Thinking to main survival....

[gushDH]

Method has a survival hunter in their world 3rd gul'dan kill, so yea. You do whatever you wanna do, survivals are awesome.

[hulkgor]

Love playing my survival hunter alt (at 874ilvl~ with Call of the Wild as first legendary and trinket as 2nd, so i'm happy). It just feels unusually punishing (in comparison with other specs) and it's very easy to mess up your rotation, drop stacks or just simply misuse\miss the timing on some abilities (i do have some weakauras tweaking to go through, and it is an alt, but it just feels harder to play than any other spec right now).

It's just fucking awesome.

[Bepples]

Yes it's a big design change to the SPEC, but it's a small design change for the CLASS. Survival and Marksman were very much identical design wise, so when spec identity becomes a thing, the obvious one to go is the weaker design (inarguably Surv).

Like I haven't seen this bad argument a billion times on the forums.

Did Survival have Sniper Training?
Did Marksmanship have Lock and Load?
Did Survival have Careful Aim?
Did Marksman have Black Arrow?
Did Survival have Aimed Shot?
Did Marksman have Serpent Spread?

etc, etc. The differences certainly mattered to people playing them because a whole lot more people picked Survival even when it wasn't the best of the two, up until 6.2 at least where it just wasn't viable anymore.

I like how you use words like "inarguable": "inarguable" as in it cannot be argued or "inarguable" as in you can't come up with any argument other than shitty one-liners?

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Love playing my survival hunter alt

It's no surprise that it's your alt. Pretty much 95% of the Survival hunters here play it as an alt. Maybe if you mained Survival when it was ranged you'd understand how much the current version isn't "fucking awesome". Also maybe one day Blizzard will design hunters with hunters' interests in mind rather than the interests of people who play hunters as casual alts/don't play them at all.

[Woop Woop]

That's a completely fair and valid complaint given the circumstances.

Would this go the other way as well?
If for example Outlaw or Unholy were to become ranged, would they complain about it because they chose the class to play melee?
I don't think so, they would complain for other reasons. It's a bullshit excuse.

[Yhcti]

Nnoggah in Method plays Survival main, he's been in all of their Mythic kills and is pretty much always top 3-5 DPS, it's definitely worth trying out. It's by far my favourite spec

[Bepples]

Would this go the other way as well?
If for example Outlaw or Unholy were to become ranged, would they complain about it because they chose the class to play melee?
I don't think so, they would complain for other reasons. It's a bullshit excuse.

...yes? You would probably have that, actually. Maybe not as badly because going from melee to ranged feels much more like a buff than it is a nerf (v.s. ranged to melee, which just feels like a nerf), consider that the spec would undergo such a radical playstyle difference that people would probably not like it because it replaced the spec they did like.

People hate current survival because:

- They chose the class to play ranged
- The playstyle of old Survival is not preserved in any spec currently, not even Marksman
- The other two specs for hunters are in a very bad spot right now and it seems as though Blizzard focused all their attention on the melee spec

Personally, it feels as if they sold out a spec we liked to people who didn't play hunters or only played them casually. I'm left wondering why all these changes had to happen when it only ended up making the class feel worse than the old Survival spec I enjoyed so much. Judging by how few people are playing Survival right now, it seems as if I'm not alone in that regard.

[Emerald Archer]

The other two specs for hunters are in a very bad spot right now and it seems as though Blizzard focused all their attention on the melee spec.

Wut, bad spot? MM is in a good spot.

[Khrux]

On an average pull there was no class in our raidcomp that did anywhere near the small eye damage that survival did. You want to bring minimal amounts of ranged dps for this fight, i had bis legendaries and 52 traits so survival was the natural choice.
In hindsight i should have played survival for more fights especially pure single target fights like star augur and trilliax as survival's sustained ST damage is higher than MM atm.

Just want to say thanks for the post. As expected you weren't just "filler" as others insinuated.

Unfortunately the social justice warriors are back on their crusade for the past 2 pages, with "utility" being a buzz word now.

@OP - main survival, join the elite.

[Segus1992]

Long wall of grasping argument.

Looks like you're confused as to what design is.

Ask yourself: would Hot Streak fit for a Frost or Arcane Mage? Would Shield Slam fit for an Arms Warrior? Would Shadowform fit for a Disc Priest? That's design

All of Survival's mechanics that you mentioned fit flawlessly for Marksman.

[Ninthelora]

Surivival is the most fun spec out there currently. The only spec which isn't snoozefest :-)

[threads]

Just want to say thanks for the post. As expected you weren't just "filler" as others insinuated.

Unfortunately the social justice warriors are back on their crusade for the past 2 pages, with "utility" being a buzz word now.

@OP - main survival, join the elite.

yea screw people who try to give good advice to OP.

play SV so you can be like the world 3rd guild on 1 boss.

[Khrux]

+Trilliax
+Krosus
+Botanist
+Star Augur

Well "good advice" would be to play any hunter spec, they all have fights they can shine on in Nighthold and none of them shine on all of them equally.

[Bepples]

Wut, bad spot? MM is in a good spot.

Both BM and MM are fine, damage-wise. They are NOT fine design-wise. Both are pretty much massively downgraded from their MoP/WoD iterations.

Looks like you're confused as to what design is.

Ask yourself: would Hot Streak fit for a Frost or Arcane Mage? Would Shield Slam fit for an Arms Warrior? Would Shadowform fit for a Disc Priest? That's design

All of Survival's mechanics that you mentioned fit flawlessly for Marksman.

No they wouldn't, because Marksmanship was about being a highly-skilled archer while Survival was about being a utilitarian. Aimed Shot made more sense as a Marksman signature ability because it involves skill as an archer/gunman while Explosive Shot made more sense as Survival because it involved augmenting your ranged attack with technology. Same goes for the others.

The only one I would argue didn't fully make sense was Chimaera Shot for Marksman, which does fit BM better, but ultimately those thematic differences are highly superficial and ultimately themes should be second-place to gameplay int he priority list. Case in point: in Legion the spent a whole lot of time chasing themes and "class fantasy" only to end up with a result largely worse than what they started with in every concrete, gameplay-based metric. There was also nothing stopping them from differentiating Survival further as a ranged spec. They took the lazy way out because Blizzard has far less creativity for ranged specs than they do for melee specs (hence why EVERY new DPS spec added to the game after launch has been melee).

It's funny how you described my post as a "grasping wall of text". My post was about 100 words. I realise you probably have a shorter attention span given that you pretty much only speak in crappy one-liners but some of us like to back up our arguments so that they actually hold up for longer than a few seconds under scrutiny.

[Segus1992]

No they wouldn't, because Marksmanship was about being a highly-skilled archer while Survival was about being a utilitarian. Aimed Shot made more sense as a Marksman signature ability because it involves skill as an archer/gunman while Explosive Shot made more sense as Survival because it involved augmenting your ranged attack with technology. Same goes for the others.

The only one I would argue didn't fully make sense was Chimaera Shot for Marksman, which does fit BM better, but ultimately those thematic differences are highly superficial and ultimately themes should be second-place to gameplay int he priority list. Case in point: in Legion the spent a whole lot of time chasing themes and "class fantasy" only to end up with a result largely worse than what they started with in every concrete, gameplay-based metric. There was also nothing stopping them from differentiating Survival further as a ranged spec. They took the lazy way out because Blizzard has far less creativity for ranged specs than they do for melee specs (hence why EVERY new DPS spec added to the game after launch has been melee).

It's funny how you described my post as a "grasping wall of text". My post was about 100 words. I realise you probably have a shorter attention span given that you pretty much only speak in crappy one-liners but some of us like to back up our arguments so that they actually hold up for longer than a few seconds under scrutiny.

You're giving yourself the exact argument for why Marksman and Survival were practically identical design wise. The difference is a little bit of theme, which obviously isn't much in the grand scheme of things. You're just arguing for Ranged Survival because the change hurt you, even though you yourself even understand that there are no reasonable arguments for it.

I'd like to hear your "non-lazy" ways to differentiate Survival without making impossible changes to the class and being as differentiated as Survival currently is.

Lastly, I do apologise for not going as in depth into my arguments. It could be because I don't need to as my arguments aren't as far-fetched, but it could also be because I'm just not as fixated on this issue as you are.

[Bepples]

You're giving yourself the exact argument for why Marksman and Survival were practically identical design wise.

I mean I can kind of understand where you could get that idea if you had horrible reading comprehension and read like 10% of what I said. No, they were not identical. Not in theme, not in gameplay.

The difference is a little bit of theme, which obviously isn't much in the grand scheme of things.

And the ONLY difference between Frost/Fire/Arcane is they cast different schools of magic. Just a little bit of theme, you know?

You're just arguing for Ranged Survival because the change hurt you, even though you yourself even understand that there are no reasonable arguments for it.

Lol? That IS a reasonable argument: making the change to melee hurt the people who were already played it. There are, in reality, no reasonable arguments for making it melee. The ONLY argument you can come up with is that MM and SV were too similar design wise, which as I have explained is a) a superficial, easily-fixed issue and b) not even true to begin with. You are in NO position to start calling other people out for having no material.

I'd like to hear your "non-lazy" ways to differentiate Survival without making impossible changes to the class and being as differentiated as Survival currently is.

Expand on the multi-dotting nature, e.g. perhaps make it so you could multi-dot with Black Arrow and then go nuts with Lock and Load procs. Involve traps more like they are now (and this time it would actually make sense since you aren't throwing explosives at your own feet). Survival hunters now always talk about how much people were always asking for a melee hunter; while that's patently false, people HAVE discussed the concept of tacticians/tinkers, e.g. a class that uses machinery. That would have been a good fit for Survival, too. Or you could have even gone in the direction of a Dark Ranger like Sylvanas. There was plenty of potential. Instead, they doomed the spec to niche unpopularity by making it melee in a class full of ranged DPS players.



Also you act like Survival is in a better place now than it was before. As you can see, that's not the case popularity-wise. Think of all the effort they spent designing a completely new spec, and think of how much they neglected the other 2 specs making it work, only for the spec to end up abandoned by most of the playerbase. What a JOKE. There are way more important things in class design than thematic differences.

Lastly, I do apologise for not going as in depth into my arguments. It could be because I don't need to as my arguments aren't as far-fetched, but it could also be because I'm just not as fixated on this issue as you are.

It could also be because you don't have any good arguments.

[satimy]

I still have not done the artifact quest for the survival, I don't recognize it's existence

[Sns28]

do it dawg, I am main SV hunter, currently 1/10M. I pull good numbers. The roto requires more practice but thats only because the spec actually has buttons to press unlike majority of specs now and no rotation is more aids than feral druid. It is bar far the most fun spec out of all 3 hunter specs.

Character: Stickyfangaz, US, Kil'Jaeden

[Guran]

Why are you assuming the other spec would be bad? This is considering all of equal skill.

Because I'm talking about HIM playing another spec. Outside of world race guilds, most players will play a class they enjoy better than whatever FotM sims higher or what they're being told is better damage.

No, because neither of those two specs play the same/similar way Survival did back in MoP/WoD. Also, they both have a laundry list of their own issues, most of which are due to lack of developer attention during the testing phase which in turn was due to developer focus on.... Survival. So we still have our favourite spec removed and we are left with 2 crappy ranged specs just so that we got a melee spec when most of the class was not willing to play melee. So the complaint is still valid.

The complaint was you rolled Hunter to be ranged, you still can. What you're saying now is that with "being ranged" meant "playing a spec that I enjoyed in specific expansions but even if it was still ranged now, it may or may not still exist in a similar style"
You're butthurt the spec you enjoyed is gone, we get it. But if I understand your posts correctly, you've never played the melee Survival as it is now, so you're not really forming a substantiated opinion on the spec. You also seem to blame any and all issues BM & MM have on Blizzard devoting all their time on Surv, although you a) have no data to back up such claims and b) if that was true, wouldn't surv perform far better, as it has triple the focus other specs do?

[Usagi Senshi]

It's no surprise that it's your alt. Pretty much 95% of the Survival hunters here play it as an alt. Maybe if you mained Survival when it was ranged you'd understand how much the current version isn't "fucking awesome". Also maybe one day Blizzard will design hunters with hunters' interests in mind rather than the interests of people who play hunters as casual alts/don't play them at all.

Being someone's alt doesn't validate your argument in anyway btw, so I would give up on that shitty angle if I were you. Some of us don't raid with guilds and just pug shit while playing multiple classes and enjoying them equally as our mains.

OP: Ignore the whine asses and just enjoy the spec and laugh at them when it sticks around after Legion and you're still enjoying it.

[Deleted]

I did play back then.

You had two melee abilities: Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite. Mongoose Bite hardly counts because you could only use it after parrying for at least some of its existence (I think this was changed at some point). This absolutely did NOT provide a lot of gameplay.

After dodge actually. Counterattack was after parry.