At This Point I Would Settle For a Statement on the Plan for Survival Hunter

Community General Discussion
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No Patch Notes as of yet. No Talent or legendary changes. No Covenant Changes. Nothing. On top of that, There is a Bow that drops off Sylvanas that modifies kill shot in a major way. Except… Survival Doesnt Use a bow, but does use kill shot.

I would be content if we just got a statement that said something along the lines of…

" Greetings. We have heard all the feedback and examined the Survival Hunter’s position in the game. We have come to the conclusion that changing it to a melee spec, did not work out. We are working on a revamp to the spec, and returning it to its ranged roots in the next expansion. We will be issuing flat aura buffs to the Spec in its current iteration, but we will not be making any changes outside that. We know this isnt the response you were hoping for, but we felt we should inform you of our plans with the spec."

That would be acceptable to me. But just pretty much leaving it as is, isnt acceptable. I struggle to think of a class/spec combo that is played less than survival hunter. If anyone could find any statistics, it would be appreciated.

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(FAKE NOT REAL) “Hello, we are deleting the Survival Hunter specialization. Please send doughnuts because Dan is crying about it. He’s the only one we know who has played it in the past three expansions.”

Blue post two minutes later (ALSO FAKE):
“Dan was actually crying because he dropped his ramen, not because of the news. Thus, no doughnuts are necessary. Thank you for your attention.”

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PTR Forums.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/910-chains-of-domination-ptr-notes/936527

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Having it be a melee spec would have been fine if they would just do 2 things.

1 add talents to marks that allow the old survival ranged style, even if its not the best build.

2 bring survival dps up to be slightly higher than marks/BM to make up for being melee.

The spec plays fine, if a little simple. But the dps is so meh and its competing for a melee spot in a anti melee meta. I honestly kinda of like the spec but everything you have to give up to play it makes it always the wrong choice. At least its viable for M+ if you don’t mind not building a meta group, though the stigma around it makes pugs mostly not willing to take them.

Though I do think it kinda sucks blizzard didn’t make it a hunter tanking spec… It’s like come on the spec is named Survival that just screams tank!

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I doubt they know that spec exists…

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Survival will get buffed when enhancement shaman can use 2H weapons again.

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We have two survival hunters in our raid. They do just fine.

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If it’s not competitive, that just sounds like bloated lip service. Hard pass.

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There is no statement on a plan because there’s no plan. It’s the Feral Druid equivalent to the Hunter Class.

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Though Ferals are performing notably better than Survival hunters…

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“We’d rather you not play it” - Blizz

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how do i updoot a forum post?

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Fix survival’s ST and you have a decent thing going.

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Agreed, I was just more referring to the amount of attention the spec gets. SV Hunters are as bad as it gets right now which sucks.

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Except, you know, some of us really enjoy the melee spec. Survival is super dynamic. The bomb throwing, spear dancing is a great fantasy for Goblins. You have Marksman and BM if you want two viable ranged specs.

The current iteration of Survival is super fun to play. What it currently needs is not a complete overhaul. What it does need to compete is a ~5% overall damage buff or single target abilities damage buff, and a unique utility that BM and MM do not have. Personally, I’m partial to giving Survival a Death Grip equivalent through the Harpoon, either as a baseline new ability or through a talent that modifies Harpoon.

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Totally agree with this.

My hunter is my alt - had fun leveling him at ranged. However, I’ve recently really enjoyed just the playstyle behind survival, being a melee myself. It’s really sad that the spec doesn’t really excel at anything EXCEPT clumped aoe.

It doesn’t have any umph outside of that. It’s burst is terrible outside of a pack of like, 10+ mobs. Needs a lot of work.

I’m pulling for the devs to give some kind of update or help to the spec.

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while i mostly agree, there is this weird resource generator kill command that doesnt really do a lot of damage but it has spamability, and you have raptor strike which is really underwhelming and very spammy to make sure you never focus cap. Tiny problems sort of easy to fix i think.

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Just make them a ranged spear thrower. The theme can stay exactly as it is, with minor tweaks to abilities to make them ranged.

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A melee Hunter spec is fundamentally bad because

a) It predicates the spec on a weakness; it effectively takes away from the base class rather than adding to it as a spec should
b) Most Hunter players expect ranged gameplay and most melee-preferring players will stick to their existing, well-established melee specs

So any approach to implementing a melee Hunter would be met with unpopularity, resentment, and neglect.

Making it a tank would be a spectacularly bad idea for all the same reasons making it melee was a bad idea, only tenfold. Tanking does not fit the Hunter identity nor does it fit the expectations of its playerbase.

Good job demonstrating why “Survival” was always a bad name, though. It’s way too open to interpretation. There are people who want Survival to be ranged DPS, melee DPS, tank, healer (yes, really), and everything in between. Absolutely every one of them swears up and down that “Survival” specifically implies their vision for the spec.

Was this meant to be a counter argument? You have to know how weakly this comes across.

Just for the lols, I looked up your guild. Here are your two Survival Hunters:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/character/us/malganis/crushboy
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/character/us/malganis/odii

As expected, the only reason they look “fine” is because they can purple parse in a raid raid full of green parsers struggling to do 3k single target. Also as expected: your Marksmanship Hunter demolishes them on almost every fight by as much as 1k dps:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/character/us/malganis/dissmisspet

Even if it would be competitive it would be a bad option because at that point you’d end up with a watered down MM and ranged SV awkwardly sharing the same space all to protect melee Survival.

A lot of people really enjoyed ranged Survival. Why is melee Survival worth protecting when ranged Survival apparently wasn’t?

In what universe is spear-swinging a better fantasy for Goblins than, say, guns? Listen to yourself.

And we used to have SV too and we want it back.

Melee lovers have 12 other specs to enjoy in the game, including every single DPS spec added to the game post-launch.

It needs a complete overhaul. It has no direction, no identity, and no future. It’s predicated on a bad idea at a fundamental level and no amount of polishing this turd will save it. You will never, ever sell melee to Hunters. It was a stupid idea to even try.

Bribing Hunters with special utility given only to SV is unacceptable. They already tried this with traps. If melee Hunters are so rancid a concept that Hunters will not consider it without some sort of carrot on a stick like this then maybe it was just not a good idea in the first place.

The Hunter class should be designed to cater to Hunters, not melee players with a Hunter levelling alt.

This would be a really silly and nonsensical compromise. Just make them use a ranged weapon like they always did before Legion ruined everything.

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You keep saying hunters don’t want melee but the whole reason they changed it to a melee spec was because so many people asked for a melee spec for years.

The only reason its not popular is because it is less dps then marks and BM the majority of the time and competes for limited melee group spots.

I rather like the spec, but I do think it could be improved. I would also be happy with a path to the old ranged survival play style either by talents in marks or as a 4th spec.

Also tanking could fit with the hunter identity, the class is built vaguely around the lore of hunters from every faction and some of them have hunters who go toe to toe with beasts along side their pets. It’s not a perfect fit like paladin and warrior but it could work fine if the ability’s were themed well.