Would Legion Survival Hunter be better off as a Tank spec?

[Kilraq]

Please see sections for quick viewing. This isn't a conspiracy theory, just a thoughtful examination of the toolkit given.

-Pre topic / History Statement -

I have been playing a Survival Spec hunter since Vanilla WoW. I have seen all of the changes that have occurred to Hunters over the years. I have dabbled in BM and in MM occasionally but have primarily been a Survival Hunter 90% of the games history. These thoughts came to me as I was playing in a few random heroics of late doing the gear treadmill.

- Main Idea -

The Survival Hunter does not make a good deal of sense from a melee DPS perspective. Having a dps spec based on a good deal of RNG proccing (Just another Mongoose strike, come on come on...) has been something Blizzard has been actively trying to avoid the last few expansions, as they realized this lead to lackluster specs/classes and ended up with lower dungeon/raid representation in progress groups. But if you step back and look at what Hunters (all specs, but particularly BM and Survival) have done over the last few expansions you realize they have always had a niche in tanking mini world bosses for quests and occasionally gimmicking some Raid bosses (hello Lord Marrowgar, Council Member in Gruuls Lair, etc.). If you look at it from an outside perspective you realize this is a strange role for our class. But what if Survival Hunter was an honest to god tank?

- The Toolkit -

Raptor Strike - Before the coming patch this has been a low damage ability. However it does have the potential via artifact to heal us. A very common ability for many Tanking specs and could be part of a standard rotation if we were tanks.
Harpoon - Pretty much your standard gap closers. Would essentally work exactly as a Warriors charge does now.
Mongoose - Could be our major threat builder. They want to make tanks have reasonable dps, so this would work well and maintaining a good set of charges would be very interesting gameplay.
Fury of the Eagle - Works in conjunction with Mongose. You could easily tie a defensive cooldown to the ablity based on the number of mongoose strike stacks used.
Grease Trap - Look at our PvP talent for Grease trap to see how easily you could turn this into a tanking tool.
Ice Trap/Steel Trap - Need to stop a mob on the healer but dealing with other mobs, bamb.
Explosive Trap - Would essentially function exactly as Consecration does for Tankadins.
Dragonsfire Grenade - AoE Threat generation but at a range. No need to change anything.
Lacerate - Bleeding a target for passive threat generation, just like warriors.
Flanking Strike - A rework could be used here, but imagine if all threat generated by the pet was redirected to the Hunter?
Aspect of the Cheetah (rework) - Quick movement tool to get out of a dangeous bosses attack (all tanks are needing to do this of late)
Throwing Axes - A ranged puller for when a charge is a bad idea. Think old style Line of Sight (LOS) pulls from back in Vanillia and in BC.
Way of the Mok'Nathal - Instead of a damage increase this could be threat generation instead. With raptor healing it would be a much more useful talent than it is now.
Murder of Crows - I would either remove this option from Survival if we became a tank or leave it as is so it could be good for secondary mob threat building.
Spitting Cobra - Ask a warrior if they need more rage on demand.
Carve - Standard cleave mechanic, normal on all tanking classes.
Aspect of the Eagle - Quick damage boost or threat boost. You decide. Maybe a AoE Taunt?
Aspect of the Turtle - If reworked to allow you to attack during its function this woud be a great "Oh crap" button.
Exhilaration - Pretty much exactly the same thing that most tank specs have now.
Muzzle - Interrupt. Again, standard for all melee.
Feign Death (lol) - Either just remove or keep as a funny way to pass threat to your secondary tank partner in raids.
Flare - Decent utility spell that can be kept or remove. Maybe have a small damage reduction for all targets "in your sight".

- TLDR -
Survival Hunters currently have almost all of the toolkit RIGHT NOW to function as an honest to god tanking class. A small rework would allow this to work and would give this game (and Hunters) something HONESTLY refreshing and new to do. Would be our first mail class tank in the game as well. (Unless you count Vanilla Shamans).

- Q/A -

I know the last thing Hunters want right now is another change to Survival. This is just a theorizing on how this change could operate. I really do think a change like this would be interesting and actually a useful change for the game. Most people who have rolled a Hunter wouldn't try this, but the same thing could be said for early Paladin tanks too over the years with Vanilla and BC. Any ideas you think could make it better? Do you think my redesign is too simple?

P.S. I used to Tank many of the raids in BC and in WoTLK as a Paladin Tank during those expansions and have a fairly decent understanding of many of the mechanics involved. Hunter was always my first and main class however.

[Kilraq]

There is another thread like this in the hunter forum bruh

Sorry, I was unaware of this. *Goes to see*

[Kilraq]

nah its cool m8 atleast this had depth too it ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Haha thank you. Yeah I see the last post wasn't exactly well... designed. It was the beginning of an idea that was left in the mire and forgotten by something shiny! (No offense meant to that original author)

[Hiricine]

anything would be better than "afterthought melee spec"

[Teddybearavenger]

no thanks. Improve the dps spec but don't make it a tank. Hunters should never be hybrid.

[Kilraq]

no thanks. Improve the dps spec but don't make it a tank. Hunters should never be hybrid.

Why? Please explain your ideas more fully. I completely understand the desire to avoid change and as someone who was playing Survival from Vanilla TRUST ME i was not happy with the change. But I took on this spec regardless and I am doing what I can to make it work rather than hope they change it back, because I very much doubt that will happen.

Yes, the dps does need help but as you can see in the coming patch they seem to be aware of it and are upping our non mongoose window abilities considerably.

Don't give in to simple answers and simple desires. Explain, elucidate, explore. Why do you think, with clear examples and reasons, that the spec should stay exclusively DPS? What about the class makes you feel this is important? Describe, please. I can tell you have strong feelings but without detailed clarification it is hard to know why.

[threads]

nah it would be better off as a ranged spec like it was

[Galaar]

If it was made into a tank spec it'd need to be spear and shield for equipment which would need to change the artifact or our ability to use a spear in one hand. Think the movie 300 where they use spear/shield. If they actually would do this I'd switch and tank immediately as my alt is a pally tank but running multiple alts right now is a just a huge time sink.

[Kilraq]

If it was made into a tank spec it'd need to be spear and shield for equipment which would need to change the artifact or our ability to use a spear in one hand. Think the movie 300 where they use spear/shield. If they actually would do this I'd switch and tank immediately as my alt is a pally tank but running multiple alts right now is a just a huge time sink.

Why exactly spear and shield? I imagine it kind of how they currently have Rexxar behaving as a Companion. Still 2h but with pets engaging for abilities. I know the idea of a Spartan warrior sounds fun but I don't get a good feeling from it. Remember, even the King dropped his shield to have better aim at the wolf. His helm blocked his sight. HARPOOON!

[Deleted]

I actually like the way survival plays now and would only like to see improvements to the spec. It's a lot of fun to play SV and it's still in early stages for a completely new spec (they are already making improvements for 7.1, at least on the PTR).

While it might sound fun, a hunter tank just doesn't fit at all in my opinion, especially since the spec is called Survival.
To me, it would make more sense in making Beast Master a tanking class (not that I want that) makes more sense then a Survival Hunter.

[Hiricine]

I am going to write about you on my tumblr you hurt my feelings

Well its not MY fault Blizz doesn't give an apparent crap about the spec. It was a great idea to have a melee spec in the first place, but at least they might give a crap about balancing it if raids hinged on the survival (no pun intended) of a tank spec rather than a dps with other options.

If anything it also has too many buttons. If its going to maintain 3 different dots and have a "combo attack" (especially under certain conditions), it needs to be the best dps in the game by not just a little. Right now it sims in the middle of the pack, with something as situational as mongoose bite it needs to be no.1 by like 20% more than the next highest spec out of ANY class.

[Zamochy]

While I'd rather they work on Survival as a DPS spec, a tank spec is a fun idea. Perhaps change Aspect of the Beast so you gain your pet's Passives (Ferocity would be best for DPS, Cunning for PvP, and Tenacity for tanking).

The pet could be your main defensive cooldown, Flanking Strike causes your pet to taunt and tank for a few seconds. Fury of the Eagle could grant 100% dodge for 2 seconds per stack of Mongoose (or 1 if they let Mongoose Fury refresh).

[Deleted]

I actually like the way survival plays now and would only like to see improvements to the spec. It's a lot of fun to play SV and it's still in early stages for a completely new spec (they are already making improvements for 7.1, at least on the PTR).

I agree with this. I think it needs more improvements than simple buffs though. A few abilities could be merged & there's some bugs to fix (e.g. Explosive Trap not detonating on Helya & other similar fixed-location large-hitbox bosses).

Regarding SV as a tank, my thoughts prior to 7.0 were along similar lines. I'm personally an advocate that every class should be able to cover at least 2 roles. Rift is another MMO that does this pretty well. I think SW:TOR does likewise. In some cases it would mean adding another spec (e.g. Mage - Chronomancer, heals by turning back time on the wounds) but in the case of Hunter, SV being a tank spec makes a lot of sense.

You could tie in a lot of interaction with the pet, perhaps with abilities that allow hunters to share some of their damage taken with their pet or by stealing HP from the pet's pool. Personally I'd see no need for the spear & shield. SV tank would be better off based around spear & pet which would give it more of a chance to differentiate itself from the other tank specs with some interesting new mechanics.

As Dayeh (quoted above) says though, the DPS SV plays very well though and it is still in it's infancy so I'd like to see where they can take it first.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Yeah, as if the game doesn't have enough tanks...

It would be better off being the ranged spec it used to be, in terms of more Hunter players actually wanting to play the spec.

[Bepples]

nah it would be better off as a ranged spec like it was

I came here to post this.

Making Survival melee was a demonstrably bad decision. I'm not sure why people keep trying to figure out different bastardisations of Survival in response. The best path would be to give us the fully-mobile dot/utiliy-focues spec we had before, which proved to be very popular.

And before people come here giving me sob stories about how that will upset the 15 or so people who both really wanted a melee hunter and actually played a hunter to begin with; far more people got screwed over in 6.2 when they purposefully broke Survival and then proceeded to effectively delete the spec a year later. How come it was fine to screw over all those people before in favour of the tiny amount of people who prefer Survival now?

[Usagi Senshi]

I came here to post this.

Making Survival melee was a demonstrably bad decision. I'm not sure why people keep trying to figure out different bastardisations of Survival in response. The best path would be to give us the fully-mobile dot/utiliy-focues spec we had before, which proved to be very popular.

And before people come here giving me sob stories about how that will upset the 15 or so people who both really wanted a melee hunter and actually played a hunter to begin with; far more people got screwed over in 6.2 when they purposefully broke Survival and then proceeded to effectively delete the spec a year later. How come it was fine to screw over all those people before in favour of the tiny amount of people who prefer Survival now?

Eh, its a better spec (and honestly, the better playing of the three IMO) now and adds move diversity to the class that neededit and feel that mages (could use a battle-mage melee spec or fire/shadow ninja spec like other MMOs) and rogues (could use a ranged/tank spec like rogue sin other MMOs) as well.

I always hated how WoW took a dps pure and kept all three specs almost alike and the same archetype. At least they finally (10+ years too long) had the balls to try something new and I hope they do so again with another class next expansion.

[Daerron]

Wow, really nice idea! I doubt all the abilities would stay the say, as OP suggested, but I'd tank as a hunter (since its so hard to find tank for m+). Again, great idea! And tho those who feel sorry for deceased ranged-dot surv - guys, was it really that fun? explosive-cobra-cobra-cobra-explosive-oshit lnl lnl lnl -cobra cobra -explosive. Boring as hell (as current bm)

[Thrif]

Actually a pretty good idea. The spec doesn't really fill any function and isn't really needed or interesting as of right now. Tanking hunters is an interesting idea and could be made very interesting. Imagine a mechanic where you use your pet to distract the enemy from doing his big hurting attack or something like that - could really stand out from all the other tanks.

[Daerron]

Or imagine tank fd to transfer his aggro to pettank several seconds
For example talent
Survavalist Cunning: after you fd all your aggro is transfered to your pet and it gets -40% incomming damage for 4 sec. After 4 sec (or if pet dies) hunter takes 50% of damage taken by pet over 8 sec. Feign Death cooldown is increased by 1.5 min Viola, unique and fun tank save, mb slightly op

[Okacz]

Most players are annoyed just by the fact that one of the specs is melee. The community would implode if this spec was also tank.

Players roll a pure dps spec because they just want to dps. Adding a tank there just removes 1 spec from their pool of choice.