I have to ask, what are the devs thinking? This spec is so all over the place right now it’s thematically an abomination. I think i speak for most survival players when i say.. can we just have a Rexxar type spec?
- We’re building toward a gadget class, throwing bombs and tech-style traps.
- One Hero Talent tree leans into arcane-themed damage.
- The other focuses on pet synergy
- Apex talents emphasize Raptor Strike
For me class fantasy is half the fun, this is truly heartbreaking. Whos asking to be a Gnomish beastmaster engineer with optional arcane damage? At the very least decide on one path..
And lastly, can we please make Wildfire bomb a flat aoe, not a cone?
It’s one of the stranger decisions. They make it more Goblin/Gnome bomber themed but at the same time remove spells like Explosive Shot. While at the same time it has a focus on DoT’s and animals. The latter can fit pretty much any race, while the bomber theme fits only for Goblin and Gnomes/Dwarves.
They’ve made some questionable decisions with the design here and i think it’s better if they build it more around a Rexxar style spec. There are to my knowledge very few people that want a bomber type of spec and maybe its Blizzard lazy way of giving us a tinker idk.
I have to admit, the pseudo tinker SV has kind of grown on me. My main problem is that the hero talents don’t mesh with it thematically. Either you get arcane effects from Sentinel, or if you decide to lean into the engineer vibe and get mechanical pets, then pack leader also clashes with that.
Having like a glyph of Arcane Bomb and something more physical like splintering spear for WfB and a bow/crossbow glyph for Boomstick would be great.
At the moment, nothing goes together theme-wise. It’s just a bunch of random stuff thrown into a blender.
There should be 2 options for survival really. One with bombs and tech, one with poison / pet interaction. Let there be one set of survivalist, communing with nature and animals, and one with bombs and tinkers.
The best solution is to remove pet from Survival completely, or make it optional like MM.
It’s mastery and main skills are too similar to BM currently, this is why this spec has no identity. Mastery and main skills should revolve around his versatile mid-close range playstyle with melee/ranged skills like melee strike, shotgun/pistol skill and bombs.
Survival has no lobby and only a few people, like me, who truly enjoyed it. But for some reason everybody has an opionion about it, wether it’s the ones who want it to be like Rexxar and his overhyped two seconds of fame, or the ones who want to get rid of Survivals Bombs or the weirdos who, after all these years, still want to revert it back to ranged. And while these people always existed they became very vocal during the last months.
Unsurprisingly this pressured the Devs, who never really had a Clue about SV anyway, into changing a perfectly fine Spec into what we will get now.
I wish everyone not playing Survival as their Main would just shut up and leave it tf alone. Instead we got crap like Boomstick and Hatched Toss now.
I mean, the reason I for one want a rexxar themed build is because I always found his playstyle to be really fun on wc3. However I think that a more realistic idea of how survival should be played is a mix between Rouge and BM hunter.
Unpopular opinion but I’m kinda over Rexxar. Someone has already mentioned that if someone wants to be Rexxar, they should play BM.
The character has so little to do with the Survival spec that the wiki, which granted is unofficial, doesn’t even classify him as such. That should tell you something.
If there’s a some rub with truly embracing the tinkerer-gadgeteer fantasy because there’s still this notion that SV should be a bit like Rexxar, then let’s drop Rexxar from the spec. Like I don’t want it to be in this halfway house of a spec.
Y’know, they’ve given us the ability to dual wield like Rexxar, but in the same breath have taken away Explosive Shot and Killshot; two things that are much much more thematically in line with the direction they’re taking SV. Kinda makes dual wielding a bit silly and irrelevant, doesn’t it?
Survival’s representative should be a goblin. I nominate myself as the new Survival Hunter.
Supposedly a melee spec, your biggest hitter is a shotgun at point blank range….
Barely any melee spells, just full ranged discount tinker crap.
No proper theme, as OP said it’s a mess design wise and shows there is no identity or design direction here. Feels like Survival is the Blizzard laboratory where they try stuff and leave it at that.
Its not optional. With pet the spec becomes worst. They added it for levelling and not having to deal with angry MM players.
Respectfully, its a dreadful idea and if you look at the vast majority of the feedback, people want a Rexxar spec and no BM is not a Rexxar spec. That’s more of a Hemet Nesingwary except he keeps the pets instead of mounting them on the wall.
TWW SV hunter is miles better than what Midnight has to offer. The spec has not only been stripped, it’s been beaten and forced to be something it’s not.
Rexxar is a melee fighter who fights a long side his companions. BM shoots from afar, allowing the pet to do the majority of the work. Survival, imo, ought to be a melee fighter who focuses on coordinated attacks with its pets.
So really, the only thing different is that Rexxar uses melee weapons, and all of a sudden, that constitutes an entirely separate spec identity? I don’t think so. This is exactly what irks me when I say SV is being held back or a “half way house of a spec" by holding onto the Rexxar fantasy. SV shouldn’t just be BM but melee. That sounds super boring and unimaginative to me.
The direction the spec is going in Midnight is better. More characterful. Has its own unique identity beside the other two Hunter specs.
Do you see what I’m saying? Like I really want a lot more from the spec other than it being a melee fighter, which we’re thankfully getting. If that’s not to you or anyone else’s tastes, that’s fine, but let me direct you to BM, as it’s very similar to what you’re looking for, the major difference being it uses a range weapon.
It’s not even close to similar. BM is the intro spec to ranged. There is nothing you have to think about with it other than is my pet still alive? SV is complex and challenging which is what made the spec fun to play. It added a feeling of reward when you succeed with it. BM is just pew pew.
Not only did they change SV now to a full on bomber type of spec, they gutted it to a point when it has little to no buttons left. You’re just weaving raptor strike and kill command, while throwing some bombs in between. It’s boring and made too simple.
The fantasy of it is a complete mess that fits with nothing. Not the Rexxar image, not the Pack leader hero talents, not the sentinel talents. It has 1 melee ability left and takedown is just a worse version of coordinated assault. Terms of engagement has been removed and the harpoon CD has been increased. It kills one of the best mobility spells for a hunter. Boomstick has a terrible animation that makes no sense. Why would an melee have a shotgun and where did it come from, where did it go? They might as well call the ability Cotton Eye Joe.
I think MM could do with the bombs and explosives. One side long range sniper focussed and the other side explosive expert. Fits better with the MM no pet spec design they’ve made.
The core class – so the tinker one. Hero Talents are their own mess, but to me they’re “icing on the cake” talents that are outside of the main Talent Tree for SV, unlocked at lvl 70 once you’ve fully spec’ed the SV tree. It’s true that they don’t thematically gel with this direction they’re taking SV, but Hero Talents are their own topic, and not what I’m talking about right now.
When talking about the core fantasy of the spec, the tinkerer/engineer/gadget theme is miles more interesting than the spec trying to emulate Rexxar, IMO.
You’re getting into more of the nitty-gritty of abilities, rotations, and cooldowns, when I’m talking about the broader topic of the fantasy or ”vibe” of SV.
Without getting too much into the weeds of one spec being a beginner spec or one being a more skillful spec to play – broadly, BM’s vibe is attacking with a pet. SV’s vibe is the same; attacking with a pet but in melee instead of at range. Doesn’t matter who is doing most of the damage, the player or the pet(s), they are tapping into the same fantasy.
But in Midnight, BM will be the traditional attacking with a pet kinda vibe, and SV is going more for the mad bomber/gadgeteer vibe. But only kind of . “It’s a mess and fits with nothing.” SV is not fully embracing it as Blizzard seem a bit scared of infuriating the “b-b-but what about Rexxar?” crowd. Exactly the point I’ve been making this entire time. Drop Rexxar, embrace the gadgeteer fantasy. The spec will be better for it.
Can’t speak for the others but what has drawn me into this spec is the polearm fighting nature of this spec. I absolutely love polearms and when I picture SV hunter I always think of characters such as Huln Highmountain (and clearly this was Blizz idea back in Legion too) and Rexxar too (imagine dual welding throwing axes, that would be great).
While I don’t mind grenades, it makes me worried that we are moving into this explosives and firearms territory. I guess we need grenades and similar abilities to make it feel different to arms warrior and for the spec to stay in this close/mid range territory (which I really like TBH).
I can see why Blizz wants to change this spec (to make it more popular) but I also think that this not possible because most players that pick hunter they want archer fantasy (with or without pets).
If I were in charge of class design I would make it resemble more native american warrior - primarly fighting with spears/two-weapon fighting, throwing axes on cooldown, using poisonous darts etc.
I mean I am not opposed to a tinker spec, or even class. I mean there was a hero in WC3 called Tinker, it was heaps of fun.
However I think that we ought to go more towards a Rexxar type build. Even if we didn’t full on Rexxar the spec, the idea of a fast paced melee/ranged hybrid focusing on primal entrapment, beast coordination and poisons, is more in line with the spec than going straight gadgets and shotguns.
