Overall, was Survival a failure?

[Eapoe]

"Nope my point still stands and no it was not the same play-style I tried all three and didn't like MM but loved SV, and how it used those focuses spenders made all the difference in the world"

huh? now you're not even trying... how every class used it mana or focus or rage or what have you had a major effect on how they play are you just here trying to make no point? that 'first' statement could cover every class and didn't kill any point.
or are you trying to say every class in the games plays the same?????

Your very first part of that response is opinion of why you liked a spec and how it FELT different, but has nothing to say with how they are different. I've also stated how other classes had different PLAYSTYLES, while some other also fell into the problem that Hunters had.
Are you being willfully ignorant to try and sound smart or do you really not realize what you are saying? Or are you just repeating yourself in a hope to trip me up at some point? I never once said they have the same abilities or feel to them, but that has nothing to do with how they actually played. If I throw a red baseball overhand, followed by throwing a blue spongy baseball overhand, followed by throwing a yellow furry baseball overhand, all going to the exact same target, has anything changed? No, I threw a ball overhand at my target. It doesn't matter they have a different feel to them because they are different colors or textures, the fact is I threw a ball overhand at a target.
It doesn't matter how many times you say the abilities are named differently and do different damage, nothing changes the fact all 3 specs played focus spender>focus spender>focus generator. Nothing. If you can't figure out that what you are saying is your opinion, "they play differently because this one fires physical arrows and this one fires fire arrows" and has nothing to do with how a spec actually played, then you have less intelligence than I gave you credit for and I'm done in responding. So please, say whatever else you have to say and let's lovebirds on.

[Elrandir]

I had a hard time learning the spec and compared it to learning how to change a diaper because that's how much I was pulling up my nose at it at first. What masochists designed this spec? 3 dots, a ten second 4 stack buff, and a dps mechanic that requires you to spam the same and then hit another ability as its buff is running out. Jesus Christ. That being said, I kinda like playing it now. After mogging that dumbass polearm to a big sword at least. I love Butchery, I like Mongoose bite mechanic though I hate having to drop everything else for it and the name Mongoose bite is retarded, and I like the gap closer. But it needs less dots, a less punishing way to keep up the Mok'nathal (who the hell came up with the names for these abilities geez), and a way to integrate the dots, the buffs and the dps cooldown.
Still, I don't know why they made this abomination and didn't bother with a third demon hunter spec instead...

[Bigthumbb]

There's so much that's good and fun in Survival. It's only failing because Blizzard seem to have abandoned it (for now, at least).

The tier set bonus for T20 and the current set bonus for T21 on the ptr imply that Blizzard have NO interesting ideas for Survival's playstyle. The legendaries are likewise unimaginative and unintuitive: the belt gives us a damage buff for 10 seconds after harpooning in. Really? An immediate 10 second damage buff for a class that's all about ramp-up damage? Or take the boots that give us 25 focus when a trap is triggered - how uninspired can you get? Imagine my surprise when I leveled my fury warrior and started getting legendaries that actually...increase damage in direct and fun ways.

Lastly, Blizzard's buffs to Survival's DPS lately are bandaid buffs. Their unspecific nature implies that Blizzard isn't interested in fixing our DPS through better gameplay; instead, they just slap a 3% buff on all of our abilities, leaving important gameplay elements like the 2-piece T19 set bonus to rot.

Survival has so much potential, and I hope Blizzard streamline the spec and do a better job of integrating its abilities come 8.0. For now, it seems as if they've written off the spec for the remaining duration of this expansion. I'm gonna keep playing it anyway.

[Dadwen]

Your very first part of that response is opinion of why you liked a spec and how it FELT different, but has nothing to say with how they are different. I've also stated how other classes had different PLAYSTYLES, while some other also fell into the problem that Hunters had.
Are you being willfully ignorant to try and sound smart or do you really not realize what you are saying? Or are you just repeating yourself in a hope to trip me up at some point? I never once said they have the same abilities or feel to them, but that has nothing to do with how they actually played. If I throw a red baseball overhand, followed by throwing a blue spongy baseball overhand, followed by throwing a yellow furry baseball overhand, all going to the exact same target, has anything changed? No, I threw a ball overhand at my target. It doesn't matter they have a different feel to them because they are different colors or textures, the fact is I threw a ball overhand at a target.
It doesn't matter how many times you say the abilities are named differently and do different damage, nothing changes the fact all 3 specs played focus spender>focus spender>focus generator. Nothing. If you can't figure out that what you are saying is your opinion, "they play differently because this one fires physical arrows and this one fires fire arrows" and has nothing to do with how a spec actually played, then you have less intelligence than I gave you credit for and I'm done in responding. So please, say whatever else you have to say and let's lovebirds on.

I think you're done responding because you're full of crap. if one is a dot and one a explosion you have to adjust your play stye for that, but guessing you would not know proper kiting if it bit you in the ass... all I see is you saying they played the same "because" but they really they didn't "because" but they did...."because".... derp...

you seem to be killing your own statement if I can throw over hand good and like doing it, I'm doing that, and if don't like underhand throwing or bad at it I'm not going to want to do that. in the end all DPS is damage so everyone is throwing the ball derrr....

[Illana]

Been trying it out and optimal play feels like a never ending struggle to keep multiple short timers rolling. It's even worse with t20 since you now need have lacerate up before you do any mongoose bites and there's barely any globals to fit explosive trap in

[Jutath]

I enjoy playing the spec, yeah it's got weird dot/buff windows but overall I enjoy it. On the flipside of this all, I don't raid anything but LFR. I think Blizzard could perhaps combine some of the abilities such as Mongoose Bite and Raptor Strike into a single attack.

[Eapoe]

I enjoy playing the spec, yeah it's got weird dot/buff windows but overall I enjoy it. On the flipside of this all, I don't raid anything but LFR. I think Blizzard could perhaps combine some of the abilities such as Mongoose Bite and Raptor Strike into a single attack.

They need to just delete RS and build the heal and talent choices into FS and it would help a lot of the rotation. Changing how Mastery works has the potential to really smooth things out as well.

- - - Updated - - -

Been trying it out and optimal play feels like a never ending struggle to keep multiple short timers rolling. It's even worse with t20 since you now need have lacerate up before you do any mongoose bites and there's barely any globals to fit explosive trap in

I think they just need to make ExT an AoE ability only. Have it do little damage at all, but if affecting 3+ targets it does a LOT more damage. As most specs rotation changes between AoE/Cleave/ST, and some abilities aren't used for 1 or the other, it has the possibility of improving the rotation greatly. AoE/Cleave would become a combination of just doing Carve/Butchery and ExT.

[Khrux]

Truth is, Survival has been very competetive so far in the expansion, until now when it lacks numbers. Subtlety rogues had almost has low representative in raids as Survival, until 7.2.5 when their dps skyrocketed after the gameplay change. I dont believe for one second that the 1000% increase in players playing sub now is because of the gameplay, but for them actually doing great damage. It's already more than twice the amount of parses in heroic ToS compared to heroic Nighthold from 7.2 till 7.2.5 for sub rogues. Another example is arms warrior, almost 4 times as many parses as in whole Nighthold after 7.2 till 7.2.5

This is an interesting point you highlighted.

For Sub, Arms, Unholy and soon Feral - the developers are rebuilding/reworking these specs, making them much more fluid, giving them much needed QoL changes, balancing talent tiers and buffing at the same time. In turn this creates a new dominant spec within the class and a much more enjoyable or approachable playstyle.

This is the reason why these specs have rose to the top in class popularity, power and playstyle.

Now look at Survival, it already had a mountain to climb in terms of getting hunters engaged with a new *role* within their class but it also was extremely cumbersome to play and didn't have the output comparatively to other melee offerings.
Since Legion launched Survival has had little or no work done to it, if I remember correctly the only design work was the extension of Mok'nathal duration from 8secs to 10secs? Other than that Survival has received +% dmg buffs which landed Survival as the #1 hunter spec for dps output for a short period around the start of 7.2(Nighthold).

In order for Survival to see a resurgence or even moderate engagement from the playerbase it needs Sub rogue levels of attention from the developers. A complete rework of some skills, fundamental changes to its rotational elements, ability pruning or consolidation, improved secondary stat scaling and an appropriately tuned power level relative to other melee competition.

At the moment its clawed its way back into mid tier dps due to the power creep of blizzard's "+% dmg buffs" but is still a mess to play and gear correctly. I'm personally amazed Blizzard continues to put time and effort into classes that already had solid alternatives to their roles. Hunter was forced into having a melee role and its been abandoned in a state of flux ever since, I can only assume Blizzard want to give it time before making sweeping changes and while I expected this in 7.3 it looks like Feral is getting that patch for themselves. We can only hope for 8.0 at this stage

[Karzakk]

Now look at Survival, it already had a mountain to climb in terms of getting hunters engaged with a new *role* within their class but it also was extremely cumbersome to play and didn't have the output comparatively to other melee offerings.

In order for Survival to see a resurgence or even moderate engagement from the playerbase it needs Sub rogue levels of attention from the developers. A complete rework of some skills, fundamental changes to its rotational elements, ability pruning or consolidation, improved secondary stat scaling and an appropriately tuned power level relative to other melee competition.

Just because the rotation is slightly challenging everything needs to be reworked? The spec is difficult to play and it is a huge shocker to these two button all stars playing MM and BM, there is nothing wrong with how the spec plays and it should stay the way it is because it's the only engaging and fun hunter spec.

It will continue to fail as a popular spec because of the difficulty and people who are good at this game will play it and have potential to compete with other damage classes.

[Khrux]

This is always the sheep mentality that crops up when anyone asks for a spec to get much needed QoL improvements. You translate that into your own agenda and assume everyone wants a retard friendly spec. I never said Survival should become a 2 button spec at all, you can see from my post history that I actually enjoy Survival but its a complete clown fiesta in terms of design.

Clinging onto something garbage just because its "hard to play" isn't the right attitude to have.

Survival is only a difficult spec because its a hot mess to play, there is nothing mechanically challenging about playing it. There is just too much going on and there is no synergy in its skills. The "spinning plates" meme literally means your just juggling a needlessly large amount of things at once when realistically only 1 skill is core to Survival (Mongoose) and the rest are just numerous fillers. Its like adding another 3-4 active skills to any current melee just for the sake of making it awkward and cumbersome to use. Its clear Blizzard had loads of ideas for a melee hunter, pushed them all in at once and then added Mongoose as the primary "resource" or "mechanic" for the spec. They now need to refine that idea, pushing out the excess and cleaning up the mongoose mechanic to work better with mastery and have a clear synergy between maintenance dots/buffs, fillers and mongoose windows.

At least Feral is actual difficult to play because it has mechanical complexities in the form of snap shotting, it doesn't have a shit ton of abilities to manage and in reality is a very structured spec that flows well. Its a little intense currently because of Jagged wounds and Savage roar speeding up the flow but otherwise its a very well designed spec and there is alot of synergy with bloodtalons, tiger's fury and dot management on top of the standard rogue combo model.

When I talk about reworks/QoL for Survival I mean cleaning up the spec similar to sub/arms/unholy/feral, not turning it into Demon Hunter 2.0 (1111,2,2,1111,2,2,1111)

[Deleted]

Just because the rotation is slightly challenging everything needs to be reworked? The spec is difficult to play and it is a huge shocker to these two button all stars playing MM and BM, there is nothing wrong with how the spec plays and it should stay the way it is because it's the only engaging and fun hunter spec.

It will continue to fail as a popular spec because of the difficulty and people who are good at this game will play it and have potential to compete with other damage classes.

If with good gear and proper playstyle you could top meters then it would be understandable - high skill ceiling for high reward.

But currently you have 5x as much to do and end up with sup par damage, the reward isn't worth the effort.