Does anyone miss old survival?

[Finick]

No, they were not. If you feel content with copy-pasting old, over-used arguments, I'll just copy-paste my rebuttals. Here's an excerpt from an earlier post:

"There is no inherent issue with having 3 specs that are similar enough for people to easily switch between them. They were distinct enough for people to develop their own preferences and fill their own niches in the class.

You are making the mistake of equating abilities based on a huge generalisation. Yes, all 3 specs had "signatures". But that doesn't make them the same. They had differing focus costs, which was important when considering the mode of damage delivery (e.g. Marksman had higher focus costs across the board so relied on short-term bursts of damage from Aimed Shot/Chimera Shot as well as cast times, while Survival was very focus-efficient and was always active and delivering a sustained level of damage). They were augmented by other abilities (e.g. Explosive Shot and Lock and Load). They had differing cooldowns, extra effects (e.g. Chimera Shot cleave), etc. So at the base level they are all signatures, but that does not make the spec the same because there are a lot of extra details you are ignoring.

What about things like Careful Aim? That's a playstyle issue that Survival and BM didn't have to deal with, but it isn't an "active ability" or a "signature" or anything. BM had Focus Fire which was very unique from the other specs. Survival, again, had Lock and Load and Serpent Spread.

Basically, each hunter spec at the most general level had a casted focus generator, a focus dump, and a signature. But there were a whole lot of details on top of that basic foundation that made the specs distinct.

It's almost like you have a base CLASS and then you have SPECIALISATIONS that modify that base. Believe it or not, we don't need to have every spec being an entirely distinct, stand-alone class. "
.

While I agree with basically everything you say about survival now, because I genuinely miss the survival of cata and mop, denying that they weren't the exact same playstyle is ridiculous. You COULD make the argument around the time of SoO that MM was the only spec that played even mildly differently, but I believe (not 100% sure) that the MM population was small enough that it's probably irrelevant.

In terms of damage delivery that didn't matter. At all. You would hit chimera shot, explosive shot, and kill command on cooldown. I don't care if one was nature damage and one was magic, that's irrelevant. They did the same things, with the same cooldown, there was not thought process, no difference in the use of said abilities, you just use them on CD.

Focus costs is also irrelevant. Never did I switch from Surv to MM and go "oh man these expensive shots are really cramping my style." You would generate the same amount of focus in between the CD of your signature as you would the other specs, because guess what? They all had the same exact CD. You could make the argument that LnL would shake things up and really make it interesting, but MM had instant aimed shot procs, so LnL wasn't anything special or differnt.

I don't disagree with you that every class needs specs that completely stand alone from one another, but to argue that hunters specifically in MoP (which i'd take ANY day over what WoD and Legion have produced) didn't basically have 3 specs that ultimately were clones of each other in terms of playstyle is just being silly. They were so similar as to be all the same, but that's not a bad thing. When the main argument for them being different comes down to visuals and RP related elements, the argument is essentially non-existent, in my opinion.

[MiiiMiii]

My problem with hunter is that instead of letting 1 spec remain "old hunter" they changed all specs so much we are left with no specs that feel the same as pre-legion.

Look at Rogues for instance. The Assasination spec there is very much alike how Rogue was pre-legion. Then they changed Sub and Combat. That's way better than what happened to Hunter.

SV is an OK spec but not at all what I wanted as a Hunter. I want to be ranged...
BM is sooooo boooooooooring. NEXT.
MM is the most "huntery" spec, but is changed too much. It is now this non-pet spec, because Lone Wolf is obligatory. It is also way too much focus on vounerable upkeep. Not to mention, you have 2 specs, 1 for single target and 1 (really clunky one) for AoE. It is also very RNG based and immobile.

There is no longer a spec that is simply a hunter with 1 pet that has prioritized abilities. That was my prefered playstyle.

[Sam the Wiser]

Revert Surv back to MoP. Wow, I fixed the problem!

[Ickabob]

MoP Survival, with the SoO tier bonuses, is quite possibly the best incarnation of the Hunter class that this game has ever seen. If I could just have that and BM from early WoD back, I'd love this game forever.

Sadly, that'll probably never happen.

[Dogchow]

Old survival was definitely fun, but this new one is even more fun than the old survival imo. I'm biased because I enjoy being melee.

[Furious Spoon]

I really like new survival, but I do miss old survival. I wish I could have both. I'm not a fan of BM or MM.

[Armakus]

No, god forbid Blizzard actually try and make a spec feel diverse or different.

[ThatsOurEric]

Current Surv is interesting, but imo, I thought the melee Hunter should've gone to Beast
Mastery. Makes sense, the Hunter fighting with his/her beast side by side.

It plays differently enough from MM or BM, which I like. I still think BM & Mark need more
to differentiate themselves.

[ozusteapot]

After playing survival on a (great) mop private server and enjoying it greatly in parallel with legion, I decided to try and propose the possibility of bringing back old survival as a 4th spec. You can read up and comment upon it here ( as there are higher chances that the devs might read it):

https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17615311924

[Bepples]

After playing survival on a (great) mop private server and enjoying it greatly in parallel with legion, I decided to try and propose the possibility of bringing back old survival as a 4th spec. You can read up and comment upon it here ( as there are higher chances that the devs might read it):

https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17615311924

A very good suggestion; I always thought SV should have gone the "tactician" route since it's been suggested a lot of times. In a way new SV has, with its grenades & caltrops, but they make WAY less sense as a melee spec for obvious reasons.

Sadly I can't comment on the thread because I'm on a US account.

Also, your guild name should be "Tempus Ultimum".

[ozusteapot]

A shame Blizz doesn't let people use the eu/us forums to be used indiscriminately by english speaking isers.

As for the guild part, I'll be leaving it soon as it pretty much died.

Also, any us player is free to make their oen similar thread on the us hunter subforum. They can even copy-paste mine, I don't mind. Just be sure to post the link here, I'd be interested in reading the comments.

[Gurg]

After playing survival on a (great) mop private server and enjoying it greatly in parallel with legion, I decided to try and propose the possibility of bringing back old survival as a 4th spec. You can read up and comment upon it here ( as there are higher chances that the devs might read it):

https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17615311924

Added a post there as i completely agree with the idea of mobile tri-glaive mid ranged hunter that relies on Rangers Net and bleed-nature-physical damage. Much like NE Darnassus guards. And trolls (Horde) be having axes mon.

[Deleted]

No but survival should be a tank because... well... survival

[Geran]

No but survival should be a tank because... well... survival

Survival should be a healer, because... well... survival.

[Bepples]

Added a post there as i completely agree with the idea of mobile tri-glaive mid ranged hunter that relies on Rangers Net and bleed-nature-physical damage. Much like NE Darnassus guards. And trolls (Horde) be having axes mon.

I would also like to see options that use technology; several of Survival's current talents can be adapted as ranged talents (Caltrops, grenades, etc). Explosive Shot already has that going for it. Something involving electricity would be awesome too. IMO the best choice for Survival would have been to reinforce the utilitarian theme. The primary argument for all the people who like melee survival and want it to stay is that it was too similar to Marksman. That's not good enough; firstly the argument itself is up for debate, and secondly: even if they were "too similar" (define how much similarity is too much), what was stopping them from adding to Survival and Marksman in ways that further differentiated them?

One idea I would think would be awesome (but probably also really buggy and hard to balance) would be a grenade that knocks targets back, but is also able to knock the hunter back. You might ask why this would be good; first, it provides a much needed way of escaping melee in PvP (provided you don't knock them in the same direction as you). Secondly, and I think this would be the unique part; imagine if you could jump and then throw the grenade below you which causes you to actually be knocked into the air. It's like having a 2nd Disengage. It sort of reminds me of Plague Knight from Shovel Knight; there's a bomb item which you use for an extra jump.

As for the thread, this point was made:

Was it due to shortage of time that they had for development, or they thought that impact wont be so big as it was, they shrug it off.

Even though I hint at it: I don't think Blizzard was being malicious here, although I do think they broke Survival on purpose in 6.2 to empty out the spec. Firstly, I think Blizzard plain and simply lacks the creativity needed to make diverse ranged specs. Just look at the state of the game now: EVERY new DPS spec added to the game post-launch has been melee: Frost, Unholy, Windwalker, Havoc. The only time a spec has totally changed roles was from ranged to melee. Look at how disproportionate the benefits of "class fantasy" in Legion have been given to melee over ranged. I've said from the beginning of this expansion that class fantasy is giving melee everything they've ever fantasised about.

I honestly think they just couldn't come up with any good ideas for ranged hunters at all. Hell, BM had more taken away from it than added, and MM just got a Colossus Smash copy-paste. And that's just shameful, because SV always had so much potential. If you ask me, it's fine to have two specs that are thematically similar when viewed at from a very general perspective ("both shoot with bows/guns"). It's not the end of the world if two specs aren't entirely different classes. They were never intended to be that way anyway; that's a recent construct. Nevertheless, they clearly hyped themselves up on the idea of a melee hunter and didn't take a moment to consider how people who liked the current ranged specs felt about things. I think they also didn't consider the possibility that hunters just might not be receptive of the idea of a melee spec in the class after so many years of being purely ranged.

So they replaced a ranged spec with a melee one only for the melee one to fail to gain any traction at all, and they assumed this result was due to factors other than it being melee. They then doubled down on the "class fantasy" and "uniqueness" mindset, thinking that when specs are poorly received it must be due to a poor expression of the core "fantasy". Think this is conjecture? This is exactly the reasoning they gave behind the 7.1.5 hunter changes. They honest-to-god thought that people didn't like Marksman because all MM hunters converged on a build that essentially negates the "window" effect of Vulnerable, so they nerfed it and ensured that the RNG damage window effect was fully enforced. Yes, these people actually believed that more Vulnerable would make people like MM better. In the context of Survival: they actually fooled themselves into thinking that the spec was unpopular because the "master trapper" theme wasn't reinforced well enough so they added Waylay, which from what I heard is universally panned for being worthless.

TL;DR: Blizzard prioritises "class fantasy" and "unique themes" over approachable playstyles and sensible tuning, and they get too caught up in their own hype to consider whether or not their ideas negatively affect the existing playerbase.

[Banard]

@FpicEail
SVs playstyle can easiliy be recreated by changing a

dude get out, that play style is a shadow of what surv was. A god dam shadow.

And FYI Surv was basically the same from wotlk to legion...there were small iteration but nothing like this.

At this moment in WOW every Hunter spec had a better version of the spec in a previous xpac....there has been 0 improvements to the hunter class.


To those surv hunter that enjoy melee all the power to you...but you already had , 2 warrior specs, 2 DK specs, 3 rogue specs, 1 druid spec, 1 pally spec, 1 monk spec, 1 shaman spec..and a new DH spec to choose from.

This was one of the major first mess up by blizzard this xpac...and all these mess up are starting to compound. (the latest ilevel scaling crap is really grinding me gears).

Here is hoping the melee hunter dies in the next xpac....doubt it but i can hope.

[Bepples]

No but survival should be a tank because... well... survival

Do you want even less people to like Survival?

People played a Hunter to play a ranged DPS and that's the core reason why Survival is so underplayed. How the hell do you think it will pan out if they remove the "DPS" part too?

Another point from the thread:

By all means. I think it's terrible practice to give someone something and then take it away from them.
It alienated a large portion of players pre-legion, there's no need to repeat the same mistake post-legion.

It's not the same mistake because it's not a large portion of players. Yeah, Blizzard's dug themselves in a hole here, but it's not impossible to get out. There are far more melee players willing to play ranged than ranged players willing to play melee. The type of hunters who play Survival now are mostly hunters who are much more open minded about playing different roles and they won't have a hard time adjusting to Survival going ranged again. As for the people who main switched from other melee classes; forgive me for not having much sympathy, but there are 12 other melee classes out there. There are 11 ranged, and of those only TWO are even remotely connected to the "archer" thematic. One of those hardly connects to that at all. It didn't make sense to take one of the 3 ranged weapon users (12 total ranged) and turn it into yet another one of the 12 other melee specs and there is nothing wrong with correcting the existing balance (11 ranged, 13 melee => 12 ranged, 12 melee).

And it makes sense economically too. Why spend so much effort maintaining a spec which is damn near guaranteed to remain one of the least popular specs in the game, if not THE least? If you come back to me saying "people like that spec"... well, people liked the old spec too and there were many multitudes more of them.

[Deleted]

Survival should be a healer, because... well... survival.

See! Hunters were right in vanilla, everything is hunter loot!!! Survival the first healer/tank! Well guess palas, dks and dhs heal a ton too :P

and with new DK talent giving their party leech................... my god

[Bepples]

Here is hoping the melee hunter dies in the next xpac....doubt it but i can hope.

I tend to be pessimistic so I assume by default it's going to remain how it is now: 2 ranged, 1 melee.

I think the next most likely option is SV going ranged again.

Next up: Hunters become a 2-spec class with BM and MM only

Next up, you have 4 specs: 3 ranged, 1 melee.

Next up: 3 specs, 2 ranged 1 melee, but BM goes melee and SV goes ranged.

Finally, you have the unlikely nightmare scenario: BM and SV go melee, MM stays ranged. I would put this at equal probability with a 2-spec class with one melee and one ranged spec.

Blizzard is pretty hell-bent on the whole "class fantasy" nonsense, to the point where they hold it at greater importance than basic playability. And, for whatever reason, they are just incapable of combining "class fantasy" and "ranged DPS". I think they would also be unwilling to redo a spec immediately after redoing it in the previous expansion. That's why I think it's most likely SV stays ranged, and while it slowly gains traction over the years it will never leave the bottom-5 specs in the game in terms of popularity. Blizzard has a habit lately of deflecting blame, refusing to admit fault, and doubling down on failure so I don't expect good times ahead for the hunter class.

However, economically it has been a failure. Hunters are probably the most changed class in Legion, and a LOT of effort was pumped into this class. Survival was the main part of all of this. Sadly they had their priorities unorganised and they failed to understand what people liked about hunters so these changes have largely been slammed by the community as a massive misstep. Survival is either ignored or actively avoided and detested by the majority of hunters, and it brought in no significant amount of players from other classes. Notice how most forum discussions about hunters are between BM and MM? For most of the class, it's a 2-spec class now. Like I said, Blizzard likes to double down on failure but it is possible that the Survival situation becomes intolerable; spending a large amount of effort maintaining a spec only for no one to turn up? They might just abandon ship, and that's why I put "SV goes ranged again" as the 2nd option.

Now, people will second the next choice: hunters going 2 spec. I think this is FAR more likely that hunters going 4-spec. Blizzard has expressed that they think most classes should have started with 2 specs like demon hunters. I don't see Blizzard going for the option that requires MORE effort from them, however badly that will affect the playerbase. So this is the unlikely scenario where Blizzard realises Survival is dead in the water but thinks that soldiering through the inevitable shitstorm arising from removing an existing spec with no replacement is worth not having to spend the effort remaking a spec yet again or making and maintaining a 4th spec.

The 4-spec "3 ranged, 1 melee" option is the ideal choice for everyone, quite frankly, but I don't see Blizzard ever going for this choice. It's a lot of extra effort to maintain at least one spec, and possibly two, that will be largely unplayed. Plus, Blizzard has expressed their want for FEWER specs, not more specs. So, while people suggest this very frequently, I don't see Blizzard going for this option.

The last two are just random scenarios based on the not-uncommon criticism that BM should have been melee rather than Survival. Both of these options require remaking specs and GUARANTEEING that at least one of them will end up with the same problem that SV has now. High effort, high risk, low reward.

[last1214]

I can't really stand playing melee classes anymore, and they used to be the main thing I played. I tried really hard to get back into my rogue and even tried out a demon hunter. My main complaint with both of them: I'm slaved to melee range and no longer have the freedom I once had as a ranged.

Was considering switching to a mage next expansion. I really enjoyed playing all 3 of their specs at one point in time. Currently I like BM, but that only levels me one spec with no off spec I like to switch over to. If they decide to bring back old survival, I'd probably play that, for old times sake.