Overall viability of Survival

[Karzakk]

Anecdotal evidence. Just because you play against scrubs doesn't mean SV is good. And BM/MM need specific items and legendaries to be good, which is rare at that iLvl for them to have them. I guess that's a strong side of SV of not needing any Legendaries.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done
Have some non-anecdotal evidence, undergeared and pulling 770k, SV is hard there are a lot of buttons to hit and BM/MM hunters who shit talk would never be able to perform that well, guaranteed 95% of hunters would not be able to do the rotation and pull good numbers.

[Utigarde]

Survival is probably the worst spec Blizzard ever designed.

While nothing comes close to BC warlock shadow bolt spam, I do agree it isn't a good spec.

[Karzakk]

OT: Survival is viable, sure. If you can enjoy it then play it, but if not like most (because as I just noted above - it's clunky as fuck to play) then you might be better off re-rolling.

Not even clunky, just requires you to think and hit whichever ability is most optimal in that second. It is not a classic hit everything off cool down spec which confuses people, they just want their 2 button spam spec back.

The thing with SV is if your mind drifts for just a couple seconds during the fight everything is fucked and your DPS is going to plummet as all your buffs and debuffs fall off, but if you perform a flawless rotation and have great uptime of mok'nathal, lots of 6 stack windows and good uptime on your debuffs you will be pulling massive numbers. RNG, luck and skill are all factors in playing a survival hunter, easy to mess up but the payoff is awesome if you can do it.

[Tehterokkar]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done
Have some non-anecdotal evidence, undergeared and pulling 770k, SV is hard there are a lot of buttons to hit and BM/MM hunters who shit talk would never be able to perform that well, guaranteed 95% of hunters would not be able to do the rotation and pull good numbers.

Maybe you should learn what anecdotal means before you start posting shit.

[Aggrophobic]

While nothing comes close to BC warlock shadow bolt spam, I do agree it isn't a good spec.

Hey! That was me back then and hunter was just as bad.
But ok, yeah that was a tad unintresting, I agree.

[Eapoe]

Personal experience: it's 1 of the most fun specs to play right now and I enjoy it immensely (Hunter main since WotLK when I started playing).
Facts: it's 1 of the most complicated specs in the game right now, with high risk to reward ratio. All other melee can do the same if not more damage with a much easier time. That being said, with the right addons/macros to help, it's really not THAT complicated.
It's very unpopular right now, and has a stigma of "Hunters are rdps, period!" Some guilds will outright refuse SV hunters right now (my guild actually has a policy of no SV hunters right now, which is silly).
It still needs some tuning on Blizzard's part. Numbers could be increased slightly to be more in line with other melee or even higher than due to the risk/reward I mentioned. Mainly though, the spec itself needs a little reworking. Tuning traps to be an AoE/Cleave situation would be a great start; however, there are some trait and talent issues that go against each other. Biggest example is the 4th gold giving a proc of extra damage when using Flanking Strike, but the talent of WotMN (best damage increase talent right now) putting FS on the back burner a bit and causing us to use it less over the course of the fight. Our Mastery is also one of the few, if not only, non direct damage increases in the game, giving pet attacks and Flanking Strike a chance to proc a Mongoose Bite charge, which uses a GCD and doesn't always proc outside of a static Mastery rating with t19 tier.
Anyone who says "why bring a SV Hunter when you have other melee" needs to be reminded "why bring a Hunter when you have Spriests/Locks/Mages?"
It is 100% viable for raids, even with the above issues mentioned.

[Overlord Fordragon]

It's competitive but it isn't easy, anyone telling you otherwise is either

A: An idiot who shouldn't be confusing their opinions for advice.
B: A salty whiny bitch who didn't want hunters to have a melee spec.
Or C: They're bad.

[Trapstarz]

Personal experience: it's 1 of the most fun specs to play right now and I enjoy it immensely (Hunter main since WotLK when I started playing).
Facts: it's 1 of the most complicated specs in the game right now, with high risk to reward ratio. All other melee can do the same if not more damage with a much easier time. That being said, with the right addons/macros to help, it's really not THAT complicated.
It's very unpopular right now, and has a stigma of "Hunters are rdps, period!" Some guilds will outright refuse SV hunters right now (my guild actually has a policy of no SV hunters right now, which is silly).
It still needs some tuning on Blizzard's part. Numbers could be increased slightly to be more in line with other melee or even higher than due to the risk/reward I mentioned. Mainly though, the spec itself needs a little reworking. Tuning traps to be an AoE/Cleave situation would be a great start; however, there are some trait and talent issues that go against each other. Biggest example is the 4th gold giving a proc of extra damage when using Flanking Strike, but the talent of WotMN (best damage increase talent right now) putting FS on the back burner a bit and causing us to use it less over the course of the fight. Our Mastery is also one of the few, if not only, non direct damage increases in the game, giving pet attacks and Flanking Strike a chance to proc a Mongoose Bite charge, which uses a GCD and doesn't always proc outside of a static Mastery rating with t19 tier.
Anyone who says "why bring a SV Hunter when you have other melee" needs to be reminded "why bring a Hunter when you have Spriests/Locks/Mages?"
It is 100% viable for raids, even with the above issues mentioned.

I feel the same way

[Zazey]

Most of these people are just putting out their objective opinion on survival, ignore them.

Is survival viable: Yes.
Can survival compete/top meters on virtually all fights: Yes but so can just about any class if you're playing at a 95%+ level.

In ToS Survival will be pretty decent. Most of us are hoping for more changes to the set, the recently nerfed our 4pc bonus, some may say a little too hard.
There are some downsides to survival being competitive though. For starters they scale tremendously with gear. Lucky for us all relic slots from ToS are BiS, being MB. Second, as much as people say survival isn't reliant on good legendaries, it is. Having CotW is virtually a must if you want to stay competitive. Finally, learn to play WoTM as much as it sucks.

[Deleted]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done
Have some non-anecdotal evidence, undergeared and pulling 770k, SV is hard there are a lot of buttons to hit and BM/MM hunters who shit talk would never be able to perform that well, guaranteed 95% of hunters would not be able to do the rotation and pull good numbers.

Well thats the point survival sucks.. you have to play amazing and then u still do lackluster dps.. congratz at parsing 1st out 17 parses tho..

Your hunters suck also

[Soisoisoi]

Not even clunky, just requires you to think and hit whichever ability is most optimal in that second. It is not a classic hit everything off cool down spec which confuses people, they just want their 2 button spam spec back.

The thing with SV is if your mind drifts for just a couple seconds during the fight everything is fucked and your DPS is going to plummet as all your buffs and debuffs fall off, but if you perform a flawless rotation and have great uptime of mok'nathal, lots of 6 stack windows and good uptime on your debuffs you will be pulling massive numbers. RNG, luck and skill are all factors in playing a survival hunter, easy to mess up but the payoff is awesome if you can do it.

No, if you read what I wrote above that, you'll see what I mean by clunky. It's not difficult by any means, it's just god-awful to play with all the abilities that add very little of value or feel like they do nothing. You don't need 10+ abilities in a normal "rotation" to make it feel like it isn't brain-dead.

[Trapstarz]

It's not difficult by any means, it's just god-awful to play with all the abilities that add very little of value or feel like they do nothing. You don't need 10+ abilities in a normal "rotation" to make it feel like it isn't brain-dead.

Details says otherwise and questionning almost every GCD is something refreshing, everything else becomes tasteless with the others "normal rotations".

[Karzakk]

Well thats the point survival sucks.. you have to play amazing and then u still do lackluster dps.. congratz at parsing 1st out 17 parses tho..

Your hunters suck also

Thanks man, explain to me how 770k while undergeared is lackluster.

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Maybe you should learn what anecdotal means before you start posting shit.

Yes I gave an anecdote and said I fuck other hunters on DPS so then I showed you hard evidence that survival is top tier, not sure you even know what you are talking about.

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No, if you read what I wrote above that, you'll see what I mean by clunky. It's not difficult by any means, it's just god-awful to play with all the abilities that add very little of value or feel like they do nothing. You don't need 10+ abilities in a normal "rotation" to make it feel like it isn't brain-dead.

Not difficult by any means? Is that why most SV hunters cant do 400k dps?

[Deleted]

Thanks man, explain to me how 770k while undergeared is lackluster.

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Yes I gave an anecdote and said I fuck other hunters on DPS so then I showed you hard evidence that survival is top tier, not sure you even know what you are talking about.

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Not difficult by any means? Is that why most SV hunters cant do 400k dps?

Well you could probably play pretty much every other spec and do similar (in most cases better) with similar ilvl.. and i mean thats one fight which is pretty simple and isn't too harsh on survival also.. how did you do on the other ones?

Not sure what i am arguing here anyway as you also seem to think its a hard spec.. My point is Survival is just not very good especially for mythic progression.. far too much stuff to track/press and monitor.. while you need to be focused on mechanics.. and for the dps it provides i e under dh/rogue/fury warrior/frost dk.. who all have a far easier rotation.. its not worth it

BM is braindead and shits all over survival.

So viable? possibly.. is it very good? just no

[Tehterokkar]

Yes I gave an anecdote and said I fuck other hunters on DPS so then I showed you hard evidence that survival is top tier, not sure you even know what you are talking about.

1 sample is not fucking proof that Survival is good, your personal experience is not fucking proof. Your other hunters are fucking donkeys. Proof that SV is good would be seeing multiple SV Hunters at the top of WCL rankings, but that is not the case. There are 3 legitimate SV parses in the top 100 for Mythic Krosus

In the 899-901 Warcraftlogs bracket, you rank 90th for Mythic Krosus with the highest parse being 907k by BM.

[Soisoisoi]

Not difficult by any means? Is that why most SV hunters cant do 400k dps?

Most Hunters in general are dogshit, hence why BM is so popular, because of it's extremely low skill floor to do "okay" relative to other specs. What do you expect?

[Khrux]

Survival is decent if geared properly and played well but BM is the clear winner in 7.2 no contest.

My recent badly played heroic parse is below.(I was BM for 10/10 mythic so can't show mythic parses for Survival)
I used a static AI/SHunter/Caltrops/Butchery/ExpertTrap build(which is shit for half the fights) but it shows the kind of dps Survival can put out without the ideal talents per fight and played badly on some fights.



All these fights were done with Bracers/Roots. I've only 46 traits in my Survival weapon, but im 913ilvl with 28% haste, 10% mastery, 10% vers and 15% crit in my Survival gear.

[Dismembered]

10/10 M here. We have a survival hunter in the Guild and he is perfectly viable. People think survival is bad because hardly anyone plays it and most of those who do are bad.

If you want to pull good numbers its not going to be faceroll just fyi. You will need to keep track of certain buffs and play well.

Just watched your wowprogress guild's page and I don't see any Hunter as SV (the one who was on the Gul'dan kill is BM now), looks like all of them rerolled?

[Deleted]

Survival is probably the worst spec Blizzard ever designed.

I don't get this. I've played every spec on legion alpha and live. Leveled 10 classes to 110. Survival is by far the most fun and well designed spec, atleast in the top 3 or top 5. I got to 2500 rating in 3v3, 2300 in 2v2. Could've gone higher if my partners didn't quit. In PvE I'm usually doing very very well. It's far from as SIMPLE as arms warrior. It's EXTREMELY versatile. You just have to think a little bit, think a few steps a head. BUT people have different tastes. That's ok But I'm really glad about survival.

Surivival is also the spec I played since TBC so I'm kind of happy it's what I ended up with in Legion.

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The only thing I dislike about survival in pvp is that I never really use raptor strike. Since I prio my focus on flanking strike and lacerate or butchery. But it's ok, it gives me a option to use whatever I want in give situations. And not feel like every single survival plays the same. It reminds me of MoP unholy, which also had a loooot of buttons. Welp, now I end up saying I love what I wanted to say I dislike. I'm a hyporc...

[Aggrophobic]

I don't get this. I've played every spec on legion alpha and live. Leveled 10 classes to 110. Survival is by far the most fun and well designed spec, atleast in the top 3 or top 5. I got to 2500 rating in 3v3, 2300 in 2v2. Could've gone higher if my partners didn't quit. In PvE I'm usually doing very very well. It's far from as SIMPLE as arms warrior. It's EXTREMELY versatile. You just have to think a little bit, think a few steps a head. BUT people have different tastes. That's ok But I'm really glad about survival.

Surivival is also the spec I played since TBC so I'm kind of happy it's what I ended up with in Legion.

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The only thing I dislike about survival in pvp is that I never really use raptor strike. Since I prio my focus on flanking strike and lacerate or butchery. But it's ok, it gives me a option to use whatever I want in give situations. And not feel like every single survival plays the same. It reminds me of MoP unholy, which also had a loooot of buttons. Welp, now I end up saying I love what I wanted to say I dislike. I'm a hyporc...

Well, looking at how few players actually play the spec, most would not agree with you.