Would Legion Survival Hunter be better off as a Tank spec?

[Daerron]

Melee spec would never be viable in raid (it has to be really op to RL consider switching his ranged into melee and screwing guild roster), and also would be subpar in 5 ppl (having mediocre aoe). Where as tank we would have excellent tool for small groups. Maybe Survival's damage reduction as tank has to be subpar (as monk's and dk's), but we would have unique and fun tools.

[Deleted]

Melee spec would never be viable in raid (it has to be really op to RL consider switching his ranged into melee and screwing guild roster), and also would be subpar in 5 ppl (having mediocre aoe). Where as tank we would have excellent tool for small groups. Maybe Survival's damage reduction as tank has to be subpar (as monk's and dk's), but we would have unique and fun tools.

If SV was the best melee dps spec right now you can guarantee that it would be very popular. A huge amount of players (especially those fighting it out to be among the top 100 guilds) will play whichever class is strongest. Generally in the top guilds they'll stick to the same role e.g. a healer will switch between different classes/specs but remain a healer.


Survival is fun*. Fun is important. If you're playing WoW and not having any fun then you have more fundamental problems than which spec is melee/ranged good/bad.
But...
It is in a bad place at the moment
Bottom-line is though that it isn't a strong spec at the moment for damage, utility or survival (ironically). It is also more complex than many other specs, has considerable ramp-up time, poor AoE and numerous bugs. Furthermore, with versatility as it's current best stat, it is in a poor state at the moment with regards to scaling.

*subjective opinion is my own (though apparently quite widely shared)

Back on-topic, I don't think it would be tremendously difficult technically-speaking for SV to be turned into a tank spec with the OP's suggestions since it is mostly based around giving the existing abilities more threat generation but to me that would make it a very odd tank. For it to be interesting it would need to have some new mechanics, mostly incorporating the pet by way of cooldowns and probably a shared health pool.

[Dahkeus]

I would roll Survival in a second if it was a tank spec. Not only would the spec fit in better to a game with a glut of melee DPS specs, but it would also avoid the balance trap it's currently in (if the DPS is lower, no one will play it, but if the DPS is higher, then people who rolled hunters to be ranged DPS will feel betrayed).

Too bad there's no chance in hell of this happening.

[Xeones]

I don't understand why they made survival melee. At this point in the game people did not roll a hunter to melee. All 3 new classes added to the game have been melee dps, including the new one this expansion. There was zero need for yet another melee dps spec. Raids just don't have the number of slots for the amount of melee dps they have given us.

If they had made survival a tank, it wouldn't have made any sense, but at least it might actually get played. I have yet to see a survival hunter outside of the lodge in my time playing legion.

[Deleted]

I came here to post this.

Making Survival melee was a demonstrably bad decision. I'm not sure why people keep trying to figure out different bastardisations of Survival in response. The best path would be to give us the fully-mobile dot/utiliy-focues spec we had before, which proved to be very popular.

And before people come here giving me sob stories about how that will upset the 15 or so people who both really wanted a melee hunter and actually played a hunter to begin with; far more people got screwed over in 6.2 when they purposefully broke Survival and then proceeded to effectively delete the spec a year later. How come it was fine to screw over all those people before in favour of the tiny amount of people who prefer Survival now?

I agree with this. The whole argument was - if I remember correctly - that the 3 specs were too similar, when in reality one was focused on a pet, the other one was about high damage and less mobility, and the third one about dots and mobility. It felt very well balanced at the begining of WoD and I personally loved switching between SV and MM. I would go back to this design. Plus they took Explosive Shot out which was a great introduction to the class and something most hunters loved (even if you disliked SV).

Having said that, I guess they had reasons to do this. During the alpha I heard mainly 2: they didn't want a class that was as mobile as SV, and they wanted more differentiated game plays. Not that I find either of them super compelling, but if we have to change, melee just doesn't add anything to me when I could just roll any of the other melee classes; at least a Tank one would help alleviate queues and provide something useful to the class.

[Challenge]

I actually really enjoy the current state of survival. I made a post about some glaring issues, but i like the overall idea of it.

That being said, I would immensely enjoy it more if it was a tanking spec. Not only would it be the first legitimate mail tanking spec, it would be the first tanking spec that uses a full time pet. Theres a ton of room to play around with that fact alone.

[Yhcti]

That would be awesome. And as some sort of CD, your pet takes all damage you take for 5 seconds or something but it also takes 50% less dmg, I dunno. the whole idea of a possible tank spec for hunter sounds amazing.

[ShasVa]

A tank spec with a pet to boot? Yes please

[Flarelaine]

If it was made into a tank spec it'd need to be spear and shield for equipment [...]

Why? DKs tank just fine with a 2-hander.

[Daerron]

As do monks with staff, dh with blades and bear with .. hm.. fat

Tank with single spear would be if anything - refreshing.

[Deleted]

Yeah, as if the game doesn't have enough tanks...

It would be better off being the ranged spec it used to be, in terms of more Hunter players actually wanting to play the spec.

Tanks get the bonus cache more often than DPS, so no, the game doesn't have enough tanks.
You might as well say that the game has enough DDs already.
Right now, I'd say a Melee Hunter Tank would be more useful than a Melee Hunter DD. It would fill a bigger niche and also add even more variety to the hunter gameplay. But 2h Spear, not 1h/shield please...

The problem SV currently has is that it needs to deal more damage than X to see play. Unless you really want to melee as a hunter, you won't see it in raids that often because there is no reason to do so performance wise.

A tank spec however, is nearly never required to be "the best", is always somewhat useful, is an alternative to it's 2 DPS specs and it would be the first tank that uses a Pet, has mail-armor and it would make cunning/tenacity pet-specs useful for raids.

Just imagine how well traps and pet abilities work if you are the tank and not just DPS (even though they work aS DPs too)

1. Roar of Sacrifice will be changed to a spell that will redirect damage to your pet as an active mitigation skill
2. New pet skill that will make your pet jump on a target and pin it down for X seconds (no damage, but since you are a tank DPS isn't that important and you can actually use your pet for utility)
3.Aggro ping pong with your pet where the pet will basically become your "absorb shield"

etc. etc. Oh I'd like that, I'm already a fan of melee SV (much better than BM, really is), but I'd like to tank with my Hunter even more, especially if my pet gets included.

[Kilraq]

If SV was the best melee dps spec right now you can guarantee that it would be very popular. A huge amount of players (especially those fighting it out to be among the top 100 guilds) will play whichever class is strongest. Generally in the top guilds they'll stick to the same role e.g. a healer will switch between different classes/specs but remain a healer.


Survival is fun*. Fun is important. If you're playing WoW and not having any fun then you have more fundamental problems than which spec is melee/ranged good/bad.
...

Back on-topic, I don't think it would be tremendously difficult technically-speaking for SV to be turned into a tank spec with the OP's suggestions since it is mostly based around giving the existing abilities more threat generation but to me that would make it a very odd tank. For it to be interesting it would need to have some new mechanics, mostly incorporating the pet by way of cooldowns and probably a shared health pool.

This. This a thousand times. I am having a good deal of fun as a Survival Hunter. Mind you a lot of that has to do with Harpoon and learning ways to master its mechanics (and maybe a little breaking it...) but even without that I am loving the measure of control I can have over the battlefield. (This is a PvE statement. Not going to talk about PvP here. )

And you are right, I was not brainstorming a good deal of new abilities or concepts for turning Survival into a tanking spec. The purpose of my post was merely to show how just a small shift could be done to actually turn it into one at this very moment. I agree that if it was going to be shifted doing some meaningful and interesting mechanics to the table would be a load of fun. Right now it has the toolset of a Warrior, Paladin and a DK all in one, which is very intriguing in its own part.

Thank you for the meaningful input. I am honestly surprised how much good discussion has occurred over this and I am glad that the idea wasn't just outright dismissed by the community. We are definitely in a state of flux and I personally have a LOT of love for this class and want to see it moving in a meaningful direction. You never quite know WHERE an idea can go. I remember back in Cataclysm alpha/beta I had suggested in the forums that instead of trying to force in Aspect of the Fox (remember at this time we couldn't run and gun) why not just make it base instead. I doubt it was my particular feedback that changed anything but it is nice to see the debate it caused at that time.

- - - Updated - - -

...
Just imagine how well traps and pet abilities work if you are the tank and not just DPS (even though they work aS DPs too)

1. Roar of Sacrifice will be changed to a spell that will redirect damage to your pet as an active mitigation skill
2. New pet skill that will make your pet jump on a target and pin it down for X seconds (no damage, but since you are a tank DPS isn't that important and you can actually use your pet for utility)
3.Aggro ping pong with your pet where the pet will basically become your "absorb shield"

etc. etc. Oh I'd like that, I'm already a fan of melee SV (much better than BM, really is), but I'd like to tank with my Hunter even more, especially if my pet gets included.

My only fear with doing this is you might lose a bit of the "Master of Beasts" from BM if Survival became all about using your pet to survive. If they did this I think they would need to enhance Beast Masters "ideal" as well. Maybe enhancing the Beastial Wrath into turning you into a long ranged attacking beast. Aspect of the Spitting Cobra, or hell just literally SHOOTING snakes. Idk. I like the current role they have of Beast Master being the king of beasts is all. I wouldn't want to see BM lose this place.

[Deleted]

In my opinion, BM is more about the beasts and the sheer amount of them, while SV is about your companion-pet.

[Okacz]

I came here to post this.

Making Survival melee was a demonstrably bad decision. I'm not sure why people keep trying to figure out different bastardisations of Survival in response. The best path would be to give us the fully-mobile dot/utiliy-focues spec we had before, which proved to be very popular.

And before people come here giving me sob stories about how that will upset the 15 or so people who both really wanted a melee hunter and actually played a hunter to begin with; far more people got screwed over in 6.2 when they purposefully broke Survival and then proceeded to effectively delete the spec a year later. How come it was fine to screw over all those people before in favour of the tiny amount of people who prefer Survival now?

I'm not entirely sure about it, but the reason of tiny SV playerbase is that SV right now is not very good. Trying to main it means constantly seeing both other melee and other hunter specs perform better than you in almost all areas (well, burst AoE can be neat in some scenarios).

Thus, the argument "How come it was fine to screw over all those people before in favour of the tiny amount of people who prefer Survival now? " might not be a good one. People gravitate towards the best specs, not the ones they like playing the most. How many Arcane Mages have you seen in dungeons and raids? I've seen them certainly far less than other SV hunters. Same with Elemental Shaman.

Blizzard won't buff SV enough to make it beat MM, at most they will bring it slightly closer, but if they would, the very competitive Hunter community would probably go for the the spec with better cleave/aoe/st - in that case, SV. Even tho it's melee.

[Challenge]

they could literally keep the spec as is with minor changes if they wanted to make it a tank spec (IE, mongoose bite stacks reduce damage taken by 10% rather increase damage done)

[Galaar]

Why? DKs tank just fine with a 2-hander.

Because a spear and shield would look cool?

[Zeek Daniels]

I really like survival as a melee dps. Wouldnt be playing a hunter otherwise. Dont want them to change a thing.

[Sturmreiter]

Survival is definitely the most fun spec. It just needs a numbers tweak (and maybe a buff to mastery and to the duration of Mongoose Fury).

[Deleted]

Eh, its a better spec (and honestly, the better playing of the three IMO) now and adds move diversity to the class that neededit and feel that mages (could use a battle-mage melee spec or fire/shadow ninja spec like other MMOs) and rogues (could use a ranged/tank spec like rogue sin other MMOs) as well.

I always hated how WoW took a dps pure and kept all three specs almost alike and the same archetype. At least they finally (10+ years too long) had the balls to try something new and I hope they do so again with another class next expansion.

Not sure if this is a pure troll post or if you're actually serious. That sounds horrible though.

[Aleksej89]

Survival needs buffs to its AOE and a lot of utility/defense improvements.

It is by far the worst hunter spec to do outdoor content in.
Your defenses are pathetic, you do not have misdirect, pet's taunt/flanking strike is not enough to compete with misdirection, you lose health fast.

My marksman/BM can misdirect/barrage half the quest area and AOE them down in seconds without any downtime.
My survival has to go one or two mobs at a time AND takes a ton of damage if the pet fails to hold aggro with taunt/flanking, due to the lack of misdirect.

In PVP it is BY FAR the worst spec, it brings no useful utility and its defenses are miserable compared to other melee specs.