Is survival hunter the worst class revamp ever made?

[xogen]

I played survival hunter in bfa quite a lot in arena. Also in m+ since BM is too unfun. You hit ability and you do 20% of your dmg, 80% is passive pet dmg. MM has been unplayable whole bfa, In legion I played MM. I am melee player so it fits me. It was a quite fun spec. In shadowlands I am prioritizing other classes though, but survival is definately above ranged dps on my priority list to level up.

[Baconeggcheese]

Slootbag has been doing these round tables with different specs / classes mostly focusing on under represented ones like survival and they had a solid talk about the reasons why that might be.

An overarching theme for a lot of underrepresented specs is that they just don't bring anything to the table that isn't already brought better by something else. Most survival utility is not survival utility its hunter utility and you're likely to have a MM/BM hunter in your group. Same goes for other specs like all the WW utility is monk utility, all the feral utility is druid utility, etc etc.

Even when they do solid damage, they're not bringing anything really unique and they always have that pressure to swap to the other specs.

[Venziir]

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

Ironically, and hilariously, Rexxar THE BEASTMASTER is a Surv. hunter.....

[Bisque]

In my opinion I don't think it is the worst class revamp ever. I quite like melee SV. As for ranged SV I would have no problem bringing it back as a 4th spec, assuming blizz would take the time to reasonably balance all 4 specs. You don't want a situation of "well 3 out of 4 hunter specs are viable for this raid tier, that is good enough".

As for melee SV itself (speculation, I don't work for blizzard) it is either:

1) Melee SV is successful because it has been in the game since Legion and has remained melee, so I have to assume that whatever metric Blizzard has for success ( i.e... melee sv is a completely failure, not being played/enjoyed by the player base, so we have to go back to ranged) melee SV has hit that metric. I would think that if blizz saw melee sv as a dud, then they would have changed it a while ago

2) Melee sv is a dud but it is the pet project of some developer(s) and we don't want to piss him/her/they off by removing melee survival.

[Leakage]

Ironically, and hilariously, Rexxar THE BEASTMASTER is a Surv. hunter.....

He was a beastmaster in Warcraft 3 and retconned to be survival when the spec was reworked.

[Scarnage86]

To answare OP:
No, actually is one of the best revamp ever made, extreme fun to play and difficulty on point
the actual point is this:
- Do we actually needed the revamp of survival?
- Why not simply add melee survival as a 4th specc and let all other specc as they was?
- WHY just WHY when finally a classrotation is good and fun to play blizzard urge to rework, rewamp it??????
- Why between Wod and Legion we got a full revamp, but between BFA and SL, BM is still the same (actually from.... forever)???

Edit:
forgot, the reason behind surv revamp apart from lorewise bs was that from the beginning survival being a magical dmg specc based and not a pshical like mm was always extremly hard to balance, most will remember that every exp surv was buff/nerfed every tier cause it's scaling issue, this with the lorewise for legion give the kick motivation to change all, make blizzard gain 2 fish with 1 hook (something new, fixed balancing issue)
btw yes ranged surv was my main specc from cata to wod simply cause the "wake a mole gameplay" (rng based) and full mobilty is what i like most....

[Jazzhands]

The only time I ever tried Survival as ranged was in WoTLk, and iirc it was basically use Black Arrow and Explosive shot on CD and... that was it. You were literally motivated to move as little as possible (Sniper Training) and pressed two buttons to do your max damage. If that hadn't changed much it's understandable why people want it back.

Flash forward to BFA where I tried Survival in 8.2 and it was... kinda fun. Not the most amazing spec, but it was a lot more engaging and interesting than WoTLK Survival. It wasn't just a smash buttons spec, you had to pay attention to procs and pool focus and such, which isn't exactly in depth or complicated but quite frankly no spec I've played in BFA is. Kind of sad I didn't try it in Legion as I've been told it was in better shape.

Over all I think people don't play it simply because it's bad numbers wise and has little utility, especially when BM is available. There are also of course die hard "muh ranged class" hunters, they do so love to be salty about survival.

[Bisque]

The only time I ever tried Survival as ranged was in WoTLk, and iirc it was basically use Black Arrow and Explosive shot on CD and... that was it. You were literally motivated to move as little as possible (Sniper Training) and pressed two buttons to do your max damage. If that hadn't changed much it's understandable why people want it back.

Flash forward to BFA where I tried Survival in 8.2 and it was... kinda fun. Not the most amazing spec, but it was a lot more engaging and interesting than WoTLK Survival. It wasn't just a smash buttons spec, you had to pay attention to procs and pool focus and such, which isn't exactly in depth or complicated but quite frankly no spec I've played in BFA is. Kind of sad I didn't try it in Legion as I've been told it was in better shape.

Over all I think people don't play it simply because it's bad numbers wise and has little utility, especially when BM is available. There are also of course die hard "muh ranged class" hunters, they do so love to be salty about survival.

Aye but the second you suggest that SV should bring some form of unique utility, you get "well its not fair that SV brings X buff and MM and BM don't".

The salty "bring back ranged survival" crowd kind of skews feed back regarding SV a bit. Even on the official forums every time you do get a constructive melee SV thread going, at some point the "make SV ranged again" crowd pops up and tries to throws the thread off course.

[Leakage]

The only time I ever tried Survival as ranged was in WoTLk, and iirc it was basically use Black Arrow and Explosive shot on CD and... that was it. You were literally motivated to move as little as possible (Sniper Training) and pressed two buttons to do your max damage. If that hadn't changed much it's understandable why people want it back.

Flash forward to BFA where I tried Survival in 8.2 and it was... kinda fun. Not the most amazing spec, but it was a lot more engaging and interesting than WoTLK Survival. It wasn't just a smash buttons spec, you had to pay attention to procs and pool focus and such, which isn't exactly in depth or complicated but quite frankly no spec I've played in BFA is. Kind of sad I didn't try it in Legion as I've been told it was in better shape.

Over all I think people don't play it simply because it's bad numbers wise and has little utility, especially when BM is available. There are also of course die hard "muh ranged class" hunters, they do so love to be salty about survival.

What? Survival in Wrath consisted of maintaining sniper training, keeping up Serpent Sting (it gave you a 3% damage boost), keeping up explosive trap/black arrow (explosive trap was more dps at the cost of requiring melee range and the boss doesn't move), and properly using explosive shot so you don't clip ticks during LnL. You also used either multi shot or aimed shot, depending on your mobility requirement and if you wanted to spend the talent point. You had to pay attention to procs. Fast forward to Cata and you also have resource management like pooling focus.

[Venziir]

He was a beastmaster in Warcraft 3 and retconned to be survival when the spec was reworked.

He was never "retconned", he's still refered to as a mok'nathal beastmaster. He's a hero, so he does whatever he does - the Surv. spec is just a mechanical device which doesn't matter. But it's still silly.

- - - Updated - - -

To answare OP:
No, actually is one of the best revamp ever made, extreme fun to play and difficulty on point
the actual point is this:
- Do we actually needed the revamp of survival?
- Why not simply add melee survival as a 4th specc and let all other specc as they was?
- WHY just WHY when finally a classrotation is good and fun to play blizzard urge to rework, rewamp it??????
- Why between Wod and Legion we got a full revamp, but between BFA and SL, BM is still the same (actually from.... forever)???

Edit:
forgot, the reason behind surv revamp apart from lorewise bs was that from the beginning survival being a magical dmg specc based and not a pshical like mm was always extremly hard to balance, most will remember that every exp surv was buff/nerfed every tier cause it's scaling issue, this with the lorewise for legion give the kick motivation to change all, make blizzard gain 2 fish with 1 hook (something new, fixed balancing issue)
btw yes ranged surv was my main specc from cata to wod simply cause the "wake a mole gameplay" (rng based) and full mobilty is what i like most....

Nope, Surv was orignally a melee spec in Vanilla- granted, it was absolutely terrible, but still.

[Scarnage86]

Nope, Surv was orignally a melee spec in Vanilla- granted, it was absolutely terrible, but still.

I start to play in tbc.... point was most of the exp we got problem with surv scaling isssue cause it was magic based instead of phisical

[Kyphael]

I love Survival Hunters, never played one before they became melee. Harpoon is super fun. I leveled a Tauren from 1-120 purely because of how fun Survival is.

To me the worst spec revamp remains Combat --> Outlaw. Not because I found Combat wholly original or fun, because Outlaw is just as generic and lame. Ooh, Combat Rogue with pistols. Would have preferred Bard as a spec.

[kasuke06]

worst: debatable.

Necessary:nope.

Wanted by the class players:BIG NO. sorry new surv mains, you don't get a say.

Retarded on a fundamental level: Yep.

[Blackmist]

You've barely seen any because at no point ever has a raid leader asked some ranged to go melee because the boss wasn't crowded enough.

I don't see cats or enhancement shamans either. If you've got a ranged spec, you're expected to use it.

[vitor210]

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?

Nah, I'm pretty sure forcing Frost DKs to be residentSleeper two 1handers instead of the iconic DK 2handers was the worst revamp ever. And no, just bc a random joe online wrote that dual wielding 1hands since wrath did 0.000001% more dps, it's still doesn't make sense lorewise when the entire flavour of DKs revolve around their 2hand weapon

[ClassicPeon]

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?

The problem for survival is that it isnt oustanding and the other 2 specs from the same class outclass it in every concievable way. If BM and MM where immobile ranged specs and survival had unique utility then perhaps. But BM and MM and the two most mobile ranged specs in the game and they have exactly the same utility(they are even better at kiting) so yeah. The spec never stood a chance.

[Maxilian]

Ironically, and hilariously, Rexxar THE BEASTMASTER is a Surv. hunter.....

To be fair, is not like Lore character care about this minor details.

Looking at you Thrall, that used to wear plate and then changed to cloth >.>

- - - Updated - - -

He was a beastmaster in Warcraft 3 and retconned to be survival when the spec was reworked.

I wouldn't say retconned, i mean... is rare for lore characters to care about the mechanical limitations or titles that we PC have to deal with.

- - - Updated - - -

This is not even remotely true.
SV has always been one of the most popular specs outside of Legion/BFA.

Weird, never had that impression while playing Hunters (though i know nothing about hunters in PVP in the past so that might have been another area where their popularity was more "obvious" than others.)

[Usandu]

Just wanted to say i love Survival as it is. I have been waiting ages for it to be implemented as proper melee and i hope it stays that way. It gave me a fresh new reason to play a hunter.
There are a few abilities i would made baseline as they were in Legion and also add Lone Wolf option if possible.

[prwraith]

Survival in MoP was my all time favorite spec of any class in this game. What has since become of that spec is just saddening.

[Dadwen]

I start to play in tbc.... point was most of the exp we got problem with surv scaling isssue cause it was magic based instead of phisical

Survival was never a melee spec before legion, the SV tree had access to a extra melee talent but it's main damage was still a bow, and everything it had was for getting it back to range to use that bow, short of a few running jokes back at the start trying to run full melee it was still ranged. * I started a month after WOW launched, would have been sooner but was still playing EQ at the time.

and to the point of the thread yes it was\is the worst revamp. (granted they have some other stupid stuff under their belts too that come almost as close but not quite).