Just some thoughts that I wanted to get off my head about the current Survival tree. Please feel free to comment on this or if you find something interesting to forward it to the feedback topics. Happy reading:
My opinion on the rework of Coordinated Assault and the new CD Spearhead:
I like the idea of having two CDs (Coordinated Assault “CA” and Spearhead “SH”) that incentivise us not to cast them together but rather to use them separately.
So we’d have two different CD windows where want to perform different rotations (in CA bombs+kill shots, in SH raptor strikes + kill commands)
e.g. in a raid fight starting off with Spearhead for pure single target on the boss and using CA when some adds spawn.
Playing around with those timers in M+ as well, when to use which CD so you have the multitarget CD ready for the packs and the SingleTarget for the boss.
To give you an example: in M+ for Unholy, it feels bad to use Army of the Dead on a big pull since its a purely Single Target CD.
But it gets buffed by every other CD you use at that time, so it’d be a waste not to use it.
Speculation: With two seperate CDs that are best used outside of each other, you won’t get into that problem since you want to save the single target cd anyway.
I don’t know the current state of the theorycrafting behind this, but maybe this can be reached for example when you don’t have the GCDs to elevate both CDs at the same time.
This would be completely new and in my eyes very interesting to play with opposed to “pop every CD you have at the same time and in that order”
With the thoughtprocess of CA being more of a multitarget CD and SH a singletarget CD, the on use damage of CA should be multitarget as well.
SV Spec tree feedback
SV is the only spec tree throughout all spec trees that has that much “throughput only” talent nodes.
A short overview of those talents with the number of points to spend and which abilities damage it increases:
Ferocity 2 (Pet Dmg increase), Improved Wlidfire Bomb 2 (Bombs only), Spear Focus 2 (Mongoose), Sharp Edges 2 (Crit Damage)
Sweeping Spear 2 (Raptor Strike, Carve), Tactical Advantage 2 (Flanking Strike + Bombs), Killer Companion 2 (Kill Command)
Ranger 2 (Kill Shot, Serp Sting, Arc Shot, Steady Shot, Expl. Shot)
This makes in sum 8 Talents, each of them 2P nodes, so 16 points to dump on for a dmg increase of our abilities.
These feels so terribly bad having to spend a lot of points only to have your abilities do the damage they should do to begin with.
Some even buffing the same ability (it’s even worse if you add talents like Tip of the Spear, though this at least adds a bit to the gameplay side).
There is not a single ability that we don’t have to spend additional points on to get its damage up.
All of those points have zero impact on gameplay.
It’s okay to have some of those nodes so we can choose a bit between our damage profile, other classes have that as well, but certainly not to this extent.
What makes it even worse, that’s basically some kind of spec/ class balancing in our tree before the overall balancing even happened…
To be even on par with all the other specs, half of those nodes would have to be removed.
Having one row with those talent nodes should be ok (rather a row with 4 nodes than 5 though).
And right now I fear we get another Survival dev treatment where we’re left off with something that’s just worse than basically every other spec.
So hopefully you could exchange or add some real talent points.
If you lack ideas, here are some (some existing abilities and some just ideas, really):
Soulforge Embers (existing): Make this a comeback for survival with the possibility for us to makro it for easier use.
Make it a choice node with Wildfire Cluster with reduced effectivness compared to live
The choice could be here for AOE: if you spend a lot of points on bombs you choose cluster. If not, Embers.
Or Wildfire Cluster is just the little worse performing QoL option.
Pushing the Flank (new): Flanking Strike increases the crit chance of your next X Raptor Strikes/ Mongoose Bites by Y%.
I think this would be a good node to exchange Tactical Advantage with.
It’s single target orientated and adds some interaction with our talents and may spice up our Mongoose Fury windows.
Flanking Strike would be the last focus generator to buff our last mongoose bite(s).
Hack and Slash (new): Every consecutive Raptor Strike [Mongoose Bite] or Carve [Butchery] tears the wound of the first attack, making the enemy bleed for X% of its base damage over Y seconds.
Consecutive applications increase the strength of the bleed.
Create some synergy for using Butchery at once while also giving some benefit for single target.
Shouldn’t have synergy with Mongoose Fury else it may be too strong/mandatory for single target → maybe cut Raptor Strike even out of that, not sure
Synergy with bloodseeker, would also be QoL in multitarget to get some bleed effect spreaded
Deeper Thrusts/ Tighter Grip (existing/ new) - Choice Node:
Deeper Thrusts: increases Crit Damage by X%
Tight Crip: increases Crit Chance by Y%
Exchange that with Sharp Edges to make it more interesting/ more of a choice (naming just whatever)
At the start of an expansion, crit chance is more likely the stat we want but that may change during the expansion depending on numbers and all.
A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved/ Take the blow - Choice Node (new)
A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved: Your pet shares the damage you take, staggering X% of your damage taken over Y seconds spread evenly between both of you.
Take the blow: Your pet steps in for a friendly target for 10s, reducing 20% of the damage to the target which the pet takes instead.
A survival node for Survival…
One gives us a bit more utility (an external defensive CD in this case) which could be used in raids and stuff, the other makes us more durable.
Since SV is the melee of the hunter specs, it clearly needs more than the others to compensate for that outside of tuning in group content.
Bird of Prey (Legion Artifact Power, existing) - Raptor Strike heals you for 10% the damage it deals
Healing through Raptor Strike, some more survivability to choose from maybe since our mastery is pretty weak in that regard
would need another name of course due to Birds of Prey already existing in the tree
Rylakstalker’s Confounding Strikes (existing) - Raptor Strike has a 15% chance to reset the cooldown of wildfire bomb
This gives interaction between Raptor Strike and Bombs
May be weird interactions though with Coordinated Assault and Spearhead, so not sure on this.
Rotting Jaws - Kill Command has a chance to deal additional damage and grants you 6 Focus over 3 seconds
Maybe make intense focus 1 point node and add this on top?
having some more smooth Focus generation instead the flat build/ spend by abilities may be desirable (our passive regeneration isn’t that good)
not sure though on the current (dragonflight beta) state of our focus economy, though at the beginning of an expac it is usually bad
Hatchet Toss (toss a hatchet at an enemy, dealing physical damage within a small range of the impact) (existing)
- Whirling Rebound (Increases the damage of Hatchet Toss and causes it to return to you, dealing damage to enemies it strikes)
With appropiate tuning and as multi target focus spender aside from carve/ butchery this might be interesting.
This would then also benefit from our Mastery and is ranged instead of carve (maybe this should be a 30 second cooldown or something)
Would conflict a bit with the Soulforge Embers idea, though Embers isn’t affected by mastery, which would make it a bit less desirable I guess.
Maybe a bit too similar to death chakrams in terms of design though
Lacerate (existing) - Tears a bleeding wound on the target, dealing physical dmg over 12 seconds
has been brought up by others already
Give this back as well as the interaction with Mongoose Bite (ability that adds a bleed and increases Mongoose Bite damagte to the target.
Personally I’d prefer that it is tuned in a way that we’d only consider it for single target and maybe up to 2 targets. I just don’t like multidotting…
In case we don’t end up choosing Serpent Sting, our Single Target Rotation as of now might be lacking of buttons.
Replace it with Spear Focus or even better, make it a choice node.
In case of a choice node: let them have the same multiplier, but with lacerate you’d have the bleed damage on top (which should be easy to balance).
This way, you could choose the more simple gameplay with Spear Focus which is just slightly worse than a perfectly played Lacerate.
Also would benefit from Mastery and our Mastery needs things it can buff.
Echoes of Ohn’ara (existing) - Flanking Strike has a 20% chance to summon the spirit of Ohn’ara to smite your foe for nature damage
At least more flavor than flat damage increase, placed immediately after flanking strike of course and maybe partly exchange it with Tactical Advantage
Wild Hunt Tactics (existing) - Your damage to targets above 75% and below 35% is increased by 10% (+ some movement speed)
The Night Fae (Wild Hunt) fits the Hunter theme very well. This ability in particular fits SV in my eyes and could be used in this tree
Better to enhance kill shot and other abilities this way than the flat dmg increase
Exchange with Ranger for example
Niya’s Tools: Burrs (existing) - Your damaging abilities have a chance to toss Niya’s spiked burrs under your target, dealing nature damage on the first enemy to cross them
Thematically, this would fit as well, though from a roleplay perspective it’s a bit weird, throwing the Burrs yourself randomly…
Maybe change it from a % chance to happens once every x seconds
Back of the Spear (new)
You balance yourself with the back of the spear after you attack with it.
After using Raptor Strike or Carve, your Versatility is increased by [low, 3?] % for [low, 4?] seconds. Not stacking.
Some possible min/maxing, some intention to weave your abilities more outside of CDs
Also dmg increase for mongoose fury windows as well as butchery
