Overall, was Survival a failure?

[Bepples]

the ratio of time put in development with the response of players playing it is very low.

You mean high: there was a lot of development time and not a lot of people playing it.

[Geran]

You mean high: there was a lot of development time and not a lot of people playing it.

Ratio is a relation between 2 variables and as such it can be players/dev, in which case it is low.

[Kwaai]

Ratio is a relation between 2 variables and as such it can be players/dev, in which case it is low.

When talking about ratios, the first thing mentioned is typically the dividend, not the divisor. Agreed on the main point, though. It's pretty embarrassing how much time went into the spec and how little people seem interested in it.

[Qaletaqa]

From a non-hunters perspective, I think it is. I also think it's stupid that they didn't just roll survival and BM together. Melee with a pet, ranged with a pet, both with strong animal themes in their spells, shoulda just cut it down to two specs

[Osmeric]

I think it was probably a failure, but also that they didn't make a mistake trying it. If they never have failures they aren't taking enough risks.

[De Lupe]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

I love what they did with Survival. It's like playing a whole new class while still maintaining the Hunter feel to it. I regularly switch between Surv and BM depending on what I feel like playing.

[JoshuaNLG]

They should've kept Pre-legion survival as it was, and if they REALLY wanted to introduce a Melee spec for hunters, just give them a 4th spec, because fuck it.

That said though.. I'm currently leveling a hunter as Survival (level 49 so far) and I'm really enjoying it.

[Deleted]

I've always prefferred MM as it felt the ranger spec. Ofcourse in wod it was quite a good dps spec aswell. Levelled from 100-110 as MM aswell, but then got very bored very quickly (didnt even do many instances really), not to mention the constant aoe that has a very high chance to pull things you dont want nor need (to some point I took this as a challenge to play the class/spec combo good. understand the angles and the distances). As I dont really like BM at all, I decided to give SV a try for WQ and whatnot, because speccing from black arrow > lock n load > black arrow got very annoying very quickly. At first I really struggled - the amount of different buttons needed to press was just overwhelming compared to the two other specs, but after the initial shock it somehow felt good. After reading and getting used to the rotations, I have to say it actually feels really good and engaging (besides maybe mobility issues). And I've come to enjoy and respect the ranger-like feel the melee spec gives. Ofcourse i'm still low ilvl, and don't have any plans to raid (outside LFR), so will probably try to get into some M+ groups eventually (but I am prepared to be shafted alot because of the general fears about SV spec - something I got used to as a fury warrior).

[Dangg]

I'm amazed by the fact that in countless posts, the word "melee" is presented as a major "flaw" of the spec. Like being melee was a disadvantage to begin with... ? I just don't get it.

When Blizzard keeps adding and adding melee specs/classes despite the limited number of melee spots in a raid compared to range being melee is a major flaw.

[Deleted]

In this particular case, SV come from being a ranged spec, which a lot of people was happy about, and also no one chose hunter to be a melee class [definition was RANGED PHYSICAL class, even in vanilla SV was ranged( it has always been that way, hunters had some melee skills that helped to get to range and SV tree strenghted them, but in NO FUCKING WAY made them melee) and since then 12 years have passed]. I really don't know where the demand was, cause i haven't seen it, be ingame or forums.

I've switched my main to hunter the moment the new Survival was announced. And I do Mythic raiding. Am I a bad player ?

[Extremities]

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 things;

1. When people go to play a Hunter, they more than likely go to play it for the ranged aspect of it. To be a ranged character.
2. Since it was a COMPLETE overhaul to the spec itself, its going to go through its rough patches and it still is right now rough compared to the other 2 specs. People would rather play other melee classes who have been melee the entire time WoW has been out so less issues with those classes.

Those 2 reasons right there I bet you are big contributing factors as to why there's a VERY LOW population of survival Hunters. Is it a failure? I don't think so, but it will go through its ups an downs for awhile since it is a complete overhaul to the classes spec. On top of that, the stigma that gets attached to classes that don't perform well typically have a LOT less people playing them for that reason. Look at Locks for example... For awhile and they still do but not as much, blew asshole for the beginning of Legions launch. No one wanted one in a group due to their poor performance. Same can be said about survival. Until they work the kinks out of it since it is literally a new version of the spec to the class, it's gonna have its issues. Then again, I have been away from WoW now about a month so things may have changed.

[Geran]

I've switched my main to hunter the moment the new Survival was announced. And I do Mythic raiding. Am I a bad player ?

Where did you get from me (quote in particular) that you are a bad player cause you choose SV melee?
I didn't say you can't like the spec (i sure don't) but that is not the point of the topic, just if it was a failure (considering everything). (If i design a wonderful (i consider it like that) car, taking a lot of time to do it, build a lot of them, but then i only sell a 1%, it is a failure, no matter if the 1% who bought it is happy with it)

[shenoan]

Hunter has been ranged its entire existence. Yes there were reasons to have melee weapons and some melee abilities in the early state of the game but for many expansions now every single person who has chosen to level and main a hunter has done so to play a ranged class. Anyone who doesn't want to play range would never play a hunter, it had 3 ranged specs. So, most everyone who is playing a hunter prefer range, now what happens when one of the specs is made melee? Nobody wants to go melee, if they really did then they would be playing a different class. Hunter became a 2-spec class for any of the people who rolled hunter to be ranged in the first place.

[RuneDK]

As someone who doesn't even remotely try and play a hunter neverming survival...yes it was a failure. Melee already has exceptionally limited spots in most raids. Adding DH to the mix should have excluded another melee spec but nope blizzard was stupid and introduced two new melee dps specs. I like the idea of being similar to Rexxar for a spec...but shit wait another expansion for that change. Not to mention it doesn't seem like they are truly trying to balance survival either.

[Ninjeff]

Yup. Scrap it and change it back to ranged. Problem solved!

[Appelgren]

Survival is getting disengage back. Finally the compensation i was talking about for giving traps back to all specs.

Thanks blizz! (Non sarcastic this time!)

[Snackwiches]

Legion class design was a failure.

[Gelantious]

Waylay (Survival) Explosive Trap deals 50% increased damage. staggers the target, causing them to miss their next melee attack.

A small step in the right direction, but should involve special attacks as well and get rid of the two sec arming time. Then it would actually be helpful during raids.

[Bepples]

2 things;

1. When people go to play a Hunter, they more than likely go to play it for the ranged aspect of it. To be a ranged character.
2. Since it was a COMPLETE overhaul to the spec itself, its going to go through its rough patches and it still is right now rough compared to the other 2 specs. People would rather play other melee classes who have been melee the entire time WoW has been out so less issues with those classes.

Those 2 reasons right there I bet you are big contributing factors as to why there's a VERY LOW population of survival Hunters. Is it a failure? I don't think so, but it will go through its ups an downs for awhile since it is a complete overhaul to the classes spec. On top of that, the stigma that gets attached to classes that don't perform well typically have a LOT less people playing them for that reason. Look at Locks for example... For awhile and they still do but not as much, blew asshole for the beginning of Legions launch. No one wanted one in a group due to their poor performance. Same can be said about survival. Until they work the kinks out of it since it is literally a new version of the spec to the class, it's gonna have its issues. Then again, I have been away from WoW now about a month so things may have changed.

Paladins got overhauls in BC, WotLK, AND Cata. They did not lose players each time.

Spec overhauls have happened before. Even for Survival (3.0). They do NOT typically make the spec less popular. So stop acting like that's a normal thing: you are making shit up as you go along.

A revamp of a spec should have made the spec more popular, not less.

I'm amazed by the fact that in countless posts, the word "melee" is presented as a major "flaw" of the spec. Like being melee was a disadvantage to begin with... ? I just don't get it.

Another clear indicator of feigned ignorance. The issue is they are trying to sell a melee spec to a ranged class. The people who picked Hunter after all these years picked it to play RANGED, because all 3 specs were ranged. If they made one of the rogue specs ranged, it would be the same issue but in reverse because people picked rogue to play melee.

You know this very well but you are pretending that you don't.

I've switched my main to hunter the moment the new Survival was announced. And I do Mythic raiding. Am I a bad player ?

Hey, look. Another starry-eyed Survival fanatic who doesn't understand the concept of "exception to the rule".

Very few people were attracted TO the hunter class by the Survival revamp. Hunters themselves at large reject the spec. So I really don't give a shit about your drop-in-the-bucket personal experience.

Also, the post to which you replied did not say anything about anyone being bad, so you pulled that out of your ass.

And finally, as per usual, your post is just another one to add to the pile of proof that the Survival revamp was not done in the interest of people who didn't main hunters to begin with, i.e. the interests of the people playing the class were shat all over.

[DeicideUH]

Survival is getting disengage back. Finally the compensation i was talking about for giving traps back to all specs.

Thanks blizz! (Non sarcastic this time!)

BEST. NEWS. EVER!

Wow, I've been asking for Disengage for Survival ever since the beta!