Survival revamp inevitable?

[Coldkil]

Not a hunter main, but played it quite a lot through the lifespan of wow.

Survival is just a failed design. First of all, people who choose hunters choose it for the ranged and pet aspects, as the hunter fantasy is. They cannot make it good enough to warrant that - and even if that happens it's ending in a sea of other melee classes which is already hard to rise in.

Hunters can do well with only two specs as survival ineffectiveness proves. Beast Mastery focused on pets management, and MM on "lone wolf playstyle". These two already cover all the spots and Survival just felt redundant. The new melee design doesn't solve anything, doesn't appeal anyone and doesn't make anything better.

Rogues (my main) could easily use somethign like that. We have three specs always fighting between each other and in the end it all becomes Assa for raid, Outlaw for M+ and Sub for pvp. Because that's just how they're designed.

[Kalador]

My thoughts on survival is, if I wanted to play a melee spec I would play my rogues, demonhunter, furry or arms warrior, etc, etc. I don't a main a hunter but even if it was top dps, I would not play survival. If anything they should either revert it back or make it a tank spec.

What about leaving it alone for player who actually enjoy the spec.

it needs a revert, not a revamp. the only people who didn't like old survival was blizzard. according to population numbers, almost no one likes current survival.

I'm not sure population number as anything to do with the fact that people like or don't like a spec. WW monk was almost always consider a very fun spec but it had less and less player playing it until they just made it do more dmg.

Affliction warlock is consider by many warlock player as not a fun spec to play because of shadow embrace yet it does strong damage so most warlock play Affli

The problem with survival is that it doesn't bring anything that only surv can do vs other hunter spec while being melee in a game that heavily favor range on all PVE content.

[Nythiz]

I'm not sure population number as anything to do with the fact that people like or don't like a spec. WW monk was almost always consider a very fun spec but it had less and less player playing it until they just made it do more dmg.

It's a bit different when the most popular class in wow, hunter; has the least popular spec in wow, survival.

Monk has always been (one of the) least played class in the game; and performance for monks is always a friggin rollercoaster, they're either insanely good or insanely bad it seems like. And the popularity strongly swings along with it's success.
Survival on the other hand has been a competitieve (in some cases even superior to both MM and BM) hunter spec several times throughout last few expansions, but it never really caught on despite producing good numbers.

Add to that, that survival was one of the (if not THE) most popular hunter spec in endgame content (Raids/Dungeons/PvP), before it was changed to melee; and you somewhat wonder why they even changed it in the first place.

That said.
I personally quite enjoy melee survival now and then. It's a lot better than in legion in my opinion and it's solid for open world stuff and viable for dungeons. It has a lot of instant upfront burst that the other 2 specs don't have.
However I still miss the old survival more than I enjoy the new Survival; and I think that's the key part for a lot of players here.
Old survival had a bit of an overlap with MM when you looked at the base abilities. However the old survival DID have a really really decent role definition. If they had moved survival more towards it's flavor of DoT / Nature damage / Exotic ammunitions side of things; it could have been solid yet different from MM.

And I'm sort of wondering if melee SV wouldn't just have been better as a 3rd spec for DH instead of how it got shoehorned into Hunter.
You can basically give all of the melee SV abilities an edgy name and you got a DH that's more like a very mobile trapper / hit and run spec (basically similar as it's now, but with a toolkit that better suits it alround).

Maybe if blizzard gave it more attention it could have been better too, but the fact they changed it and then just ditched it is a bit untasteful for a company such as blizzard. The spec got a minor overhaul going from Legion into BfA, where it basically just was "remove 3 abilities and consolidate that damage into the remainder".

Being the only (or one of maybe 2 specs) that has gotten practically zero changes going into SL is a clear sign that Blizzard either don't know where to go with the spec / don't care about the spec / think it's fine as it is; or a combination of the three.
And I don't know which of those three concerns me most, but neither of them is very healthy for the spec I think.

[renatompassos]

So bring the evidence. The burden of proof is on you on this.

I don't get why people come to this forum citing that "The Evidence is overwhelming! X is bad!" or "Players want X", when in reality, it's "I don't like this, and need to make it sound like I'm the speakerphone for the masses."

I don't deny that there are plenty of people that don't like Survival's current itteration, but all you've provided us with as an opening statement is anecdotal evidence.

How do we know you don't really play the game much anymore? What kind of content do you involve yourself into, and do you do it purely pug, or do you have friends filling in some slots?

No, it's not inevitable for you to 'get your third spec back' because you have a third spec. It's called Survival. It took them forever to look at Shaman, and they're still tweaking it. Shadow also suffered a little in BFA, and they nailed the rework on it for SL.

Just because YOU Didn't enjoy it, doesn't nessecarily mean the vast majority don't. Keep that in mind moving forward in this and many other conversations you'll have on simmilar subjects

Have you been living under a rock or unsubbed for ages? ALL surveys published in various sites point to Survival's pitiful statistic representation. Not counting the "anecdotal" evidence of never seeing a Survival hunter ingame for ages. What I do? What most casuals do: questing, hanging out in Oribos, LFR, dungeons, everything except PvP. Some guy said they are more prevalent in arenas. Another one disagreed, so... Should there be a PvP-oriented spec? If it is the design intention, which I doubt, it's a questionable one since it alienates the vast majority of the class' players.

Do YOU see Survival hunters around? Please tell me where! I'd love to take a closer look at that rare species live.

https://wowranks.io/stats as of today counts 35,497 Survs in 783,943 Hunters (4,5%)
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...26/#dataset=95 Mythic Castle Nathria 95th perc: 506 Surv entries in 75,090 hunters (0.67%)
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...5&difficulty=3 Normal CN: 2,412 / 69,242 (3.4%)
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/25 all Mythic plus dungeons combined: 27,366 / 983,583 (2.7%)

Can I stop? Great popular spec you're trying to defend there... Not a failure at all.

[Erleichda]

The thing about old, ranged survival is that it was the most facerolly easy yet strong spec in the game. By a large margin. Ranged, super high mobility, good survivability, defensive cooldown, minimally interactive rotation, strong aoe/cleave. It basically combined the strengths of a ranged spec with the strengths of a melee spec without the main weaknesses of either. I always played my buddy's hunter as surv when I had a reason to use it because I could set up like 2 auras real quick and be at nearly peak performance with pretty much no experience.

And that's why it was popular. People gravitate strongly towards what's easy and strong. See: Basically anything else in the game where people have the opportunity to take an easy path.

So when you want to talk about bringing back ranged survival I think you have to be clear about what you mean on that front. If it went back to ranged, but was more balanced in terms of complexity/utility/power would you still be so keen on it? Is the idea of a hunter that does spell/dot damage THAT interesting on its own? How would it be different from MM in a way that's interesting? It would have to be substantially different from old ranged survival, because that was not really balanced then and definitely wouldn't be now.

Melee survival went the other way, at least the last time i played it. Melee, very complex, meh performance. Of course nobody played that, especially people who were accustomed to playing hunters.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I'd rather see a complete reversal back to the MoP version, thanks.

[Eapoe]

In about another xpac or 2 we’ll see ranged SV back along with melee weapons (whether actual stat sticks or just xmog appearance).

[keyone01]

What about leaving it alone for player who actually enjoy the spec.

Yeah, those people that played rsv and made it one of the most popular spec in the game was totally not enjoying it so blizz had to make it melee. /s

Msv maybe would be fine as 4th spec of hunter, but instead blizzard decided to make most popular spec the least one.
Changing it back to ranged is the only sane decision at this point - few msv fans that play it right now but won't play ranged variant are nothing in terms of numbers that rsv could bring back not even to hunter class, but back to the game.

[glowpipe]

I'd rather see a complete reversal back to the MoP version, thanks.

that would require blizzard to admitt they were wrong. Thats happened like twice in 16 years. Don't see that happening anytime soon

[Kithelle]

Not that it's horrible...people will just take ranged over melee because it's easier, BM is the easiest spec and it's typically the most popular. MM does a lot more dps so more and more are playing it, to make Survival more popular it would need to be dominate in the dps and they just wont do that.

[Zyky]

Actually, it's doesn't need a big revamp, just some tweaking, but since blizzard don't really know what to do with it, then....

They should have never made a ranged spec change into a melee spec to begin with, as melee is already over-saturated and raid groups are consistently punished for bringing too many melee.

[renatompassos]

In about another xpac or 2 we’ll see ranged SV back along with melee weapons (whether actual stat sticks or just xmog appearance).

Now that you say it, that reminds me of a very concerning point against the reversal. Legion. Let's say they admit to themselves it IS a failure and they wanted to revamp it to ranged again. How would they deal with Legion's Survival artifact and questline in a newly revamped ranged spec? Because there will be those players that choose to level up a fresh revamped Surv through Legion content. Blizz would never redesign the whole thing to a ranged weapon, absolutely impossible. But then, how to throw envenomed shots, black arrows and exploding darts with Talonclaw, Spear of the Wild Gods?

Yeah, probably not happening...

[Frinata]

Have you been living under a rock or unsubbed for ages? ALL surveys published in various sites point to Survival's pitiful statistic representation. Not counting the "anecdotal" evidence of never seeing a Survival hunter ingame for ages. What I do? What most casuals do: questing, hanging out in Oribos, LFR, dungeons, everything except PvP. Some guy said they are more prevalent in arenas. Another one disagreed, so... Should there be a PvP-oriented spec? If it is the design intention, which I doubt, it's a questionable one since it alienates the vast majority of the class' players.

Do YOU see Survival hunters around? Please tell me where! I'd love to take a closer look at that rare species live.

https://wowranks.io/stats as of today counts 35,497 Survs in 783,943 Hunters (4,5%)
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...26/#dataset=95 Mythic Castle Nathria 95th perc: 506 Surv entries in 75,090 hunters (0.67%)
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...5&difficulty=3 Normal CN: 2,412 / 69,242 (3.4%)
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/25 all Mythic plus dungeons combined: 27,366 / 983,583 (2.7%)

Can I stop? Great popular spec you're trying to defend there... Not a failure at all.

See, that was all that was needed. I'm not harping on you because I nessecarily disagree, just that when you make the claims that you did, you need to back it up with facts, and not anecdotal evidence. People will respect the point you're trying to make when it comes from a neutral source.

I personally enjoy Survival, it's one of the funnest melee speccs for me, but I do realise that alongside hunter mains, I'm more in the minority there. People enjoyed old Survival alot more, and I get that. I personally enjoyed old MM more, back when it was more of a CD Piñata, But to each their own on that one.

[ZazuuPriest]

They will never revamp survival. They would rather 0.01% of the people who actually play hunter play the spec than admit that they fucked it up completely. It will continue in its current state: undertuned and underplayed forever. TBH there was only 1 time in wows history where survival was dope and that was the end of WoTLK they have never know what to do with this spec.

[Mamushi]

Maybe if it was a tank spec it would have a special niche for mail tank with pet (since Blood DK doesn't have a pet anymore), not to mention that it would add a tank spec to the most popular class. Even now I've seen Survival do comparable dmg to MM/BM in M+ at least but it will always be at a disadvantage since it's melee.

[cparle87]

What kind of reasoning convinces you that making it ranged again is unrealistic but making it a tank spec is?

Because making it ranged again would be Blizzard backpedalling and there's a hate boner opinion that Blizzard refuses to accept their "mistakes".

[Kalador]

Yeah, those people that played rsv and made it one of the most popular spec in the game was totally not enjoying it so blizz had to make it melee. /s

Msv maybe would be fine as 4th spec of hunter, but instead blizzard decided to make most popular spec the least one.
Changing it back to ranged is the only sane decision at this point - few msv fans that play it right now but won't play ranged variant are nothing in terms of numbers that rsv could bring back not even to hunter class, but back to the game.

Look I agree changing the spec originally was not the best idea but it's been 2 full expac. Also there is no way range SV see more play than mm or BM if it's not doing more dps. With 3 spec so similar to each other in terms of niche it's going to be 100% based on tuning.

[Valerossi]

They will never revamp survival. They would rather 0.01% of the people who actually play hunter play the spec than admit that they fucked it up completely. It will continue in its current state: undertuned and underplayed forever. TBH there was only 1 time in wows history where survival was dope and that was the end of WoTLK they have never know what to do with this spec.

Hard disagree there. MoP SoO SV was very enjoyable to play - those sweet Lock&Load proc streaks - , especially for multi target fights like Dark Shamans for example- Serpent Spread -, and was very closely balanced with BM , the dominant spec at the time. The two specs were within 2% of each other and I used to swap back and forth between BM and SV for different bosses throughout the raid ( on 25 H ).
I haven’t touched SV since they butchered it in WoD in preparation for the surprise melee makeover .
I don’t care how high they tweak the dps numbers on SV, been maining Hunter since mid Vanilla , have zero interest in playing a melee Hunter.

[Queen of Hamsters]

that would require blizzard to admitt they were wrong. Thats happened like twice in 16 years. Don't see that happening anytime soon

Indeed, and it's a damned travesty. They literally turned a spec which was very played, by people choosing the class, to one that's basically shunned.

Just proof that people driven by nostalgia (pluhease bring back melee SV hurr) should NOT be designing games.

[Emodramabomb]

My survival hunter is considered something of a "second alt"... Very fun to play, but dont expect much from me, even if I do someday actually get good at it lol. Truly though, I enjoy it as it is, just wish we had more punch to make it competitive.