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?
Survival isn’t popular for a number of reasons.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
It’s about the same compared to season 1 and season 2, quite hard. And yea, I play jungle 
Just to put a bit more review on survival:
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:
Serpent stick = howling blast spam
Raptor strike = obliterate
viper venom = Rime
blood seeker = frost fever
Wildfire bomb = Remorseless winter
and this would also count towards another reason as to why it is not particularly popular.
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).
#BuffSurv
I’m of the same opinion as this.
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.
#bringbacklegionsurvival
Bm literally has the hardest rotation rn while sv has the easiest
have to aggree about the pet, oh god on some boss fights the pet can be stopid lol, Azhara fight is the worst for me, need to hit adds, ok, cant use kill command, oh pet is walking to adds lol, pet arrives when add is almost dead haha.
Talking classic or retail? because BM is pretty damn braindead on live and has been since MoP.
BMs hardest part is knowing when to pop BW and refresh Barbed Shot rest is like the other a priority and that’s about it. Still piss easy.
For raiding it is simple you only have a spesific number of melee spots and the other melee classes have things that make them better and why have a melee hunter when you can have a ranged hunter.
Surv does not do well enough and have enough utility to take over from those other melee specs.
Also for the people like me melee survival feels wrong and i would have prefered it to stay ranged.
I disagree 
I play just fine and it keeps me really focussed on what I’m doing. When they invite me they’re all like yeah a ranged man, then their expectations drops when they realise I’m melee, but they’re happy when I pull my numbers up 
SV is really underestimated, it’s amazing and if I’m feeling lazy that day I just switch back ranged. Rogues can’t do that, nor the other melee classes.
Wanna talk about grappling? It saved my life more times than I can count when I got tossed in the air in SOB or EP or even disengage and grappling back… so useful.
Retail.
Its a lot harder to properly min max on bm than the other hunter specs.
Saving focus for a new mb window is a lot easier than managing barbed shot/bw
Hey, survival hunter still has binding shot, which is really useful at Azshara for the hulk 
Also Alot easier to Be fully mobile with 0 Damage Penalty or Rotational Problems due to movement then it is to play Characters Which actually require Knowledge to time their burst windows…
i think this is Actually simply a Sad case of how Much Damage the continous QoL and Pruning has Done to the Skill Ceiling of the class rather then proof of “bm having one of the hardest rotations in retail”.
As its Even Labelled as a very easy specc with very little to learn comparitively. the Specc has 0 Downtime Due to Mechanics Nor punished for anything as able to continously Move throughout the entirity of its Rotation.