Who is going to main Survival in BFA?

[saidolol]

Oh, show new 0 year old hunter icon then.

meth's bad for you.

[Delaios]

It's certainly more enjoyable than the other 2 specs at the moment. Will definitely be leveling as SV with the harpoon reset talent and the legendary belt.

[Kissthebaby]

haha. i refer to your username on this one :P
14 years old stuff bro. game has changed.

Yea it has they have added 3 new classes all of which are melee dps and in that time. While we have also gotten -1 new ranged specs in the game in the same 14 years.

[Hordfest]

I'm a Druid main who dabbles into Hunter as an alt. I loved ranged survival, but I also think that melee survival feels REALLY good right now. I think if some of you Hunter mains who didn't touch survival in Legion revisit it in BFA, you will be quite pleasantly surprised with the feel of the spec. It's definitely a melee spec, but the ability to weave in ranged abilities when needing to move creates an engaging gameplay style only echoed by Unholy and Enhancement and it is still different enough to retain it's own identity.

I promise you won't be betraying the memory of ranged survival if you give the melee version another spin.

[Squiggit]

I find a lot of the flow comes from wildfire infusion which you wouldn’t get till 100, I Proabbly wouldn’t play with out it and leveling is Proabbly poor without it.

This. Wildfire Infusion really ties the spec together.

Which makes me kinda worried what'll happen if WI ends up a bad talent in another patch cycle.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

This. Wildfire Infusion really ties the spec together.

Which makes me kinda worried what'll happen if WI ends up a bad talent in another patch cycle.

i hope they will make it base line and add something else as a talent as its just so good to play with.

[Narzok]

i hope they will make it base line and add something else as a talent as its just so good to play with.

considering this would be a smart decision for the specc...
nah, WI gets scrapped, damage of Bomb reduced and gives you a x% haste buff so you have another wet-noodle attack to keep on CD. Because blizz.

[Shilz]

the class fantasy is real for this spec, i'm loving it. if you want the ranger archetype there's MM and if you want the 'one with nature and all its denizens' archetype there's bm. of all the specs, survival feels the most like one that's actually designed for tracking and hunting. versatile melee and ranged arsenal, usage of concoctions and venom as well a single, trustworthy animal companion to track and hunt foes with you. 100% maining in bfa

[Deleted]

Will see how the tuning seems at 120, right now it feels better than ever! Promising!

[Valdhammer]

Lots of crying babies in this thread. I tried the new Survival yesterday and found it much more enjoyable than the other 2 specs. That’s really all the incentive I need.

[Johny-Blade]

This. Wildfire Infusion really ties the spec together.

Which makes me kinda worried what'll happen if WI ends up a bad talent in another patch cycle.

Agreed. WI is what makes the spec interesting. They could have done so much more for the spec and enhance the core mechanics of it, if they actually decided what is the fantasy behind the spec really is a stick with it once and for all.

Right now we have a spec that wants to be a melee BM spec who focuses more on coordination between master and pet, but it also has some poison and explosive abilities sprinkled all over it, and the funny thing is that a TALENT for an explosive ability is what makes the whole spec be one step further from being just a basic builder/spender spec.

All in all BFA SV is more close to what Legion BM was, which is by no means bad, I liked and mained Legion BM for exactly what it was, a simpler and more straight forward spec, but I feel that SV hasn't established its identity yet and while both the Legion and BFA versions have some solid and fan ideas from which the core gameplay could be based on, the devs failed to filter all this through and they are still looking lost on their attempts to define the spec.

[Deleted]

The original WoW manual description lmao.. come on man.. grasping for straws here.

Being that the most iconic hunter in the WoW universe is a Melee "survival like" hunter I think it makes a ton of sense for the class. You may not enjoy the spec, which is fine, but it definitely fits the class. It definitely seems like the survival spec is not very well received by hunter mains, most of which probably rolled the class to be a ranged specialist. However, I think the spec is much better received by the players who haven't played much hunter that might want to try it out now.

Well..he is a warrior with hunter abilities, aka Beastmaster hero class (and not beastmaster as hunter) but shhh...it is a secret...
"Rexxar, Champion of the Horde, is a half-ogre, half-orc beastmaster[2] of the Mok'Nathal clan
...
Due to his mixed lineage, he is a towering and massively muscled warrior, and he wields his two huge axes with tremendous skill and ferocity.
....
A beastmaster, also known as beast master, is a warrior hero or wilderness warrior who is able to call forth the creatures of the forest to serve him."
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Rexxar
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Beastmaster

[Deleted]

Well..he is a warrior with hunter abilities, aka Beastmaster hero class (and not beastmaster as hunter) but shhh...it is a secret...
"Rexxar, Champion of the Horde, is a half-ogre, half-orc beastmaster[2] of the Mok'Nathal clan
...
Due to his mixed lineage, he is a towering and massively muscled warrior, and he wields his two huge axes with tremendous skill and ferocity.
....
A beastmaster, also known as beast master, is a warrior hero or wilderness warrior who is able to call forth the creatures of the forest to serve him."
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Rexxar
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Beastmaster

and 1 line later on the same page

"Among the most gifted hunters, there are those who have from birth felt a profound bond with the creatures of the wild. These beast masters are drawn to the perilous primal world, invigorated by its dangerous and untamed nature"

what a joke.
good thing you brought that useless discussion back up again with that shitty description

[natpick]

Not sure what the problem is with Survival. Are people to accustomed and spoiled with being the easiest ranged class to switch to a melee which suddenly requires a lot more skill than they're used to?

Survival on the beta plays great, a lot better than Marksman currently. It being a melee doesn't change that.

totally agree,sv is fun to play and alot more involved than boring bm or mm atm.

[docterfreeze]

They simplified it too much. Liked legion SV for the high skill floor and massive 6 stack mongoose bites. They removed both and I got bored of BfA SV within one antorus run, so I switched to MM for the massive aimed shots.

[Sundreamer]

i still don't care for it, though i hope people will be more happy with the revamp now and we'll actually see some survival hunters now

[Will]

I didn't like legion SV, I'm going to use the hateful term 'clunky' because I'm too tired to go into detail RN. New SV is great. Love it. 90% going to main it.

- - - Updated - - -

No one rolled hunter to play melee.

And people like this should be ignored. I specifically rolled hunter for BfA because the flexibility exists to be ranged AND melee. Too many of the old guard posting on this forum who are still bitter because they liked the old ranged SV. Understandable. But time to move on, people.

[Perune]

Didnt like it in Legion, but i am loving it now, will be my main until i find something more fun

[Nythiz]

They simplified it too much. Liked legion SV for the high skill floor and massive 6 stack mongoose bites. They removed both and I got bored of BfA SV within one antorus run, so I switched to MM for the massive aimed shots.

I personally disagree. I quite liked playing survival in Legion, but I feel like this new version is much better.

Is it more simplified? Yes.
But at the same time they removed both the awkward "split" rotation, where you had a short cycle in which you dumped all your DoT skills and then the MB spammy cycle whenever mongoose fury was up, as well as making skills feel a little bit more in tune with each other.

Frankly legion survival had a lot of skills that had 0 interaction, in fact flanking strike was the only one that impacted your rotation a bit by giving you a mongoose bite charge (Lacerate if talented did too, but the chance was too low to truly feel the impact of that).
A lot of the skills felt very clunky (e.g. Explosive Trap really required you to use 2 macro keybinds; one to drop a trap at your feet and one to drop one on your mouse); or had very low impact (enhancement shaman syndrome).

Giving a spec a highr skill floor is hardly ever a good thing, it makes the spec very inaccessible to newer players. Maybe you are looking for a higher skill ceiling, where you can distinguish yourself as a better survival player. But I think those options are still there:
- Being smart and not overwriting your Viper's Venom buff.
- Smart use of Bloodseeker multi dotting for attack speed and serpent sting multidotting for damage.
- Mongoose Bite is still there as well
- Trying to get a very high uptime of Coordinated Assault with Birds of Prey is quite a nice skill ceiling enhancer too.
- Making good use of Wildfire Infusion

Saying the spec is extremely simple and has too few things to distinguish between a mediocre and good survival player seems a bit shortsighted.

[prwraith]

Survival is the most fun hunter has been for me in years. It'll probably be one of my three mains.