Survival revamp inevitable?

[cparle87]

has at any point the current population of Melee hunters been more or much than the lowest level of Survival hunters when it was ranged?

Popularity does equal more people happen than not though... (kinda important in a product don't ya think?)

Players will totally play something they find unfun if it's flavor of the month, though. And in reverse they'll avoid "meme" specs they've heard are bad in competitive content even if they've tried it and liked it.

[Dadwen]

Players will totally play something they find unfun if it's flavor of the month, though. And in reverse they'll avoid "meme" specs they've heard are bad in competitive content even if they've tried it and liked it.

even when it was the flavor of the month in Legion I hear people didn't flock to it.

[KrayZ33]

even when it was the flavor of the month in Legion I hear people didn't flock to it.

They probably won't flock to it either way unless it's really OP.
But it wasn't really FOTM in Legion either.
You got a slightly better DPS spec for tunneling on bosses and gave up everything else pretty much.
It was extremely hard to play "perfectly" and weren't even properly rewarded for it.

The spec was an absolute mess in Legion.
Cooldowns, didn't line up, dots and maintenance buffs had all significantly different durations. You maintained like 4 dots and 2 buffs, each of them applied differently and from different skills. No one wanted to play that messy thing, especially since other classes had such an easy time with most things.
Shadowlands at least made SV more streamlined and easier to play (especially the mongoose-version). It's way more enjoyable. No idea about BFA.

[Yutilk]

They should just turn it into a Dark Ranger spec instead.

agreed, just gut the whole thing and start from scratch.

[Makaloff]

agreed, just gut the whole thing and start from scratch.

considering the little development they have put into survival this expansion we can only hope that they revert it back to ranged again, 6 years of failure is starting to look quite bad on their end.

[Magenugget]

The least Blizzard can do is to make melee optional for SV but that would mean admitting they made a mistake and I'm pretty sure Molten Core will freeze over before that happens. Frankly I don't think they will touch Survival again at all because they're too proud. I'm pretty sure Ion even stated that they fully expected SV to be a "niche spec" (translation: unpopular) in an interview which can only be interpreted as damage control. It's also in the nature of this problem that the people that disagreed with the change wandered off while the few people that like it are vocal about it. And I'm saying few because stats prove that even when SV is numerically good, it's still waaaay underrepresented.

- - - Updated - - -

This just in.
People reminiscing about things in the past does not make them superior to what it in the present.
Popularity does not equal fun and people are allowed to like unpopular things.
Being a cause for controversy does not make a thing bad.
Other people not sharing an unpopular opinion does not make the unpopular opinion wrong.

Other hard hitting but often ignored facts in our news at 11.

You're being critical for the sake of it. If something was better in the past, which happens, people will reminisce about it. There absolutely is a strong positive correlation between popularity and fun, in fact popularity partly defines fun. Controversy implies mixed opinions and again there absolutely is a strong positive correlation between popular approval and quality of a thing. You can say that coal as a pizza topping is "controversial" but by far the most people would call it something else.

[Agrossive]

I miss Cata survival so much. Black arrow, serpent sting, explosive shot. Brain dead easy? Yeah probably, but absurdly fun spamming explosive shot procs back to back to back.

[ryan92084]

I miss Cata survival so much. Black arrow, serpent sting, explosive shot. Brain dead easy? Yeah probably, but absurdly fun spamming explosive shot procs back to back to back.

Agreed, I don't care that survival went melee but i do care that they didn't try to incorporate at least some of it into marks which is just so bland it is painful.

[cparle87]

The least Blizzard can do is to make melee optional for SV but that would mean admitting they made a mistake and I'm pretty sure Molten Core will freeze over before that happens. Frankly I don't think they will touch Survival again at all because they're too proud. I'm pretty sure Ion even stated that they fully expected SV to be a "niche spec" (translation: unpopular) in an interview which can only be interpreted as damage control. It's also in the nature of this problem that the people that disagreed with the change wandered off while the few people that like it are vocal about it. And I'm saying few because stats prove that even when SV is numerically good, it's still waaaay underrepresented.

- - - Updated - - -



You're being critical for the sake of it. If something was better in the past, which happens, people will reminisce about it. There absolutely is a strong positive correlation between popularity and fun, in fact popularity partly defines fun. Controversy implies mixed opinions and again there absolutely is a strong positive correlation between popular approval and quality of a thing. You can say that coal as a pizza topping is "controversial" but by far the most people would call it something else.

They "think" it's better because the brain is wired to remember the good not the bad. They remember great friends, fun 5-mans, and such. They don't remember shelling out the last of their gold on reagents or ammo, dying cause a mob was immune to the damage type their class did, or getting swarmed cause stuff runs.

The people who like ranged surv aren't wrong, the people who like melee surv aren't wrong. But the guys in the latter camp demanding things be changed back to suit them while refusing to admit that there are people who like it the way it is now, or worse claim there's something wrong with those people, is a problem.

[DodgeHellcat]

Agreed, I don't care that survival went melee but i do care that they didn't try to incorporate at least some of it into marks which is just so bland it is painful.

I agree, I said the same thing in BFA and it's the reason why I couldn't handle playing ranged anymore.
MM and BM just feels horrible to play post Legion.

It's lacking a lot of fun interactions. Being able to trick-shot serpent sting or something would already go a long way. But there is nothing actually fun with MM in ST either.
They could've turned the SV DoT/Tick playstyle into a "bleed"/poison-type version for MM by choosing certain talents.

[keyone01]

They could've turned the SV DoT/Tick playstyle into a "bleed"/poison-type version for MM by choosing certain talents.

They tried that already, but ultimately failed, you just can't acomodate so much to talents and not feel like half assed class one way or the other.

Ultimately, class fantasy is wasted on msv, instead of this dot playstyle you have discount bm hunter, throwing bombs in its face.

[DodgeHellcat]

They tried that already, but ultimately failed, you just can't acomodate so much to talents and not feel like half assed class one way or the other.

Ultimately, class fantasy is wasted on msv, instead of this dot playstyle you have discount bm hunter, throwing bombs in its face.

Not really.
To both.

I don't even know why you'd bring up the "bombs" thing. As if RSV had a proper "class fantasy" with explosive shots, black/shadow arrows, poison arrows and arcane/magic arrows.
It's certainly not any better to what MSV has in that regard.

And MSV is very dot heavy with the bomb dot, the serpent sting and multiple bleed debuffs.


As for the talents. The talents are already in the spec mostly, they are just not even remotely balanced because Hunter has basically no class designer who gives a shit.
Probably no class actually has one anymore.
Doesn't mean its not possible or even remotely "hard" to get a playable version out of the serpent sting talent for example.

You just can't put a talent called "serpent sting" in there and call it a day, that's all they did after all.
Again, getting serpent sting to bounce with trick shot would already go a long way.
And Chimera shot could be used to deal extra damage per DoT or something.

The usual SV Talents/spells don't have any interaction with the current MM spec, that's why they aren't being used. Because Blizzard just doesn't care, like... at all.

[Makaloff]

They "think" it's better because the brain is wired to remember the good not the bad. They remember great friends, fun 5-mans, and such. They don't remember shelling out the last of their gold on reagents or ammo, dying cause a mob was immune to the damage type their class did, or getting swarmed cause stuff runs.

The people who like ranged surv aren't wrong, the people who like melee surv aren't wrong. But the guys in the latter camp demanding things be changed back to suit them while refusing to admit that there are people who like it the way it is now, or worse claim there's something wrong with those people, is a problem.

while i do agree that some are on the extreme end, from what i mostly seen nowadays is that people would like RSV as a 4th specc or have a talent option to switch between meele and ranged. Extremenist will always be on both sides, but my hopes is that blizzard can do a compromise and make both camps happy instead of taking away from either camp. I pretty much dropped my hunter back in legion due what happened to survival, i still today dont play my hunter beacuse MM is excruciately boring, BM is in the trashbin and survival is meele.

Even thought i personally view meele survival a complete failure and mind bogglingly bad design choice, i dont want to take it away from those who like MSV. thats why i been advocating for a 4th specc introduced in order to solve that issue.

Best option would be to re introduce RSV as a 4th specc, question is if blizzard will stick their head in the sand again or not.

[F Rm]

I don't even know why you'd bring up the "bombs" thing. As if RSV had a proper "class fantasy" with explosive shots, black/shadow arrows, poison arrows and arcane/magic arrows.
It's certainly not any better to what MSV has in that regard.

It certainly did.

RSV was designed to portray the concept of a munitions expert and trapper, as realised in WoW. It focused mostly on the bullets/arrows you used via your ranged weapon, on augmented shots. Explosive shots, shots infused with shadow or arcane magic, or animal venom, these are all different types of damage, but they all sure do fall under one coherent fantasy/theme. Again, that being a munitions expert.

The trapper-part is also obvious, all hunters have access to certain traps, but RSV was the spec you went for if you decided that you wanted to focus more on what could be done, fighting using traps.

[Gotural]

I fucking love new Survival. I think it's the best hunter spec.

I loved the "melee" talents in the Survival talent tree back in Classic, like the increased Parry chance, the additional health or the bonus on Raptor Strike, etc.

Clearly if I play Hunter it's to play Survival, and I really don't get why you would think it's badly designed.

[Hypester]

I feel like most people who hate melee Survival don't actually play it.

[Gotural]

Also, by having the MM spec be the ranged with big frontloaded damage, the BM which is a lot of small hits, and the SV which is melee and quite in between with both small hits and bigger strikes, it's pretty clear that it is for the best gameplay wise and identity wise. RSV and MM were too much alike.

[Ealyssa]

I feel like most people who hate melee Survival don't actually play it.

That’s very obvious. It’s a really fun spec to play (and the most interesting hunter rotation) that now also deal crazy good damage. Haters gonna hate.

[schwank05]

I literally only play Hunter because of Survival and love every aspect of it it feels like Enhance Shammy in CATA/MOP a mix of mid range/ Melee. It plays fantastic and I am having a blast just picked up my 4 set last night, couldn't be happier about that.

[Accendor]

The specc is insanely fun right now. If they can keep it that way, no reason to change it. 4p necessary tho.