I am playing SV since its rework and since some talent trees are getting a rework in TWW expansion I would like to share some changes that would make the spec more fun and easier to balance for M+.
Right now we have only 1 option for AOE damage and it is bombs and as the key levels go higher spreading serpent sting dot also starts to add up. The changes will focus on putting some power into other abilities as well.
Changes:
Carve/Butchery
Problem: Butchery will always be picked over Carve so the choice makes no sense. It does not benefit from any talent or buff so in the current form is a filler to gain charges of bombs(eg: Poison Injection talent is very hard to make use even vs 5 targets it is now). Also the fact that it requires another talent to reduce bomb CD.
Solutions:
Carve made default or removed.
Bomb CD reduction talent - Frenzy Strikes baked into the Carve / Butchery.
Frenzy Strikes (New): Butchery now benefits from Mongoose Bite/ Raptor buffs (Mongoose Fury, Tip of the Spear) and works with same talents (Poison Injection, Spearhead).
Hero Talents
Problem: Currently they only work with Coordinated Assault.
Solution: Make them work with both CA and Spearhead - and give them 1.5 min ICD so we cannot abuse two cooldowns.
Fury of the Eagle
Note: I love using this ability and i love what S3 2p tier-set did for it.
Problem: It requires a lot of talent points for a reward that is not worth compared to the other choices.
Solutions:
Bake Ruthless Marauder talent into the base spell at reduced power: Crit Chance increased below 50%, Crits reduce Wildfire Bomb and Flanking Strike CD by 1 second.
Ruthless Marauder (New): Using Fury of the Eagle gives us and our pet 15% Crit Chance and Crit Damage (current S3 tier set implementation)
Viper’s Venom
Note: this change is a personal preference and will work only if there is not GCD for the procs.
Changes:
Free Serpent Sting when it procs - it feels more interactive and it also will synergize with the Hydra’s Bite talent.
Free Serpent Stings are NOT on GCD.
Other
A bit too many 2 Point nodes that are only blank % increases
If these changes are made we can remove some of the overall % damage and rebalance the % for specific spell to get in line for both ST and AOE. ST was always easy to buff us to get in line for Raids since buffing Mongoose/ Raptor does not impact the M+ too much.
While this comes more from a M+ perspective it will also allow us to have other profiles in Raids too.
It will also be easier to design tier sets that are good for both AOE and ST.
They could buff killcommand damage (50-100%) so pac leader and all the talent points for more killcommand got vallue
Atm. You only press it for focus gain and you finlay can press your other abilitys again, at last in PvP
Main Hunter tree the left side bottom is dead for SV
But also a new mastery could be a think that include killcommand
And 2x point nodes yeah F
2%crit damage what a placeholder Talent
5% kill command damage nothing +5% still nothing
And all the other flat damage % increase
both abilities do no dmg and are just there to reduce bomb cd.
I remember in legion that butchery actually did huge dmg hence it had a longer cd with 3 charges.
Now it is just a stupid ability and I don’t know why because surv aoe is not great and was only fine with the S3 tier.
some QoL would also be bombs not being frontal aoe.
Mongoose window should be 20s
flanking strike also needs a massive dmg buff as it is currently also basically used as a focus reg filler.
Killshot procs should always give an aoe killshot (3-5 targets). At the same notion they could bring back the venthyr ability (aka black arrow that procs kill shot but resets on early death)
last but not least, CA assault just is terrible. waiting for the pet autoattack is bad. Why not give the buff every 3 seconds automatically so you don’t have to wait some milliseconds till your stupid pet attacks?
Currently if a simpler tier set does not interact with bombs probably it will not be that great for M+. But if the butchery changes above will be made, and Butchery damage tuned just a little, then sets like the current one in S4 ,will actually be good for both single target and AOE.
In bfa alpha there was a different flanking strike talent where if you and your pet were in range, kill command would also cause you to hit your target. I would love to have that instead of some 2 point node
Either make Carve baseline, otherwise buff it so it’s not just worse butchery. Atleast in theory Butchery should be the burstier option (3 charges and much higher dmg) while carve has lower cd.
It’s just skewed heavily against carve right now. Idk if we could reduce it’s cd by a sec or two? Maybe slightly buff it’s dmg (not to butcherly levels) to make it a proper sustained aoe option.
Also argeed on the hero talents, please don’t “force” CA, alow synergy with spearhead too and honestly have atyleast one path that don’t synergise with either, I prefer the no cd playstlye for m+ as an example.
Survival simply needs a talent tree rework to streamline it.
Put Fury of the Eagle in the middle and Coordinated Assault on the left.
Fix the Spearhead and Flanking Strike bugs.
Remove all the two tier talents we have in the tree, with the exception of the bottom to gatekeep the capstone talents.