Overall, was Survival a failure?

[Dadwen]

And I'm not the only one who's saying that a melee hunter is/can be fun? Get yourself together.
You don't like it, you whined about it for quite some time by now, it's time to move on, come back in a year or two, maybe SV is back to range. You do not honestly believe that it'll turn back into a range spec in this expansion, do you? Please say you don't.

You don't like it, we get it, doesn't mean it's stupid, just means you are fucking butthurt like a pansy. Man - up.

no it's stupid, ya I am pissed I will admit that, but it's stupid idea switching it and people defending stupid kinda pisses me off. (Only a moron designer would switch\delete something that was fairly popular for almost 10 years that people had gotten attached to, and you'd have to be just as stupid to defend it)
Do I think they will switch it back nah not this Expansion, their not smart enough to do that, so the damage is done for this expansion.

Ya people saying it's fun to play a melee finally can't be too bright there are how many Melee classes spec they could have already picked from already but they want to screw over SV hunters that had played their classes for close to a decade, ya screw them.

[Deleted]

It would be fun to melee "finally" if it was actually half decent.. i have a 110 enhancement shaman.. the rotation is not hard and is very simple but it's FUN in raids/mythics.. Survival hunter is just not.. first of all it has poor dps in comparison to my shaman (with far better gear) and the rotation is clunky and difficult..

People will get upset but survival needs to be dumbed down and have some core abilities buffed even more if not just replace it with the old range spec... but it would be nice to have the option of 2 ranged and one GOOD melee spec.. I'd take that over 3 range specs personally.. An yeah you could always roll a "melee class" but i'd rather focus on one character mainly.. my hunter is just under 880.. 32 AP etc.. i just can't be bothered to get my shaman from 840 ilvl up and grind anymore sh1t

[Geran]

@ Geran

SV was not popular post 1.7, it never was until BC. you just grabbed whatever % increase you could get because BM wouldn't offer much past 7 points into it.
And how about we count the points available for melee stuff instead of just the talents themselves?

T1: 5 melee, 6 *both*
T2: 7 melee, 5 *both* though traps are melee tbh.
T3: 1 melee, 7 *both*
T4: 7 both, though traps and movement is more important for melee stuff. Point is, nothing range exclusive either.
T5: 1 melee, 3 *both*
T6: 5 *both*
T7: 1 *range* Wow, yeah fuck me, wohoo... no one picked that crap though, no one would even go so deep into the tree.

1.0 is even worse for range.
For a class that has more range abilities than melee ones, what is this telling you when you can pick so many melee talents in that tree with basically not a single ranged one and *no-fucking-where else*. Mind blown now? Yes? Good.

SV was utility based and melee focused. End of story. Any other view on this is basically denial.
You too, didn't get the point. It was the tree for enhancing your utility and melee abilities. Basically meant for PvP if we are looking back at it... not that Blizzard ever tried it to direct it towards that though.

SV was not as popular as MM and BM post 1.7, but a lot more than it previously were. (and BM not until the naxx patch , 1.12 if i remember right, cause damage meters didn't count pet damage by default, so most people only saw the char damage and oc it was low compared to MM). Also the mechanics in the game made slow weapons (Ashjre'thul, Crossbow of Smiting) hit and crits very large favoring the MM tree, until weapon normalization in 1.10. Also the talent lightning reflexes became more powerful as gear got better, making it an excellent choice (0/21/30 was a popular build for pve), and the hit/crit % enhancements in the tree made it great.


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Also, i'm not against a melee spec for hunter per se (i wouldn't have it done) but as i said in previous post, if it really was a demand (disbelief here) they could have added a 4th spec ( druid having 4 is precedent) and leave SV as most people liked it, but that would have forced them to work hard in hunter class, and god forbids it.

[Deleted]

I have absolutely no idea why you wrote that as an answer to what I said.

The important thing in SV for PvE were the 3% dmg, the 15%(?) agility and the 3% crit and, depending on gear, the 3% hit. That's all you get for range.
3-4 Talents.

MM on the other hand, is pretty much 80%-100% PvE, damage focused.

Manacost reduction, AP, Crit damage, AP aura, Damage% buff, Damage% to skill, Range (allowing you to outrange abilities), DMG skill, another DMG% skill buff, Support Aura, %Crit damage - etc. etc. etc.

Aura > 21/30,
If Aura already present, go 21/30. Only with high Agility though. I believe (as far as I remember) back then, Agi used to give both AP, Crit and even Dodge, that's basically why it was worth it to go down so far.
You had to pretty much "waste" and choose "the lesser evil" throughout most of the tree to get there.
Doesn't really matter though because I didn't even say anything in or against that regard.

I'm just saying that it's rather obvious what the goal of SV was back in Vanilla and that it has changed over and over and over again.

Also, i'm not against a melee spec for hunter per se (i wouldn't have it done) but as i said in previous post, if it really was a demand (disbelief here) they could have added a 4th spec ( druid having 4 is precedent) and leave SV as most people liked it, but that would have forced them to work hard in hunter class, and god forbids it.

I'm pretty sure that if they made SV a better melee spec than what it currently is (that 6x MB spam is an absolute no go, trust me, it's never going to work or at least "feel" good, honestly). And maybe spice up the talent choices for MM a bit, we'd have much less of a problem with the change.

Hell SV is, rotation wise, in such a bad spot that you can out-mastery-gear it and press nothing but MB, Trap, Lacerate 95% of the time.
It's kinda frustrating to see the 6stacks going so quickly that you barely have *any* room to weave in FotE, Dragonfire or Raptor strike. I'm capping out on MB stacks, and even if these skills have a higher priority, it just doesn't feel right to cap out on Mongoose Bite.
It's also frustrating to lose 4-5 stacks due to a target dying/disappearing or something similar, because MB without at least 4 stacks feel absolutely terrible and lackluster - it's like you work up to the point where it's about to start getting good, but you have to stop right there.

[Deleted]

You need more time playing the spec.

It sounds like you still don't know when to use FotE optimally in a sub optimal situation and you have too much mastery.

Also ditch Way of Moknathal, forget about weaving that sht in unless you are going pure ST.

Mongoose stacks are a personal buff not debuff so mobs dying are irrelevant. Honestly you initiate combat with x3 stacks and with your high levels of mastery you are not swimming in procs? Or perhaps the content is trivial and sht is dying too fast in which case SV like many other specs (with ramp up) won't perform as well as say a ww monk with on demand burst.

You articulate well even if the subject matter is irrelevant jabbering about previous iterations of SV, but you are making a mistake by making what looks like statements when it appears you don't have a handle on the spec yet.

[Deleted]

I haven't even done the artifact quest for survival even though hunter is my main because there's nothing appealing to me about it. Personally I really wish they would've made it a tank spec.

[Deleted]

If the target is dying when I'm at 4 stacks, I'm at 4 stacks and have to move to the next target/group whatever and start from fresh.
I can either have enough mastery and spam another 6 back to back, or not enough mastery and wait for the stacks to fall off again and start a new fresh stack once I have 2-3 uses up again.

FotE is too slow, it's just not working, by the time I finished FotE, I'm already at 3 stacks again, my Traps come of cooldown, my nade, my lacerate is off, my axes are fully stacked and so on and so forth. I'm severely GCD capped, it could work with a 1s GCD, but not 1,5s.
By the time you get to FotE, you have in comparison 2-3 Marked Shot SW out already, which deal 400-900k each, to every mob. And each Aimed shot in between hits for more than a 6 stacked MB.

And no, I don't initiate combat with 3x stacks, that's in fact the problem. Because you have to use 3 MBs first, and then another 3, and you want the trap, if you have the legendary - lacerate too, dragonfire, butchery or 1-2 carves too, so they go on cooldown. That's either 8-9s before you can use FotE if you only spam MB (which is piss poor AoE damage, FotE on it's own is a joke) or 15+ if you use the rest first. That's not only bad for heroics/mythics, but also bad for mythic+ up to below +10

I'm not saying that I'm playing SV perfectly, the design flaws are blatant though... on top of that, the damage is lacking.

[threads]

I haven't even done the artifact quest for survival even though hunter is my main because there's nothing appealing to me about it. Personally I really wish they would've made it a tank spec.

i did the quest but i haven't put 1 ap into it lmao.

[kashiman290]

WoW player who didn't play for Cata, MoP, or WoD. My main is a Fury warrior. I fell in love with Survival hunter this expansion. I am the reason why Survival is melee. I am happy about the change and absolutely LOVE this spec.

[tehdef]

I don't typically play ranged. I've bounced between Warrior, Monk, Shaman, DK, and DH. Survival getting a melee spec made me actually look towards leveling a lot sooner than I normally would.

I can say this. I think the spec is fun, but I have not gotten that far in.

Does it suck to add another melee spec? I guess, but you have 2 other options.

Does it blow that the damage on it seems pretty low? Sure, I guess.

Does the spec feel fun to play? Yes!

I think that what is important.

[bloodmoth13]

Again, Survival fan tries to point to everything other than Survival being melee being the problem. This deflection is getting old, and less and less effective every time.

Great argument! that fully made me change my mind about my opinions! good work!!!1!

-_-

If your issue is that melee hunter is a thing, then you never even gave it a chance, if your issue is that the survival spec that existed in the past was destroyed, then this argument stands, as it could have easily been represented as a subspec through the more expansive talent system we have now.

New survival is unique and distinct, old survival was just another flavor of marksman, they had nearly no thematic distinction, so it made alot of sense to merge them. just make the baseline spec bland as fuck and make the talents play a major role in how the spec functions

[threads]

New survival is unique and distinct, old survival was just another flavor of marksman, they had nearly no thematic distinction, so it made alot of sense to merge them.

yea true. they should also give mages a healing and melee spec because there's no reason to have 3 caster specs that just use diff color spells

[Appelgren]

yea true. they should also give mages a healing and melee spec because there's no reason to have 3 caster specs that just use diff color spells

Exactly! Your sarcastic comment is spot on

[Deleted]

It would be fun to melee "finally" if it was actually half decent.. i have a 110 enhancement shaman.. the rotation is not hard and is very simple but it's FUN in raids/mythics.. Survival hunter is just not.. first of all it has poor dps in comparison to my shaman (with far better gear) and the rotation is clunky and difficult..

Are you really making your comparison with the most insane broken piece of s**t that does not even require neither legendaries nor player awareness to top off charts ?

According to your pretended level you seem to have experience on your survival, but your whole post seems to just reveal a lack of game mechanics understanding. The only thing survival suffer is a syndrom shared by multiple specs : legendaries requirement to be progression-content viable. Get bracers and the spec dedicated ring and suddenly the flow of the spec feels way better, as well as Performances.

So the question "was survival a failure ?" is the wrong one, the correct question is "were legendaries a failure ?".

[bloodmoth13]

yea true. they should also give mages a healing and melee spec because there's no reason to have 3 caster specs that just use diff color spells

hunters barely even used different spells, frost mages, arcane mages and fire mages all fulfill very different fantasies, thats a piss poor argument. you could argue rogues instead, which would be alot more honest, and i would actually agree, there is little enough distinction between sub and assassin that they could have been merged, along with enough boring talents that could easily be replaced with the necessary spells to cover what makes each spec unique. An archer rogue spec imo would have been awesome.

Marksman and old survival both use bows, aaaand thats their shtick. They were the same fantasy in different specs, merging them means that the devs wouldnt have to think about which marksman should have the new tool/ability.

I really dont understand why hunter players are so against the idea of MM/Surv merger and a brand new melee spec on top, you only stand to gain from this! If you dont like how Survival has been preserved in the new marksman spec, then i consider that the real issue. IMO BM is a much bigger issue, the spec is barren and boring where the talents do little to flesh the spec out.

[Deleted]

Also all this is just senseless whining, Blizzard isn't going to make survival ranged before the next expansion so you're wasting your breath. You should focus on making BM and MM more interesting, they play like shit right now, especially MM. Mind you, old MM was also boring and BM was always a faceroll spec.

So how about you ask for real interesting gameplay instead of wanting your old confort zone of mindless gameplay that MM and BM have been for long?

[Sarevokcz]

hunters barely even used different spells, frost mages, arcane mages and fire mages all fulfill very different fantasies, thats a piss poor argument. you could argue rogues instead, which would be alot more honest, and i would actually agree, there is little enough distinction between sub and assassin that they could have been merged, along with enough boring talents that could easily be replaced with the necessary spells to cover what makes each spec unique. An archer rogue spec imo would have been awesome.

Marksman and old survival both use bows, aaaand thats their shtick. They were the same fantasy in different specs, merging them means that the devs wouldnt have to think about which marksman should have the new tool/ability.

I really dont understand why hunter players are so against the idea of MM/Surv merger and a brand new melee spec on top, you only stand to gain from this! If you dont like how Survival has been preserved in the new marksman spec, then i consider that the real issue. IMO BM is a much bigger issue, the spec is barren and boring where the talents do little to flesh the spec out.

but ranged SV hunter hasnt been preserved at all in MM talents, giving one row with stripped down BA and different LnL isnt really passing on SV spirit, when pretty much everything core about SV is gone, like the mobility or explosive shot or literally forced into the new melee just for the sake of differentiating the spec, like traps or serpent spread.

IF former SV hunters had actually a good choice, there wouldnt me so many threads about it.

[Dadwen]

but ranged SV hunter hasnt been preserved at all in MM talents, giving one row with stripped down BA and different LnL isnt really passing on SV spirit, when pretty much everything core about SV is gone, like the mobility or explosive shot or literally forced into the new melee just for the sake of differentiating the spec, like traps or serpent spread.

IF former SV hunters had actually a good choice, there wouldnt me so many threads about it.

As soon as I see someone post how MM and SV used to play the same I know right away their IQ is not worth responding to, MM was more based around big hits and being more stationary and SV around kiting and wearing your target down.

[Mehrunes]

hunters barely even used different spells, frost mages, arcane mages and fire mages all fulfill very different fantasies, thats a piss poor argument. you could argue rogues instead, which would be alot more honest, and i would actually agree, there is little enough distinction between sub and assassin that they could have been merged, along with enough boring talents that could easily be replaced with the necessary spells to cover what makes each spec unique. An archer rogue spec imo would have been awesome.

And it wasn't always the case for Mages either. Even in Legion they were listed with Hunters and Rogues among the Classes that are in for spec diversification.

Marksman and old survival both use bows, aaaand thats their shtick. They were the same fantasy in different specs, merging them means that the devs wouldnt have to think about which marksman should have the new tool/ability.

And BM's too. Imagine that, ranged physical specs use similar weapons. Mind = blown. And just like BM deviates from MM for larger emphasis on pets, SV already leaned into some magic in the mix via Black Arrow an could have been pushed into that direction some more. Plenty of magic+ranged weapons mixes in lore (more than those focusing simply on marksmanship a'la MM actually).

I really dont understand why hunter players are so against the idea of MM/Surv merger and a brand new melee spec on top, you only stand to gain from this! If you dont like how Survival has been preserved in the new marksman spec, then i consider that the real issue. IMO BM is a much bigger issue, the spec is barren and boring where the talents do little to flesh the spec out.

Because melee in this game play like ass in general and having one of the three physical ranged specs in the entire game sacrificed to make yet another of these abominations (even more abominable as the rest, it's a clusterfuck even by melee - i.e. almost nonexistent - standards) when the game is already swarming with them and keeps adding more is just terrible choice. And MM/Surv merger is a disaster. Awww yiss, Black Arrow (now spawning an undead) in MM spec. Fits the rest of the spec so well thematically.

[zylana]

Survival is fun as a spec. The melee may be a problem in raids but the game isnt about just raids. Overall i enjoy it very much. I vote a big old NO on it was a failure. fun fun fun. !