Thoughts on Survival Hunter Changes

[DeicideUH]

All hunters need some rework, specially in talents.

For Survival, I think traps should be made utility-only (Explosive Trap = Knockback) and a lot of talents need to be either made baseline or changed for something more interesting.

[Bepples]

Melee Survival is the most fun spec they've ever created. That makes it a huge success and a great decision, and I applaud Blizzard for making it.

Go play something else. Melee Survival is here, it's great, and hopefully it's here to stay. Ranged Survival was not fun at all.

This is never okay. I don't even disagree with some of your points, but this idea alone should land you some infractions. I'm sick of every single survival thread being derailed and taken off topic because of people constantly beating a dead horse.

I get it, you hate melee survival, you want ranged survival back and you miss the old playstyle. I don't even think you are incorrect and you make great points BUT STOP TAKING DISCUSSIONS OFF TOPIC JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT IT. I really wish mods would do a better job of this because not only does it make on topic reliable discussion difficult, it keeps happening.

You bringing the threads of survival hunters off topic isn't going to suddenly change the spec back to the way it was and it honestly isn't fair to the people who are just trying to discuss the workings of the spec the way it is NOW.

These forums are a damn cesspool sometimes.

Edit: I will add that your first post in this thread is fine, but as a whole the concept of purposefully derailing threads shouldn't be allowed

Talking about Survival in threads about Survival is not off-topic.

Also, you cannot fault me for this thread in particular. I made a very relevant first post, to which you actually agree. I was then met with this response:

Good gods shut your fucking pie hole. We get it, you don't like melee Survival. Boo hoo. A) no one gives a shit about your opinion, b) Blizzard doesn't give a shit about your opinion (arguably more important than a) ), c) it's not going anywhere, and d) your constant complaining about it derails every thread about Survival. Just... stop. You DO realize that Black Arrow and Explosive Shot, which were the only SV-specific abilities, are now in Marks... right?

Think before you go demanding that I get banned for making posts you don't like.

[Nefarious Tea]

Think before you go demanding that I get banned for making posts you don't like.

Aww, did a mod tell you to stop derailing threads? Also, nowhere in there did I demand you get banned. I DID tell you to shut up, because you are derailing threads, and at one point even admit you do it intentionally, which is pretty much textbook trolling.

Don't get me wrong, I get where you're coming from. Blizzard changed a spec you like. I'm pretty sure that happens to everyone, and it's certainly happened to me: all three Priest specs in Legion function nothing like they did in WoD. But you know what reasonable people do when Blizzard makes a change to their class they don't like? They either adapt, play something else, or vote with their wallet. They don't go a pointless crusade on a fan site forum.

[Bepples]

Aww, did a mod tell you to stop derailing threads? Also, nowhere in there did I demand you get banned. I DID tell you to shut up, because you are derailing threads, and at one point even admit you do it intentionally, which is pretty much textbook trolling.

No, actually. Read my post instead of just the quote from your post before responding. Notice then that the quote was preceded by 'I was then met with this response:', indicating that I was talking to someone else about your post. The point was that you're the one who derailed this thread, not me.

Don't get me wrong, I get where you're coming from. Blizzard changed a spec you like. I'm pretty sure that happens to everyone, and it's certainly happened to me: all three Priest specs in Legion function nothing like they did in WoD. But you know what reasonable people do when Blizzard makes a change to their class they don't like? They either adapt, play something else, or vote with their wallet. They don't go a pointless crusade on a fan site forum.

No other class change compares to Survival in extent so this is a false equivalency. Also, you missed the fourth option: actually speaking up against negative class changes.

[Deleted]

No other class change compares to Survival in extent so this is a false equivalency. Also, you missed the fourth option: actually speaking up against negative class changes.

Doesn't matter, it's not really a false equivalency in that case.

It's the same dilemma.
If either X or Y happens and I stop playing the spec because one of it is true, it doesn't matter how big or small the change was.
X=Y because X=not playing and Y=not playing.

[Bepples]

Doesn't matter, it's not really a false equivalency in that case.

It's the same dilemma.
If either X or Y happens and I stop playing the spec because one of it is true, it doesn't matter how big or small the change was.
X=Y because X=not playing and Y=not playing.

No, class changes can not in fact be modelled using Boolean logic.

[Deleted]

No, class changes can not in fact be modelled using Boolean logic.

Why not? I just explained it to you why it's the same result.
Just because you have the "feels" about it?

Why is your class change problem more relevant than the ones before it? It's just an opinion. Worthless.

I know someone at work who stopped playing hunter because they changed MM and sidewinders. The difference is...?

[Not A Cat]

Survival is the only hunter spec I enjoy playing at the moment. But it needs some drastic changes, the rotation is way too clunky and bloated. I like the mongoose fury mechanic, but there's too many buttons for the sake of having buttons.

I would really like it if they made the talent tree in such a way so you could have a separate build that focuses on gadgets and traps. Another build could focus on mongoose fury, lance damage, and pet damage. It sounds like they tried putting all into one and it didn't work very well imo. I do want them to continue survival as melee though.

[Jaransan]

Not everything is about dungeons and raids though, SV is not the only spec with abilities that are useless in group settings.

Anyway I hope they don't change it too much since I'm really enjoying it.

I did in my opening post try to explain why some of those abilities are useless in all content. Or at least that which I have experience with. I've done enough solo/pve/pvp content to have a feel for it.

I love survival - thats why I play it - but Pve And Pvp content kind of ARE the only things that matter. Everything else is trivial in difficulty and hence, doesn't really require you to pull the potential of Survival out to its limits, and its only really at the point where your pulling out all the stops that the flaws in the design become painfully glaring. Its one thing for some aspects of a spec to be useless outside of certain scenarios, but abilities like sticky grenade and camouflage are useless in nearly every scenario.

[Nefarious Tea]

No other class change compares to Survival in extent so this is a false equivalency. Also, you missed the fourth option: actually speaking up against negative class changes.

The magnitude of a class change does not change the nature of class changes. Just because Survival has seen arguably the most unusual change does not make other changes incomparable to it. There have been other specs redesigned far more than Survival has been (and a few specs have had such sweeping changes happen several times). You're not allowed to ignore the evidence that other classes have had massive design changes over the years just because you don't like this one.

[Bepples]

Why not? I just explained it to you why it's the same result.
Just because you have the "feels" about it?

Because class design is a large, complex, and multi-faceted issue that cannot be boiled down to binary, black-and-white description.

Also, your argument rests on this:

I stop playing the spec because one of it is true

People aren't robots and their reaction to class changes is not deterministic. You also can't expect that the reasonable thing to do is immediately jump ship as soon as something goes wrong for them. There is nothing wrong with voicing concern over the direction of class design.

Why is your class change problem more relevant than the ones before it?

Most class changes before Legion focused on improving upon the existing playstyle and thematic strengths of a spec. They always kept the existing playerbase in mind. In one of the Ghostcrawler talks about WoW things that pop up on the front page, he said that when he was at Blizzard they preferred to not redo entire specs/classes so as not to anger the existing players. Granted, he was defending Celestalon in that statement by following up with something like "but his approach is new and exciting and might produce unexpected, good results" (lol). But the point is that the Survival change is different in that it explicitly shunned the existing playerbase of the spec. The only other class changes that ever really came close are Outlaw and Demonology in this expansion, which are also plagued with many of the same issues as Survival.

I know someone at work who stopped playing hunter because they changed MM and sidewinders. The difference is...?

This isn't a defense of Survival on your part. You're just naming other crap class changes. In the case of Sidewinders: it doesn't fit the theme of Marksman well and Sidewinders gameplay has a lot of downtime. I tried out Sidewinders when it was current and I found that playstyle to be drastically worse than the pre-Legion playstyle of Marksmanship, so I fully understand his decision.

The magnitude of a class change does not change the nature of class changes. Just because Survival has seen arguably the most unusual change does not make other changes incomparable to it.

It kind of does, actually.

There have been other specs redesigned far more than Survival has been (and a few specs have had such sweeping changes happen several times).

No there haven't.

You're not allowed to ignore the evidence that other classes have had massive design changes over the years just because you don't like this one.

What you originally said was "Blizzard changed a spec you like. I'm pretty sure that happens to everyone", which is implying that it's a common occurrence. It's not, therefore false equivalency.

The difference between Survival and the ones you mentioned is that Survival post-Legion is designed for a different audience than Survival pre-Legion. This isn't just conjecture on my part. Here's what Hazzikostas has to say on the matter:

We knew with Survival Hunter that we were making a niche spec. It is a melee spec for a class that has traditionally being range. I think that a lot of existing hunters, they are all hunters because they want to be a range class, and so we don’t necessarily expect them or want them to feel like they should be changing

At no other point was a spec removed and replaced with something that was designed for a different audience... unless you count Outlaw and Demonology, but that is less of a defence of Survival and more of a condemnation of those changes (guess which specs are 2nd and 3rd least popular in the game right now?).

[threads]

The magnitude of a class change does not change the nature of class changes. Just because Survival has seen arguably the most unusual change does not make other changes incomparable to it. There have been other specs redesigned far more than Survival has been (and a few specs have had such sweeping changes happen several times). You're not allowed to ignore the evidence that other classes have had massive design changes over the years just because you don't like this one.

don't be stupid no other class or spec has completely forced a role swap before.

[last1214]

I for one was honestly hoping they would just delete the spec and focus their efforts on BM and MM.

[Deleted]

This isn't a defense of Survival on your part. You're just naming other crap class changes. In the case of Sidewinders: it doesn't fit the theme of Marksman well and Sidewinders gameplay has a lot of downtime. I tried out Sidewinders when it was current and I found that playstyle to be drastically worse than the pre-Legion playstyle of Marksmanship, so I fully understand his decision.

Except for the fact that you don't because he stopped playing MM when SW got nerfed and the current MM build with trickshot/arcaneshot became the go to spec.

So he actually liked the way MM was played during EN.

So yeah, the smallest change is enough for people to abandon something. The hardcore spec-driven playerbase that "wait until it gets better again" - or are even remotely invested in a spec - is probably much lower than you think and pretty insignificant. (@ Hellfire Citadel roughly 80-90% played MM).

At no other point was a spec removed and replaced with something that was designed for a different audience... unless you count Outlaw and Demonology, but that is less of a defence of Survival and more of a condemnation of those changes (guess which specs are 2nd and 3rd least popular in the game right now?).

They are also specs that are poorly implemented.
Pretty sure players expected more of both specs. Just like it's the case with Melee-SV.
You can repeat this as much as you want, but as long as a significant amount of the melee-SV defenders complain more than just a bit about it's current design... there is simply no telling in how the theme and idea is being percieved.

I'm all for a melee SV, but I'm not playing that mongoose fury stacking bullshit and that abysmally - thrown in for the lulz, with no effort whatsoever - designed artifact ability.
And you don't need to post and misinterpret several warcraftlogs, just like you did last time (as if saying: "it's performing well, look at the top logs") because they are by no means relevant. If that other spec is 100x easier to play, with nearly the same/better results, with more QoL features and the same amount of useful PvE-related-utility and even better responsiveness to mechanics. You are already losing the significant majority of the playerbase to the other spec

I start to agree on the statement that Melee SV has to go, but not because it wouldn't be played - it's design is just horrible.
And it's hard to understand why it's in that state... is DH-DPS just as horrible? (I really don't know, never played it) I'd guess not, so it's not like they can't come up with a melee spec when needed.

[last1214]

Clearly there are 2 groups of people out there. Those that think melee hunter should be saved, and those that think they should just go back to the drawing board and preferably make it a ranged class again.

Let me ask this. Why should blizzard keep a proven failed class design and continue to improve upon it? Makes more sense to me to revert back to the last sucsessful survival model and improve upon that instead.

What really burns me and people like FepicEail is the simple fact that there was nothing wrong with the old survival, except for maybe it's name didn't match what the spec really did. Hell, I'll go out on a limb and say MOP survival was the best spec I've ever played in the history of wow. Yet today I'm staring at the patchwork abomination before us.

My thoughts on survival hunter changes? They should change fucking everything about it, and maybe I'll play it again.

[Bisque]

I predict blizzard will give melee survival one more go come BFA, I would assume they learned a lot about melee survival in legion and know how to refine it, what works, what doesn't work etc... If melee sv is a bust for a 2nd time then I can see them going back to ranged SV.

Now obviously I don't work for blizzard so I have no "insider's" insight as to what type of class revamps will happen BUT if I was a betting man, I would bet on reworking sv melee as opposed to going back to ranged.

There are 2 camps on SV hunter right now: Go back to ranged vs Keep melee but make it better.

I can't wait to see which side is right once blizz reveals their class revamps.

[Hyxi]

I start to agree on the statement that Melee SV has to go, but not because it wouldn't be played - it's design is just horrible.
And it's hard to understand why it's in that state... is DH-DPS just as horrible? (I really don't know, never played it) I'd guess not, so it's not like they can't come up with a melee spec when needed.

Havoc DH is a breeze to play. Just the process of setting up my bars and macros for SV convinced me not to play it so I have no idea why they did what they did to SV.

[Jutath]

Survival is the only hunter spec I enjoy playing at the moment. But it needs some drastic changes, the rotation is way too clunky and bloated. I like the mongoose fury mechanic, but there's too many buttons for the sake of having buttons.

I would really like it if they made the talent tree in such a way so you could have a separate build that focuses on gadgets and traps. Another build could focus on mongoose fury, lance damage, and pet damage. It sounds like they tried putting all into one and it didn't work very well imo. I do want them to continue survival as melee though.

This is pretty much my thought on it.

[JacobJames]

Currently Survival is Hunters only saving grace in terms of actually being fun to play.

Both BM and MM are been ruined in Legion, so horribly designed they are about as fun to play as getting a brick to the face.

Current Blizzard is far too incompetent to actually fix any of the issues.

Making Survival Ranged again wouldn't anything, Blizzard would probably try and redesign it and outdo themselves by making a spec somehow worse then current BM or MM.

So I'm in favor of keeping Survival Melee for now, with a few adjustments, because if they try and change it, what ever comes from it will be terrible, and then Hunters will have 3 awful specs, instead of just 2.

[DeicideUH]

Things I'd like to see in next Survival interaction:

1- Traps are utility-only. Make explosive trap a pushback. No traps in rotation.

2- Disengage and Camouflage become both baseline. A spec shouldn't require talents to be fun.

3- Removal of Eagle's Fury. Create some other AoE attack that benefits from Mongoose Bite. Idea: Carve and Butchery are different attacks. Carve is focus dump AoE; Butchery benefits from Mongoose Fury stacks, but do not add stacks;

4- No Lacerate button. Raptor Strike applies Lacerate. Carve spreads Lacerate to other targets (would need to adjust Lacerate dmg, obviously)

5- No Serpent Sting (redundant with the Lacerate change above); Make Serpent Sting a MM talent that affects Arcane and Multishot, for the old Survival fans.

6- Almost complete talent tree revamp.