Overall, was Survival a failure?

[Venziir]

Leveled my hunter from 100-110 as Surv; I find it awesome and fun.

[CthulhuFhtagn]

I actually like the idea of a Rexxar-esque melee hunter, but as others have said it's just a messy rotation with no real flow to it. I don't care how good the damage is if the rotation is crap.

EDIT: IMO if MB extended the duration of its buff (at the expense of reducing the max number of stacks and/or how much % extra damage you get from it) it would make for a much better rotation. For burst you can unload all the MB charges at once, but for sustained damage you would need to conserve your MB charges so you can keep the buff going as much as possible.

[MonsieuRoberts]

You make it sound like its really hard when its actually not even close to being so. On all of my alts, I have 5-6 extra relics laying about and even then, the majority of them don't equate to super dps gains by a wide margin. Switching back and forth between range and melee is easy as fuck as well, game isn't hard ya know.

Stats aren't a big deal as well but slightly annoying as is the rotation with WotMN (which is why I just use Axes on my hunter alt instead).

I just see a lot crying and someone not willing to try shit tbh.

Also, you don't represent everyone with your "no one" shit.

Totally fair, but the stigma has been set from the start. Adoption will be slow enough regardless of changes that it will seem like "no one plays Survival in PvE" for a long time.

If the rotation and gameplay changes to a non-button mashy hodgepodge, if it can carve out its own niche and style then maybe it'll get some adoption, since numbers don't seem to be THE problem. Hunters in my guild lament its lack of utility & survivability; They don't see any reason to jump to Survival over MM. I don't know how true that is, but either way I wouldn't want to play a spec I don't enjoy, it's why I abandoned my Arms warrior.

[Deleted]

Very few people play it. So yes, a failure.

Yeah, and its too late to make people change now since everyone has invested so much AP into other weapons. They should have overtuned the crap out of Surv right from the start to make people play it like Fire mage etc.

[Usagi Senshi]

Totally fair, but the stigma has been set from the start. Adoption will be slow enough regardless of changes that it will seem like "no one plays Survival in PvE" for a long time.

If the rotation and gameplay changes to a non-button mashy hodgepodge, if it can carve out its own niche and style then maybe it'll get some adoption, since numbers don't seem to be THE problem. Hunters in my guild lament its lack of utility & survivability; They don't see any reason to jump to Survival over MM. I don't know how true that is, but either way I wouldn't want to play a spec I don't enjoy, it's why I abandoned my Arms warrior.

Very fair reply and I agree, but I still enjoy it even though its rotation is all over the place and needs to be cleaned up. Keep in mind, hunter not being my main but I only play Surv (with BM offspec) on it.

[Deleted]

Just re-subbed after 3 months - did they really make traps into a "select area" thing while high priority?

I hated D&D as DK because of that and they really could not figure a better solution?

[Zeek Daniels]

Love playing the first few bosses as survival, Lots of AoE.

[Lazerbrain]

My main in Legion is Survival Hunter. Great fun. Rewarding gameplay. I would call it a success.

[Sixnalia]

Just re-subbed after 3 months - did they really make traps into a "select area" thing while high priority?

I hated D&D as DK because of that and they really could not figure a better solution?

While it isn't the best option, the new conditionals in macros when 7.1 released help.

Either @Player(to make it place under yourself)
or @cursor and simply move your cursor and hit one button. Instead of hitting the button and clicking.

It'd be nice if a conditional for @Target was added, but I assume it is avoided due to PvP situations.

Currently I use @cursor with my Caltrops/Explosive Traps. With a modifier on it to place under myself if the situation arises.

[cLax0n]

I actually switched from MM to SV. Even with the increased PPM to Vulnerable Marking Shots procs, I hate Vulnerable more than a bloated SV spec. My DPS sims much higher as SV, the tier bonus greatly benefits SV instead of MM. Honestly, I actually really liked SV Hunter. I took a break from WoW after before 7.0 came out and I had no idea SV was a melee spec until I went to do the artifact quest for it. I love the idea, I live the new lore around it, the whole Thundertotem Huln. It is definitely the most polished Hunter spec. I love it that I get saluted when I go to Thundertotem.

In reality, the spec really plays out like a Melee BM Hunter. The traps having to be click & point isn't really a huge deal because you can easily make a macro that will either just drop the trap at your feet when you cast it without having to aim/point/click, or have a macro that throws the trap where your mouse is already at. If you guys haven't looked into these types of macros, please do and stop complaining about it because there are other things that can be improved instead. The biggest issue I find with the spec is just the buttonbloat. Flanking Strike needs to have it's CD removed, and Raptor Strike needs to just be removed entirely. WoTM should work with Flanking Strike, Serpent Sting should work with Flanking Strike. Flanking Strike should be the main focus dump (already is). I don't even play with WoTM, and the 2 & 4 set bonus really closes the gap between using WoTM as a talent and the alternatives. Mongoose Fury shouldn't need to stack to 6, and I wish they implemented some new Gold Trait that would reduce the amount to like at least 5 or 4. Eventually we will have so much mastery/haste that we will just be spamming Mongoose Bite entirely and it will become a "meme" spec.

Aside from the things mentioned above, the rotation isn't bad at all, and using Carve/Butchery is very satisfying. The Mongoose Fury and artifact ability synergy is still great. Honestly I think this spec is nice, and even though I don't say this often, I think Blizz will keep tuning and buffing the spec. For as long as this spec remains to have a small amount of people playing it, they will keep trying to make it desirable.

[MatadorMedia]

To be fair I haven't played Survival since the Beta. But back then the rotation was just so horrendous you couldn't get comfortable. You relied too heavily on procs so you were constantly inconsistent. Even with the damage boosted, if the rotation is still all crazy it's just not worth the extra effort of having to dodge around in melee.

[Bepples]

Yeah, and its too late to make people change now since everyone has invested so much AP into other weapons. They should have overtuned the crap out of Surv right from the start to make people play it like Fire mage etc.

Yeah, because forcing people to play a certain spec they don't want to play is great game design...

No, they should not have overtuned it. They just should have kept it as ranged. Then people would play it.

[globenstine]

honestly SV should have been made a tank spec if it was going to be melee.

[shade3891]

I wish it was a tank spec, giving it some unique tanking opportunities since you could divide damage between you and your pet. Or let your pet taunt a pack while you go off grap a stray mob.

[Khrux]

Agreed, tank spec would have been a stroke of genius. I however really enjoy Survival and I've been playing it more and more for pretty much everything except raids(where I'm BM) so its official my offspec now. If I could move all AP into it and swap my legendarys I'd be maining it already, but I'm not farming to the AP cap ever again so it'll never be my main spec this expansion.

[Bepples]

Agreed, tank spec would have been a stroke of genius.

Hahaha. Making it melee was already a catastrophically stupid idea, let alone making it a tank spec.

I guess it was not enough for you that they pissed off everyone who rolled the class to play a ranged DPS spec and you think they should have just pissed off everyone who rolled for a DPS spec.

[shade3891]

Hahaha. Making it melee was already a catastrophically stupid idea, let alone making it a tank spec.

I guess it was not enough for you that they pissed off everyone who rolled the class to play a ranged DPS spec and you think they should have just pissed off everyone who rolled for a DPS spec.

Well when I rolled my hunter, i had raptor strike on my main bar and was dual wielding swords. not everyone rolled hunter for the ranged aspect.

[infinitemeridian]

Get rid of lacerate, it's boring and thoughtless.

Get rid of traps in the ST rotation.

Survival is now 80% of the way there.

[Kelthos]

Well when I rolled my hunter, i had raptor strike on my main bar and was dual wielding swords. not everyone rolled hunter for the ranged aspect.

I have to agree. I think a good amount of people (myself included) rolled a hunter because we wanted to be able to tame wild creatures we encounter to fight beside us as opposed to being melee or ranged.

[Bepples]

Well when I rolled my hunter, i had raptor strike on my main bar and was dual wielding swords. not everyone rolled hunter for the ranged aspect.

I'm sure there were people who ran around as rogues casting Shoot all the time too, but that was neither a very common thing nor was it very smart. Yes, 99% of the population doesn't count as "not everyone" but it can be pretty well approximated to "everyone".

Consider it this way to make it more clear: maybe people didn't roll hunters specifically for ranged, but they CERTAINLY didn't roll hunters specifically for melee. Which means that turning one of the specs to melee is a high-risk-low-reward endeavour: you need to convince people who didn't pick the class to play a melee spec when they didn't pick this class expecting a melee spec, you need to convince the people that stuck to the old ranged survival that it was worth it, and you need to bring in plenty of people from other classes. None of that happened in Legion.