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  1. #1

    Overall, was Survival a failure?

    Ok you got me, I'm still a bit salty that they gutted my favorite hunter spec and turned it into a melee one. Having said that, how do you guys feel about the overall success of it? Tbh, I have seen maybe 1 or 2 in a dungeon since Legion launched. I'm not a big PvP'er, so maybe they're more viable in that regard?

    Just looking at the warcraft logs data, https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10#difficulty=4, which is 75th percentile DPS parses in Heroic EN over the last 2 weeks, you can see what I'm talking about.

    282,492 Marksmanship parses
    63,637 Beast Mastery parses
    6,049 Survival parses

    So out of all of those hunter parses, 1.7% of them are Survival.
    In Mythic, only 0.7% of all hunter parses (75th percentile again) are Survival.


    I'm not sure if it's because they're not in a good place right now, dps-wise, or because of the fact that either a) people don't want to play a melee hunter, or b) raid leaders don't want a melee hunter. When the early sims came out, Survival was at the top, so you can tell that certainly didn't sway people to pick up that artifact weapon first.

    Overall, in my opinion, survival hunter is a big failure in Legion. The last 3 new races, Death Knight, Monk, and Demon Hunter have all been melee. Adding another melee to the mix wasn't a good move, as most encounters generally favor ranged dps.

  2. #2
    Deleted
    you know what is a bigger failure than most of the legion specs? we trusting the wod clowns to deliver a good and well designed classes/expansion.

  3. #3
    Once again, no decent guild will let their hunters go melee when they can play ranged unless they are so overpowered that it would give the guild incentive to let let's say a feral druid go balance.

  4. #4
    Survival has a few problems, some actual problems some major game design problems

    1. Its melee in a class with two good range specs.

    This is reason enough to question anyone that plays survival. Range is simply better at almost everything besides mass CC / interrupting. They take less damage, they do more damage in a lot of cases (definitely in this case) and they have 100% up time on any target.

    2. Ability bloat.

    Yes, survival has too many abilities. This is partly due to the insane amount of abilities you can get through talents. Theres SO many abilities that carve and raptor strike are (were) redundant, tricking new players and annoying experienced ones. This has been buffed though, so now we just add more spells to our already finnicky spec

    3. Mastery

    our mastery does one thing for one ability (two if you count fury of the eagle). It RNG procs more mongoose bites. This means our mastery is totally useless for all of our traps and dots and every ability besides mongoose bite and fury of the eagle. Its VERY important for the fluidity of the spec, but not important at all for the dps of the spec

    Thats some of my complaints / observations of the failures of survival.

    STILL THOUGH, i love the spec in pvp and pve and play it whenever i can get away with it.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by yabadabadoh View Post
    you know what is a bigger failure than most of the legion specs? we trusting the wod clowns to deliver a good and well designed classes/expansion.
    A lot of those "WoD clowns" have been around since Wrath of the Lich King. Widely considered one of the best expansions yet.

  6. #6
    You're going to see more of them in time. It takes time to adjust to the rotation, and BM and MM is stronger and easier.

    I still don't see the downside of hunters getting melee spec. They already have 2 ranged. Did we need more melee? No, but it's fun to play. Switching back to hunter because of it.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Darkguyver2020 View Post
    A lot of those "WoD clowns" have been around since Wrath of the Lich King. Widely considered one of the best expansions yet.
    Kaplan was responsible for the world design (quests, outdoor zones, dungeons, raids, etc.) for World of Warcraft,[2] on which he worked closely with Chris Metzen and Pat Nagle. In February 2009 Kaplan announced that he was stepping down as director for World of Warcraft to switch his role at Blizzard


    WOD
    Director(s) Tom Chilton
    Alex Afrasiabi
    Designer(s) Cory Stockton
    Ion Hazzikostas
    Brian Holinka
    Chadd Nervig

  8. #8
    Worst part is that Survival is AWFUL at outdoor fighting/questing.
    Pet taunt and Flanking Strike are just not enough to keep aggro when fighting many mobs, so you are forced to fight one or two at a time.

    Without Misdirect the survival hunter just takes a huge beating and its defenses are probably the lowest out of all the melee classes.
    Not to mention the spec sucks huge b*lls in pvp, again due to its lack of SURVIVAL which is rather ironic.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Survival is never going to be mainstream until its too powerful for the mainstream to ignore. The only way to get general interest in it is for it to be the absolute best, most dominant spec on bosses to the point that no hunter can ignore it. Everything up until that point is just going to be a preference for being at range. Even if its marginally better, it'll never justify changing. Maybe it needs that little bit of time in the sun to get a playerbase who decide the new playstyle is for them, but I haven't spec'd SV yet since the pre-patch because it made no sense in the dynamics of my raid team.

  10. #10
    I like Survival. It feels like something new. Has its flaws, needs some improvements, but overall it's enjoyable. If not for it, I'd have abandoned my hunter, as my once-favorite spec (MM) is now devoid of fun (for me), despite its performance, and was completely gutted of its core concept of being a marksman.

    I do think they should've accomodated MM talents to "replicate" old Survival spec themes, so the old spec's orphans would move to MM and have fun. Instead, they gutted MM so much that it not only left Old Survival orphans out, but also pissed off many Old MM players.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Regarding the numbers on warcraft logs, bear in mind that the people who appear on warcraft logs will includes mostly min-max'ers or at least dedicated players and likely doesn't include much of the more casual playerbase.
    EDIT: Quick check of the Logs for LFR, 4.5% there. Your point is not wrong of course but exacerbated among the Heroic/Mythic communities (because they're the ones who care most about performance of course). I'm not trying to undermine your point, just to point out that raiding =/= everything.

    I'm playing SV on my hunter and loving it but not without numerous concerns and I can see why it hasn't had a big uptake.

    Reasons include...
    - Complex playstyle (especially compared to MM & BM)
    - Unremarkable dps (especially when considering it's complexity)
    - Melee so unlikely to draw many who main hunter
    - No stuns so a sub-par choice in mythic+ and probably PvP too I guess?
    - Poor mobility when there is no target to harpoon to
    - Poor survivability (ironically)
    - Poor scaling (Versatility as best stat means we will fall behind long-term)
    - Some buggy abilities*

    *buggy abilities include
    Eagle's Bite can't crit
    Caltrops have a 5% crit chance, not the hunter's crit chance
    Explosive Trap doesn't detonate on large hitbox fixed-location bosses e.g. Helya in Maw of Souls

    Not bugs but strange development choices include
    Mastery is RNG
    Mastery RNG only procs from pet's special attacks (thus making tenacity pets the preferred option)
    Mastery is therefore trash and should be avoided like the plague

    And some Talent issues, there is pretty-much a correct choice in all tiers for all situations. 7.1 Might have fixed one of the tiers for this, I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

    Somehow, despite all of that, the core mechanic of operating around Mongoose Bite charges and the in or outside a Mongoose Bite window thing is actually very engaging and fun to play.

    Given it's current state, I'd hesistate to call it a failure but it will be if it is left in this state for much longer. I don't think anyone is claiming it an unqualified success either, largely for the reasons I've outlined above. For now, it is fun & this is a game, I play games to have fun & thus SV is not a failure (imo). To me BM & MM are failures because the gameplay of them is a long way from fun. The numbers they can output dictate that the WoW community sees them as a success but from a game design perspective, the hunter class as a whole is in need of a whole lotta love.

    Side-note, during/after most mythic+ dungeons I run (the few that I can get into because of the stigma surrounding SV hunters), people comment at how much better it plays than they thought it would/could.
    Last edited by mmoc8d0803caf5; 2016-10-26 at 01:25 PM.

  12. #12
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    There's no way the current design will make it in to the next expansion. Either they'll scrap melee hunter altogether or actually try to make something that makes sense. Both are not mutually exclusive.

    That said, I like playing Survival. Sounds great and looks okay but hoooly shit does it have an ability for every thing under the sun. I almost need a third arm and clairvoyance to be able to really maximize its potential.
    A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.

  13. #13
    Short answer: YES.


    You want me to ellaborate?

    Hunters were for all their life a RANGED (please, just please, don't try to tell me it was melee in vanilla cause it's just a lie) class, other classes had a mix of ranged/melee specs (shaman and druid) since the beginning, so when you choose a class to play, you do it so with all those choices weighting.

    Most hunters did choose the class to play ranged (how extraordinary), a few to have pets (i know people who just wanted to have pets).

    If you wanted to play melee you had (and have) plenty of choice:
    - Warrior
    - Rogue
    - Enhancement shaman
    - Feral druid
    - Retribution paladin
    and later were added:
    - Death knight
    - Monk
    - Demon hunter

    You can discuss if those choices were viable or not, you can debate if they were fun, or awful but not that they were already in.

    Was there really a demand (a worthy one) to make hunters melee ? Blizzard say yes, i don't have the data to say so, but everything I know, and the people i have talked since the announcement seems to disapprove it.
    Could they have make it so it was a new spec (adding a 4th one, hell we have a precedent with druids)? Yes, but that would mean they had to think and work to do it instead of gutting the specs they already had.

  14. #14
    Someone I know swaps back and forth. Totally invested in MM but even a casual investment in SV, brings it's DPS right in line and a bit above that of the MM spec.

    It really depends what you call a failure. Is the design bad? The answer could be no.
    Do many people play it? Obviously not.

    But just because people don't try something, does that make the idea bad?

    It's a curious subject. Let's say someone makes a brilliant product, it's pure genius.
    But advertising and all isn't good, or there's too many other long standing products in the market already.
    So in the end, no one buys it and he makes no money off his idea.

    Was his idea in this example a great idea? Yes.
    Did it fail to sell. Yes.

    So what is the real answer here? Is the idea bad because it didn't sell well enough?

    It was a very weird idea for BLIZ to try and sell Hunters on suddenly going melee.
    It's no shock that with two ranged specs, Hunters chose to stick to their tried and true role in the game.

    I have a Hunter too, and have played all three specs. There is no question that SV is the most fun spec to me.
    Me and my partner are also BOTH -very- disappointed in the Ranged-SV being turned into a melee spec.

    But putting that aside. The spec is the most fun of the three.

    The question on our minds is: "Would anyone let me into a PUG playing this spec? Even if I can top DPS in the run?"
    The answer is, I'm fairly certain, a resounding NO.

    So is it any shock that more people are playing BM/MM?

    It could be because they feel too strongly about being a ranged.
    It could be because they fear not being able to get into a PUG.

    Does any of this make the spec a failure?

    It's well enough designed, I mean, comparatively. Like pretty much all three specs now, there is almost no synergy/interaction between your abilities, but of the three, it has the most active buttons and "engaging" gameplay. But that's just my opinion.

    I personally intend to stick with it because BM is GOD AWFUL (Been BM since Vanilla).
    MM is boring as all hell. So in the end, I feel trapped and picked up SV as the only fun spec Hunter has to offer now.

  15. #15
    I love playing Survival Hunter, i really feel as Ranger/Hunter going in the front, fighting aside my pet, the fantasy in this spec is amazing!

    Of course we have some troubles, a.k.a. Mastery and Stats Priority, but beside this, i'm with 864 gear and i'm aways on the top 5 dps on my guilde core, sometime getting even the first or second place.

    We can be little behind other specs, but i think if you get a nice group you can play as survival with competitiveness.

  16. #16
    I main survival, but I'm pretty casual, so I can't give any real high end raid prospective. Just some thought from day to day world quest/dungeon experience.
    It is a very very good world quest spec for me, and you should use it for the ghost eagle flying the broken isles alone xD
    But to be serious, even it has the equal DPS potential after 7.1, survival still doesn't have the full repertoire other melee classes have and polished for so many expansions (i.e. mobility, damage mitigation ability)

  17. #17

  18. #18
    Deleted
    In response to Geran's post, I think there was solid logic behind making a Hunter melee spec.

    I think many people were happy to see a melee pet class (with animal pets). Many were very fond of similar concepts in Everquest, Rift, Guild Wars and other MMOs. Hunter was the logical place for this to exist. Adding it as a 4th spec would have made sense from a player perspective but from a design perspective, that's a lot of extra work. Given how many bugs made it into SV as it stands, I'm not sure splitting their time again would improve matters on this.

    It would also seem that the designers were also struggling to differentiate between MM and a ranged SV and instead opted for merging some of SV's abilities into MM to make a single ranged spec. Personally I think they did this rather poorly and what we ended up with was a rather bland mostly-MM spec (and lets not get started on talent "choice").

    I'm personally of the opinion that just because something has always been a certain way e.g. Hunters as ranged class, it doesn't mean they should remain thus.

    The uptake of SV hunter has been low for a number of reasons (see my previous post) but you can guarantee that if it had a stun & was performing better dps it would have attracted quite a lot more players, some long-time hunter players such as myself and some from other classes.

    Just a final point regarding the number of melee specs.
    Ranged: 11 total (Mage 3, Warlock 3, Hunter 2, Shaman 1, Druid 1, Priest 1)
    Melee 13 total (Rogue 3, DK 2, Warrior 2, DH 1, Shaman 1, Druid 1, Hunter 1, Paladin 1, Monk 1)
    Yes, we now have 2 more melee than ranged specs but we are also thinking about this from the design perspective of previous expansions. The developers have specifically stated their intentions to make fights more melee friendly this time around and thus far seem to have done a very reasonable job of it. I do quite a lot of healing on my resto shaman and don't find myself thinking anything of a very melee-heavy group. There are a few fights where it makes things a little more interesting granted but the same can be said of an all-ranged group on some fights.

  19. #19
    Of course! Why would you ever go melee when you can be ranged?
    The spec was doomed befor it was created.

  20. #20
    I don't know I haven't even had the desire to check it out

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