Survival Hunter is a blast!

[Pangalactic]

Hi everyone!

First of all, I'm new to the hunter class as a whole and have just gotten to level 55 with my SV hunter. So I can't professionally comment on its PVP or PVE capabilites - besides, the numbers will change anyway. What I want to do is to talk about the survival spec as a whole.

It's amazing! I'm having so much fun with it! I don't think I've ever had so much fun leveling any other character than a survival hunter. The spec theme is great - I'm thinking less about a traditional hunter and more about somebody like Bronn from GoT: a mercenary jack of all trades, a melee expert who also is proficient with the bow and a has few dirty tricks like bombs and traps up his sleeve. I think the spec conveys it extremely well. Harpooing into an enemy alongside with your pet charge AND throwing a freakin' wildfire bomb right into their face is just glorious!

The animations are also very cool. Harpooning and the bomb look great, and butchery has to be one of the bloodiest and greatest looking abilities in the game, I just love it!

Another thing that I've noticed is that it's the first class where distance is a play factor. Usually, you either want a) get as close as possible to the enemy or b) stay as far away as possible from the enemy. Survival forgoes that where distance is your choice, and the battle goes on your term. You can go toe to toe - or you can fight from afar and both options work. I think it's excellent and really brings a lot of flavour to being a melee-ranged hybrid.

Finally, I think it has a decent skill cap. With keeping up your poison dot, engaging/harpoon reengaging, managing focus, traps etc it has a great toolkit and a few fun "oh shit!" buttons that most other classes have been stripped off.

On the other hand, I think there is definitely a lot of potential for improvement. The interaction with the pet is kinda lackluster outside of Kill Command and Bloodseeker. Also the weapon choice is kinda ridiculous, I would expect something more fast paced with dual-wielding swords or axes rather than the slow-hitting polearms.

Overall I think it's a very exciting spec and brings a lot more flavor to the hunter class, and so far I've been enjoying it a lot!

[DeicideUH]

Yes, Survival is awesome.

[theossy]

It is indeed, boys. Especially in PvP

Edit: What I really enjoy about the spec is that there is just so much to do, which is refreshing - "So much" in WoW terms means managing mongoose-windows with weaving in kill commands, maintaining serpent sting and using procs, using your three different wildfire bombs, the interaction between carve/butchery and wildfire bombs. It ain't rocket science, but it keeps you engaged. And like OP said, the ranged/melee hybrid aspect is actually really cool (I say "actually" because it got, and still gets, a lot of flack for being irrelevant or a force mechanic). I can only speak from a PvP stand point on surv., but being able to kite with Aspect of the Eagle (or keep up pressure while being kited yourself) is potentially huge.

All in all, I'm having way more fun on my hunter than I've had in a while (I've been playing the same damn hunter for 14 years)

That being said, I hope they pull out some cool updates and changes for the next expo - and NOT a new overhaul. Can we just please keep it as it is, it works, but just enhance what works best and perhaps get rid of... I don't even know, but just not a new overhaul please.

Also - Yes to dual wields. Let's start a petition to bring back double Dawn's Edge for hunters.

[Lanrefni]

Yeah,I really want a dual wield option as well,would love to see it reworked to be dual wield swords at melee range and dual pistols/handbows at intermediate ranges with you having to move from one to the other to maintain optimal dps.

[Pandragon]

I like the way survival is now and if Blizzard hadn't of screwed up by giving hunters a 1.5 sec gcd I would be playing it.

[Kaver]

Yeah,I really want a dual wield option as well,would love to see it reworked to be dual wield swords at melee range and dual pistols/handbows at intermediate ranges with you having to move from one to the other to maintain optimal dps.

A small indie company like Blizzard dont have the brain power to create a spec like that. Frost DKs arent event allowed to wield 2h weapons.

[Blackmist]

I tried it earlier in the expansion, and while I liked it, I won't play it for raiding.

It was nicely front-loaded and felt like I was in charge of the damage, which makes a change from BM where you basically buff the pet all the time. I'm just not a melee guy.

[threads]

sv is just a reskin of BM and an easy version of unholy

[George Costanza]

Liked it better in legion honestly.

[Monster Hunter]

It's a good spec.

It's only down side is that it's competing in a very crowded melee raid slot. Which really is a boss design issue as most raid bosses fsvor having more ranged than melee but more people play melee than ranged.

[Jibjub]

I love it. SV has become my new main.

HOWEVER, I wish they fleshed it out a little more and made the ranged stuff matter more. I would like to see disengage reset harpoon and certain abilities do more damage at range so it is designed to jump back and forth.

[Maxilian]

Its good, though evade anything that have to do with increasing the damage of harpoon (who was the genious with this idea? unless we have some way to reset its CD, it makes no sense!)

At the start of the expansion it was ok, after a while it got some quality of life changes that make the class less annoying to play with for Hunters that were used to the movility of range the class usually had

For PVE, survivals are great, they have a hard time in PUGS as there are a lot of Melee classes fighting for that spot, but that's all.

- - - Updated - - -

HOWEVER, I wish they fleshed it out a little more and made the ranged stuff matter more. I would like to see disengage reset harpoon and certain abilities do more damage at range so it is designed to jump back and forth.

That would be nice, and quite fun to be fair, and would make some talents and item abilities more optimal

[Doffen]

Yup, agree, It's great!!

[thewallofsleep]

Yup, agree, It's great!!

Just curious, why is your avatar a stream captured picture of David Brevik's wife? Unless you're actually her, that is.

[Doffen]

Just curious, why is your avatar a stream captured picture of David Brevik's wife? Unless you're actually her, that is.

Someone posted it as a reaction gif after the thing he said about blizz, and I just took it from there.

[bullseyed]

I love it. SV has become my new main.

HOWEVER, I wish they fleshed it out a little more and made the ranged stuff matter more. I would like to see disengage reset harpoon and certain abilities do more damage at range so it is designed to jump back and forth.

Disengage and harpoon have similar CDs and are easy to use in tandem.

SV is one of the few melee classes without increased movement speed by default, so using disengage and harpoon well is a must.

- - - Updated - - -

It's a good spec.

It's only down side is that it's competing in a very crowded melee raid slot. Which really is a boss design issue as most raid bosses fsvor having more ranged than melee but more people play melee than ranged.

Which hasn't been an issue post-Uldir.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah,I really want a dual wield option as well,would love to see it reworked to be dual wield swords at melee range and dual pistols/handbows at intermediate ranges with you having to move from one to the other to maintain optimal dps.

This would be exceptionally dumb. Having to maintain differing ranged with the amount of boss movements in raiding would easily make it the most challenging spec in the game. Would need a 25%+ DPS buff to make that work.

[Lurker1]

Hi everyone!

First of all, I'm new to the hunter class as a whole and have just gotten to level 55 with my SV hunter. So I can't professionally comment on its PVP or PVE capabilites - besides, the numbers will change anyway. What I want to do is to talk about the survival spec as a whole.

It's amazing! I'm having so much fun with it! I don't think I've ever had so much fun leveling any other character than a survival hunter. The spec theme is great - I'm thinking less about a traditional hunter and more about somebody like Bronn from GoT: a mercenary jack of all trades, a melee expert who also is proficient with the bow and a has few dirty tricks like bombs and traps up his sleeve. I think the spec conveys it extremely well. Harpooing into an enemy alongside with your pet charge AND throwing a freakin' wildfire bomb right into their face is just glorious!

The animations are also very cool. Harpooning and the bomb look great, and butchery has to be one of the bloodiest and greatest looking abilities in the game, I just love it!

Another thing that I've noticed is that it's the first class where distance is a play factor. Usually, you either want a) get as close as possible to the enemy or b) stay as far away as possible from the enemy. Survival forgoes that where distance is your choice, and the battle goes on your term. You can go toe to toe - or you can fight from afar and both options work. I think it's excellent and really brings a lot of flavour to being a melee-ranged hybrid.

Finally, I think it has a decent skill cap. With keeping up your poison dot, engaging/harpoon reengaging, managing focus, traps etc it has a great toolkit and a few fun "oh shit!" buttons that most other classes have been stripped off.

On the other hand, I think there is definitely a lot of potential for improvement. The interaction with the pet is kinda lackluster outside of Kill Command and Bloodseeker. Also the weapon choice is kinda ridiculous, I would expect something more fast paced with dual-wielding swords or axes rather than the slow-hitting polearms.

Overall I think it's a very exciting spec and brings a lot more flavor to the hunter class, and so far I've been enjoying it a lot!

For sure i love it both in pve and pvp!

[Animalhouse]

Thanks for the post, you have inspired me.

I have always been BM since vanilla and have been burned out on hunter since WotLK. He one of my last classes to level every expansion since.
Due to heavy melee I decided to start leveling him from 110 a couple months ago but stopped at 113.
Have only been logging in for piddly crap every other night for 1-2 hours for the last month or so...I think I will put survival to the test and grind out last 7 levels this weekend!

I have not played survival at all since the melee change because I HATE the idea of it being 2 handed. I agree that it should be dual wield.
It would have been glorious to be DW fist weps in BM spec, ripping it up right along with pet but oh well.
I suppose I will xmog the polearm to the legacy axe to go with my demon stalker mog for some TBC nostalgia

[Lurker1]

Hi everyone!

First of all, I'm new to the hunter class as a whole and have just gotten to level 55 with my SV hunter. So I can't professionally comment on its PVP or PVE capabilites - besides, the numbers will change anyway. What I want to do is to talk about the survival spec as a whole.

It's amazing! I'm having so much fun with it! I don't think I've ever had so much fun leveling any other character than a survival hunter. The spec theme is great - I'm thinking less about a traditional hunter and more about somebody like Bronn from GoT: a mercenary jack of all trades, a melee expert who also is proficient with the bow and a has few dirty tricks like bombs and traps up his sleeve. I think the spec conveys it extremely well. Harpooing into an enemy alongside with your pet charge AND throwing a freakin' wildfire bomb right into their face is just glorious!

The animations are also very cool. Harpooning and the bomb look great, and butchery has to be one of the bloodiest and greatest looking abilities in the game, I just love it!

Another thing that I've noticed is that it's the first class where distance is a play factor. Usually, you either want a) get as close as possible to the enemy or b) stay as far away as possible from the enemy. Survival forgoes that where distance is your choice, and the battle goes on your term. You can go toe to toe - or you can fight from afar and both options work. I think it's excellent and really brings a lot of flavour to being a melee-ranged hybrid.

Finally, I think it has a decent skill cap. With keeping up your poison dot, engaging/harpoon reengaging, managing focus, traps etc it has a great toolkit and a few fun "oh shit!" buttons that most other classes have been stripped off.

On the other hand, I think there is definitely a lot of potential for improvement. The interaction with the pet is kinda lackluster outside of Kill Command and Bloodseeker. Also the weapon choice is kinda ridiculous, I would expect something more fast paced with dual-wielding swords or axes rather than the slow-hitting polearms.

Overall I think it's a very exciting spec and brings a lot more flavor to the hunter class, and so far I've been enjoying it a lot!

its also the first pure dam class with a 2hander spec as well if you think about it.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the post, you have inspired me.

I have always been BM since vanilla and have been burned out on hunter since WotLK. He one of my last classes to level every expansion since.
Due to heavy melee I decided to start leveling him from 110 a couple months ago but stopped at 113.
Have only been logging in for piddly crap every other night for 1-2 hours for the last month or so...I think I will put survival to the test and grind out last 7 levels this weekend!

I have not played survival at all since the melee change because I HATE the idea of it being 2 handed. I agree that it should be dual wield.
It would have been glorious to be DW fist weps in BM spec, ripping it up right along with pet but oh well.
I suppose I will xmog the polearm to the legacy axe to go with my demon stalker mog for some TBC nostalgia

regardless it does look cool when you make spirit owls fly out.

[Jibjub]

Disengage and harpoon have similar CDs and are easy to use in tandem.

SV is one of the few melee classes without increased movement speed by default, so using disengage and harpoon well is a must.

I mean... I want to be constantly bouncing back and forth. It would be fun if CDs were not a limit, but instead ranges ... so we have to disengage to grenade or <insert other cool abilities> and then we harpoon to get all up in their face. (the caveat here would be that you can do consistent dps from either as long as you are hopping back and forth ... and maybe cooldowns to handle boss fights that make this annoying or a potential dps loss... I don't know). I just really like the active gameplay and the feeling of bounding back and forth (and throwing grenades at things at my feet is stupid lol.