Overall, was Survival a failure?

[Dahkeus]

It took me a good while to warm up to SV. I was biased against it because I rolled a hunter with ranged DPS in mind. I was biased against it because the game is already flooded with melee specs. I was biased against it because it hasn't performed better than MM/BM in raids.

However, I finally gave it a shot anyways since my focus lately has been on PvP and world quests (I don't get into much high end PvE content due to my limited playtime) and I actually have really enjoyed it. There's a definite learning curve behind the spec since it's much more involved than other specs and it doesn't tear through mobs while questing as much as BM/MM, but it's a *lot* more fun to play. In particular, it's really enjoyable for PvP since it bobs and weaves between melee and range while dropping a lot of snares. It definitely carries the 'hunter' feel to how it plays and with mm/bm in such bad shape, it actually captures that feeling better than they often do.

The spec still needs some work, but I'd still say it's a success. The devs aimed to make survival into an interesting melee spec that carried the hunter feel to it and while it's not the best raid spec, it definitely accomplishes those goals.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I don't give a fuck about your life story. You're an exception to the rule.



Considering that PvE is the game's primary focus, raid logs are actually a pretty good measuring stick for the popularity of the spec. No, they aren't perfect, but that does not mean that they are automatically worthless as you seem to think they are. It's always funny when less statistically-inclined people think it's either 100% accurate or 0% accurate with no in-between.



And Warriors also have Heroic Throw so I guess that makes them a hybrid too.

What a worthless point. Survival cannot use a ranged weapon, therefore they are not a hybrid. In Vanilla, Survival had a melee and a ranged weapon as well as abilities for both.



Another worthless point. The fact that other people do a bad thing doesn't make it a good thing. Blizzard looked at a set of classes that worked well and the players enjoyed and turned them into a set of classes that people overwhelmingly don't enjoy. It's not just in class design, either: flying, strider nerfs, camera zoom, new talent reagents, massive RNG focus on loot (warforged, socket, tertiaries) and legendaries are all examples of things directly contrary to the player's interest that Blizzard has implemented in the past couple of years.



Are you just unfamiliar with the concept of a sentence break/period or what? Also, the past tense of "stop" is "stopped".

Both BM and MM are overwhelmingly negatively received as well, so that's clearly not it. MM did more than Survival in Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry but Survival was more popular. BM did more than SV in Siege of Orgrimmar but SV was more popular.

If the difference in damage is small enough, people will opt to play the spec that they liked. Right now MM is ahead of SV, but not nearly to the same degree as in 6.2. Yet the population difference is almost the same. It's even losing massively to BM, which is probably the most disliked ranged spec in the game at this point.

You know what most feedback around Legion's announcement was concerning Survival? Nearly every post was a variation of "it's an interesting idea, but it's not for me". So in the best case they pursued a major rework/innovation that appeals to nearly no one. That makes Survival a MASSIVE failure.

- - - Updated - - -



I don't understand this disdain for holy power. Holy and Prot at least (never played ret) were VERY basic in WotLK and Cataclysm definitely added more involvement for both specs with holy power. Was it more fun to spam Holy Light on everyone with nearly no variation, or endlessly executing the 969 rotation while tanking?

I guess Legion proved that you can still have the same level of involvement without holy power, but to me that does not make holy power a bad thing, just an unnecessary thing.

1.theirs are most likely hundreds of thousands You're an exception's to the rule every expan if sticking to one class though every change is the rule.

2.so what the only thing that makes a class a hybrid is that they can use melee and range weapons? thats a worthless distinction hunters up till cata could use melee weapons ya but they had only a few full of ability's that they could use in melee, sv in legion cant aa at range but it most likely as more ability's then it did up till cata if you spec into all of them. and when warriors have about 5 ability's they can use at range ya id say they would be a hybrid.

3.i didn't say it was 100% or 0% accurate just not accurate as there are tons of people who don't raid or raid and don't log its rather meaningless to say raiding is the main focus on the game when most people don't do it sv is the main hunter spec for pvp and theirs no way to tell what spec most people are using while level or the spec people who don't raid use when just out in the world rp'ing or what ever else they do.

4. ya it more or less a worthless point but that doesn't came the fact that the makers of games force there will on the players in almost every game.

5.ya i am unfamiliar with the concept of sentence break/periods as one of my learning disability's the face that i use any at all is a miracle.

6. their are tons of reasons people wouldn't play a spec out side of damage i personally use mm for pve as i like the way it plays more in pve while i use sv every where else i don't really care if i'm in range or melee just sv has to much going on for me to like to do dungeons or raids with it. people could not play it cause they don't want to be in melee, people could not play it cause they don't like the rotation in instanced pve like me, people could not play it cause they want the most damaging spec or cause they got a legendary for another spec, there are tons of reasons for people to not want to play it saying its just cause there melee is silly.

6. I never wanted a combo point style play for my pally never liked it theme wise never liked it game play wise i only really played prot as i never liked ret's theme and ya id rather have a endless 969 then have combo point's on a pally it just doesn't fit the theme to me.

[shadowmouse]

I am asking to look at the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is that there is more than competitive raiding, but since you dismiss anyone who plays Survival you obviously have an axe to grind. Have fun!

[Kwaai]

The bigger picture is that there is more than competitive raiding, but since you dismiss anyone who plays Survival you obviously have an axe to grind. Have fun!

Heaven forbid people answer a question based on what's important to them.

If you remove competitive raiding from the picture, it's literally impossible for a spec to be a failure because there's no metric by which it can be proven to be shit. There are no world questing statistics. I could make the case that MM/BM are better for levelling/questing than SV, but I'm struggling to think of something more pointless to consider when talking about whether or not a rework was a failure.

I suppose that SV was a "success" in PvP, but that's mostly because they removed nearly all of the utility from BM/MM and made them heal enemies, whereas they've been buffing SV every other week.

[shadowmouse]

Heaven forbid people answer a question based on what's important to them.

The irony is strong in this one. Yeah, heaven forbid ... /facepalm

There is one metric that matters to me, am I having fun? YMMV, but raiding is just one part of the game.

[Kwaai]

The irony is strong in this one. Yeah, heaven forbid ... /facepalm

There is one metric that matters to me, am I having fun? YMMV, but raiding is just one part of the game.

Because whether or not it's fun is entirely subjective. I think it's clunky, boring, and plays like shit. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, which is why people look at the only data available. Everyone knows that there's the "fun" aspect when it comes to determining the success of a rework. The question being asked is why are the number of parses so low? Either it's not fun for most people, it does shit damage, or is otherwise not useful. I consider all of those failures, so it doesn't really matter what a few people on the forums say about how fun the spec is. The question remains, why aren't people playing the spec?

[shadowmouse]

@Kwaai

OP was a complaint about how the spec was a failure, and that's the thread/complaint that I've responded to. Parses of EN Heroic over two weeks in an expansion is a very limited measure of "why aren't people playing the spec". Even in the original post, that poster acknowledged that he didn't know how Survival was playing out in PVP for example. As I said, your mileage may vary.

[Bepples]

Congratulations, Survival hunters, for finally going beyond 1000 parses in mythic Emerald Nightmare! This is just over 20% of the number of parses for the most popular spec in the game (MM)!

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10

Oh, sorry, I read that wrong. It actually has 20% of the parses of the 2nd least popular spec in the game (Subtlety).

So...as for the thread title...is this still really a question at this point?

[Sunslayer]

SV, if awful. I've mained SV since the start of Wotlk. The spec feels like a mess. Half of its melee abilities seem pointless. I can't get myself to enjoy it no matter how hard I try.

[Arrol]

Congratulations, Survival hunters, for finally going beyond 1000 parses in mythic Emerald Nightmare! This is just over 20% of the number of parses for the most popular spec in the game (MM)!

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10

Oh, sorry, I read that wrong. It actually has 20% of the parses of the 2nd least popular spec in the game (Subtlety).

So...as for the thread title...is this still really a question at this point?

Basically this thread should have 1 comment "Yes."

[Deleted]

Well, I'm by no means a super elite hardcore progression raider or anything, but I wouldn't exactly call it a 'failure' as I quite enjoy playing it, & once you start unlocking traits & such its actually pretty decent damage-wise not to mention quite fun.

I figure it isn't popular due to Hunters being ranged & Melee being somewhat crowded, with SV not bringing anything new to the table.

[Nich]

I'm liking it to play around on for shits and giggles, but I main a feral druid, so 'mobile melee class with lots of buttons to press and dots' isn't a big change.

[Trapped]

I'm liking it to play around on for shits and giggles, but I main a feral druid, so 'mobile melee class with lots of buttons to press and dots' isn't a big change.

I'm seeing a lot of this in the thread, and in other threads. I guess the success/failure of a spec doesn't have 1 guideline to judge it by. "I'm playing around on it as an alt, and I'm liking it" doesn't really tell me its a success. Like someone else said, ANY class/spec can be fun as an alt or just something to mess around with in BGs or whatever. It doesn't make it a success, however.

My criteria would be:

Did we need another melee class in the game? No.
Did hunters need a melee spec to make it any more enjoyable? No.
Are there probably a huge amount of hunters that want the old SV back (Black arrow/Explosive shot)? Yes.
Is SV viable in current raiding? No. Depends on your raid team, and if they're willing to squeeze in another melee with 13 other Little Illidans wanting a spot.

Just going by those 4 points alone, in my book, it is an utter failure. Blizzard was banking on nostalgia taking over, and catering to a few people on the forums that were crying for a Survival melee spec. Correct me if I'm wrong, but just because the Vanilla/TBC Survival spec had a few melee abilities, wasn't it still a ranged spec? I started late Vanilla/early TBC, but I'm pretty sure hunters never had a full-on melee spec.

Just a quick look at https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/12

7012 Marksmanship parses
1356 Beast Mastery parses
60 Survival parses

8428 Mythic ToV parses, and only 0.7% of them are Survival. 1 out of every 140 Mythic hunters is Survival. The next highest is Arcane Mage at 360 parses. In Heroic ToV, 1.7% of hunter parses are Survival.

Aside from "its fun to play around with as an alt" or "I don't raid, so the spec seems fine to me", can you really tell me that the spec "overall" isn't a failure?

[Deleted]

The Mistake was to turn Survival into the Melee Spec. 4th Spec and nobody would have had a Problem. Forcing Hunters out of a well loved Spec was simply stupid ... adding another Melee Class to the Game didnt help either

Range Class Blizzard... RANGE we need this more than ever

[xZerocidex]

I'm seeing a lot of this in the thread, and in other threads. I guess the success/failure of a spec doesn't have 1 guideline to judge it by. "I'm playing around on it as an alt, and I'm liking it" doesn't really tell me its a success. Like someone else said, ANY class/spec can be fun as an alt or just something to mess around with in BGs or whatever. It doesn't make it a success, however.

My criteria would be:

Did we need another melee class in the game? No.
Did hunters need a melee spec to make it any more enjoyable? No.
Are there probably a huge amount of hunters that want the old SV back (Black arrow/Explosive shot)? Yes.
Is SV viable in current raiding? No. Depends on your raid team, and if they're willing to squeeze in another melee with 13 other Little Illidans wanting a spot.

Just going by those 4 points alone, in my book, it is an utter failure. Blizzard was banking on nostalgia taking over, and catering to a few people on the forums that were crying for a Survival melee spec. Correct me if I'm wrong, but just because the Vanilla/TBC Survival spec had a few melee abilities, wasn't it still a ranged spec? I started late Vanilla/early TBC, but I'm pretty sure hunters never had a full-on melee spec.

Just a quick look at https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/12

7012 Marksmanship parses
1356 Beast Mastery parses
60 Survival parses

8428 Mythic ToV parses, and only 0.7% of them are Survival. 1 out of every 140 Mythic hunters is Survival. The next highest is Arcane Mage at 360 parses. In Heroic ToV, 1.7% of hunter parses are Survival.

Aside from "its fun to play around with as an alt" or "I don't raid, so the spec seems fine to me", can you really tell me that the spec "overall" isn't a failure?

Well said, you don't just up and change a spec that has been around for 10+ years role-wise and was loved by the community.

[Nich]

Sure, it's an alt, but it's my only max-level melee DPS alt right now. I preferred it over levelling and playing my rogue, shaman, warrior, demonhunter, and monk. I don't like playing ret and literally only have my paladin to tank 5 mans. I gave up half way through levelling my DK, as frost and/or blood.

Do we need another melee class? No, but we got demonhunters - and I suspect that's part of the problem.

Does Survival have issues? For sure. But I think - while there are very definite issues that need addressing - most of the problems ATM are perceptual. No-one wants to play it because very few people will level a ranged class for it's single melee spec, and lots of people won't want to change to melee if they're happy being ranged. But also it's a non-trivial spec to play, with a higher barrier to entry to play it well. What it reminds me of, is frost mages a few months ago when they were the bastard child everyone complained about because they did so badly and look no parses to show how amazing.

I've started playing my hunter on H.EN clears just so there's slightly more parses on log sites for people to compare to, so people who are maining survival have a bit more data to compare against in working out just what's wrong/right with their playing, and so Blizzard has more data to make choices about.

In terms of making me change my main after 6 years? Failure, but that makes every class/spec a failure since WotLK, when I last changed.

In terms of making a novel and fun to play new spec? I think it's a success. It just needs more polish.


I do get the frustration at losing survival as a ranged spec with a specific playstyle - because it was my preferred hunter spec for a very long time. Should they have given hunters a fourth spec, and try to keep it as 3 ranged plus a melee? Probably, but I'm not privy to the design issues that'd cause.

[Bepples]

Well, I'm by no means a super elite hardcore progression raider or anything, but I wouldn't exactly call it a 'failure' as I quite enjoy playing it, & once you start unlocking traits & such its actually pretty decent damage-wise not to mention quite fun.

I figure it isn't popular due to Hunters being ranged & Melee being somewhat crowded, with SV not bringing anything new to the table.

"It's not a failure because I enjoy it"? Nonsense. The vast majority of hunters enjoy survival LESS as a result of the change. That alone makes it a failure, not even counting the list of other reasons.

Sure, it's an alt, but it's my only max-level melee DPS alt right now. I preferred it over levelling and playing my rogue, shaman, warrior, demonhunter, and monk. I don't like playing ret and literally only have my paladin to tank 5 mans. I gave up half way through levelling my DK, as frost and/or blood.

Do we need another melee class? No, but we got demonhunters - and I suspect that's part of the problem.

Does Survival have issues? For sure. But I think - while there are very definite issues that need addressing - most of the problems ATM are perceptual. No-one wants to play it because very few people will level a ranged class for it's single melee spec, and lots of people won't want to change to melee if they're happy being ranged. But also it's a non-trivial spec to play, with a higher barrier to entry to play it well. What it reminds me of, is frost mages a few months ago when they were the bastard child everyone complained about because they did so badly and look no parses to show how amazing.

I've started playing my hunter on H.EN clears just so there's slightly more parses on log sites for people to compare to, so people who are maining survival have a bit more data to compare against in working out just what's wrong/right with their playing, and so Blizzard has more data to make choices about.

In terms of making me change my main after 6 years? Failure, but that makes every class/spec a failure since WotLK, when I last changed.

In terms of making a novel and fun to play new spec? I think it's a success. It just needs more polish.


I do get the frustration at losing survival as a ranged spec with a specific playstyle - because it was my preferred hunter spec for a very long time. Should they have given hunters a fourth spec, and try to keep it as 3 ranged plus a melee? Probably, but I'm not privy to the design issues that'd cause.

A whole lot of text to say nothing of substance at all. Being diplomatic won't help you here. We didn't need a "novel and fun to play new spec". We needed fixes to our REAL and fun-to-play old spec. That makes it a failure. You cannot limit the scope of Survival's role to the point where you can call it a success, and even then I wouldn't say they succeeded at making a novel and fun new spec either because many Survival hunters openly voice their many misgivings with the spec. You have to consider it as a whole, and as a whole they alienated most of the hunter class while appealing to nearly no one and attracting next to no new players. When the spec is by and large ONLY played as the "interesting, alt experiment toon", that makes it a very big failure.

[Ellerain]

Survival is a complete disaster and people still defending it are in denial.

[vashe9]

No one wants to play melee when they roll a ranged char, it should be clear enough...
It's like the seasonial set in D3 for the DH... A DH with an axe... why are they doing that ?

Survival is a complete failure, there are enough melee classes in our raiding environment, hunter will always be considered RANGED dps.

[xZerocidex]

Survival is a complete disaster and people still defending it are in denial.

That's most of Blizzard's fans for you.