Survival Hunter Midnight Alpha Feedback

Classes Hunter
1

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.

6 Likes
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  • 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
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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 :slight_smile: but he feels way different than what u get

1 Like
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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
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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.

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I still dont understand why they added dual wield when you have only 1 melee attack as surv now…

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They can always add skills later. Adding dual wield is a good decision.

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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.

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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.

11

Changes are beyond garbage. Making the highest skill cap spec in the game into some lame League of Legends champion is not the move at all.

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Hi! I was so much looking for a thread like this, since i am a main Survival Hunter since Legion overhaul. I went into beta today, and I have to say that it is clear that Blizzard still has no clue on where it is going with this particular spec and with hunter class in general. It is my opinion, that if you decide to make such a drastic change , like turning a spec from ranged into melee, that this option completely changes the identity of said class, and believe me i am totally on board with that, since I was about to delete my hunter when the changes in playstyle before legion were announced. However I was patient and wanted to see what a melee hunter would feel like. I always played main surv with a mix of marksman, unlike the majority of players and the suggested build that was main Marksman with a bit of beast mastery. I found myself surprised and falling in love with that new melee hunter playstyle and i proudly main the spec ever since. I do feel like however, that apart from the fact that i got accustomed to melee playstyle and the whole survivability/ versatility of the spec, there is absolutely no incentive in terms of fun and reward in terms of damage, to motivate people to play this spec. I feel like every change made since legion has led to the spec becoming worse and worse in terms of optimisation and now with the midnight changes, It is obvious to me that Blizzard has admitted their inability to handle a total overhaul in a class playstyle, so they decided to make survival spec completely unplayable to make people stop playing it alltogether.

First of all, why take carve/butchery completely off and replace it with boomstick, instead of giving the option between the two (like carve and butchery was before) or NOT make the change alltogether? Survival is supposed to be a MELEE spec. Why are you straying away from this identity? Boomstick feels like a worse version of Fury of the Eagle, which i wasnt using anyway, but still felt better aesthetically, plus to force people into using this, so that they can have some more AoE, this is absurd to say the least.

Second: Hatchet toss. Another unnecessary addition to the kit in my opinion. Obviously it is meant to be an attempt in adding a pulling/tapping ability to survival hunter since it is not a ranged spec. You could do this with kill command, which had free cost and could easily reset up to 5 times (plus the 2 charges you had) if talented accordingly. Blizzard could use hatchet toss as a finisher instead, since kill shot was removed from the kit.

Third point is Flamefang Pitch ability. This is basically the legendary passive effect of Wildfire bomb from Shadowlands, just put into an extra ability. Totally unnecessary addition, since it could be added as a passive talent, or made into a new type of wildfire infusion passive effect. The fact that it resets the cooldown of wildfire bomb (if talented accordingly) is interesting, even though it turns the hunter into some kind of bomber. Bombs and explosions should be a side flavour to the survival playstyle, NOT its main identity.

Finally i would like to address takedown ability. If i understand correctly, it is supposed to combine coordinated assault and flanking strike, but i believe that it lacks by far the burst that those two abilities offered, thus making the damage output of the hunter even smaller.

In terms of Heroic talents, sentinel feels like the wrong choice to make in my opinion, while it has been pretty much the only choice so far. So to make such a drastic overhaul (even though it retains its AoE identity) feels like a bad choice. Admitedly, Packleader feels aesthetically correct to play as a survival hunter, in terms of identity, and i have yet to try it, so that i can form an opinion. So i wont go further in depth about it. All in all, i am unimpressed by the changes made to survival spec, and there is a high chance i will be rolling devourer demon hunter next expansion instead of my usual hunter main. The dual wielding option is a welcome and long expected relief (as long as i find a pair of worthy weapons of course), but the overall impression is bitter

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