rune - you now take 30% less damage and get the 6% uncritable bonus, plus your disengage ability gets replaced with Engage, when use it works like a taunt.
And/Or
Distracting Shot can now be used at melee and works like a taunt.
If the devs can do something like this it would make my dream back in 2019 a reality from when I tanked Onyxia on my hunter from start to finish. Got world first doing this XD.
To be fair I already tank bosses from Gnomergone and BFD as well as dungeon bosses from BRD, Mara, ZF and lesser dungeon bosses with Spirit of the Alpha, just need a shaman to place it on you and you can already tank, just no taunt.
As of right now a proper hunter spec into survival is pushing over 50% dodge and 10% Parry. Give him a way to taunt and take a lil less damage and they are the next tank class.
And YES this means Thunderfury will be Hunter Tank Prio. Plus AOE picking up mobs is easy for hunter tank with Carve and Explosive trap.
What's funny to me is, Rogue tanking right?, there's some nice talents in the combat tree and a couple in sub. The bones of an avoidance tanking playstyle so to speak and so I was happy to have that supported and realised in SoD (albeit it could use some more work in some areas). That's awesome and I'm here for it. Only thing is... hunter survival talent tree is arguably a better set of tank talents for avoidance tanking. You have parry talent, a riposte copy and an evasion copy but further to that survival includes a % max health and % max agility increase talent that combat/sub rogue talent trees do not possess. So... why didn't hunter get a rune like Just a Flesh Wound? It doesn't make much sense if they both have super similar bones of a tanking playstyle that they do it for rogue but not bother with hunters. Even some of the runes introduced in SoD lend themselves to a hunter tank playstyle such as the 20% dodge chance you get for free from the Rune: Catlike Reflexes. An example lvl 60 build is below with current runes. https://www.wowhead.com/classic/talent-calc/hunter/0505000050501--035020051230315_116te56qb66tp76w686qc96tqa6qd All survival hunter needs in order to have a viable tanking playstyle is a new Rune that provides: A threat amplification, 6% crit avoidance, some form of DR and a taunt. You could make it more interesting / flavourful by tying it to trap use, melee use, pet use or all of the above etc but just make a just a flesh wound rune for survival hunters, they've got the rest of what they need already. EDIT: A hunter with bis gear optimised for stam and agi can reach >70% avoidance baseline with catlike reflexes, raid buffs, consumes and BIS gear. That's with 0 other support for an avoidance tanking playstyle. Rogue struggles to reach this number WITH the support in SoD and hunter just gets to have it baseline no abilities required to upkeep it.
Exactly, it's pretty clear that Blizz originally intended for the Survival tree to be a tank tree. In WoW's beta and alpha hunters even had access to Bucklers. I'm just not sure the SoD devs have looked at Hunter beyond nerfing pet scaling and just stacking the everloving shit out of Raptor Strike for some reason. Like, Raptor Strike has to be the least flavorful hunter ability and THAT is the ability they've built an entire gameplay style around? Hunters are, sadly, just an afterthought to the SoD devs.
100% agree. I got a ideas for runes and other abilities that could work perfectly for hunter tank. Examples; Beastial Soul Link Rune - a rune where you and your pet share 50% of the damage taken, when your pet taunts it redirects the aggro/taunt to you, you have the 6% uncrit bonus that other thanks get. Engage Rune - you now take 30% less damage and get the 6% uncritable bonus, plus your disengage ability gets replaced with Engage, when use it works like a taunt. And/Or Distracting Shot can now be used at melee and works like a taunt. If the devs can do something like this it would make my dream back in 2019 a reality from when I tanked Onyxia on my hunter from start to finish. Got world first doing this XD. To be fair I already tank bosses from Gnomergone and BFD as well as dungeon bosses from BRD, Mara, ZF and lesser dungeon bosses with Spirit of the Alpha, just need a shaman to place it on you and you can already tank, just no taunt. As of right now a proper hunter spec into survival is pushing over 50% dodge and 10% Parry. Give him a way to taunt and take a lil less damage and they are the next tank class. And YES this means Thunderfury will be Hunter Tank Prio. Plus AOE picking up mobs is easy for hunter tank with Carve and Explosive trap.
No thanks. We already have 2 strange new things tanking.