Is Blizzard getting ready to delete survival in the next expansion?

[Gaaz]

There hasn't been anything for hunters yet, that's why I'm saying chill and wait and see. If nothing happens in a couple more patches that's when it's time to go crazy. I was an Ele Shaman from BC-WoD I know way better than any Hunter the mistreatment by Blizzard. But freaking out before any changes have even had a chance to get onto ptr is absolute madness.

That is exactly the point - there has not been anything for SV hunters. BM and MM get updates on the PTR. BM even has a mechanics overhaul, thought a minor one, not just any number tuning. We get rumors and hints about these updates way in advance. The BM changes were hinted to us almost 4 months ago, when developers were testing legendary shoulders on the PTR. Yet survival is like surrounded by vacuum. Yes, it gets numbers tuning from time to time to keep it "competitive", in theory at least. But mechanically it is such a mess, even a 10-20% dps advantage does not make people play it more often. If there was anything at all planned for SV, I bet we would know about it by now.
On a side note, when was the time anyone saw a SV hunter in a raid? I am not even sure if I met one this calendar year.

[Zyky]

That is exactly the point - there has not been anything for SV hunters. BM and MM get updates on the PTR. BM even has a mechanics overhaul, thought a minor one, not just any number tuning. We get rumors and hints about these updates way in advance. The BM changes were hinted to us almost 4 months ago, when developers were testing legendary shoulders on the PTR. Yet survival is like surrounded by vacuum. Yes, it gets numbers tuning from time to time to keep it "competitive", in theory at least. But mechanically it is such a mess, even a 10-20% dps advantage does not make people play it more often. If there was anything at all planned for SV, I bet we would know about it by now.
On a side note, when was the time anyone saw a SV hunter in a raid? I am not even sure if I met one this calendar year.

To answer your specific concerns, mainly "If there was anything at all planned for SV, I bet we would know about it by now." Demon Hunters had no idea they were going to get any kind of attention that they did this patch, so again your argument is pretty invalid to what I've been saying. You're attempting to say "Oh BM knew about it months ago" well Demon Hunters didn't find out until the first set of Patch notes. So seriously Surv Hunters need to chill out.

To answer your question of when was the last time I saw a SV hunter in raid, Method has one and he's constantly streaming Method raids. So just another point that's someone crying about nothing.

[Gaaz]

To answer your specific concerns, mainly "If there was anything at all planned for SV, I bet we would know about it by now." Demon Hunters had no idea they were going to get any kind of attention that they did this patch, so again your argument is pretty invalid to what I've been saying. You're attempting to say "Oh BM knew about it months ago" well Demon Hunters didn't find out until the first set of Patch notes. So seriously Surv Hunters need to chill out.

To answer your question of when was the last time I saw a SV hunter in raid, Method has one and he's constantly streaming Method raids. So just another point that's someone crying about nothing.

You mean unexpected changes to demon blades? Kind of like they did in 7.2, 7.1.5 before that, 7.1 before that, 7.0.3 before that, 7.0 prepatch before that... I mean, yeah - that was totally unexpected, since they screw with this talent every single patch, and then update numbers with mini patches in between them. As for SV - absolutely zero. Not a single blue post about its future, aside from a post about legendary bracers nerf (that BM community was so bummed about).
And good for Method that they can bring a SV to the raid. In case you have not noticed, they rotate ALL specs, even ones that are clearly out of style at the moment. If they take Arms or outlaw to a mythic Gul'dan kills, it does not mean that these specs are in a good place currently, just like it means very little for SV. I would like to add that few people here are actually concerned about numbers tuning for SV. Main problems are with the design itself, that is so clunky and difficult to utilise to maximum potential. I do clear a lot of heroic, normal and lfr raids in my spare time outside of the guild (legendary farm must go on). I honestly do not remember seeing any SV hunter on EU crossrealm raids in the past 3-4 months. And that says a lot, because SV in general is the maximum dps spec since at least november last year.

[Zyky]

You mean unexpected changes to demon blades? Kind of like they did in 7.2, 7.1.5 before that, 7.1 before that, 7.0.3 before that, 7.0 prepatch before that... I mean, yeah - that was totally unexpected, since they screw with this talent every single patch, and then update numbers with mini patches in between them. As for SV - absolutely zero. Not a single blue post about its future, aside from a post about legendary bracers nerf (that BM community was so bummed about).
And good for Method that they can bring a SV to the raid. In case you have not noticed, they rotate ALL specs, even ones that are clearly out of style at the moment. If they take Arms or outlaw to a mythic Gul'dan kills, it does not mean that these specs are in a good place currently, just like it means very little for SV. I would like to add that few people here are actually concerned about numbers tuning for SV. Main problems are with the design itself, that is so clunky and difficult to utilise to maximum potential. I do clear a lot of heroic, normal and lfr raids in my spare time outside of the guild (legendary farm must go on). I honestly do not remember seeing any SV hunter on EU crossrealm raids in the past 3-4 months. And that says a lot, because SV in general is the maximum dps spec since at least november last year.

Wanna really go down that path because this is a complete revamp to demon blades, not a touch up. They also made First Blood baseline, if you read the note changes. I'm done debating with a derp who wants to say that factual evidence isn't good enough for him.

[Gurg]

Played Survival up to the point of 7.2 as a main, then switched to enhance as main, and keeping survival as main alt that actually isnt lagging much, im just not playing it so much any more.

First, to reply to the question in first topic.
I doubt that blizz will remove Survival in next exp, but I WISH that they would add 4th spec and called it Surival and current survival renamed to "Tracker." Or anything really that is forest-ish. Honestly during beta phase 99% of people gave feedback that melee survival should be 4th spec leaving ranged survival in the game. The issue was.. blizzard brushed off that feedback and 7.0 hunter shitstorm happened, totally approved tbh even so i was on the side that melee hunter was fine. At the beginning i was more irritated that they actually put a rowing paddle in our hands, rather than giving us option to Dual Wield, which hunters have since day 1 of vanilla, but hey, im now known as Panda Jedi hunter tnx to Very Light Sabre, which is cool till we get back our DW option in next expansion.

Second.
I think that blizzard is in "status quo" with survival hunter, scared to do any changes to it with policy "if it works, dont touch it, even if it JUST works, doesnt matter how." Their damage is good, Butchery is insane and leggo boots fix our focus regen issue when it comes to it. Without them 50energy for a Flanking Strike really makes our rotation clunky as hell. With current, optimal build, theres simply too much buttons to press and short term things to keep up. The worst case is actually t19 2p bonus that obviously shows that our mastery without it is undertuned, really broken and it actually makes mandatory to have T19 2p bonus even when t20 is out due to gear RNG upgrade. Mythic t19 is actually t20 normal levels so, even so its for progression, makes it valuable up to some point.
Next, our pets and their target switching. Well, this is obvious issue that every survival hunter felt, if not in outdoor content definitely in dungeons and most definitely in raids. You attack one target, adds appear, you harpoon to them, your pet Dashes towards it, add die, your harpoon is reset due to artifact trait so you harpoon back to boss and try casting Flanking Strike - animation goes half trough and stops, you try again, again animation goes half way trough and then stops.. and then you see your pet running towards your target at its normal speed, most often using its Dash just few steps from the target... DPS loss right there.
I have suggested countless of times that blink strikes on few sec CD should be mandatory for BM and SV and you could get them.. via lets say small questline that unlocks on lvl 110. There are a LOT of ideas that i wrote on Survivals topic on wow forums, among one, adding ranged survival as purely gadget like spec so people who enjoyed it actually can play it, but also add true tanking pets for current melee survival via "Green fire" like questline, allowing melee hunters to be DPS/Tanks. Honestly, theres a lot that can be done with survival and we all know it.

Lastly. Solely blizzards status quo on survival pushed me away from it, its simply too much clunky and, with current build, it has way too many buttons that button bloat is insane. Buttons that do small stuff, but combined makes the spec clunky. Comparing 9 active buttons that we use in our rotation, including Butchery, with, lets say, Retribution paladin that has 5 buttons (6th is actually AoE finisher instead of ST) or Enhance shammy who uses 5 buttons (6 including passive AoE gain for all mobs standing in your Crash Lightning field) survival has waaayy to many buttons to press and honestly even so its ULTRA fun, i come to the point that i actually dont see the reason to play it simply because, why would i harass my fingers with it when i can play something that flows nicely, logically, uses almost twice as less buttons rotationally and actually performs on pair with survival?

I kept my faith since .1 patch and hoped that some mechanical issues would be addressed in .x.5 patch widely advertised as "balancing patches." .1.5 patch came and go and nothing happened beside DPS aura increase trough whole spec, which is, to me, obvious, that survival has its issues and blizzard, as always its just duck taping it. I kept my faith trough till .2 patch launched and i continued to keep it still, but once .2.5 changes started to happen and seeing lack of hunter changes in general, not survival specifics only, i decided that its time to bail out and leave messy spec behind till its properly looked at.

But, logically seeing, its hardly that blizzard will "delete" melee survival simply because it now spec, a niche one, with its playerbase. The uproar of melee hunter was quite big and i think that blizzard would rather add 4th spec than living trough that fiasco again.

[Arrowstormen]

I seriously doubt they will add a fourth spec. I always liked Survival the best, and I still think it is the best, even as melee, and sure, I'd like for a ranged Survival-ish spec to be in the game, but it would probably be way too similar to current Survival's hunter's class fantasy and seem like it treaded on its terriority, what with traps and dots and outdoor-type stuff.

More importantly, while it seems like some players consider "adding a fourth spec" to be the obvious solution to such problems, Blizzard has been very stand-offish when it comes to adding four specs to classes, and they've only done so once in a very unique case, where Feral Combat was pretty much two specs/roles in one since Classic anyway. They are most likely afraid that adding a fourth spec to anymore classes will break the camel's back and have every class demand four specs, and why shouldn't they if a pure DPS class like hunter can?

[ozusteapot]

With all due respect, what melee sv uproar? Check warcraftlogs for yourself, BM has more 20 times the amount of players logging at both 75 and 95 th percentiles, mm clocks around 15times more. The only specs that are played lrss are those that aren't competitive, which isnt't the case for current survival.

[Deleted]

Survival was an overhaul when this expansion launched. They aren't going to overhaul it during the expansion. And Enhancement feels the same love as survival and hasn't changed much since launch.

Yeah it got some "love" in 7.1.5. Class defining trinket nerfed, 10% crit lost, Hailstorm nerfed from 12% dps gain to 3%, no good trinket in NH.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#sample=1

The "love" Enhance got, no Survival would wanna get.

[randomnamegenerator16]

EDIT: I see some in the comments wanna replace melee survival with a ranged spec. Melee survival is a spec of it's own right now, I get people who ask for a third ranged spec but why do you want to delete a melee spec SOME enjoy? You don't lose anything if you don't play it

Yes, we lose something. It is called Survival ranged spec, that was my favourite spec of hunter and was butchered in Legion to add another pointless meele to the game that almost noone plays anyway. They should get rid of it and bring back old survival, or at least bring back old survi with another name and theme (but same core gameplay).

Nighthold's 4set makes BM very fun to play, especially in m+, and the fact that BM is far less legendary reliant to dish out good dps combined with the fact that my best mm legendary has been bugged for the past few months made me not regret rerolling that much at all.

Uwotm8? BM is extremely reliant on legendaries, both in terms of gameplay and dps. Especially with Mantle of Command, which gives second dire beast - which resolves much of spec clunkiness and gives it tons of dps.

[Deleted]

If they do that.......what happens with the artifact skins (transmog tab)?

- - - Updated - - -

reminds me of gladiator. don't expect it to last.

Gladiator wasn't a spec and also didn't have once in a lifetime unlocks for it.

I am still salty that they removed Gladiator though......so much for class fantasy.

[Geran]

EDIT: I see some in the comments wanna replace melee survival with a ranged spec. Melee survival is a spec of it's own right now, I get people who ask for a third ranged spec but why do you want to delete a melee spec SOME enjoy? You don't lose anything if you don't play it

/me travels back in time to early 2016

"but why do you want to delete a ranged spec LOTS enjoy? You don't lose anything if you don't play it.

[SoulForge]

Yeah it got some "love" in 7.1.5. Class defining trinket nerfed, 10% crit lost, Hailstorm nerfed from 12% dps gain to 3%, no good trinket in NH.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#sample=1

The "love" Enhance got, no Survival would wanna get.

Don't forget that our best trait didn't exist on any relics in NightHold.

[Manabomb]

Honestly? I think turning a ranged spec into a melee spec has taught Blizzard one thing for the future: Don't.

Even if Surv can sorta kinda pull good numbers, it's mechanically kinda unfun as a melee (Atleast compared to it's energy based brethren) and... Raiders seem to tend to prefer being ranged.

To be honest, I'm missing Cata-MoP surv hunter. Those were some glory days for the spec.

[Gaaz]

Wanna really go down that path because this is a complete revamp to demon blades, not a touch up. They also made First Blood baseline, if you read the note changes. I'm done debating with a derp who wants to say that factual evidence isn't good enough for him.

A revamp like first lowering proc chance from 100% to 75% and increasing fury per proc in prepatch, than from 75% to 60% in 7.1, and finally from 60% to 100% and reducing fury generation to normalize that once again in 7.2.5? Yeah... totally new and unexpected. Gamebreaking even. As for first blood baseline, for the love of me I can not find anything about it in the PvE area. Maybe you mean the reverse of the 13th Jan hotfix for PvP...
To rephrase, I am done debating with a derp who wants to say that imagining things is as good as evidence. Omittance of DH from the original "major changes" list may be easily explained by the fact that Demon blades talent is in constant flux since release. A small nerf and a compensation in fury generation by buffing another talent (prepared). It is not even on the level of BM changes, where a major mechanic just went from a charge reset system to a timer cd reduction. And BM were not even mentioned in the focus group by the blues. SV needs some major love in order to make it playable. But it seems like the spec is left for dead this expansion IMO.

Played Survival up to the point of 7.2 as a main, then switched to enhance as main, and keeping survival as main alt that actually isnt lagging much, im just not playing it so much any more.
...
I kept my faith since .1 patch and hoped that some mechanical issues would be addressed in .x.5 patch widely advertised as "balancing patches." .1.5 patch came and go and nothing happened beside DPS aura increase trough whole spec, which is, to me, obvious, that survival has its issues and blizzard, as always its just duck taping it. I kept my faith trough till .2 patch launched and i continued to keep it still, but once .2.5 changes started to happen and seeing lack of hunter changes in general, not survival specifics only, i decided that its time to bail out and leave messy spec behind till its properly looked at.

But, logically seeing, its hardly that blizzard will "delete" melee survival simply because it now spec, a niche one, with its playerbase. The uproar of melee hunter was quite big and i think that blizzard would rather add 4th spec than living trough that fiasco again.

My thoughts exactly. They will definitely not delete it. But the status quo of this patch, when SV is left for dead, seems to be fine with blizz. At least when it comes to Disc priests, they have their niche.

[Zyky]

SV needs some major love in order to make it playable. But it seems like the spec is left for dead this expansion IMO.

Facts: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=99
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=95
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=90
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=80
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=75
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=70
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=60
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=50
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=40
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=30
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#dataset=25

It isn't until 20th percentile that Survival isn't the top hunter spec. I'm sorry that you're just a bad player trying to argue something that isn't truthful. But first you need to learn how to be honest before Blizzard is even going to take a look at concerns.

[reimmi2016]

What? How does that have anything to do with survival? They won't be deleting any spec sorry to burst your bubble!

Didn't stop them from deleting the old survival

[Lucetia]

EDIT: I see some in the comments wanna replace melee survival with a ranged spec. Melee survival is a spec of it's own right now, I get people who ask for a third ranged spec but why do you want to delete a melee spec SOME enjoy? You don't lose anything if you don't play it

Same question can be asked the other way around. Why did they delete a range spec that some enjoyed? You didn't lose anything if you didn't want to play it. Instead we got the atrocities of all three spec we have now.

[Nythiz]

Yeah it got some "love" in 7.1.5. Class defining trinket nerfed, 10% crit lost, Hailstorm nerfed from 12% dps gain to 3%, no good trinket in NH.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#sample=1

The "love" Enhance got, no Survival would wanna get.

Setting aside the unfair nerfs that enhancement has gotten in 7.1.5.
Enhancement shaman is in one of the best states, if not THE best state, it has been in since vanilla when you look at general gameplay and the feeling of the abilities (and that's coming from someone who has played enhancement thoroughly since vanilla).
The biggest problem it has now is that it doesn't seem to have a real strengths, yet has some major weaknesses (e.g. AoE).

But I can't remember the abilities in the past feeling as good as they do now. Stormstrike hits like a truck and the procs (especially with tempest) are fun. I quite liked flametongue and frostbrand (w/ hailstorm) buffing in the past it felt more unique and fitting to enhancement where most other classes use a DoT on the opponent; even though I would have preferred if they lasted a bit longer than they do.

Survival hunter isn't bad damage wise at all. But the overal feeling of it and the synergy between skills feels quite rough in my opinion. The mechanics can be quite clunky and the Mongoose Bite mechanic, although somewhat interesting, doesn't feel like it quite hits the mark. Somewhat boring setup for damage that isn't bad, but isn't spectacular either, because it happens too often to make it feel special.

With all due respect, what melee sv uproar? Check warcraftlogs for yourself, BM has more 20 times the amount of players logging at both 75 and 95 th percentiles, mm clocks around 15times more. The only specs that are played lrss are those that aren't competitive, which isnt't the case for current survival.

F

It isn't until 20th percentile that Survival isn't the top hunter spec. I'm sorry that you're just a bad player trying to argue something that isn't truthful. But first you need to learn how to be honest before Blizzard is even going to take a look at concerns.

I'm not the person you quoted, but something being "unplayable" is not the same as it simply not doing enough damage.
Being unplayable most likely points to the extremely rough playstyle of the spec and clear lack of synergy between abilities and the fact it simply a brand new spec that needs a ton of adjustments.

I don't think people have a lot of issues with the damage (Maybe the person you quote does, but im talking about general attitude here). It's mostly the gameplay.
Survival doesn't quite feel as smooth as it should. The DoT aspects are somewhat fun, but their low duration doesn't mesh well with the semi-lengthy setup that Mongoose Bite / Mongoose Fury require of you. The setup for 6 stacks of Mongoose Fury is a lot better after the buffs to Flanking Strikes (and the SV 2-set bonus), but still happens often enough that blizzard can't quite make it feel as special as it potentially could be.

Can't quite blame blizzard. It's the first iteration of what is practically a brand new spec. Plus I doubt they'll make sweeping changes to such a spec during an expansion rather than in between expansions. Although I have to say, that I hoped they would do a bit more tuning on what is practically a brand new spec during the expansion. SV feels slightly cast to the side after making such sweeping changes to it.

The chance of SV going back to ranged are practically zero; blizzard doesn't like coming back on decisions and they probably feel like they can iterate quite a lot on the spec still. I preferred the old ranged spec; mostly because I think this game didn't need another melee spec, whereas I do feel we lost a ranged spec now. But I don't think melee SV is the end of the world either.

Chance of hunters getting a 4th spec are even smaller than SV going back to ranged. There is very little grounds to make a 4th spec for hunter, especially if that 4th spec is another DPS spec.

[Zyky]

Setting aside the unfair nerfs that enhancement has gotten in 7.1.5.
Enhancement shaman is in one of the best states, if not THE best state, it has been in since vanilla when you look at general gameplay and the feeling of the abilities (and that's coming from someone who has played enhancement thoroughly since vanilla).
The biggest problem it has now is that it doesn't seem to have a real strengths, yet has some major weaknesses (e.g. AoE).

But I can't remember the abilities in the past feeling as good as they do now. Stormstrike hits like a truck and the procs (especially with tempest) are fun. I quite liked flametongue and frostbrand (w/ hailstorm) buffing in the past it felt more unique and fitting to enhancement where most other classes use a DoT on the opponent; even though I would have preferred if they lasted a bit longer than they do.

Survival hunter isn't bad damage wise at all. But the overal feeling of it and the synergy between skills feels quite rough in my opinion. The mechanics can be quite clunky and the Mongoose Bite mechanic, although somewhat interesting, doesn't feel like it quite hits the mark. Somewhat boring setup for damage that isn't bad, but isn't spectacular either, because it happens too often to make it feel special.





I'm not the person you quoted, but something being "unplayable" is not the same as it simply not doing enough damage.
Being unplayable most likely points to the extremely rough playstyle of the spec and clear lack of synergy between abilities and the fact it simply a brand new spec that needs a ton of adjustments.

I don't think people have a lot of issues with the damage (Maybe the person you quote does, but im talking about general attitude here). It's mostly the gameplay.
Survival doesn't quite feel as smooth as it should. The DoT aspects are somewhat fun, but their low duration doesn't mesh well with the semi-lengthy setup that Mongoose Bite / Mongoose Fury require of you. The setup for 6 stacks of Mongoose Fury is a lot better after the buffs to Flanking Strikes (and the SV 2-set bonus), but still happens often enough that blizzard can't quite make it feel as special as it potentially could be.

Can't quite blame blizzard. It's the first iteration of what is practically a brand new spec. Plus I doubt they'll make sweeping changes to such a spec during an expansion rather than in between expansions. Although I have to say, that I hoped they would do a bit more tuning on what is practically a brand new spec during the expansion. SV feels slightly cast to the side after making such sweeping changes to it.

The chance of SV going back to ranged are practically zero; blizzard doesn't like coming back on decisions and they probably feel like they can iterate quite a lot on the spec still. I preferred the old ranged spec; mostly because I think this game didn't need another melee spec, whereas I do feel we lost a ranged spec now. But I don't think melee SV is the end of the world either.

Chance of hunters getting a 4th spec are even smaller than SV going back to ranged. There is very little grounds to make a 4th spec for hunter, especially if that 4th spec is another DPS spec.

Its a high risk, high reward rotation, its the top of the hunter specs because of that. But just because some people don't like the spec doesn't mean everyone doesn't. Its the exact same thing as Arcane Mage last expansion, you either had large reward with procs on Prismatic Crystal or you didn't. This is less rng based and more skill based which makes it far better. Again though, because 1 person complains that doesn't mean that everyone thinks its "unplayable" otherwise there would be nobody actually playing it.

[Myta]

Blizzard makes a very popular decision, Melee Hunter.
Blizzard executes it poorly, can't decide what it should be, ignores any and all feedback.
Blizzard blames the playerbase for not adopting Survival as they would have liked, abandons all development on it despite not giving it any in the first place.
Blizzard deletes Melee Hunter and forever uses their botch-job as an excuse to never, ever do it again.