No i believe its rotational because it easily fits in the rotation but i guess go off sis.
Nothing to actually say about the disparity between Survival and the other 5 specs listed above? No? Okay. Stay blind kid. You keep enjoying the 2 button wonder just the way it is. It’s perfect for you. Simple, nothing remotely challenging. In the meantime. Some of us are going to try and add some depth, synergy, and engagement into this spec that is so desperate for it.
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I mean wit6h the playstyle i want to pick for df i have the buttons i have now for my rotation plus like 3 more so ill be fine so…
You clearly didn’t try very hard then. Arms (MS), Fury (Bloodthirst), Frost DK (Frost Strike/Obliterate), Unholy (Festering Strike/Scourge Strike), Enhancement (Storm Strike), Elemental (Earth Shock), Prot Warrior (Ignore Pain, Revenge).
Yes, I get they’re not all spenders, but they’re all the absolute core abilities for each specs rotation. The first ability should be a choice node of Raptor Strike/Mongoose bite but having to pick it up isn’t a problem.
Flanking Strike should honestly just replace Kill Command and have an extra component (make RS crits deal increased damage for X seconds, higher reset chance, just X% more damage than regular KC, etc.).
They’re rotational but generic to Hunter, meaning they have absolutely 0 benefit to Dragonflight Survival’s rotational gameplay.
Lacerate would be an ability that could have a branch (similar to Mongoose Bite) where it’ll allow talents like “Each tick of Lacerate has an X% chance to reset the duration of your Wild Fire Bomb’s DoT effect” or “Lacerating an enemy with a debuff increases your haste by x%”.
Serpent Sting can’t have these passives in the Survival tree because it’s not a Survival ability anymore, it’s a Hunter ability.
You can’t add talents to Survival that specify Serpent Sting without SS being in the Survival tree because they’d be dead talents because there’s no guarantee a Survival Hunter will have Serpent Sting; that’s the entire reason they explained the redesign to Volatile Bomb under WFI.
The extent of SS in the Survival tree is locked to two talents, one of which requires a 2 point investment to passively apply the SS debuff.
You only took into account the first portion of the sentence friend. Read it again.
Yes specs have to pay for the main spender. Survival is the only one who gives that up to replace it with another.
Everything else you said was spot on! Hopefully this helps Strip out.
One possible reason for this (not confirmed by Blizzard, mind you), is that back in Legion when Mongoose Bite was a given for SV the spec was widely panned for having gameplay that was too unapproachable and punishing and the spec saw very little play in that expansion. So when they reworked it in BFA part of their evaluation of what went wrong with Legion SV may have been that the spec needed more simple gameplay options. Making Mongoose Bite “optional” is a way to achieve that; less-experienced players can opt out of using it for more simple gameplay.
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The thing that bothers me the most about SV is the complete lack of ability synergy baked into core abilities. I guess it’s kinda the same with MM not that I think about it. You only get button synergy through talents. The rotation feels like you’re playing whack-a-mole.
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I will not disagree with you there. I think them stripping it down was fine. They wrapped up all the dps traps into WFB which was great. But they forgot to add in the synergy after cutting the fat.
I agree, there is absolutely no synergy in Survival core abilities as it stands. For a good example of simple game play loops but rewarding nonetheless take a look at Destruction Warlock.
Destro lock has very simple gameplay, very little plates to spin. But everything synergizes well with eachother that the excitement builds with each shard gained through incinerate, immolate and conflag that there is such a rewarding feeling when you see the Chaos Bolt screaming towards the target.
MM is kind of sparse when it comes to innate synergy but the foundation is there. It helps that it is a simple but rewarding class fantasy. You have your 2 builders and your 2 spenders and you also get the sense of enjoyment when Aimed Shot goes off and chunks the enemies health from 40 yards away. The rotational synergy is there it just isnt as shiney as others. And we cannot expect each class to have the same level of rotational synergy. I just expect that all of the classes actually have synergy in the gameplay…
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Not to get too far off topic, but I’m still a sucker for the old builder/spender days of Chimaera being a keystone.
As for SV, I feel like the overall concept is already working from a disadvantaged state. They way Blizzard has tried to cram a square peg in a round hole is especially obvious when base abilities have to be changed entirely to account for melee delivery. That aside, I’ve said in a number of other threads that I still don’t understand what SV is supposed to be. I mean, yeah, melee hunter. But what does that mean? I think if we can figure out what SV is supposed to be doing, building synergies and thoughtful rotations will be much easier.
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I’m almost certain there would be no other dps classes other than SV if these were to be implemented. lol
Agreed. The way that I see it the different Hunter specs revolve around pet interaction.
MM = 0% pet interaction 100% Hunter. Its all on the hunter.
BM = 50% pet 50% Hunter. The hunter is focused on empowering the pets to do damage.
SV = 25% Pet 75% Hunter. In this case the Pet should be enabling the hunter do the damage while still contributing a good amount to the overall profile. 33%/66% would also work.
So I think we should should be seeing things that say
[Your pets X causes your Y to do Z]
Then on a smaller scale than BM we should also see the opposite.
[Your Y causes your pets X to do Z]
Coordination between the pet do accomplish the Hunt.
That is of course from my perspective in regards to MSV.
Problem with a more melee centered rotation is a lack of melee centered sustain and migation. Theres a reason why we we play a hybrid play style. We simply dont do well toe to toe with other melee for extended periods of melee engagement. Blizz would have to retool survs kit if we lose the ranged combat effectiveness. I simply dont see them doing that atm.
I’d rather have them focus on things that don’t add any value to the tree or existing problems, ex;
- Binding Shackles is worthless in its current form
- Nobody wants NTA in its current form
- Bloodseeker has no real interaction with the spec.
- Born to be Wild is underwhelming in its current form. Top end shld to 30% cdr.
- Imp Tranq should be baseline
- VV and Quick shot are terrible
- WFI needs to move up and to the center of the tree. It should probably be a capstone imo.
- Tying interactions to KC resets is terrible design, please stop.
- Nobody will ever pick Energenic ally, explosive expert or intense focus in current form.
- Sharp Edges is dramatically undervalued. Should be 10/20%.
- have 2 multiple point capstones that dont do much but soak points.
Most of all;
- More pet customization so we can pick a pet and tool it for the content we like to do.
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“Our throughput is as diverted towards ranged skill as it is because our melee capacities don’t live up to other melee.”
How is that any more a reason to rely on uptime crutches in ranged attacks than to just… buff our melee capacities?
Personally, I’d like to be able to go wholly RSV, wholly MSV, or anything in between.
Ideally, just slap a passive onto Survival by which literally every ranged attack, from within melee range, gets a melee variant with some minor advantage relative to its ranged version. Each new skill Survival adds, there’s now also a ranged version.
No point cost to get a Melee or Ranged version of whatever, or even to start down either path. Instead, certain dually applicable skills tend to just naturally better complement one or the other indirectly (such as mobility being more helpful to melee, and being able to see through walls being more helpful to ranged) and you mostly build around the utilities, damage profile, and playflow you want.
While looking at the base skills via the Spellbook, default form is based on whether you’re holding a ranged weapon or melee weapon. Hold Shift during mouseover to see the opposite form.
- Arcane Shot <—> Raptor Strike
- Steady Shot <—> Blade Whirl
- Kill Shot <—> Mercy Blow
- Concussive Shot <—> Wing Clip
- Countershot <—> Muzzle
- Carve <—> Piercing Arc
- Butchery <—> Steel Rain
- Fury of the Eagle <—> Eagles’ Wrath
- Etc., etc.
Similarly…
- Lone Wolf should be baseline.
- Scare Beast should be baseline.
- Multi-target pet Focus spender should be baseline. (Yes, even if that means reworking Beast Cleave slightly.)
-
The ability to select an Affinity (Tenacity, Cunning, or Ferocity) to determine our bonus and skill selection when no pet is out should be baseline.
- Survival of the Fittest should then be baseline accessible to the hunter when using Affinity: Tenacity, while Horn of the Hunt (Hero/Lust) should be baseline accessible via Tenacity: Ferocity, etc., with those skills inheriting the remaining cooldown of their previous version upon Affinity swap.
The class and Survival tree are crap, but it’s primarily the kind of thinking that would make simply fixing all such problems on a dime “impossible” that’s especially holding talent design back.
At the same time… why must every talent tree necessarily have its point thresholds at the same point. Capstones could be made much more separable of choices without our being able to take any and all of them, for instance, if the point minimum to start buying them was higher (such as starting at 22 or 24 instead of 20). Either way, it needn’t be 20 for every single spec. It’s fine for some classes that have valuable capstones—but nonetheless are themed around being able to take a lot of eclectic utility—a deeper threshold than other classes, so long as the result feels good.
Similarly, why does every talent, even at the start of a new threshold, need a path, instead of being freely selectable so long as one has sufficient points, like old style talents? I’d far rather have my capstones not be dependent on routing through stuff I have no interest in. I’d gladly even have slightly fewer total points in the deepest tier than have to take stuff I don’t want and doesn’t balance out otherwise disproportionate power gains or overly draw players away from desirable utility in the name of throughput.
For that matter, why not allow for multi-point Active nodes, so their would-be “Improved {Antecedent Active Node}” nodes don’t get in the way of other choices? And/or allow for multi-point Split/Choice nodes, so that they can be decently powerful in full without becoming must-picks point-per-point.
The thing is they probably wont.
I’d be fine with that. I wouldnt expect that however.
You can do that now with macros I’m pretty sure.
I tend to agree within reason.
I’m looking to make what we have better as opposed to trying to create what I think the spec should be. Personally, Ive been down those rabbit holes before and , in the end, you end up just disappointed. I applaud the passion ppl have for the game but, your better using your creativity and time on other things.
This is certainly a massive concern of Hunters particularly Survival. A %DR added to the mastery and an increase to the %health regeneration would begin working on the overall lack of survivability for SV.
Everyone one of your concerns is spot on and are glaring issues with the class/spec. I agree wholeheartedly. Well said.
I will say if Energetic Ally was 20 focus it would be more desirable.
Also if intense focus generated pet focus as well but in larger quantities.
Yeah I am not sure why we cant have that. We are the trainers of our pets. Put the old talent trees back in for pets and spruce them back up slightly and let us decide.
I appreciate your passion and would love to see that as an option, but sadly the reality is, where we know it is possible for that to happen, we know it wont.
The problem that I see with that thinking is that each classes points would be valued differently. And if they went live with what they have now, Survival Hunter would walk out with 36 nodes to chose from where something like Fury has 45. Thats a huge spread. The disparity is shocking especially when you calculate the possible point cost for each spec.
Fury has 49 possible points for 45 nodes.
Survival has 53 possible points for 36 nodes.
Survival gets less for more…
Some level of continuity must remain between the talent trees for spec equality and balance.
Right, but in large part that’s because they’re trying to cram into the spec things that should be baseline, and then having to balance the per-point value somewhat around those incredibly lackluster nodes, which then brings down everything else in turn.
And they’re not alone in that. The exact same thing has happened with the majority of worst-designed class and spec trees.
Those Spec and Class trees come across as being designed around the question…
“How can we split existing powers across these nodes without players being able to take more at once or being able to choose much more freely than they could in the average of recent expansions?”
…rather than…
“How do we make the motifs, playflows, and affordances of these specs as deeply and broadly attractive as possible without their being overpowered?”
You can, but… how is that relevant? There isn’t a one-to-one matchup of melee variants to all ranged available to Survival, nor vice versa. That’s what I’m asking for.
Just baseline, when you’re in wielding a melee weapon and in melee range as Survival, Countershot becomes Muzzle. When you’re not in melee range, it goes back to being Countershot (via your hand-crossbow). When you have a ranged weapon equipped, it just fires from the ranged weapon. Simple as that.
It comes down to a systems thing. We forget how old this platform is. I dont think they have the ability to so something like that with what they have.
Surv mastery just sucks. They seriously have to look at it. Thats 3 (…?..) expansions were mastery is useless.
thnks dude.
Look dude, your trying argue with someone who doesnt care one way or the other. Put it out on twitter or discord or watever. Im saying they probably wont do it. Go prove me wrong if you feel that passionately about it.