Is Blizzard getting ready to delete survival in the next expansion?

[stevan021]

EDIT: I see some in the comments wanna replace melee survival with a ranged spec. Melee survival is a spec of it's own right now, I get people who ask for a third ranged spec but why do you want to delete a melee spec SOME enjoy? You don't lose anything if you don't play it


Original post:

Based on this post about patch 7.2.5:




They don't seem to wanna really allot any more development time to the spec and make any substantial changes. And if you think being on this list means a spec is getting something drastic like a complete rework, check the patch notes- most of these specs have received changes but nothing incredible aside from maybe sub rogues who had a ton of stuff changed.

I get that a lot of people like this spec the way it is but surely some quality of life changes are in order, not just a simple numbers tuning.

[idunnowatdo]

old survival best survival

[SoulForge]

Survival was an overhaul when this expansion launched. They aren't going to overhaul it during the expansion. And Enhancement feels the same love as survival and hasn't changed much since launch.

[Pull My Finger]

Omg, some people and their ideas ...

[oplawlz]

Yeah man, this is totally not an overreaction or anything. Survival is so gone.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

What? How does that have anything to do with survival? They won't be deleting any spec sorry to burst your bubble!

[sam86]

While i hate the new survival and prefer old one (played survival during bc/wrath, also was alt), i don't think blizz is planning to remove that spec anytime soon, or at all
it will be shoot in the feet to do that, they will need to redo insane amount of (what will be) old content just to fit that hunters lost the melee spec

[Irian]

No, but I wouldn't be surprised if it got a heavy tweaking next expansion. It seems to be a mishmash of ideas that aren't really working out to be totally honest.

Survival will likely stay melee I imagine, but I think the big issue plaguing it right now is the same one that is plaguing WW monk; sure you can do stuff and do it rather well in fact but that doesn't change that fact that overall your class is pretty forgettable and doesn't have a lot going for it when compared to others. It does things and does them well but it doesn't do any particular thing in a cool or awesome enough way to actually justify it existing.

[Yuyn]

I get that a lot of people like this spec the way it is but surely some quality of life changes are in order, not just a simple numbers tuning.

Don't take Way of the Mok'nathal. Quality of life issues 90% solved.

(The other 10% are pretty minor nitpicks like Frizzo's Fingertrap using the Carve area of effect for application of Lacerate, even when using Butchery, mastery tuning currently relying on the Nighthold 2-pc, or the L100 talent tier having terrible balance.)

[Killadrix]

Based on this post about patch 7.2.5:




They don't seem to wanna really allot any more development time to the spec and make any substantial changes. And if you think being on this list means a spec is getting something drastic like a complete rework, check the patch notes- most of these specs have received changes but nothing incredible aside from maybe sub rogues who had a ton of stuff changed.

I get that a lot of people like this spec the way it is but surely some quality of life changes are in order, not just a simple numbers tuning.

just stopping in to say that your overdramatic, whiny ass, hyberbolical shit title makes it hard to take you seriously, and as a result, I hope you don't get the changes for which you are looking.

[Super Kami Dende]

I play Survival on my Hunter and with the exception of some well needed number tuning, the spec as a whole doesn't really need overhauls.

[TOM_RUS]

What they should do is make it ranged spec again. No one asked for this garbage melee spec.

[Adoxe]

They're not gonna turn it back into a ranged spec. At most, it will receive major changes like Demo locks at start of Legion.

[Mirishka]

What they should do is make it ranged spec again. No one asked for this garbage melee spec.

Actually a lot of people have asked for a melee hunter spec, because of NPCs like Rexxar.

What you don't want =/= what everyone doesn't want.

[Pyro1990]

As others have said, the spec was overhauled at the start of the expansion. They aren't going to dedicate a ton of time to a new overhaul mid expansion.

Toward the people hoping it gets changed back, I highly doubt it will happen. If they do anything I would hope for a 4th spec, as I currently enjoy new survival while also maining old survival for most of my time as a hunter.

[stevan021]

They aren't going to dedicate a ton of time to a new overhaul mid expansion..

Don't think it needs an overhaul but it needs focused dev time to shine. Not doing anything at this critical time as it is still a relatively new spec shows they might be taking the gladiator warrior route.

[Trapstarz]

If survival perform really better than MM or BM, the cry me river train will start and the devs would be obligated to nerf SV.

As long as the range hunter community will be butthurt about that refreshing breeze our class got (because the 3 spec were so close to each other design wise since MoP) the devs are muzzled for ever.

So since hunter are middle / bad DPS wise, surv will stay as a niche spec for like Gul'dan MM.

But since we aren't in the top 20 first guilds why do we care ? We aren't in the race anyway.

[Muapa]

i just wanna say that while i loved the old SV i am entirely in love with the new sv and swinging myself into the face of my enemies

[Niwes]

its all possible. blizz removed also the dps prot warrior spec/talent as a result of a failed experiment. blizz always had and will simply do what they want. so maybe they overhaul and keep melee, they remove and go back range or they simply do only some polish. all possible to the same degree.

but, since blizz do whatever they want regardless what their customers say (and they are ridicoulus with that) i have another, more agressive, theory. but first, some background:

blizz started to heavily prune, simplify, streamline classes since WoD. if you take a deeper look, its all about cost effeciency. they just cant/want put in that much money and effort in WoW. all what they did with classes, was made by blizz FOR blizz.

example: what you know as "class fantasy", is an eye catcher that slightly hides the streamlining of the classes by integrating them all in the exact same mathematical builder/consumer pattern. this helps blizz a lot to save money in development, maintaining and balancing classes. same with pruning.

cause of this reasons, here is my agressive theory:

with the next (or at latest next after next) xpac blizz cut/combine all specs of all classes into 2 specs. the reason is, they have too much to really differ them, and foremost, to safe money. pure DPS are easy. here some examples:

- lock: affli stay as it is. destru and demo are combined into demon pet spec with fire casts.
- mage: frost and fire stay. some arcane stuff is combined into both, most will be cutted.
- hunter: bm and mm stays as they are, surv is gone as failed experiment.
- rogue: assa get a little bit pistol/sword stuff from outlaw (like in assasins creed), sub stays, outlaw cutted.

hybrids are a little bit trickier. but not that much. bc blizz has already realized that they have way too much talents to differ them, and also that there will ever be the cookie cutter problem. a lot of the talents are simply not used, never balancable or nobrainers. so they will go this way, by an example on paladin class:

- spec 1: prot and ret combined.
- spec 2: holy and ret combined.
- every talent row has 1 ret talent and 1 prot (spec 1) or 1 holy (spec 2) talent.
- spec 1 will (with all prot talents) be like prot today
- spec 1 will (with all ret talents) a shield wielding dps like in D3 addon
- spec 2 will (with all holy talents) be like holy today
- spec 2 will (with all ret talents) be like ret today (a holy powered fighter)

i dont wanna go into detail how the specs base is included in the talents, but if you think a while you will come to the same thing thats in my mind too. it is no problem to do that. but assides from that, i think the example is enough that you get the overall concept/idea.

i know. that sounds too crazy. that sounds too "ppl will kill blizz when killing their spec". and so on. but blizz will tell you: "you dont loose anything. we prevent the spec you love, we just push it more together." the outcry first will be loud. but after the dust has settled, ppl will accept it. and blizz knows that.

look at it this way: its the exactly same thing like spell pruning in WoD was. only this time with talents. nothing else.

and this must be no bad thing. it could lead to better game design overall, more interessting and deeper descissions, etc. and blizz always stated that they look for player choices. hard choices. actual choices are watered down by too many talents/specs etc. by pruning them, you focus on the "real things" which leads to real choices. that maybe could create a better game, if done right. it works with DH. why not let follow the rest?

so yes, agressive theory. but you can quote me on this here, in 2 years

[Slicer299]

WoW simply couldn't support two new melee DPS specs being introduced at the same time. So the move to make Survival into a melee spec at the same time the put Demon Hunters into the game makes it a bad move no matter what. Doesn't matter if you like the new spec or not, it made the game too melee heavy and there was no proper place in raids for melee Survival Hunters with so many people rerolling Demon Hunters already.

That said, it was a stupid move on Blizzard's part as a whole because you don't take a pure ranged class and take away one of their specs and make it pure melee. If they wanted to experiment like that they should have done it via a 4th spec, like how they separated Feral and Guardian for Druids. They also executed it horribly, if they were going to add a melee spec for Hunters, they should have gone with something like a woodsman who dual wields axes and with much better pet integration into the spec. Instead of Harpoon, you can whistle and charge in on your pet and pull off combos with your pet. That might have made sense.

There's a chance they'll either make the melee spec into a 4th spec, or ditch it completely and make Hunters pure ranged again, but it won't happen this expansion. But as they haven't listened to Hunters at all in over a year, my guess is melee Hunters are here to stay for no other reason than the majority of Hunters don't want them.