Hope they leave Survival alone all expansion

[Regalosh]

I think a toggle would be neat (someone suggested it earlier in this thread I think). Instead of Aspect being a CD, just turn it into a toggle. It could switch other things up, too, to make it even more fun and flavorful. (Would be especially cool if you throw your polearm/sword/axe on your back and pull out a ranged weapon that has no stats but can be transmogged) ...

I like melee SV, for the record. Melee combat in MMOs feels more satisfying to me.

Personally I like it being limited, so it has a more rewarding feeling, if used correctly. If they made it "toggleable", they would have to make it even less effective on ranged, in order to avoid players abusing it, despite that we already lose out on auto-attack, which is a big deal.

If people wants its CD reduced, than I would rather tie it to Disenage. For example every time we use disengage, the remaining cooldown on AotH is reduced by 15 seconds. That, combined with Born to Be Wild and Terms of Engagement could result in a really interesting gameplay. Also, every time you use Harpoon, the cd on Disenage is reduced by 5 secs.

[dreaderus]

I would like them to fix the level 60 row so that there isnt only one talent worth taking.

i love the concept of steel trap yet i can't take it in its current state. it should go baseline IMO.

[threads]

why do people want dual wield so bad? DW sucks ass in bfa. let me tell you about how my DH took like a month to just get 1 heroic weapon. getting 2 is a bitch.

besides, SV has like 1 attack that melees and the rest of the time you throw your arms around.

dual wield would add nothing but make this xpacs shitty loot worse.

[Eapoe]

why do people want dual wield so bad? DW sucks ass in bfa. let me tell you about how my DH took like a month to just get 1 heroic weapon. getting 2 is a bitch.

besides, SV has like 1 attack that melees and the rest of the time you throw your arms around.

dual wield would add nothing but make this xpacs shitty loot worse.

People want it because it looks cool and has more options for xmog. That being said, not sure how it would impact the game but it could be nice for Blizz to just give DW specs a 1 drop item that gives main/off hand weapons so people don’t need to farm for 2 weapons.

[Bepples]

If they change them to ranged only that would be a mistake

Survival did amazingly when it was a ranged spec. Now it's at permanent "niche" status and is eating up all the development time in a feeble effort to win back all the players it lost.

I think it's pretty clear which change is the "mistake".

Only at the extremes, the melee abilities and autos could be all the way down at 20% or something of you're total damage and you'd still be getting kicked if you were sitting at ranged and not getting in there.

...OK, and if you've been paying attention to the thread at all you will see that at no point was anyone saying SV is a ranged spec. The point is that a purely-melee approach failed in Legion and they used ranged mechanics to bail out Survival in BfA, which questions the merit of the melee mechanics.

Even if we assume that's correct, why is that relevant? You can make changes to flow and pace of gameplay without changing whether it's ranged or melee.

It's relevant because Survival used to be ranged, Hunters at large prefer ranged, the identity of the class is based on ranged weapons, and it was an extremely high-risk-low-reward strategy turning it melee that, predictably, turned out badly. So now the discussion is on the relevance on keeping the spec melee. I know more people enjoy it now than in Legion (not exactly a hard thing to accomplish) but the attitude I'm sensing from the forums is that people like it for reasons other than melee, or even despite it being melee. Which just raises the question "what's the point in keeping it melee?". I know you specifically like the melee mechanics but the majority of posts I see on the forums like it for reasons that could still persist if it were ranged again.

why do people want dual wield so bad? DW sucks ass in bfa. let me tell you about how my DH took like a month to just get 1 heroic weapon. getting 2 is a bitch.

besides, SV has like 1 attack that melees and the rest of the time you throw your arms around.

dual wield would add nothing but make this xpacs shitty loot worse.

True, but if you put a gun to my head and said "a Hunter spec had to be melee", I would choose that spec to be dual-wielding because it's generally more unique and the one notable melee Hunter in lore dual-wields.

Of course, he is obviously a Beast Master, so that spec would be Beast Mastery. The only reason they chose Survival as melee is because in early WoW that's where they grouped the melee mechanics. That was a mistake, and that stopped being relevant a long time ago.

But, again, this is all if you force me to come up with a melee Hunter spec. There shouldn't be a melee Hunter spec, period. 12 years of class development should not be thrown away and redone on a whim, no matter what.

[Baredgrylls]

You have some great facts, but I believe your premise is all wrong.

They spent far more time on the MM rework this expac then SV so it’s not eating up all the devoloper time.

You believe that legion survival failed because it was melee, yet have admitted you didn’t spend much time playing it. It failed because it was not enjoyable. It was overly complicated, and the entire spec was 4 different moving parts that did not go together. MM is doing terrible after the rework they received and no one is claiming that it’s because they left it ranged. A poorly designed spec is just that.

Both the players and the developers prefer Melee classes, or else why are there so many? They took the least played hunter spec and made it something that appealed to more of WoW. I don’t understand how you can not grasp that. The changes were not made for you, they were made in spite of you. Blizzard wanted to have hunters appeal to a better class of player to try and lose the “huntard” stigma.

Blizzard did not throw away 12 years of class development. Hunters were always meant to have a melee aspect to them, or else why were they there from the beginning? You don’t like the way they implemented them this time, and that is fine. Please stop trying to make facts support your opinions, instead look at the facts and then form your opinion.

[SinR]

"My Spec is at the top right now, please don't nerf it"

[Cyanu]

Survival is a solid right now, only MM needs some love and it's getting it in 8.1

also for the love of god no more DW specs, this movie/d&d bs has gone out of hand, the majority of melee dps specs are DWing right now... and it's total bs, from warglaives (just lol), to the totally stupid dual daggers ( no reach, no defense, no accuracy, no penetrating power, wtf?), to fury's ridiculously oversized weapons or enhancement dual maces (ok that takes the cake on 'realistic' stupidity)...

ironically enough a good spear would beat any of those bs... it would even beat the more traditional greatsword/axes/maces of other 2h wielders

[Bepples]

They spent far more time on the MM rework this expac then SV so it’s not eating up all the devoloper time.

No they didn't? SV was far more substantially changed in BFA than MM was. A large part of why MM is in such a bad state is because it pretty much abruptly stopped getting updates on the beta at one point while they continued to tweak SV (see: Carve addition).

You believe that legion survival failed because it was melee, yet have admitted you didn’t spend much time playing it.

What on earth does your second point have to do with the first? I think Legion Survival failed because it took a whole bunch of time and effort and cost us a formerly very widely enjoyed spec only to produce something almost no one wanted to play and ultimately weakened the class identity. Whether or not I've played it have nothing to do with that.

It failed because it was not enjoyable. It was overly complicated, and the entire spec was 4 different moving parts that did not go together.

Feral was also overcomplicated and did poor damage, still did much better than Survival.

Also, you people spent all of the first half of Legion talking about how amazing SV was and how it was the most fun spec ever. It's funny to see the revisionism kicks in once Blizzard turned off the life support.

MM is doing terrible after the rework they received and no one is claiming that it’s because they left it ranged. A poorly designed spec is just that.

The difference is MM has been popular before with largely the same theme and model; Survival has not. The last time Survival saw moderate to high representation in raiding was Blackrock Foundry, when it was a ranged spec. That's also the last time the spec got a world first kill, funnily enough.

You know what else I freely admit? SV in HFC was the less popular than every tier of melee SV. Why? Because it was a completely broken spec that dragged down your raid if you specced into it instead of MM. Does that describe SV now? Given that it's literally our highest-performing spec (as was the case a few times in Legion too) I don't think so. Any time ranged Survival was the top damage spec in the class it was also the most played by a huge margin (see: Dragon Soul, Highmaul), no questions asked. Yet SV now with a massive damage lead is only a bit more represented than MM which is dogshit for a whole list of reasons.

Both the players and the developers prefer Melee classes, or else why are there so many?

I don't know about the players, but if the developers prefer melee classes (which I do actually believe) that's a HUGE problem because a significant amount of their playerbase prefers ranged. They need to be able to look past their own personal preferences and work towards a balance of melee and ranged yet Survival demonstrates they are unable to do that.

They took the least played hunter spec and made it something that appealed to more of WoW.

Ranged Survival became the least played spec on June 23rd 2015 with the release of 6.2 that fucked the spec. Legion and Survival being melee was announced on August 6th.

Before June 23rd, Survival was a very popular spec. In fact, as late as March (and possibly later) it was the most popular Hunter spec. It was the most popular throughout SoO and much of the rest of MoP too.

There is absolutely ZERO chance the decision to make it melee was made after June 23rd. Everything announced at Gamescom in August would have been set in stone at that point. They already had several of Survival's artifact appearances complete and shown at Gamescom. It had to have been earlier; possibly (and, in fact, LIKELY) before WoD was even released. Meaning that at the time they decided to make SV melee, it was NOT the least popular Hunter spec. In fact, there's a good chance it was the MOST popular Hunter spec at the time. What's worse: they actually applied a huge nerf to the spec in 6.2 and disguised it as a bug fix, meaning it looks like they deliberately killed off the spec in an attempt to add merit to the remake. So good job falling for that.

LOL at using "appeal" as a justification for melee SV. Melee SV very famously has little appeal, even amongst the general playerbase and not just Hunters. Even Hazzikostas admits that it's a niche spec. It's pretty stunning to see a SV fanatic still clinging to the appeal argument; that one's pretty much been dead since 7.0 and most SV Hunters have moved on defending the merits of replacing a widely-enjoyed spec with a niche, exclusive spec.

I don’t understand how you can not grasp that. The changes were not made for you, they were made in spite of you. Blizzard wanted to have hunters appeal to a better class of player to try and lose the “huntard” stigma.

As detestable and pathetic this attitude is, I can at least respect you for being honest. Most SV Hunters bend over backwards to try to portray melee Survival as a gift to the Hunter playerbase and not the giant middle finger that it actually is. You just come out and say the truth: the decision was made at the deliberate expense of Hunters.

The difference is you think it's a good thing. I'm inclined to say all sorts of things right now that would quickly get me banned, but I'll refrain from that. What I will say is this: I could talk all day about how deliberately taking a class of a spec is the pinnacle of class design douchebaggery and selfishness, but what really tops it off is how self-destructive and innefective the strategy is. People actually don't re-roll often. People expect a certain thing from the Hunter class. Blizzard relies on the existing playerbase of classes to maintain the community and familiarity of that spec. Evicting the existing playerbase of a spec in attempt to grab other players is destined to fail hard, and Survival is proof of that. Their BfA ranged-compromise is an attempt to pull back all those Hunters they told to fuck off 2 years earlier while still getting to call it a melee spec in the end.

I've also never seen someone who has a deep-seated melee favouritism come out and admit it, but here you are saying that you literally think melee players are a "better class of player". Give me a fucking break. The truest "huntard" of old was the one who stuck to melee weapons when there was a vastly-superior ranged toolkit available. It's kind of funny how that's still partially true tooday

Blizzard did not throw away 12 years of class development. Hunters were always meant to have a melee aspect to them, or else why were they there from the beginning? You don’t like the way they implemented them this time, and that is fine.

Yes they did. Each iteration of Survival was based on the previous ones with tweaks, additions, and removals... up until Legion, which was a total ground-up remake. 12 years of iterative development gone.

The melee aspect only existed as a naive balancing attempt because they thought a ranged class with so many instant casts would be otherwise unbeatable. When they found there were other ways to deal with that, the melee aspects were phased out over several expansions. They were never central to the class identity and were never preferable to using the ranged attacks; they existed purely as a handicap.

https://i.imgur.com/mDs9W67.png

Original WoW manual page on Hunters. Note the ranged identity front-and-center. The melee stuff is hardly mentioned.

Please stop trying to make facts support your opinions, instead look at the facts and then form your opinion.

Follow your own advice, genius.

[Baredgrylls]

About the only relevant comment in your whole post was when you called me a Genius. Thank you FpicEail! I take back my previous statement.

Only MOST of your posts are worthless!

- - - Updated - - -

Fact is survival was played far less then BM for all of WOD. Fact is Survival performed worse then BM for all of WOD. They were never going to remove ranged BM. Maybe they should not have removed ranged survival, but they did. It’s time to move on.

If you are that unhappy about it, go talk to blizzard about how they ruined you life. Please stop derailing every Survival thread. Most people who play it enjoy it and it’s more popular and better performing then the last time it was ranged.

[Regalosh]

About the only relevant comment in your whole post was when you called me a Genius. Thank you FpicEail! I take back my previous statement.

Only MOST of your posts are worthless!

- - - Updated - - -

Fact is survival was played far less then BM for all of WOD. Fact is Survival performed worse then BM for all of WOD. They were never going to remove ranged BM. Maybe they should not have removed ranged survival, but they did. It’s time to move on.

If you are that unhappy about it, go talk to blizzard about how they ruined you life. Please stop derailing every Survival thread. Most people who play it enjoy it and it’s more popular and better performing then the last time it was ranged.

Oh bois, why are you keep falling for the same trap?

You are giving him the same phrases to feedback on and the constant wall-of-text will never stop. I know you try to reason and that's right, but to be honest, it has hardly any use against an egomaniac, who deeply hates melee survival.

He will never stop, as long as there's always someone answering to his ranting.. that's the only thing that keeps him relevant here.

[Bheleu]

Most people who play it enjoy it and it’s more popular and better performing then the last time it was ranged.

Umm... see: https://www.worldofwargraphs.com/pve...classes/hunter

I guess technically you are correct because it was still ranged when Blizz nerfed it hard at the end of WoD, but prior to that, it was more popular when it was ranged. Or perhaps it is more 'popular' now that Blizz made MM suck so bad that less people are playing MM than SV??

As for "Most people who play it enjoy it", well of course they do. But looking at the numbers, it would also be fair to say, "Most hunters are NOT playing it, even though SV performance is good". Why is that?

At the end of the day, they took a well loved spec away from a ranged class so a small group of melee fans could have a new novelty item to play with. Good for the few. Sad for the many.

[Bepples]

Fact is survival was played far less then BM for all of WOD.

Factually incorrect. Go look at the Highmaul stats. Survival was the most popular spec in the GAME by the end of January 2015. At one point it got to +50% weekly parse count over the 2nd most popular spec (Frost Mage).

Fact is Survival performed worse then BM for all of WOD.

Again, factually incorrect. Not that it matters at all. What makes you think numerical performance should be a deciding factor as to whether a spec should be replaced with something else? I would say dropping percentage buffs and nerfs in a hotfix is just a little bit less time consuming than creating a new spec from scratch based on a niche concept and throwing out an existing spec to do it, don't you think?

It’s time to move on.

Not when Survival's tacked-on melee handicap is still an issue for the class, it's not.

Please stop derailing every Survival thread.

Discussing Survival in a Survival thread is not derailing.

Most people who play it enjoy it

Most people who played ranged Survival enjoyed it. Also, when it comes to Hunters, there are more people in the class who are turned off by melee mechanics than turned off by ranged ones. So if they made it ranged again the people who currently enjoy Survival will probably still enjoy it. Especially when most of the posts on the forums lately seem to indicate that the reasons people enjoy Survival e.g. talent choices, performance, and gameplay flow, do not hinge on the spec being melee.

it’s more popular and better performing then the last time it was ranged.

Only true by technicality due to HFC. But, as we already established, HFC was an outlier because they (probably) deliberately made the spec useless in that tier in preparation to can the spec. In just about every other tier ranged SV was a very popular spec. We've already established that performance is superficial, easily fixed, and not a deciding matter of whether to keep a spec or throw it away.

He will never stop, as long as there's always someone answering to his ranting

Quoted for truth.

[Pronbear]

Again, only true by technicality due to HFC. But, as we already established, HFC was an outlier because they (probably) deliberately made the spec useless in that tier in preparation to can the spec. In just about every other tier ranged SV was a very popular spec. We've already established that performance is superficial, easily fixed, and not a deciding matter of whether to keep a spec or throw it away.

I'm not a hunt main and so I'm not pro nor con Surv as a melee. But the interesting fact is that i'm a former Warlock main and during wod we had a similar situation where they took a spec that worked, and was loved by a lot of their players (Demonology) and nerfed it to the ground, giving some arguments that weren't the real one : "Demonology is too strong, so every lock wants to play it. But it's a difficult spec to master, so we'll nerf it to the ground so u got no incentive to play it anymore. But don't worry, we'll rework that spec soon !" That rework ended up with the Meta switching to DH (that's prolly their main issue with the former demono, they wanted it out of lock to give it to that new and shiny class, demon hunter) and we instead got the clunky Legion demono.

In the end, we see the same methodology at use :
1/ nerf to the ground a popular spec, with whatever bullshit argument u can come by
2/ rework later that spec when no one is still playing it, so the backslash will be less harder
3/ ???
4/ profit

[Eapoe]

I'm not a hunt main and so I'm not pro nor con Surv as a melee. But the interesting fact is that i'm a former Warlock main and during wod we had a similar situation where they took a spec that worked, and was loved by a lot of their players (Demonology) and nerfed it to the ground, giving some arguments that weren't the real one : "Demonology is too strong, so every lock wants to play it. But it's a difficult spec to master, so we'll nerf it to the ground so u got no incentive to play it anymore. But don't worry, we'll rework that spec soon !" That rework ended up with the Meta switching to DH (that's prolly their main issue with the former demono, they wanted it out of lock to give it to that new and shiny class, demon hunter) and we instead got the clunky Legion demono.

In the end, we see the same methodology at use :
1/ nerf to the ground a popular spec, with whatever bullshit argument u can come by
2/ rework later that spec when no one is still playing it, so the backslash will be less harder
3/ ???
4/ profit

Except they were up front and honest about nerfing demo because almost the entire playerbase of Warlocks played it because of how strong it was, ease of use compared to Aff, and very little representation of the other specs.
SV was a fix because Multistrike affected something it wasn’t supposed to. Due to that, SV was top dog in HM.
Now, I can be open to the possibility that Blizz intentionally lowered a spec to make it less popular, but seeing as how they have done things with tier and number balances to swing that in the past, as well as their openness with Warlock spec nerfs, I don’t put much believability into that being why.
That being said, I feel bad for people that enjoyed rdps SV. Hell, I myself found it one of my favorite specs. That being said, I still enjoy Hunter as a whole and thoroughly enjoy SV as a mdps as well; but, I never hated BM or MM as much as others seem to.

[godofdun]

...OK, and if you've been paying attention to the thread at all you will see that at no point was anyone saying SV is a ranged spec. The point is that a purely-melee approach failed in Legion and they used ranged mechanics to bail out Survival in BfA, which questions the merit of the melee mechanics.


It's relevant because Survival used to be ranged, Hunters at large prefer ranged, the identity of the class is based on ranged weapons, and it was an extremely high-risk-low-reward strategy turning it melee that, predictably, turned out badly. So now the discussion is on the relevance on keeping the spec melee. I know more people enjoy it now than in Legion (not exactly a hard thing to accomplish) but the attitude I'm sensing from the forums is that people like it for reasons other than melee, or even despite it being melee. Which just raises the question "what's the point in keeping it melee?". I know you specifically like the melee mechanics but the majority of posts I see on the forums like it for reasons that could still persist if it were ranged again.

I think it failed due to basically being in a beta state the entire expansion, with multiple spinning plates often competing with each other for your globals, not that it was melee. It had fun moments like the mongoose bite windows and burst aoe though, and those were kept and improved imo.

The ranged mechanics added to me feel more like a bandaid due to it's lack of defense/utility for the purposes of M+. "You can disengage out of the scary stuff and harpoon back in when it's safe while still doing some damage" so to speak. Personally I'd rather they make it more melee again and give it better defensive tools. It is called "survival" after all, maybe go for the self healing route.

[ydraw]

I think it failed due to basically being in a beta state the entire expansion, with multiple spinning plates often competing with each other for your globals, not that it was melee.

It failed because it was melee. It's still a failure now because it's melee.

[Cyanu]

It failed because it was melee. It's still a failure now because it's melee.

forum vocabulary #124: i don't like it= it fails

actually survival now is (subjectively) the most fun and engaging hunter spec, with competitive pve dps and not only solid dps but also a robust toolkit in pvp

and yes that is irrelevant to the fact that you prefer the old ranged survival

[ydraw]

forum vocabulary #124: i don't like it= it fails

actually survival now is (subjectively) the most fun and engaging hunter spec, with competitive pve dps and not only solid dps but also a robust toolkit in pvp

And yet still nobody plays it. Less than 7% of all hunters play it, despite it being in a pretty good spot in raids. It's an objective failure, no matter how much you might enjoy playing it.

Only 3 specs in the game have lower representation, and those 3 are specs that were savagely undertuned at the beginning of the expansion and are still the worst DPS specs for their respective classes (demo, feral and MM). Survival is our top DPS spec but still played less than specs which are literally garbage tier.

No matter how you spin it, melee survival is a failure. Taking away a ranged spec for yet another melee spec did nothing except make more people spec into BM or MM. It took away choice and gave the game something it didn't need and doesn't want.

[Deleted]

In a vacuum the spec is not a failure. I've played everything outside of DK and the spec is pretty nice rotationally/design wise, a few QoLs/talent tweaks would help it a little.
Its encounter design and lack of "tools" vs other melees that don't give it a spot in raids and why everyone is playing ranged hunter (even if they like sv)

There's very limited melee spots on encounters - fetid/mythrax/g'huun spring to mind, why bring an sv to these unless you are a better player which is blatantly obvious if you check out guilds running them.

Having higher single target dps compared to other melees doesn't make up for battle shout, feint, blessing of wisdom, aoe stuns, burst aoe dps (which it lacks), feint, cloak etc etc. That's the failure, game design - not spec design.

I really do enjoy the spec compared to the other two but if it wasn't there id find another melee to play.