Survival Hunters in BfA: How do they feel to you?

[Deleted]

Survival in beta is a blast to play. That does not mean that it's numbers are balanced, but ability and talent wise, you have a lot of options to customize your gameplay.

[Accendor]

I really prefer the LIVE version to the Beta version. I knew Live version needed tuning and some adeption, but Beta just does not feel good at all.

[Yhcti]

Just hit 120. Im loving the spec. Aoe could use a tweak but serpent sting is fine. Tab targeting on aoe really isnt an issue, at all. Bring on launch! Itll only get nicer with better gear

[ChampionChains]

I'm not a fan of it, which is a shame as I was hoping to main SV this xpac if they just smoothed it out compared to live. I'm probably gonna go with Havoc or Enhance instead.

I also dislike in general the way they're making all classes and specs so much like the live DH. What I mean is where you can more or less talent 75% of your damage to be passives leaving you with like 2-3 buttons to press.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I really prefer the LIVE version to the Beta version. I knew Live version needed tuning and some adeption, but Beta just does not feel good at all.

Why don’t you like it? Is it losing the meele focus, or Mabye some talents being gone like axe throw/ way of the makdafal ect?

[Deleted]

Why don’t you like it? Is it losing the meele focus, or Mabye some talents being gone like axe throw/ way of the makdafal ect?

It's the animations. They are extremely unsatisfying.
Gameplay-wise, SV is turning out nicely, but visuals though... not so much.
This is my biggest issues at the moment. Live survival might not be that good, but god damn is it visually satisfying.

The small hand crossbow sounds bad, looks silly and shooting eagles out of your weapon is plain stupid

[Deleted]

My main curiosity with survival is that they have ranged abilities again. Which would be... very worrisome aesthetics-wise.

It raises the question of what the "ranged weapon" looks like when doing Serpent Stings and stuff, it feels like it's gonna be Warrior or Paladin all over again, with the Defensive Stance and Divine Steed not matching with the rest of the outfit.

Paladin was literally unplayable ever since the non-matching Thalassian Charger forced me to mog only into red stuff. I stoically played Paladin through some of the harshest nerfs imaginable, but the horse spell not matching was just too much in the end.

The prospect of the "bow" not matching is positively terrifying. I suspect there might be a glyph first-item-in-bag workaround, though!

[Nythiz]

I also dislike in general the way they're making all classes and specs so much like the live DH. What I mean is where you can more or less talent 75% of your damage to be passives leaving you with like 2-3 buttons to press.

Hmm I personally think that's quite a good way to set up talents. That way you can customize your playstyle a bit more extensively. Biggest problem with them is usually that blizzard is just not the best at getting the balance right. Or at the very least not willing to make tweaks outside of major patches. That way you often end up with passive talents being best at all times which hurts gameplay.

It's the animations. They are extremely unsatisfying. Gameplay-wise, they are nice, visuals though... not so much. This is my biggest issues at the moment. Live survival might not be that good, but god damn is it visually satisfying.

The small hand crossbow sounds bad, looks silly and shooting eagles out of your weapon is plain stupid

I have to agree that legion SV animations are quite good, losing some of them is a shame.

I haven't put a lot of time in beta yet, but so far I don't really hate the crossbow yet. I don't think it's all that stupid from an RP point of view (granted they could improve visuals a bit seeing as it's a new "core" ability).
The shooting eagles from the 2H feels kinda lame ye.

What annoys me the most from a gameplay and aesthetic point of view so far is that:
a) Dual wield is still not an option. I don't really get why not, all abilities scale with AP now, so it shouldn't matter.
Dual wield ranger is a huge thing fantasy wise, they're missing out and it's a shame.

b) Removal of Carve. Don't see why that was needed tbh. It's not like it was too big of a factor in AoE (seeing as how they nerfed AoE around the board), SV now feels like it lacks buttons to press in AoE. Wildfire is a (significant) cooldown and SS is a dot.

c) Kill Command should have just stayed as Flanking Strike. This change strikes me as completely unlogical. Flanking strike was a unique ability and already quite well interwoven with SV as a spec (see also things like Heartstone cards). The talent is a bit so-so, especially when it's on the same row as mongoose bite.
Same goes for Mongoose Bite frankly. I think the new Mongoose Bite with the focus system instead of the charge system is extremely entertaining, make that base gameplay instead of Raptor Strike which lacks flavor.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It's the animations. They are extremely unsatisfying.
Gameplay-wise, SV is turning out nicely, but visuals though... not so much.
This is my biggest issues at the moment. Live survival might not be that good, but god damn is it visually satisfying.

The small hand crossbow sounds bad, looks silly and shooting eagles out of your weapon is plain stupid

I’d have to play around with it more and pay closer attention to the animations. First time I tried game wasn’t done down loading so I had like no partial effects/animations and second time I was focusing on the game play so I wasn’t really looking at the animations. One real one I did notice was the poison explosions from wildfire infusion which I liked a lot and the Eagle thing which is god awful.

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My main curiosity with survival is that they have ranged abilities again. Which would be... very worrisome aesthetics-wise.

It raises the question of what the "ranged weapon" looks like when doing Serpent Stings and stuff, it feels like it's gonna be Warrior or Paladin all over again, with the Defensive Stance and Divine Steed not matching with the rest of the outfit.

Paladin was literally unplayable ever since the non-matching Thalassian Charger forced me to mog only into red stuff. I stoically played Paladin through some of the harshest nerfs imaginable, but the horse spell not matching was just too much in the end.

The prospect of the "bow" not matching is positively terrifying. I suspect there might be a glyph first-item-in-bag workaround, though!

They should really just let survival transmog in a gun for stuff like serpent string and aspect of eagle, all of my sets are made with a bow and a meele weapon in mind would be lovely to match them.

[Accendor]

Why don’t you like it? Is it losing the meele focus, or Mabye some talents being gone like axe throw/ way of the makdafal ect?

I preferred the melee focus and the traps from live. Way of the Masomething is something I did indeed NOT enjoy very much because for the attention it needed in attition to everything else the reward felt too low. But that was a number problem. On the other hand I would have preferred to play without that talent but without loosing everything else.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I preferred the melee focus and the traps from live. Way of the Masomething is something I did indeed NOT enjoy very much because for the attention it needed in attition to everything else the reward felt too low. But that was a number problem. On the other hand I would have preferred to play without that talent but without loosing everything else.

id agree that i liked it better with the melee focus, the only real problem i had with the live version was mongoose bite/fury of the eagle.

[Thokh]

I thought Legion SV was a bit bloated perhaps and messy, but really cool overall. BFA therefore looks to be an improvement... overall. Granted, I haven't played it.

While thinking about this post I read Nythiz post above here and c) seems like such a given. It was exactly what I was going to write. Obvious design decision imo to keep Flanking Strike as well as Kill Command (for BM) unique. Raptor Strike is Heroic Strike levels of meaninglessness and should be deleted, and of course Mongoose should be baseline and what the spec builds around. What I liked about Legion was getting those windows to work, which was satisfying and fairly unique, what I didn't like was the 8000 filler spells (it did get better though).

I hope Blizzard sees the issue here and does the obivous thing. I do not understand why SV needs Kill Command. As someone that actually likes BM it bums me out to lose Kill Command to another spec as well, that's basically the entire BM spec apart from Bestial Wrath.

And as for the ugly crossbow.. Ugh. Please spice that thing up a bit, make it birdthemed or something at least, like the rest of the spec. Or just let us throw a dang snake. That would be sweet.

[Yhcti]

I don't mind Flanking Strike. At lower gear ilvls we can have a bit of a focus regen wall with kill command procs or lack of procs. I find whenever that occurs I have Flanking Strike available to use to get me back on the road. Overall Survival is feeling really nice and this is with me at 0 mythic/heroic gear... I can only imagine with better gear it'll just get nicer and nicer to play.

I can also see this spec being an absolute BEAST in PvP, especially Arena.

[Thokh]

I don't mind Flanking Strike. At lower gear ilvls we can have a bit of a focus regen wall with kill command procs or lack of procs. I find whenever that occurs I have Flanking Strike available to use to get me back on the road. Overall Survival is feeling really nice and this is with me at 0 mythic/heroic gear... I can only imagine with better gear it'll just get nicer and nicer to play.

I can also see this spec being an absolute BEAST in PvP, especially Arena.

I've read a lot of positive feedback for the spec here which makes me very hyped. A lot of other specs seem more or less universally hated currently..

My issue with Kill Command has more to do with the animation and the fact that it is a BM spell, I guess. If it works well in the rotation then that's probably fine. It would be neat if Kill Command got changed from SHOUTING IN YOUR FACE, MOB, to a more interesting animation connected with SVs melee focus.

[Shibito]

Live version of sv is alot more fun tbh, i really hope we get dualwield back, i mean we can dualwield but abilities still require 2h

[Yhcti]

Live version of sv is alot more fun tbh, i really hope we get dualwield back, i mean we can dualwield but abilities still require 2h

Having to ground target explosive trap and caltrops all the time is a QoL kick in the balls. Beta is MUCH nicer

[Segus1992]

lol who knows cause half the playerbase never gets beta invites

Aw boohoo.

Survival is a lot better than Live, but I feel like it still needs some minor changes, especially tuning, to feel really right. I'd like for Carve to come back as well, but I'll manage without it.

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Live version of sv is alot more fun tbh, i really hope we get dualwield back, i mean we can dualwield but abilities still require 2h

I've wanted to like Surv in Legion since it was first announced, but goddamn is it clunky and literally has only worse utility than the other Hunter specs, and that's not even considering that they're melee.

[DeicideUH]

Don't have Beta, so I can only say a few things: I don't like the visuals at all.

Raptor Strike should have varying attack animations (like Mongoose Bite in live), so each button press feels like a different attack, instead of you repeating the same movement again and again.

I don't like the crossbow. Leave that to rogues! Make us throw javelins instead. Feels way more "huntery" than having a crossbow stashed somewhere.

I think either Mongoose Bite or Flanking Strike should be baseline abilities, and that Carve should be kept.

I passionately hate Aspect of the Eagle. WTF, why we are throwing ghost eagles? What's the point or fantasy of that? Maybe we could be throwing our weapon instead?

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Personally, I'd prefer if they just improved the Legion version than a complete revamp. Substitute Exploside Trap with Dragonsfire Grenade. Bake Serpent Sting and Lacerate together and make it ranged (Javelin throw?). Bake Raptor Strike and Mongooose Bite into a single skill. Revamp talents. But it's too late for that, so I hope Blizzard fixes the visuals at least.

[Ahlae]

Aw boohoo.

Survival is a lot better than Live, but I feel like it still needs some minor changes, especially tuning, to feel really right. I'd like for Carve to come back as well, but I'll manage without it.

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I've wanted to like Surv in Legion since it was first announced, but goddamn is it clunky and literally has only worse utility than the other Hunter specs, and that's not even considering that they're melee.

Awww bfa will fail due to poor class design, boohoo.

[Segus1992]

Awww bfa will fail due to poor class design, boohoo.

Uh, what? Are you one of those genius "wow will die because of (random reason)" who ends up claiming that whatever subjective drop in player participation is because of your dumb theory?

Or are you just crying because I made fun of you and you have no retort?