I pretty much didn’t play this alt for a few months while maining Havoc, so recently picked up survival. I used to play MM before this, which didn’t seem too popular either. However, based on the rio scores, it feels like there’s only a handful of survival hunters out there. Now that I think of it, I’ve hardly ever seen any in world PvP, bgs or even in raids. I’ve never met one in M+ in my group before. I picked up this spec after a guildy recommended it to me.
What causes the low amount of survival hunters? Is it meta related? Is there something I have yet to encounter end-game that causes issues? I’m just over 430 in ilvl atm.
I have no problem with survival hunters. My problem is that it took away a spec from the only class that deals ranged “physical” DPS.
Could have been a fourth, not like it hasn’t been done before. But looking at the overall Hunter class and what a mess they did with all specs I think they simply didn’t have enough ideas to implement 4 specs.
I don’t think people don’t play survival because of what it could/should have been compared to the other two specs. I’m more curious as of why people aren’t playing this spec despite being quite unique.
I kinda like them, though I have a few gripes which causes me to not play them as often as I’d like.
I hate pets. I’ve never played an MMO that has decent pet AI. They are always stupid as a rock. I also hate having a pet that a fury warrior or DH can just leech off.
They are technically a melee spec, but their healing and defense is pretty abysmal. It’s not a fun time sitting in your little green shell while slowly using mending bandage while a DH is standing just outside frothing at the mouth.
Doing dungeons/raids as Survival is like pulling teeth. It’s just awful.
Apart from that they’ve got some pretty cool gimmicks, and some nice damage to boot. It’s just not enough to keep me playing Survival.
The main problem with SV atm is that the time and effort you put forth playing this spec does not correlate with the success you get out of it, compared to other classes in this game.
Meaning, you could spend 1000 hours perfecting your survival gameplay and be as useful as a demonhunter that has maybe spent 100 hours perfecting his/her’s gameplay.
It makes sense though since we’re kind of an jack of all trades, master of none spec atm.
Maybe next patch will be better, since SV scales pretty decent with secondary stats.
source: 2.7k cr in 2s/3s and 1.7k raider io this season and currently in a scuffed mythic raiding guild playing only survival xd
Pets are the main reason I’m not playing the majority of classes… Though now that I have some experience with pets on survival (as much as you can get), might give other classes a chance again.
Yes, this is what I feel like as well. It takes me a lot time and effort to get “the hang” of things, where as with DH it’s pretty simple. There’s a clear “cast this when that”, which is a bit more blurry for Survival imo.
Nice! I really hope to get further with survival and perhaps next patch or expansion main it.
Yes, and in the specialization the survival hunter is fun too. Yes perhaps, us something lacks damage, any more interesting spells:thinking:. All these unique Pets BM hunt - we can also tame similar. If before playing in the specialization of BM taming exotic Pets was really interesting, now we in fact received only a shell…and these Pets differ from ordinary only couple of spells, which we also can find and have ordinary pets in most cases. And do not compare the survival hunter with the hunter of demons, the latter of which throughout the Supplement is in the meta. Every time I change classes,speck returns for survival hunter. Survival hunter is a state of mind))))
P. S. Hi Bicmex! Thank you for visiting us!
How hard is it in gladiators? Do you play jungle?
Complexity: while being idiotically simple… the spec basically just revolves around you pressing raptor strike or mongoose bite, however they added a bunch of other buttons that don’t do a whole lot just to try and make you do something other than press that one button and they don’t feel that great or impactful because of this.
Thematics: It was changed from beast mode legion version into some melee guy who somehow also has a crossbow that he didn’t equip, also, hes a tinker aswell for some reason.
Style: It’s a melee that looks like it prefers to fight at range…? it’s wierd, if you wanted to fight at range then why wouldn’t you just use MM or BM, they can hold their own just as well up close as survival can, potentially even better considering MM can knock enemies away more than once.
Change: Because they pushed survival away from being a melee oriented spec through the years it ended up that everyone who came into the hunter did so with a completely ranged mindset and so it is actually lacking interest, the fact it was changed from being closer to a warrior with a pet to some guy with a crossbow range focus means that it immediately lost its playerbase in the first expansion that it was even changed to be melee…
So all in all, people do not like the current survival because it is just not interesting anymore, 1 button centric gameplay mixed with the wierd nature and the concept that the spec is going to constantly change means that people don’t want to play a spec that is not interesting and could potentially just change to something completely different even if they do get into it.
what I believe needs to happen is that they need to pull back the spammable range and replace it with powerful ranged cooldowns rather than spammable ones.
Remember dragonfire grenade from legion? that is what i am talking about, It’s cooldown was a somewhat lengthy 30 seconds but you could really feel when it was being used, that is the kind of think that players like in terms of the feels, it is also one of the main reasons why the latent poison trait is such a popular choice for survival.
most survival hunters I’ve seen seem to end up building their hunter like a 2h frost death knight with the current iteration:
Honestly goals my dude RE only playing surv and achieving them ratings.
As for the topic? Melee is already crowded and what we can do most melee already do and can do better.
Not to mention the effort and reward, BM is so god damn braindead and can perform better for less effort than Surv and THAT draws a lot of players to the “lol easy to play xd” specc(s).
I want to stress though that I have no interest in advocating for the removal of current SV(MSV). I honestly think that the idea of a melee focused spec for the Hunter class fits very well with the general fantasy. Or I should say, part of the fantasy.
Maybe it didn’t as much in the old days due to how classes and specs were designed to only focus more on specific parts of your basic toolkit with a few additions, rather than being clear definitions of new playstyles/separate fantasies like what we have today.
As for current SV and it’s specific design…
I don’t play it simply because I’m no fan of melee combat, so as for any mechanical quirks and whatnot that it might have, I’m probably not the best person to ask.
I would’ve preferred if they had kept a bit more focus on the actual Legion-intentions of making it a dedicated melee-spec though.
Mechanically, giving SV a baseline ability like Flanking Strike which is a coordinated attack with a pet, giving it this instead of Kill Command wouldn’t have been a huge difference no. But thematically and in terms of fantasy, it would make quite a big one if you ask me.
They could’ve designed Flanking Strike to essentially work the same as Kill Command does for SV. Just with that unique thematic flare to it.
I would also have wanted them to replace Serpent Sting with a mid-range CD(30-45 sec or so) that when activated, makes your melee weapon(s) apply a stacking poison to targets hit by any of your melee attacks.
I also thought that thematically, a talent with the name “Way of the Mok’Nathal”, would make much sense if designed to allow you to dual wield 1h weapons(axes). Why? Well…Rexxar, is of the clan Mok’Nathal. He DW’s two 1h axes.
Anyway, I’m sure others that are dedicated to current SV(MSV) could come up with some better ideas. Especially in terms of fixing potential issues regarding mechanical design.
As for the old ranged SV, and Blizz’s decision to remove it…
I have no idea whatsoever regarding any potential plans or vision that the devs might’ve had for the spec, in case they would’ve decided to continue it’s development, going into Legion.
I can only speak for myself and provide my own suggestions for what a modern version of the spec/playstyle could be about. Does it have enough to warrant being a fourth spec option for the class? Very much so, I would say!
Even to the point of me thinking that anything less than making it into a separate spec option, wouldn’t do it justice. Maybe that’s just me…
Anyway, maybe some here that has been here for a while have already seen my linked post below, maybe not. But either way, this is what I would’ve imagined ranged SV to become, given a spec identity/spec fantasy-based iteration of it:
Edit:
No, it’s not a giant wall of text. I have no idea why the post is being compressed to look like it does in the link…
tbh i wouldnt really say any of the classes have alot of complexity left in them. they’ve all kinda been reduced to hitting a few buttons and hitting some other buttons that add some “Flavor” to them… (they kinda miss the mark though) so i dont think complexity is really the reason.
this 100%, Survival Went from my absolute Favorite Specc in Legion, to Something i Just cant get into anymore, they ruined alot of elements to the specc with all the pruning.
Honestly. The reason why I liked legion sv more than bfa is a simple reason of current version lacking the oomph factor. Dragonsfire grenade, flanking strike, the 3 thrown axes skill and even laceratre. All had animations and feeling of something strong being cast. Kill command and serpent sting lack that and it annoys the heck out of me.
And dont get me started on butchery. It was strong and looked fantastic… Now it just looks good but is essentialy useless
this tbh, Survival was so good in Legion… With Lots of buttons yeah, but meaningful ones. granted, i was nothing more then a Heroic PuG Raider. but being top DPS in Legion with a Survival Hunter (granted i was likely better geared… or more optimised as Survival hunter was NOT the top DPS performer) felt awesome… and keeping everything up was awesome.
in BFA, it just lost that feeling… i permanantly feel like im missing something with it. and the animations are 100x Worse with its new abilities… i like the new Turn all skills into ranged… i thought that looked pretty awesome… but kill command and things looks Sooo bad…
i get they were trying to increase the popularity of the Specc… but sometimes, Low Popularity doesnt = Bad Job as reflected by the fact its STILL one of the Least played Speccs in the game. they needed to embrace the fact, a Melee hunter would only ever Get used by a Minority and Kept catering it to fill that role for those that loved it… not butcher it in some sorta Attempt to Streamline it.
on a Side note, the people saying its because of the Easyness… trying Classes out (just returning)… i really dont see any difference in complexity between it and say a Fire Mage
Not like survival in single target is that hard a spec, it’s a very simple priority list and you follow. The only thing that decides what you do is the rng in kill command and how much focus you get from it, wildfire bomb is a bit more involved but not hard. Multi target is a bit harder to know what you should do, if it’s Worth using serpent sting etc… But no survival is as braindead as any other hunter spec right now, you have a simple priority list and you follow it.
[quote=“Chapchap-pozzo-delleternità, post:19, topic:96065”]
Not like hunter in single target is that hard a spec
[/quote]There I fixed it for you.
Also nobody ever said Surv is hard lmao, just saying compared to what little BM has to do as an example then no, the payoff is no better.
