we forgive you blizzard

[FAILoZOFF]

hunters really had only 2 class "fantasies": MM and BM. If anything MM should use a pet for utility, and "Lonely Wolf" could get a name change and still increase hunters own damage but his pet should then get a 99% damage done reduction. This way it would not be a problem for people that don't like "pets doing damage" -they could just keep their pet idle in most combat situations while still preserving that "hunting with pet and bow/gun" feeling. BM feels like its a spec that could be both ranged and melee. Playstyle would change based on wep equipped or some kind of "stance". For instance Cobra Shot could become Cobra Strike, Disengage > Harpoon Toss. All same mechanics just a weapon type would determine if its melee or ranged. Ranged could deal tiny bit less damage perhaps to compensate for melee version having worse uptime.
Alas Artifacts happened to its lost case for this expansion.

Survival tree was invented only as "supplement" spec anyway. It never had any solid "backstory" or own identity. When blizzard made specialization trees into "solid talent tree" that made it feel like MM but with DoT damage rather than direct with few perks around improved traps. Not a very solid idea to justify making it a spec as... well... imagine a hunter (be it irl or fantasy) not using traps, camouflage or other hunter tools.

[Bepples]

Survival is hella fun, it isn't going anywhere.

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

Good to see less than 1% of raiding hunters having fun with it.

Sure is a success, unless you forget the fact that during BRF over 10% of raiding hunters were SV even when it was largely doing less DPS than the other 2 specs. And that throughout MoP it was actually the most popular hunter spec.

How about no? Ive wanted a melee spec since vanilla. I'm happy. Survival hasnt been fun in years anyways(I say this IMO unlike you who speaks for us all, or trys to anyways)

Stay the fuck away from my melee hunter spec.

exactly what he said

People have been wanting a melee hunter spec since Vanilla. We FINALLY get one, and you want to complain about it? Is there nothing people won't bitch about?

There were many, many more people who enjoyed Survival as a ranged spec. They had their spec taken away. Why was that fair but taking away the melee spec that less than 1% of hunters play is not? What do you say to those people? How does that not make you selfish and hypocritical?

Ignoring DPS numbers the only problem with Surv is (ironically) survivability and Mongoose Bites clunky mechanics.

Survival's problem is that it's melee. That's a core problem of the class that will take a great undertaking to fix. Blizzard dug this whole for themselves. Any statement beginning with "the only problem with Surv" should be ignored for being stupid, and minimising the blatant, core issues with the spec.

Marks and BM are both more broken to me tbh, the class is general is a disaster, Warlock style remake wouldnt be out of place, but they've already said its mid expansion so were functionally screwed.

Remaking hunters is what got us into this mess. They tried to redo everything and failed on all fronts. I am honestly scared of their 2nd attempt of it.

[Mirishka]

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

Good to see less than 1% of raiding hunters having fun with it.

That's because a huge% of players are meter-obsessed lemmings that flock to whatever the FOTM spec/class is instead of playing what they actually enjoy. I personally know tons of people who base what they play entirely on dps. MM hunter best in the game? Better level one. DHs are OP af? Cool brb rolling a DH. Fire mages are best? I love Frost but o well, dem Pyro crits yo. Etc, etc etc.

If Surv was top dps spec for hunters, you'd see a hell of a lot more people playing them. That I even have to say that makes me facepalm IRL.

[Deleted]

You all ranged keep the hell away of my melee spec before I 6-stack mongoose bite your DPS charts and 75th percentile bullshit.

[Deleted]

I don't mind a melee Hunter spec at all.. actually i find it kind of cool

The reason its not very successful or a "failure" is because it has horrible mechanics/dps/rotation i can crank out more dps as BM/MM easier and at range atm therefore as a raider there is no reason to go survival..

In instanced pvp and for WQ its not bad

- - - Updated - - -

the class fantasy of survival just doesn't work.

before it was just a dot based ranged spec, now its a melee with traps and pets. It needs more umph.

I wanted it to be renamed Spiritual and all about channeling the power of the wild gods since thats what the artifact is all about.

Survival is now a dot melee spec especially in pvp.. lacerate/explosive trap/harpoon dot/dragons grenade and you can spec into the likes of crows and the pet dot.. it's to bloated for a melee class.. playing an enhance shaman is so much simpler for MUCH more damage

Don't get me wrong its kind of fun but too clunky and you can't go toe to toe with melee at all

The stamina buff was a move in the right direction but we need a stun and i'd rather they dropped some of these dots (explosive trap etc) for more burst on raptor strike/flanking strike

[Flaim]

survival as melee is generally a neat idea. the problem is they didn't work it out properly.
the specc as it is is merely a few months old now and didn't have the time to become as refined as all the other melee speccs, which had around 10yrs now to get to where they are now. give it some time to get them its mechanics straight and it will be a worthwhile consideration going for SV.

[Deleted]

Every single survival hunter in wow is on mmo-c oO

Who knew

[namecraft]

ran out of arrows in vanilla, so I went melee. BUT people got really angry that I used traps.

[Deleted]

ran out of arrows in vanilla, so I went melee. BUT people got really angry that I used traps.

Why?

Traps where one of the best Damage per mana spells hunters had in vanilla

[Deleted]

Call me a baddie and casual scrub, but seriously i would prune couple of rotation buttons from survival.

I was really excited about survival before pre-patch. And carve with 2-hander sword is IMO visually best animation in the game. But whole rotation is just weird and unintuitional, though i know i'm not super pro player and i'm just not interested enough to really learn the rotation to the fullest. Also few talent rows have only shitty options IMO. Ie. that row where you choose butchery, bomb and serpent sting. Butchery removes carve animation, bomb is just one more button that i don't want, and serpent sting just makes one debuff more to watch. Ugh. Not that i want super simple 2-button rotations but IMO survival is just clumsy. Could be better if it was my main and i would just learn it semi-perfectly.

Also i may be the only one who does not like that harpoon skill. I think plain jumping charge would be better thematically. Like you jump towards the target and impale it with your weapon. Just like hunter?

I could actually chance spec, but BM is not really interesting with too much pets (i know it's beast mastery, but ehh...) and MM does not look that good either. Maybe i just put my hunter into "lesser alts"-category.

[Aleksej89]

Survival is not all that bad in my opinion, if it gets some proper buffs.

But WHY did blizzard remove 10+ of our utility spells and situational abilities, and separated the remaining few among the 3 specs?
I loved using each and every one of them on a daily basis in pvp and pve, but now the class feels like a cripple compared to WoD!

Also WTF have they done to our pets?!
Pets that had the raid buffs now lack any unique skills, meaning they are flat out inferior compared to other pets that still have their unique abilities!

Blizzard literally removed 10+ useful spells from hunter's arsenal, separated the remaining few utility spells like imbeciles and removed unique abilities from half the pet families without giving new ones!
It is incredibly idiotic to even think that a developer team could do something like that, they completely ruined a class that people loved for over a decade!

[Halyon]

I'm just curious. If you've been wanting to play melee since Vanilla, why have you stayed with your hunter for 10 years?

Because hunters have other draws. Melee spec is just 1/3 of it in terms of specs, other than that you have the flavor and theme, which are also big draws. I don't personally play SV, but I think it should stay, they just need to get their shit together and stop all their 'class fantasy' BS, which is what I think ruins it for a lot of people.

Functionality first, fantasy later.

[mistahwilshire]

Yep. Should've never tacked on a melee spec to two ranged ones. Especially if they weren't going to give it anything uniquely powerful to bring to groups. Complete failure from top to bottom but hey all the contrarians and bad raiders will say they love it anyway.

[Halyon]

Yep. Should've never tacked on a melee spec to two ranged ones. Especially if they weren't going to give it anything uniquely powerful to bring to groups. Complete failure from top to bottom but hey all the contrarians and bad raiders will say they love it anyway.

I like SV, but I can still agree on the other points. While the spec is fun, it feels utterly rushed and identity-less because they tried forcing traps and expanding them as a focus for an entire spec, stretching it too thin, and gutting the 2 other specs.

The spec should stay in my opinion, but they need to do their jobs properly. I don't trust them with that anymore, and I'm considering cutting my sub, not just because of hunters, which used to be my main class...

[Bepples]

That's because a huge% of players are meter-obsessed lemmings that flock to whatever the FOTM spec/class is instead of playing what they actually enjoy. I personally know tons of people who base what they play entirely on dps. MM hunter best in the game? Better level one. DHs are OP af? Cool brb rolling a DH. Fire mages are best? I love Frost but o well, dem Pyro crits yo. Etc, etc etc.

If Surv was top dps spec for hunters, you'd see a hell of a lot more people playing them. That I even have to say that makes me facepalm IRL.

As usual, you prove your signature to be a lie by saying stupid things in defense of Blizzard.

One such stupid thing, is deferring blame to the players, which is a common Blizzard defender tactic. Survival is deeply unpopular? That must be because the majority of players are "meter-obsessed lemmings". Can't be because Blizzard fucked up by choosing an inherently-doomed model for Survival.

Even BM is vastly ahead of Survival, and it is not the best spec for Hunters. In both Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry, MM performed better on meters than SV but SV still remained more popular in high-end raiding. Performance is definitely a factor; Survival was completely abandoned in 6.2 due to Blizzard's gutting of the spec (even Blizzard's acolytes can't defend that one), but the performance difference then was much, much greater than the performance difference now. It's clear that it's not the only factor influencing Survival, especially with the recent buffs leaving Survival very close to the other 2 specs in DPS.

[Deleted]

It's funny because they tried to make out like Rexxar was a survival hunter and was melee so it made sense lorewise, however i dare anyone to look at Rexxar's HOTS abilities and tell me he's actually a survival hunter?

All seems made up, and shoe horned in as an excuse to remove survival as a ranged spec :\

[Finbezz]

You don't speak for any of us.

[Dadwen]

Now that the mele hunter experiment is over and has clearly failed. Please revert SV back to the ranged spec we all loved.

We forgive you but it's time to move on and forget that any of this every happened.

Don't forgive shit, I played a SV spec for well over 8 years and blizzard can go fuck themselves. (I have not touch any of the blizzards games since)

[Okacz]

the class fantasy of survival just doesn't work.

before it was just a dot based ranged spec, now its a melee with traps and pets. It needs more umph.

I wanted it to be renamed Spiritual and all about channeling the power of the wild gods since thats what the artifact is all about.

Melee hunter class fantasy works. It's not hard to imagine a spear wielding survivalist fighting alongside his pet. Bear Grylls spec.

I agree tho that they shouldn't have removed old SV in the process. Druid has gotten 4 specs, hunters could as well. Rename the old SV to Tinker, give it Explosive Shot baseline again with some other elemental/lightning attacks, focus it on dot damage and viola. While I love the new SV, removing a spec in favour of making another, completly different, is not a good thing.

[Queen of Hamsters]

They'll never revert to 5.4 Survival, so I'd prefer it if they stick with the spec and improve upon it as it is. I'm giving it a chance (leveling second hunter 100-110 as SV) and whilst there's room for improvements to things like pet aggro and such, I'm having fun! I'll never pick it for raiding over the ranged specs though. I just cannot play melee in those situations due to motion sickness.