Survival Hunter Club [7.2 Spec Discussion]

[eschatological]

What do you guys put your Mongoose Stack cancelaura on? I'm trying to find a good button to macro it into? My cancelaura for Turtle is in AotT to begin with, so putting it in there would be pretty silly as it would pop Turtle to begin with. In BM I put my Turtle cancelaura in its own separate macro because there's enough room on my bars for a macro just to cancel an aura, but in SV, I feel the need to roll it into an ability because there's just too many abilities to put on one bar.

[Usagi Senshi]

All those casuls that come here saying that survival is shitty should go back to their CoD's sniper and dogsitter cosplays, cus they're just not worthy to play, or even talk about the manly rambo spec that only true mans can play.

LOL, this actually made me choke a bit on my energy drink, thanks!

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Played FDK.. havoc dh and enhance shaman (as melee).
mains are BM/havoc DH..

All 3 specs flow much better.. do stuff better and with far less bloat.. I just dont understand if u were going melee why you would go survival.. its probably the last spec i would choose for melee

Because outside of its niggling issues and slightly bloated toolkit, survival is still a lot of fun and you feel like a badass when you pull off cool shit with it.

[MookieRah]

I started up with Survival about three weeks ago and now it's my main spec. Despite it's quirks, I find it highly entertaining, and I do like the depth it has (even if a some of it's depth comes from poor design). I don't think it's that far off from having good design though, and I think that people are exaggerating how bad it is, largely because they are comparing it to other classes with better flow from a very polished game.

Personally, I think the class suffers from 3 major problems:

Way of the Mok'Nathal is both too good, pretty much requiring you to take it, and it requires 4 attacks to get it's maximum effect. Without saying much, as this has been repeatedly pointed out by many, it's a pretty big penalty when you drop it, and it adds a lot more ramp-up to a spec already has enough ramp up due to the mongoose fury mechanic.

The traps feel really out of place most of the time. Most of the time I plant them at my feet, which is very un-traplike. The only time they make sense is before a pull (obvious) as well as whenever I'm forced to retreat out of melee range, and then they provide you with a much needed way to still apply damage while you are avoiding some kind of mechanic. I think if they forced a range limit on traps (so no more setting traps at your feet) and made them more powerful, it would make this spec a lot more versatile and function more like a ranged spec in that you aren't really penalized as much for movement heavy combat.

Lastly the other thing is the down-time between your mongoose fury rotation. Sometimes things line up really well and you can apply all of your dots and traps and things in this time, but I'd say about at least a third of the time I'm just sorta sitting around auto-attacking and using raptor strike if i hit max energy. This doesn't feel good, and it honestly makes me feel like I did something wrong cause I should be going ham all the time, but yeah... it's just how it goes.

I'm really hoping they work on things so that there aren't periods of drought in the rotation, as well as doing it in a way that doesn't add any extra buttons. I think they really need to focus on all of the stuff the survival hunter does that aren't mongoose bite and trap focused, and streamline that in a way that lines up. IMO, they could totally revamp/replace raptor strike, flanking strike, and lacerate and try to find a way to incorporate these 3 attacks into a moderate sustained dps rotation that you cycle through whenever you are waiting for the next mongoose cycle.

[Acaila]

I think a lot of the issues with dot uptimes could be addressed if during our MB window each MB cast added 3s to our dots, or some of our dots if its too OP.

You could even turn the effect into a talent, not sure what it would replace though.

This stops the feeling of being punished for refreshing them during our dmg window; which is the only real issue I have with the spec right now personally.

[Khrux]

Lastly the other thing is the down-time between your mongoose fury rotation. Sometimes things line up really well and you can apply all of your dots and traps and things in this time, but I'd say about at least a third of the time I'm just sorta sitting around auto-attacking and using raptor strike if i hit max energy. This doesn't feel good, and it honestly makes me feel like I did something wrong cause I should be going ham all the time, but yeah... it's just how it goes.

I agree with your whole post and I've echoed many of your comments previously.

However this one part is mostly a gearing issue I imagine. You would ideally have ~28% haste and 10-12% mastery which gives you the most optimal GCDs inside mongoose fury windows and a steady influx of Mongoose procs, along with 2pc tier19 and regular use of Flanking Strike for almost guaranteed Mongoose procs.

Its still not perfect, you will find times where you start with 3 charges of mongoose and somehow get stuck at 5 with no more charges and it drops(which feels fucking terrible) but thats the RNG life.

With the right gear/stat setup you should be able to hit 6 mongoose with ease on each rotation and apply your dots when Mongoose Fury ends. In the time it takes to reapply lacerate, traps/caltrops, refresh Mok and hit a Flanking you should be back at 3 Mongoose Strike charges and begin the next Fury window.

It eventually flows quite well but its definitely gear dependent and specific stat weight/breakpoint dependent. Even then RNG can fuck you over and it still feels disjointed using traps and other dots with de-synced durations/cooldowns.

[Trapstarz]

Just killed Gul'dan MM and I never was so thrilled during a PvE fight in my life. Decision making is so crucial and having to plan everything miles ago in the fight makes it so GEWD !

Placing the best explosiv traps, preshotting every FotE in Eyes + Gul'dan and many more ...

If you play survival keep on until you are on him it's a blast !

[Khrux]

Unless you have 2 Fury warriors, 2 Havocs and an Ele Sham that instantly delete eyes and you feel kinda redudant haha. I tried it one night but Survivals real strenght on Gul'dan is burst cleave and my own raid comp has more than enough. So I just went back to BM in the end

[Deleted]

The 7.2.5 notes just nerfed our t19 set bonus for flanking strike :S. It's allready a pain in the ass to get lucky with 6 mongoose bites, why the hell would they do this ?

[MookieRah]

Probably due to power creep as we attain more mastery with our gear. If flanking strike pretty much guaranteed a bite the spec would become too spammy is my guess. I personally don't feel too bad about it, as long as we are compensated in some other way.

[Khrux]

The 7.2.5 notes just nerfed our t19 set bonus for flanking strike :S. It's allready a pain in the ass to get lucky with 6 mongoose bites, why the hell would they do this ?

If your going to read patch notes, read everything. The blue post that came with them clearly explains why they are nerfing tier19 in 7.2.5

[Riistov]

Saying "Survival should be ranged again" is constructive feedback for the spec because it was much more successful when it was ranged and therefore it is a good strategy for getting Survival out of the hole it finds itself in in Legion. Survival's biggest issue this expansion is not it's mechanics, playstyle, or rotation; the biggest issue by far is the fact that it is melee.

Couldn't agree more. It was fantastic as a ranged spec, one of my favorite actually.

In terms of raiding, there is just no reason to take SV over BM or MM. Too many melee in this game as it is, and those spots are at a premium. Melee spots generally go to specs that are dominant or fill a niche, SV does neither.

[rykon1459918]

Finally got around to making a hunter, I'm not a big ranged player so I had pretty much never touched a hunter.

Started out as BeastMaster but found it pretty boring to be honest, decided at 100 to switch to survival.
I have to say as someone who is pretty fresh to hunters in general I am in love with survival.
Not really sure what it is about survival but its just so much fun, it just feels nice.
I understand a lot of hunters didn't like the conversation to melee but I hope going forward it stays melee (if survival is anything like it currently is next expansion it will be a switch from my DK)
my only concern is Mongoose stacks, its prob because I'm still leveling (107) but I don't seem to be able to get 6 stacks at all to use weapon (I can barley fit in 5) I'm guessing this gets better with haste levels etc.

[Eapoe]

Finally got around to making a hunter, I'm not a big ranged player so I had pretty much never touched a hunter.

Started out as BeastMaster but found it pretty boring to be honest, decided at 100 to switch to survival.
I have to say as someone who is pretty fresh to hunters in general I am in love with survival.
Not really sure what it is about survival but its just so much fun, it just feels nice.
I understand a lot of hunters didn't like the conversation to melee but I hope going forward it stays melee (if survival is anything like it currently is next expansion it will be a switch from my DK)
my only concern is Mongoose stacks, its prob because I'm still leveling (107) but I don't seem to be able to get 6 stacks at all to use weapon (I can barley fit in 5) I'm guessing this gets better with haste levels etc.

With a high amount of haste and roughly 10-12% mastery with current 2p tier 19 you will almost always get a proc with Flanking Strike. The tier is getting a nerf though the next patch and will probably raise Mastery required for guaranteed procs to roughly 18-20%, which will probably not be worth going for as you will probably lose a lot of crit/haste reaching that.
There's also the talent Snakehunter which gives you 3 stacks of MB to use that you will get usage out of until better geared.
The next tier takes away from FS and puts focus onto Lacerate, making Lac last longer and MB do Moreno damage to the target while Lac is on it. Double edged sword to this means we will probably go back to using Snakehunter, but frees up gear slots to focus on straight haste/crit.
Too early to tell right now, but I am looking forward to the changes as I feel Mastery is our weakest stat that only grants a chance to get more damage.

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Couldn't agree more. It was fantastic as a ranged spec, one of my favorite actually.

In terms of raiding, there is just no reason to take SV over BM or MM. Too many melee in this game as it is, and those spots are at a premium. Melee spots generally go to specs that are dominant or fill a niche, SV does neither.

Except that it's on par if not better (given the player) for ST and offers the highest burst AoE/Cleave of all 3 specs. It also can do the same things as MM/BM as far as utility is concerned, and does them equally well.
If you make statements like this you might as well be 100% accurate and ask "why would you bring a BM/MM Hunter to raid when you could just as easily bring warlocks, mages, and spriests?"

[MookieRah]

It is a pretty bad negative feedback loop. Blizzard makes an unpopular decision to change survival to melee and then neglected to give it the level of polish other classes have. The hate from the removal of the old spec coupled with the clunkyness causes the majority of the hunter community to renounce the class entirely, never giving it a chance despite buffs making it more and more competitive. Meanwhile new or indifferent players are turned off by the spec due to the stigma associated with it. This prevents the spec from gaining a player base, which in turn is used against the spec by the people who hate the spec, making more people less interested in trying it for themselves. Then you have players like myself that really enjoy the spec and am beginning to get some great mileage out of it, but pretty much am netted by the community as I have to explain/convince others that the class isn't the dumpster fire people think it is.

[MookieRah]

It is a pretty bad negative feedback loop. Blizzard makes an unpopular decision to change survival to melee and then neglected to give it the level of polish other classes have. The hate from the removal of the old spec coupled with the clunkyness causes the majority of the hunter community to renounce the class entirely, never giving it a chance despite buffs making it more and more competitive. Meanwhile new or indifferent players are turned off by the spec due to the stigma associated with it. This prevents the spec from gaining a player base, which in turn is used against the spec by the people who hate the spec, making more people less interested in trying it for themselves. Then you have players like myself that really enjoy the spec and am beginning to get some great mileage out of it, but pretty much am nerfed by the community as I have to explain/convince others that the class isn't the dumpster fire people think it is.

[Khrux]

I like that they are attempting to bring dot interaction into the rotation with the t20, but at the same time I'd rather see that as part of the class design and not a set bonus. It doesn't really solve any of Survival's problems which is a shame.

[MookieRah]

Agreed. I dont like the design philosophy of "lets fix it with gear". I also think it would deklunkify the class if there was a set percent chance of flanking strike and pet attacks to give bites and that our mastery increased the bonus on mongoose fury. That way they could focus on finding a value that felt right and the spec would not require x% mastery and set pieces to feel good. Id imagine it'd be a hell of a lot easier to balance and scale in the long run as well.

[DeicideUH]

Agreed. I dont like the design philosophy of "lets fix it with gear". I also think it would deklunkify the class if there was a set percent chance of flanking strike and pet attacks to give bites and that our mastery increased the bonus on mongoose fury. That way they could focus on finding a value that felt right and the spec would not require x% mastery and set pieces to feel good. Id imagine it'd be a hell of a lot easier to balance and scale in the long run as well.

I agree. I've been saying the same thing since the beginning: chance of getting MB charges should be static, maybe even with a talent to modify it, and Mastery should be bonus damage to MB or some other way of making MB stronger.

Plus, traps shouldn't be used in rotation. Make them utility-only. Explosive trap could become a small knockback (becoming stronger with waylay). Then, compensate our AoE damage or rotation by improving something else (maybe the level 90 talents could be improved in some way). That would free us one button in the rotation and the annoying need to target a trap.

[Khrux]

The difference between an optimally statted Survival with 2pc tier versus a fresh 110 is night and day. I know you could say that about alot of classes but Survival just doesn't function correctly without gear/stats. The closest example of another spec like this would be Ret, which also just doesn't work without the right levels of haste.

Our mastery controlling a proc rate on our main dmg ability is just horrible, it makes scaling the value of mastery so difficult because mastery gives so little on its own that its just not worth investing it at all. Our mastery will always either be worthless because you can't get enough to make the RNG better or too low value because the cap on 100% procs is so easy to reach that you just don't want any beyond a certain value.
For example if you swap from a BM spec with ~90% to Surv, using the same gear you get around 6-7% mastery. That makes such a minuscule difference to the volume of mongoose bites you get from pet attacks that you might as well have 0% mastery if your mastery is so low.
Now even adding that to flanking strike(double proc rate default) is also such a minor benefit, but when you add in the t19 2pc(triple proc rate) you suddenly get actual mastery breakpoints. Such as 16.76% mastery being 100% mongoose bites charges from flanking strike with the 2pc. So most people aim for 10-12% which is very achievable without sacrificing other stats.

Haste also has breakpoints, where you can gain additional GCDs inside the Mongoose fury window. With 28.6% being the ideal breakpoint to reach in order to get enough GCDs and the smoothest cooldowns on your main abilities. More is still good, but its a good goal to aim for.

Overall, the t19 2pc made Flanking Strike relevant and gave us a goal to shoot for with our mastery and thus gave it actual value as a reliable generator for mongoose strikes. Prior to this tier Flanking was relegated to a focus dump or even removed from people's bars in some cases. The loss of t19 will be a real negative for the spec.
With t20 they are pushing some interaction between mongoose and lacerate, which is a good start towards creating synergy between our mongoose windows and our multitude of debuffs/dots but in a world where mongoose gen goes back to being a bit more RNG I'm not sure hooking it into one of our dots is a great transition where mongoose drought will lead to the inability to capitalise on our tier bonuses.

Lastly the legendary situation paints a clear picture of the weird values on secondarys for Survival, the fact that the Healing Helm/Legs are basically the BiS leggos after the Bracers shows this. Survival just wants everything, we have no real set secondary values. We just want as must haste as possible, enough mastery for it to be worth a damn and then just pile on the crit/vers as high as we can without breaking our goals for haste/mastery. Pyrdaz, KJ trinket, Arcano etc. are all insane for us for the same reasons, Survival just need raw stats to prop up every part of the spec because it has so much going on and no real identity.

At the end of the day, Survival remains fun to play and is a functioning spec currently in terms of dmg output and raid viability but its definitely being held up by itemisation such as tier bonuses filling in holes that exist within the specs rotation and the lack of value on secondaries outside of "stack haste" is worrying for long term scaling.

[Eapoe]

I will agree that Mastery should just be a straight damage increase to some ability. It doesn't need to be everything, as just increasing the damage of our MB or even Lacerate would be more effective than a extra chance to proc an extra attack that we need to use a GCD for (granted it's for our best ability). With how Mastery scales, its piss poor, where 11k Mastery rating only gives somewhere around 15-18%.
I also can't think of another class where Mastery is a chance to do extra damage or healing from a proc and not just a straight damage/healing increase. Maybe Ele Shamans, but even then their Mastery scales so well that 11k is something like an 80% chance to proc it off of every cast, and not even sure it works that way anymore. Even then, it's a proc that does the damage and does not require another cast from the gcd.
Just not sure what they were thinking with this and hoping maybe they change it up in a future patch or next xpac. Maybe decide on a point of FS giving an extra chance to proc and leave Mastery out of it.
Really the only gripe about the spec.
Side note: tiny gripe about the extremely underwhelming legendary choices compared to other classes. The ring possibly changing that and giving us another good one to use that makes me feel good though.