Is survival hunter the worst class revamp ever made?

[Nork]

It's been four years since Legion revamped survival hunters, and since then I've barely seen them. I played this new spec for a while and I found it quite boring and pointless.

What are your thoughts on this spec? Why do you think nobody plays it?

[Archmage Xaxxas]

I played it religiously during Legion. It became my new favorite Spec/Class.

BfA changes reverting it back to a Semi-Ranged basically ruined the spec fantasy, been Marks since.

I don't think Survival had issues as much as players had issues with Survival. And now it's both.

[Laqweeta]

Much like Feral Druid, there are far better melee specs to invite to M+/Raids and thus it suffers in that regard. Blizzard is okay with this because, well, idiocy - and they let it drag on an *entire* expansion and then some.

[Leakage]

Class fantasy wise, nobody rolls a hunter wanting to be melee.

The legion version of the spec was great. The BFA version of the spec is incomplete without taking talents that actually make the spec have depth or interaction (mongoose bite is the biggest example).

Melee is already less favorable in raids compared to ranged. Melee have to bring something good to the table to justify being brought. Demon Hunters have Darkness and Warriors have Rallying Cry, for example. Survival doesn't bring anything unique.

Hunters have a history of being brought to raids to do mechanics because of their mobility while doing ranged damage. Survival doesn't fit that.

[Saberstrike]

It's fun to play. Blizz just don't seem to want it to do actual damage. It's legitimately been a tuning issue for like 4 years, all they have to do is make Survival abilities do real damage and it'll join Outlaw, DH and Arms at the 'peak M+ DPS' table.

[Easyclassictopkeklel]

It's been four years since Legion revamped survival hunters, and since then I've barely seen them. I played this new spec for a while and I found it quite boring and pointless.

What are your thoughts on this spec? Why do you think nobody plays it?

Because the class has two other ranged specs.
Because the skillcap of playing SV properly is higher than with BM and MM.
Because people are tryhards and mostly go for the fotm spec.
Because the spec even though it is fun had issues at the start and a bad image. And once a class has a stigma
it sticks for longer than it is actually true.
Class perception does not really matter tho, because if SV wasnt the dominant ranged spec nobody would play it anyways
or take ranged SV to m+ etc.

New sv is much more fun than the old ranged version imo.

[scrappybristol]

why be survival hunter when BM does the same thing from range with easier and better results?

[Zeek Daniels]

Class fantasy wise, nobody rolls a hunter wanting to be melee.

The legion version of the spec was great. The BFA version of the spec is incomplete without taking talents that actually make the spec have depth or interaction (mongoose bite is the biggest example).

Melee is already less favorable in raids compared to ranged. Melee have to bring something good to the table to justify being brought. Demon Hunters have Darkness and Warriors have Rallying Cry, for example. Survival doesn't bring anything unique.

Hunters have a history of being brought to raids to do mechanics because of their mobility while doing ranged damage. Survival doesn't fit that.

I rolled a hunter just to play survival. And if not for the fact that blizzards past two expansions have been alt unfriendly i would have kept playing my hunter. Unfortunately i dont have that kinda time but it was really fun to play when i did play it both xpacs. Seeing as this xpac might be more alt friendly i will again be playing Survival as one of my first alts.

[Fistfighter]

why be survival hunter when BM does the same thing from range with easier and better results?

Legion Survival was properly complex, but the complexity never properly rewarded with appropriate DPS. A lot of specs historically had this issue, too complex but with only a decent dps.
Blizzard has been historically too afraid to give complex specs their deserved big numbers and SV hunter is a victim of this.

[Donald Hellscream]

I think Survival is great, I also think no one plays it because " Muh ranged class "

[doodle90]

Beastmaster should be the melee spec and survival should be the dot spec while marks can be ranged burst spec.

[kail]

Nope, honestly one of the best revamps IMO. I liked the playstyle in Legion (can't speak for BFA) and loved the fantasy concept of it on top of the existing hunter specs. Maybe they could have made BM a melee playstyle instead, or give BM/Survival some melee talent option similar to Titan's Grip for fury warriors.

As to why you don't see them: BM is the super easy and strong spec of the 3.

why be survival hunter when BM does the same thing from range with easier and better results?

Outside of the ranged difference, that argument can be applied to any class that has more than one dps spec. One will mathematically outperform the other at the whim of Blizzard's tunings.

[Archmage Xaxxas]

why be survival hunter when BM does the same thing from range with easier and better results?

That's what BfA did to Survival, and you have a solid point.

Before BfA, that wasn't a point to be made.

[Leakage]

The "Monster Hunter" franchise disagrees with you.

In fact, I'm 100% convinced that Blizzard took their inspiration for Survival entirely from that game. Too many abilities that are similar.
That said, it doesn't play nearly as good as in that game though. It misses a few things in it's core gameplay design, imo.

But also, I like the idea behind the redesign.

I'm glad you enjoy the redesign. However, blizzard class fantasy is not the same as a completely separate franchise. For 12 years, the hunter class fantasy was a ranged damage dealer. This changed in 2016 with the Legion launch when they revamped Survival into a melee spec. I know a ton of people tried out survival (myself included) but those people were initially drawn to a ranged damage class. The survival population is so low because it alienated a larger part of the hunter audience in favor of a smaller audience wanting a melee hunter spec.

MM hunters and BM hunters can freely swap to the opposite spec if they are unhappy with how one plays/performs. Survival can't say the same, which is another big factor.

[Sanguinerd]

Still better than BFA arms warrior fantasy tbh.

[Kaver]

why be survival hunter when BM does the same thing from range with easier and better results?

Exactly. It’s not so much about the fun of the spec. It more about the effectiveness. People play hunter for a reason and it’s not to be melee. Survival could be the most fun spec in the world and it would still not be played as long as it is melee.

[Maxilian]

Beastmaster should be the melee spec and survival should be the dot spec while marks can be ranged burst spec.

I understand that people say this because of Rexxar but having in mind how popular is BM vs classic survival, it wont happen.

[Stormykitten]

I'm a big fan of survival melee myself, though I would hardly call it a perfect take. I also would have enjoyed a thrown weapon hunter in its place, but basically spear hunting fits hunter very well, just it seems to not be people's first thought due to fantasy tropes or whatever. I particularly like how it's still a tandem take of beast and you, which marks really lost even if you keep the pet around.

Anyway, in my opinion, the problem was mostly that they deleted the more fun ranged spec - survival was in my opinion more fun than marks, but they kept marks instead of moving survival over and adding things like aimed shot as a talent playstyle choice. Marks has just constantly struggled with its identity for basIcally the entirety of WoW, so i think the problem really was more that survival melee recplaced survival ranged, than them doing it for one spec.

Also to edit, the reason they didn't pick BM for it is likely because they lock things like exotic pets to BM, and they don't want to remove them from the ranged-preferring hunters that already existed. Also it would make the spec more complex for sure, just look at current survival.

[Sluvs]

I plalyed through 2 tier as survival in BFA, I quite enjoyed, my problem is that I don't really enjoy DPS that much. Therefore I abandoned it and went back to tank/healing.

I love the idea of throwing grenades and landing that beefy mongoose bit feels SO good. Sadly, in the end, is not enough for me.

[Echo of Soul]

They removed explosive shot. That's all you need to know