Looking at the changes planned for SV hunter in Midnight, it feels like the spec will be too bland and boring compared to the current version. It is concerning that outside of a 10 second window the spec will basically spam Raptor Strike and Kill Command with some bombs in between.
Pros:
- Flamefang Pitch visuals are looking cool and imbuing your weapon to hit with extra fire damage sounds also good if it applied to all enemies hit.
- The Apex talents giving haste based on the stacks on Mongoose Furry
- Sticky Bombs talent as a return to a legendary effect from Shadowlands
- Strike as One talent
- Boomstick visuals and its scaling with the less number of targets if talented into it.
Cons:
- The removal of Serpent Sting and Butchery
- Boomstick looks very cool, but feels out of place for the spec
- Takedown - a damage increase with a 8 second duration, and a 1.5 min CD baseline seems a bit lacklustre for an offensive CD
- Leader of the Pack Hogstrider changes, since now it affect Hatches toss instead of Raptor Strike/Mongoose
- It feels like the talent tree has many 2 point nodes in the middle section
What I would like to see:
- Give back Serpent Sting and Butchery mechanics as they add to the gameplay in between the offensive CDs, making it more interesting and fun
- In the place of the current Kill Shot talents, add more nodes for Serpent Sting gameplay. For example:
- Volatile Reaction (Targets affected by the Serpent Sting erupt with nature damage when hit bi the Wildfire Bomb)
- Latent Poison + the ability for Butchery or for Raptor Swipe to consume the stacks, so it has uses in AOE
- Revert the changes to Hogstrider. It adds depth to the gameplay and it fun to use it to spread Serpent Sting and other Raptor Strike interactions.
- Butchery baseline damage increase (it currently amounts to ~2% in M+) and also have a talent node which makes Raptor Strike stack a damage increase for Butchery. Ideally it can stack to a larger number for a big damage boost moment.
- Takedown improvements: either make it last longer, or have the default CD be 1 minute without having to spend 2 talent points for it.
- Since both Boomstick and Flamefang Pitch are cool looking, these two and the talents associated with them can become choice nodes
These changes would give more room for design for the spec as it can have multiple builds such as:
- A physical damage build: Raptor Strike, Butchery, Boomstick
- Nature and Fire build: Serpent Stick, Wildfire Bomb, Flamefang Pitch
- Bomb build
- Latent poison build
Each of these builds can change from tier to tier due to Tier set bonusses enhancing a certain playstyle, keeping the spec fun, enjoyable and refreshing to play.
5 Likes
- Boomstick visuals and its scaling with the less number of targets if talented into it.
This visual is so bad. Doesn’t give me rexxar vibes at all. The little pistol I can let slide but this is not it. Would love the hatchet ability to be more than just an arcane shot. the other stuff I agree with but boomstick isnt it.
I think as we have rexxar on our talent page for survival they need to focus more heavy into this fantasy with some axe throwing. But we all know it wont change.
1 Like
i dont know who thought that explosions are the thing that sv players want fell more like a firemage than a hunter since tww…
i mean u have rexxar even in the talent tree background i have him lvl 50 in hots 
but he feels way different than what u get
1 Like
I think they pruned Survival Hunter a bit too much. It’s a shame to lose both Butchery and Serpent Sting.
Maybe there’s a way to bring back some of that flavor—what if Serpent Sting (or a new Serpent Venom) was tied to Hatchet Toss?
For example:
“Coat your hatchet in venom, causing Hatchet Toss to apply Serpent Venom to your target. Reapplying Serpent Venom to a target causes it to splash to nearby enemies at X% effectiveness.”
This could bring back a bit more depth. After all, Survival is supposed to utilize animal venom as part of its fantasy. Personally, I’ve only known Survival as a spear-wielding spec, since I started playing it in Legion. But I actually like that they’re moving away from the pure spear theme. Dual wielding is going to be a lot of fun! It’s something many in the community have been asking for. Can’t wait to test the rework in the beta, hopefully they’ve added a bit more rotational flavor by then.
2 Likes
Boomstick does not look out of place, Survival should be all about bombs and inventions.
The main flaw of surv is that it’s too tied to a pet like it’s a second beastmaster spec. Pet should be optional like for marksman. So mastery should be changed too.
I still dont understand why they added dual wield when you have only 1 melee attack as surv now…
They can always add skills later. Adding dual wield is a good decision.
Explains Rexxar being the background character for survival. They’re better off making it a full Rexxar style spec and give the bombs to MM.
The most recent build for Survival is looking interesting. Between Tip of the Spear reintroduction, deeper integration of Boomstick into the core rotation with the Wildfire bomb interactions, we’re seeing very gentle mechanical complexity again (not much, but it’s at least something) and from outside, it looks pretty fun to use.
The problems as they are now - Flamefang Pitch will be awkward to use due to ground target and persistent damage puddle and ties into very little in the rest of the tree. Take that ability back to the drawing board honestly, because this somehow brought back the sins of old traps and TWW Sentinel in a single package.
Bleed talents are underwhelming, they need a second look. As things stand, they are entirely passive and have no gameplay interaction.
Takedown - with its short duration, the ability priority under takedown is unintuitive and confused. Assuming Raptor Swipe is tuned up to be worth it, we either push out our big hitters (2 bombs + boomstick) out of our damage CD, or we do use them, and only get one or two raptor strikes under it, making the entire second apex node kind of useless. If devs want to keep Takedown as impactful but short duration CD, it might be worth reconsidering the second Apex node or keying the effect into something else.
Pack Leader - Due to affecting Axe Toss and reducing boar to one charge down from three, the entire secondary effect of Hogstrider is worthless in single target encounters. It either needs massive damage increase on primary target even at 1 stack, or it needs to be attached to another ability
Other notes - it’s odd to me that Survival only has one melee attack now. The return of butchery was suggested earlier in the thread as remedy, though I think it could be also interesting if Flamefang Pitch was replaced with a thematically appropriate melee attack.
That’s about all I have to say for this build of SV on Alpha, at least without actually getting my hands on it to play around.