Spoken by a guy who’s never aimed a skill shot in his life
SV needs a change of defences. They’re cute for BM and MM but on Sv they feel weaker. Maybe that’s just me.
They should make sv full on engineer spec. With shotgun, gadgets, bombs and inventions like turrets and mines.
It’s one of the best specs in the game currently, could be even better.
I feel like Survival is missing its fantasy.
Personally, I don’t play Hunter, but it’s the one class I think about, and I would love to play Survival — but it is missing something.
It should be about surviving (Bear Grylls, Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator) and elusiveness, like a cat waiting for its prey and being impossible to catch.
I think that leaning into Disengage and “Charge” (Takedown), switching between ranged and melee combat, is the right way for Survival Hunter playstyle. Maybe “leave Frost Trap/Tar Trap when Disengage.” Maybe even setting Tar Trap on fire after. That way, Survival has the choice to leave combat or quickly escape into an counterattack. Lower their cooldowns so it’s about melee into range into melee again.
But there is a problem with range, the “cosmetic” shotgun. I don’t like it, why can’t I have a bow?
I think here we should give Survival a ranged weapon slot. We already have warriors grinding for two two-handed weapons, so I don’t think it’s a problem. Then we can use the ranged weapon for ranged attacks and the melee weapon for melee. We can expand on this by giving Survival the option between pure melee and pure ranged (probably stronger melee) while ranged options are more defensive, when you escape your enemy but still have the option to punish him from afar.
Let Survival use more traps and give him bonus damage on targets affected by your traps.
Traps should affect bosses, but in a different way. Tar Trap could cover the boss in tar, letting us set him on fire. Frost Trap could cover the boss in frost, letting us shatter him. Why don’t we change Wildfire Bomb into Wildfire Trap, that can set the boss on fire and deal more damage to enemies covered in tar, or a bleed version of Wildfire Trap could shatter frozen enemies.
Then, because I love elusiveness, jumping from ranged into melee and vice versa, there should also be an option for powerful melee attacks. At this point, our only interactions are ranged, so give him Fire Strike when he sets his weapon on fire, letting him burn tarred enemies, and give him a choice between Explosive Shot to shatter enemies or Explosive Strike to do it in melee.
Overall, that would mean lower cooldowns on traps because they are now part of our DPS, lower cooldowns on Disengage and Takedown because they are also part of the rotation. Option to use traps on target. Maybe an option to have two Frost Traps, where we can use one to stop someone and the second for damage but with some clever smart cast. For example, the cooldown would start only if the trap breaks/shatters on enemies. That way, it wouldn’t use the trap on a frozen/CC’d enemy.
Mainly, I would like a jumping from range into melee and back, something like a Red Mage from FFXIV. I’m kinda sad that we have similar gameplay now with Devastation DH. The traps idea was just quick brainstorming while typing this essay.
With each new expansion, SV is becoming more and more of a Goblin-ey spec. It’s like SV is letting you feel like you’re fighting how a Goblin would. I think it’s really cool.
There’s still a couple of things. Mainly, I’m okay with SV still having a pet, but I think there’s too much emphasis on the pet damage if we’re really going for this gadgeteer fantasy. I don’t want Kill Command anymore. I’d rather have Explosive Shot and another gadget to throw at an enemy. All abilities should all be “…and in addition, your pet does a thing.” Commanding your pet to attack should not be part of SV’s rotation, it should not be an ability, and should just happen passively as you’re casting your actual abilities. Hell, I’d even be okay with the Lone Wolf node being added back into the talent tree if that’s what people desire from their SV.
To me, they’re headed in the direction. The new SV makes my small green heart very happy. But I think the spec is falling a smidge short of perfect, in my opinion. Give us more toys, more chaos, less emphasis on pet abilities, and I think they’ll have nailed the fantasy.
Yes, hunter really needs dwarf/goblin spec.
Also hero spec too. Playing as dwarf gunner and have only option to being undead archer or moonfire druid is very bad design
Sv can’t play Dark Ranger.
I agree that the two options of Hero Talents that SV have don’t gel thematically with what the flavour of the spec clearly is, now. Pack Leader is the more forgivable of the two, and is actually how I’d suggest SV’s pet somewhat behaves like mechanically - like it should be a bit more like a thing that gets summoned in and out of battle as SV performs it’s rotation, maybe. But again it’s too much emphasis on beasts. A whole Hero Talent tree dedicated to a beast theme for a spec that doesn’t feel like it should be about beasts.
The more I think about it, the more I’m sorta tempted to retract what I’ve previously commented about SV pets, as I’m starting to believe that BM should be the only Hunter spec that can use pets..BM gets two, MM gets none but can spec into a talent that lets them have one, SV gets zero.
As for Sentinel, it has got absolutely no business being associated with SV. The gadgeteer, bomb heavy spec is also summoning moon arrows? Na, it ain’t it.
Like I say, the direction is correct but it’s just not quite there yet.
Bombs are better off with the sharpshooter spec like MM imo. No pets for them. Bm an arsenal of pets and needs more pet focussed abilities. I think Sv is more on the pet focussed side now and that doesnt fit them imo. SV should be more as a Rexxar type. A pet companion with guerrilla type of attacks. Then the spec will finally fit with the image it has been given in its talent tree background.
That sounds like a snore-fest, ngl. Stripping SV of its bombs, handing them to MM, and instead making it into a melee BM, pretty much, is SO BAD. It’s so vague and undefined. If you then gave BM the ability to use melee weapons, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two specs. Thankfully, that’s not what Blizzard are doing, and are actually injecting more character into SV, and having it do things that are unique.
I am not that familiar with Rexxar, to be honest, and I don’t find myself caring that much, either. Interestingly enough, when you look on WoWpedia, he is described as a Beastmaster. We shouldn’t be basing an entire class identity on a single character, especially a character who is being incorrectly described as an entirely different spec. If the Rexxar picture is an old holdover from bygone days when SV was something different, they need to change the picture. Rexxar should no longer represent the SV spec.
Making Rexxar survival was really a bad decision. He is a beastmaster.
And these ties with Rexxar are really hurting survival identity, because it should be about traps, bombs and other stuff that maybe will be added in the future, not about “fighting as one” with your pet, this should belong to beast mastery. Making most of the skills and especially mastery be pet-dependent was a mistake and i hope they will adress it in the future.
If i want to play closely with pet, i be playing beast mastery. I’m not against pet in survival spec, i just think it should be optional, like they did with MM. The only problem that bm can’t be played as melee, so if someone wants to play melee and with pet, survival is the only option.
Ideally, BM should be melee spec, but blizz obviously afraid to do it, because casuals are playing hunter only because of this spec. And maybe with that in mind, blizz at least tried to give some Rexxar vibes in the other spec, i dunno.
I agree that pets should be BM’s theme, and that should be less of a focus for the other specs. I’ve seen you posted this on other threads, and I’ve come round to the idea. BM should have a pet, MM and SV should not.
Alright, I wasn’t around for vanilla, but the resistance to having BM be the only pet spec seems like a holdover from the vanilla days; when players could freely spec into any tree, when classes only had ONE fantasy with Hunter’s being the pet thing. But this is no longer necessary. Hunter is an umbrella now. Y’know, Sylvanas has never been seen with a pet; not unless you count Nathanos. They should bite the bullet, already.
They actually can easily implement pet in all specs while making it optional for specific ones.
Their idea of class and subclass talent trees are great. They can just make a Pet skill for a “Hunter” tree, which will be availible for all three specs. BM has one pet by default, MM and Surv has none. If choose this skill, bm will have two pets, the other specs will have one.
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