I detest what they did to SV. I never once changed from SV since Kara way back in BC. I miss my Expose Weakess buff, I miss my Explosive Shot and Lock n Load procs. I dont want to play melee, that's why I rolled a damn Hunter.
I detest what they did to SV. I never once changed from SV since Kara way back in BC. I miss my Expose Weakess buff, I miss my Explosive Shot and Lock n Load procs. I dont want to play melee, that's why I rolled a damn Hunter.
Hunter since 2010, not cutting edge but more then competent. Loving surv atm, needs some tweaking but its the most fun Ive had with any spec in WoW for a loong time.
I can understand that, I dont want to play a caster- thats why I rolled a hunter. But Ive had to deal with MM for the last few expacs.
A man chooses, a Slave obeys. OBEY! - Andrew Ryan, Bioshock
Let me put this out there, as a top 10% world SV hunter, those of you who think SV isn't competitive are completely wrong. I should add that my only legendary is Sephuz' Secret. It's certainly not chart-topping, but SV hunters in the top 10% range are putting up comparable numbers to ranged hunters and most melee classes on most EN mythic fights. On a couple of fights, though, they are very far behind (but still good on single-target in those encounters).
The problem with SV is that there are about 300 people in the world right now that can play it well enough to be competitive and go into mythic EN. It is by far the most complicated spec in the game and is the only spec in the game currently that requires buff canceling in order to maximize damage output. Blizzard simply made SV incredibly difficult and made MM so easy you could output competitive DPS by slamming your face on the keyboard.
SV is the most fun I've had with this game for a while, and I'd like to see Blizzard try and fix the problem instead of just scrap the spec because a bunch of people who are either too lazy or too bad decided to complain about it.
As the OP I have been avoiding replying due to a lot of the hate in MMO forums on SV. I did lose my mythic raiding spot because I wanted to play SV instead of Warrior, but it is something I am very much enjoying. Now I do still raid, Heroic and Mythic with my Mythic guild (they like my charming personality), and I do log all my fights. I rank usually on the 95+ percentile on the fights i can really maximize my Single Target time.
Yea that ramp up sucks, I cannot AoE as well as my wife on her MM hunter, but I get to Roflstomp a lot of the other dps in the guild. Yes the spec is complex to most (actually rhythmic and soothing to me), and we when we cannot excel on a fight we can fall flat on our faces.
I understand that 98% of the hunters out there dont and didnt want to be melee. Which is why honestly think current Survival should be Beastmaster, Old school Survival comes back, and Beastmasters becomes Huntsman.
Huntsman is literally like our follow, and using hounds (or w/e pet you like), yes 2 even after we lose Hati in the future, and plays just like current beastmaster.
Beast Master = Melee Survival (I have club and pet....we smash things good)
Markmanship = Same
Survival = Old skool survival Pre Warlords)
Huntsman = CUrrent Beast Mastery and always having 2 pets....(probably will need treats for them pets yo)
Current "Reworked" SV is a complete failure. Please yes let it die, revert back to ranged in 8.x.x or whatever. Trying to maintain optimal stacks correctly is often impossible when...literally any mechanics happen. The spec needs pruned or made smoother to play. Also where the hell is the mobility? I didn't know we were DKs. Don't tell me AOTP on a 3 min CD is mobility, or a TARGETED Harpoon ability.
Prot Warrior 2004-2008. Hunter 2008-2018.
Retired boomer.
I do just fine as a survival hunter with some top 5 parses on nythendra and ursoc. I do competitive damage with my raid.
I find the rotation to be quite fun, and rewarding even. Sure, on the first couple of pulls when we're trying to figure out timers, my damage can take a massive hit, but that means that when I figure out how to work my burst cycle around the timers.
I've never bothered with WotMN; the 8 second window not only makes the burst cycle more difficult, but is just difficult in general to maintain. Any boss ability that takes you away from melee for 8 seconds just tanks your damage.
I really wish people would stop saying for survival to revert to what it was. You already have 2 specs that are ranged, why can't other people have ONE spec that they find interesting? I don't care if there is a lot of melee. There's also a lot of ranged. If people are having fun with it then let them. If you don't like the spec then don't play it. Very simple.
Anyway, on topic: I love love love the survival rework. It actually made me pick up hunter again for the first time since Wrath which was my main since vanilla. I liked hunter, but as a whole I found all the specs very boring, simple, and similar, especially after Cata came out. I love the complexity of the rotation, how it's a race for "0 Margin for error" style, and if you play it right, it pays off big. I actually find myself thinking for raids and dungeon fights now, rather than "Oh.. I've done this fight so many times. Move to x. Avoid y. Spam 1-4. Win." Now I actually have to work on making sure I'm making everything count with boss mechanics and my own.
Yes, I do think it needs more work to smooth it out more, but overall this is the most fun I've had on this game in years.
Last edited by Aherooffools; 2016-11-16 at 06:04 PM.
Was it impossible for Blizzard to build on that DoT aspect? Or the magic elements (Dark Arrow)? Wait, no, you can add flavor to a spec without turning it into yet another melee.
Yeah, this. If anything they want to make SV succeed because the last two batches of changes were aimed at bringing the other two specs down. If MM and BM are beyond crap, people will surely play the crap that is SV!
Survival is the only hunter spec that's actually interesting to play. It would be a shame if they abandoned it.
Many people were having fun with SV and found it interesting (even some who found it to be the ONE spec that's interesting to them) before Blizzard exhibited their design bankruptcy when it comes to anything non-melee. Were they let to continue having fun with it? Nope. Why should it go the other way around then? And let's look at all those non-caster ranged specs. BM, MM and... Oh, right, the "and" is between BM and MM, there is no third choice. Meanwhile there are 12 other melee specs other than current SV.
Make BM the melee spec. There is nothing visually stunning or appealing about the bm spec, that wouldn't translate over to it being melee. You can then give survival spec its shots and tools back, same with MM.
All they need to do is make Mongoose Bite act differently when you cap Focus, because as of now when you go into Mongoose phase you WILL cap focus, if you don't you are losing DPS. So at Max Focus they should let Mongoose Bite either grant multiple stacks (while draining Focus) when not at max stacks or make Mongoose Bite deal extra damage (while also draining Focus). There is no reason why the ability should be free when you are capping your resource.
So say you start your Mongoose phase and you are at max Focus your first Mongoose Bite would grant you 2 stacks and drain say 25-50 Focus. Since you aren't full Focus anymore the second Mongoose Bite would just act normally and not cost Focus. But on your 4th Mongoose Bite you are bound to be capped again and it grants 2 stacks again. Since two of your now four Mongoose Bite gave 2 stacks instead of 1 you are now at max stacks. So now you can Mongoose Fury. After that you are Focus capped again so your next Mongoose Bite will deal 100% extra base damage ontop of those multiplied by the stacks (it should be 100% more of the multiplied damage, or just a 100% extra base damage depending on which is more balanced).
Without Misdirection survival is a horrible spec for questing/outdoor adventures.
That is hilariously sad because the spec is named SURVIVAL and is a "rugged outdoorsman".
Yet if you pull several mobs the Pet Taunt/Flanking Strike/FDeath will not be enough to save you from a very painful face-smashing.
Meanwhile MM and BM can Misdirection to their pet and Barrage 10+ mobs at once, then AOE them for fast questing.
If rogues can have Tricks of the Trade then Survival Hunters must get their Misdirection back...
Also Hunters were one of the most mobile classes in previous expansions.
In legion hunters lost most of that mobility, and Survival is the worst of all... feels like a cripple.
Last edited by Aleksej89; 2016-11-17 at 07:36 AM.
What are you even talking about ?
I've done all my leveling and all the outdoor content as SV only, harpooning my way all around the Broken Isles and it's one of the smoothest spec I've done it with. With a pet in Tenacity, I've never ever stolen aggro from him. Want the pet to grab aggro from you? Just press Flanking Strike and that's it, you're safe. I wouldn't have the time to get intro trouble though cause I'm crushing everything with the well-named Butchery. Need healing ? Potion / Survivalism / Exhiliaration, thank you very much.
Out of context, but whatever, as if I care.
So many people go ahead and claim that this spec is just "bad", freaking annoying. For many players it's the absolutely most fun spec for hunter class right now. And yeah, Blizzard screwed up here, but not by making SV melee - they made the change because hunter specs player almost the same, especially SV and MM. But, why not, after making the new SV, they decided to fuck around with MM, which used to be the simple, methodical spec, revolving around big chunks of Arrow-type damage. And meaty, meaty Chimaera Shot, loved by all MM playing hunters, and giving this amazing edge on 2 targets.
But yeah, why not change it to a procfest that locks out half of your fucking rotation because a dice didnt roll 6. Old SV could easily exist as a talent variation of MM, but nope, 3 talent tiers in the spec are mandatory bullshit to make it playable (a problem that like half of specs share now), Explosive Shot is in the talent tree with the flag of "why did anyone think that this is a good idea".
At least SV has some resemblance to the good old hunter playstyle. Weaving in different attacks and abilities, maintaining DoT, fighting alongside pet, steady damage without relying on "burst windows". Moments of glory when you do everything just right. Playing hunter for like, 10 years now, that's what it's all about.
Try pulling more than 2 mobs at once - go for 8 to 10+ mobs at once and do full AOE DPS.
Your pet will very quickly lose aggro and those mobs will annihilate your face (unless you significantly outgear the mobs).
MM and BM can easily pull 10 mobs with Misdirection and just max-AOE it down, swift and safe world quest and even leveling.
Survival has to fight only a few mobs at once because they do not have Misdirection and the pet sucks at mass AOE tanking.
Without Misdirection the pet is incapable of reliably holding aggro on 10 mobs if you are going full AOE dps.
And if you are not going full AOE dps then your questing speed is much slower than if you were MM/BM.