Overall, was Survival a failure?

[Deleted]

Survival is just a cookie cutter spec that takes from BETTER melee specs in the game. It might be good one day but it still needs more work. I would go as far to say it is a new class with its differences.

I don't play it not because it is melee but because it is not a well polished melee. The deathknight for example has such better understanding and class identity than Surv hunters.

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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.

Actually a rogue ranged class would be interesting. Make rogues a ninja spec throwing ninja stars everywhere. And a melee final attack to spend your combo points that jumps you back 25 yards after you do the attack. Basically a Genji class lol.

[Gurg]

Wow.. Im going from being full on salty to being quite happy with recent changes in past few days.

If you go trough my post history youll see bunch of salty posts, mainly regarding waylay and how i saw that it will play out.
I even went and decided that i wont extend my sub if waylay ends up the way it was in previous build.

And then first blue post regarding survival came in. And lengthy one that was. And it was great news.
But still i was pessimist, im usually optimist in my life but Blizzard and I.. our relationship goes waaay back and let me tell you, Blizz was naughty girl.
Kept lying and giving empty promises she did. Yes, we all know she did.

Now.. We also got Disengage back. And im happy. Its all that it takes. Im a simple guy. We got our Disengage back.
Not quite happy since we got it as talent. But im ok for now.
I see soo much ninja stuff, jumping from mob to mob with harpoon and leaping back tossing my tar trap mid air and buzzing off if things get nasty.

I actually resubbed back. Yes i did.

Now.. just to get misdirect too

[Asasyn]

looks like we got another set of survival buffs today lads, apparently we will get disengage (?) and a few talents are about to be vastly improved

[Yhcti]

snake hunter nerfed, serpent sting slightly buffed, butchery slightly buffed. is disengage coming to survival or is that just a tooltip for mm/bm and survival?

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Trailblazer is such a huge QoL for me, I dunno if I'd take disengage.. it's in the same line as Posthaste and Trailblazer.. however that's very weird.. the disengage tooltip shows posthaste.. so is it built into it... or is it an option...? if it's just disengage, then I won't bother with it.

[DeicideUH]

snake hunter nerfed, serpent sting slightly buffed, butchery slightly buffed. is disengage coming to survival or is that just a tooltip for mm/bm and survival?

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Trailblazer is such a huge QoL for me, I dunno if I'd take disengage.. it's in the same line as Posthaste and Trailblazer.. however that's very weird.. the disengage tooltip shows posthaste.. so is it built into it... or is it an option...? if it's just disengage, then I won't bother with it.

AFAIK, it's a talent in the same row as Posthaste and Trailblazer, replacing Farstrider.

While trailblazer is awesome indeed, I'll take Disengage in a heartbeat. A talent that can free me from roots, escape from a fight in PvP AND avoid falling damage? Sign me in!

(However, the Posthaste effects in Disengage may be a tooltip error, so I'll test it in PTR later when I arrive home)

[Yhcti]

AFAIK, it's a talent in the same row as Posthaste and Trailblazer, replacing Farstrider.

While trailblazer is awesome indeed, I'll take Disengage in a heartbeat. A talent that can free me from roots, escape from a fight in PvP AND avoid falling damage? Sign me in!

(However, the Posthaste effects in Disengage may be a tooltip error, so I'll test it in PTR later when I arrive home)

Please do! It would be nice if Posthaste was built into disengage as default.

How does the Serpent sting and butchery buffs look? I just noticed serpent sting applies to all targets you carve, kinda neat... but our AoE is pathetic so I don't see it being that much of a benefit...

I struggle to see how I'm ever going to be able to do mythic+ as survival :P or even raid.

[Gurg]

Please do! It would be nice if Posthaste was built into disengage as default.

How does the Serpent sting and butchery buffs look? I just noticed serpent sting applies to all targets you carve, kinda neat... but our AoE is pathetic so I don't see it being that much of a benefit...

I struggle to see how I'm ever going to be able to do mythic+ as survival :P or even raid.

Ill test it too later on.. But with our Improved Traps talent (50% CD reduction on Explosive Trap) being gone.. Our already lacking AoE got a huge hit so.. they realllyyyy neeed to do something about it.

Butchery still looks like a trap talent since it has charges AND resource cost, so youre quite limited there. DFG is not nearly enough being reliable AoE skill.
So, by the looks of it, our AoE took quite a hit no matter buffs that SS and Butchery received.

As DeicideUH said, ill take Disengage in a heartbeat even so Trailblazer is such huge QoL, Disengage can still pull me out of so much bad stuff in Raid, even be gap closer if it stays as it is.

EDIT:
With all that being said it looks like our new Legendary, chest, will be probably a must for our AoE encounters.
Our set stats looks sooo bad too so.. well see how things will play out.

[DeicideUH]

Ill test it too later on.. But with our Improved Traps talent (50% CD reduction on Explosive Trap) being gone.. Our already lacking AoE got a huge hit so.. they realllyyyy neeed to do something about it.

Yes, they need.

Personally, I never liked having to use Explosive Trap in the rotation. However, it was one of our main assets in multitarget, so they really need to improve somewhere else. (They also made Explosive Trap be targetable over an area, instead of dropping it in front of us, so it's clunkier to use it now mid-rotation).

So far, they improved Serpent Sting and Butchery, and apparently removed CD from Lacerate so we can multidot with it (however, multidoting Lacerate plus weaving Carve/Butchery will cost too much focus). I don't think this is enough to compensate the changes in Explosive Trap.

(Also, the Snake Hunter nerf will indirectly impact our AoE as well)

[KevyB]

Bring back LnL play, that shit was just too good.

And throw in the old (BC) explosive shot, mini bombs wrecking shit was just too gooder.

[Extremities]

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.



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.



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.

That's because Paladins have always been the most popular class in Wow since its inception. And their specs didn't get changed from 1 specialization(Melee to ranged or ranged to melee) so they weren't as drastic overhauls as this one. And also, what the fuck is with your attitude? Drop that shit. No need for it. I'm trying to have a conversation here and you walse in and drop a smart ass comment, get outa here with that shit and have a civil conversation. Grow up man

[Bepples]

snake hunter nerfed, serpent sting slightly buffed, butchery slightly buffed. is disengage coming to survival or is that just a tooltip for mm/bm and survival?

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Trailblazer is such a huge QoL for me, I dunno if I'd take disengage.. it's in the same line as Posthaste and Trailblazer.. however that's very weird.. the disengage tooltip shows posthaste.. so is it built into it... or is it an option...? if it's just disengage, then I won't bother with it.

AFAIK, it's a talent in the same row as Posthaste and Trailblazer, replacing Farstrider.

While trailblazer is awesome indeed, I'll take Disengage in a heartbeat. A talent that can free me from roots, escape from a fight in PvP AND avoid falling damage? Sign me in!

(However, the Posthaste effects in Disengage may be a tooltip error, so I'll test it in PTR later when I arrive home)

Trailblazer is easily one of the worst talents ever conceived, mainly because it has ZERO combat application since it goes away WHEN YOU HIT THE ENEMY and not the other way around like the old Aspect of the Cheetah. Even if it were like AotC it would be worse than Posthaste, but not to the same degree it is now.

I'm sure you two will post some nonsense here about how it's a great talent because it helps you run between quest givers while picking up quests or something and that makes it a good talent.

That's because Paladins have always been the most popular class in Wow since its inception. And their specs didn't get changed from 1 specialization(Melee to ranged or ranged to melee) so they weren't as drastic overhauls as this one. And also, what the fuck is with your attitude? Drop that shit. No need for it. I'm trying to have a conversation here and you walse in and drop a smart ass comment, get outa here with that shit and have a civil conversation. Grow up man

Hunters have also been one of the most popular classes, but their population has gone down since Legion. And survival in particular has historically been FAR more popular than it is now, barring 6.2 for obvious reasons (people tend to prefer DPS specs that can outdamage tanks).

You obviously missed the point because plenty of other specs have had revamps and none of them have been as controversial and disliked as Survival. That makes it a failure. You can't pretend that it is exempt from that for some reason because it is a revamp and people abandon revamped specs because a) that historically isn't true and b) ANYTHING which causes such a disdain for one of the former popular specs of the game is inherently a failure, regardless of the circumstance.

Yes, this is the first time they've switched something from ranged to melee. That, again, doesn't exempt it from being a failure. Hunters now at large reject a spec that was previously very popular (and at times the most popular hunter spec). It is the least popular spec in the GAME by a large margin. Any denial of this FAILURE is pure delusion.

And quit bitching. You posted something dumb so I'll treat it like it was dumb. Post something smarter next time.

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Wow.. Im going from being full on salty to being quite happy with recent changes in past few days.

If you go trough my post history youll see bunch of salty posts, mainly regarding waylay and how i saw that it will play out.
I even went and decided that i wont extend my sub if waylay ends up the way it was in previous build.

And then first blue post regarding survival came in. And lengthy one that was. And it was great news.
But still i was pessimist, im usually optimist in my life but Blizzard and I.. our relationship goes waaay back and let me tell you, Blizz was naughty girl.
Kept lying and giving empty promises she did. Yes, we all know she did.

Now.. We also got Disengage back. And im happy. Its all that it takes. Im a simple guy. We got our Disengage back.
Not quite happy since we got it as talent. But im ok for now.
I see soo much ninja stuff, jumping from mob to mob with harpoon and leaping back tossing my tar trap mid air and buzzing off if things get nasty.

I actually resubbed back. Yes i did.

Now.. just to get misdirect too

Or, better yet, it could go ranged again.

But never mind that, I'm sure these buffs will succeed in making the spec popular, despite all the other buffs that failed to make any impact whatsoever.

Emphasis on the "simple guy" part....

[Okacz]

I think that main problem with survival is this - can survival be the "best" hunter specc without causing a massive shitstorm. Since if they gonna go with idea that since hunter is primary ranged and as such its only meele specc should never be the "best" and design it with that in mind, Survival will be just absolete.

They already said that the "go-to" idea is to make sure that players don't have to hop every time FotM changes due to Artifact and Legendaries. So things like Fire Mage and MM Hunter will most likely stay on top for the whole expansion.

[ItachiZaku]

I still like Survival and might be my second 110 toon. It's in the running for that slot.

[Extremities]

Trailblazer is easily one of the worst talents ever conceived, mainly because it has ZERO combat application since it goes away WHEN YOU HIT THE ENEMY and not the other way around like the old Aspect of the Cheetah. Even if it were like AotC it would be worse than Posthaste, but not to the same degree it is now.

I'm sure you two will post some nonsense here about how it's a great talent because it helps you run between quest givers while picking up quests or something and that makes it a good talent.



Hunters have also been one of the most popular classes, but their population has gone down since Legion. And survival in particular has historically been FAR more popular than it is now, barring 6.2 for obvious reasons (people tend to prefer DPS specs that can outdamage tanks).

You obviously missed the point because plenty of other specs have had revamps and none of them have been as controversial and disliked as Survival. That makes it a failure. You can't pretend that it is exempt from that for some reason because it is a revamp and people abandon revamped specs because a) that historically isn't true and b) ANYTHING which causes such a disdain for one of the former popular specs of the game is inherently a failure, regardless of the circumstance.

Yes, this is the first time they've switched something from ranged to melee. That, again, doesn't exempt it from being a failure. Hunters now at large reject a spec that was previously very popular (and at times the most popular hunter spec). It is the least popular spec in the GAME by a large margin. Any denial of this FAILURE is pure delusion.

And quit bitching. You posted something dumb so I'll treat it like it was dumb. Post something smarter next time.

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Or, better yet, it could go ranged again.

But never mind that, I'm sure these buffs will succeed in making the spec popular, despite all the other buffs that failed to make any impact whatsoever.

Emphasis on the "simple guy" part....

Make you feel good being an asshole on some game forums? Because thats what you're painting yourself as. I don't care if you think what I said was dumb, it was my opinion as to why I personally think survival is having problems, nor can you tell me I am wrong because its my opinion. That's like me telling you you're wrong for feeling the way you do about Hunters or Paladins or any other class. That doesn't mean you need to be a fuckin asshole about it. Grow up kid, not liking something that someone says doesn't mean be an asshole about it. That's not how the world works and how conversations are had in a civil manner.


Good day. I am done "talking" to you since trying to have any meaningful and productive conversation with you is pointless.

[DeicideUH]

Trailblazer is easily one of the worst talents ever conceived, mainly because it has ZERO combat application since it goes away WHEN YOU HIT THE ENEMY and not the other way around like the old Aspect of the Cheetah. Even if it were like AotC it would be worse than Posthaste, but not to the same degree it is now.

I'm sure you two will post some nonsense here about how it's a great talent because it helps you run between quest givers while picking up quests or something and that makes it a good talent.

Do you even play Survival, or are you just theorycrafting?

Trailblazer is not removed when pet attacks or DoTs affect target. It'll autoactivate every time you don't attack for 3 seconds, without costing any global CD or effort from the player. Considering Survival is melee, this means you reduce downtime due to movement if, for some reason, you are away from any target for some time. Trailblazer is lackluster for the ranged specs, yes, but it helps Survival, since harpoon won't be available all the time (and sometimes fails to work).

Also, Posthaste is pretty lackluster for Survival, since it activates off Harpoon. Most often, the speed buff is useless since you just dragged yourself to your target anyway. Unless there's a situation where the target is midway the point you want to reach, you won't benefit from the speed boost at all.

For current tier, Trailblazer is helpful in Elerethe (running to another platform), Cenarius (after killing adds, if Harpoon is on CD) and Ilgy'noth (running around between adds, and going for the heart), for instance.

So, both Trailblazer and Posthaste are more or less equal in utility (again, because Survival is melee. For the ranged specs Posthaste is way better than Trailblazer).

A Disengage with built-in Posthaste bonus would be the best option by far, but I think we will only get the baseline Disengage (will test within one hour, when I'm home). So, the row will be more or less balanced, with none of the talents standing above the rest.

[Yhcti]

my reasons for liking trailblazer are purely for QoL outside of Raiding. I got bored of Raiding after WoTLK, 2 top 10's are good enough for me (warlock, not a hunter), I tried raiding with my current guild and it drove me nuts how bad the majority were LOL...

I'd love for Disengage to have posthaste built into it for Survival, but I don't see that happening.. I'll probably still grab it, but for general running to and from, trailblazer is so nice

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Adding another melee spec to a game when there's already a huge overpopulation of melee compared to ranged? That's the fail, hardly matters that it was DH, DK or Survival Hunter.

Raids want 2-6 melee. There's 13 melee specs.
Raids want 9-12 ranged. There's 11 ranged specs.
Everyone except Blizzard sees the issue, one would think that has done this on and off for a decade would actually understand their own game, but no!

From what I tried as SV Hunter on Beta / PTR it's a hack'n smash from old WW Monk and Rogue. It works but it's certainly not worthwhile pursuing.

[DeicideUH]

Just confirming after a quick test: Disengage talent comes "barebones". No Posthaste effects included.

Edit: And Lacerate CD has been removed, so we can multidot with it.

[Arenis]

Tbh I like SV 'button-clicking-wise', but the melee and the weird spear kinda turn it off for me. If they would just change the spear to a bow and make the skills ranged, we got a high APM, high sustained damage, instant cast hunter. Doesn't sound too shabby to me.

[Deleted]

Wow they finally do something to make this spec work on non-st fights. Hopefully this isn't the last change.

Lacerate Tears a bleeding wound in the target, dealing [ 12 + 223% of AP ] Physical damage over 12 sec. Hunter - Survival Spec. 35 Focus. Melee range. Instant. 10 sec cooldown.