Why is RAPTOR STRIKE your main nuke? The least fun spell from the Legion iteration of Survival?
Why is Kill Command part of this spec, and why is it a resource builder? This spell alone makes the spec feel like a bad Beast Mastery. It doesn’t feel good to use here.
Why is Flanking Strike a talent on such a low cooldown? Arguably the most iconic spell from the Legion version of Survival? You could’ve replaced Kill Command with this.
Why did it become a weird amalgamation of beast mastery, pre-legion survival, and legion survival with the worst parts of each? Either turn Survival back into a ranged spec, or keep it fully melee. Don’t try to appeal to fans of both, because that’s made the spec lose almost all of it’s identity.
What is the problem? I play it as my main alt & i’m having a ton of fun. If you don’t find it fun then play something else? I don’t understand why people demand change for something they don’t enjoy. You have tons of other spec options in this game.
Because I know the spec can be better. It was awesome in MoP. It was awesome in WoD. It was great in Legion. It’s by far my favorite hunter spec, and I think a lot of stuff the spec has is awesome (Wildfire Bomb especially), but there’s stuff I think could be improved. (such as Coordinated Assault- you could do far better than just a “more damage%” cooldown)
On the plus side, Wildfire Bomb is neat. But yes, Raptor Strike and Kill Command are problem areas.
The spec’s history is a big part of why the toolkit is “factionalised” into different themes. They want the spec to be melee as a differentiating factor to Marksmanship (I personally think this is misguided but this is their reasoning). Problem is, you really can’t come up with an identity for melee Hunters that doesn’t lean heavily on pets; if you tried, you would end up with something mostly indistinguishable from a rogue. So the “scrapper/tinker/utilitarian” aspects in Serpent Sting and Wildfire Bomb are included to make the spec more unique. Additionally, they found Legion Survival was way too different from the other Hunter specs to be practical, to the point where it was effectively a different class, so they probably went with Kill Command over Flanking Strike (and allowed MM to talent into Serpent Sting) to help create familiarity with the players of those specs.
The result is a spec with a very troubled direction. That’s not to say the playstyle is bad, but the spec is clearly being pulled in different directions by competing interests and someone needs to put their foot down in 9.0.
First of all, players complained Survival was like spinning plates, had too many abilities to keep up with, so the pruned the spec back hoping it that by simplfying its rotation more players would play. Second, we had the groups asking why we need another melee spec when Warriors and Deathknights play just the same, so Blizzard gave Survival the advantage of being able to use attacks at range giving it a utility that other melee specs do not have. Third, players questioned why Beastmastery was not the melee spec, lore-wise and play-style, so again Blizzard trying to encourage more players to try Survival added some of BM abilities but changed them just enough that it was just not a copy and paste.
Blizzard put a lot of work into Legions version of SV and after all that it failed hard to impress players, so they went back to the drawling board for round two in BfA. Does it play more smoothly, yes, does it have more advantages over some melee spec, yes; however, by doing so Blizzard is moving closer to just rehashing specs we have had.
I enjoyed Legion Survival & I enjoy the spec now as well. You can thank all the whiners who wanted their old Survival back for the 2nd melee revamp. People not even playing the spec shaped it into what it is now. It’s at the point where people need to get over it & just accept that Survival will never be the ranged spec it was pre-Legion.
I do like the ranged utility the spec brings though. I like being able to get out of melee & continue dpsing with some safety from mechanics as need be.
I miss the complexities from Legion but, it is what it is. It plays amazing with loads of Haste & brings some fast-paced gameplay. You always have buttons to hit. Hopefully Blizzard will change things after BFA & maybe return some of the fun from Legion back in.
Crikey! Sounds as though you’re warming to the spec
Though seriously, while it’s far from a perfect spec (can we honestly say there are any in BFA), it has some cool things for it. I would have loved to see the Alpha version of Flanking become a baseline replacement for Kill Command in that it allowed extra damage from both player and pet if they’re in range of the target.
Raptor I don’t mind. It’s a little boring, but thinking Tip of the Spear adds a bit of flavour along with the massive QoL changes to Mongoose Bite (and it’s mechanics) over Legion.
But very much agree that Legion’s Survival was such a massive departure from Hunter, where Surv currently feels like a melee BM, as an active move to shift back to the Hunter specs being closer.
I said as much back in the alpha. I was in one of the very early waves and posted quite a bit about how the specs played since most of the other people here didn’t have access yet. The playstyle works and is approachable and there are pretty good talent options, and Wildfire Bomb is the most cool and unique ability. There’s nothing inherently wrong about the playstyle of the spec. There is a LOT inherently wrong with being melee,and how little it has to do with what came before Legion. I’ll still never spec any live character into the spec, much less play it.
I didn’t say it in my earlier post but pretty much all the issues the OP has with the spec can be fixed if they made the spec purely ranged and got rid of the aspects that rely on a pet, replacing them with the stuff Survival used to have when it was ranged. The only thing I would consider not bringing back is Black Arrow as it fit the least out of all Survival’s former abilities; I would replace that with something better fitting like an electric shot (we’ve never had one of those IIRC) which still gave us Lock and Load. Also, Wildfire Bomb would stay.
Nope. Melee is a dealbreaker for me. You can check my armory page. See how it has no talents filled out for Survival? I intend to keep it that way. If I were even more petty I would have made sure none of my Hunter toons (all low level) were Survival after Legion. Sadly, a couple of them were Survival beforehand so when Legion came they were briefly melee Hunters… including my original main.
I got Galecaller yesterday and the SV Hunter in the group begged for it, offering me 200k gold on his server; it was very satisfying to say “no”. Galecaller is a great trinket for MM too.
I’m less concerned about the playstyle ramifications as I am about the fact that it’s just lifting stuff from BM. When they changed Survival to Melee the primary argument was that it was too similar to Marksmanship on a thematic level, even if all the abiliites were different. Now SV has BM’s signature Kill Command (as a focus dump), the cooldown (Coordinated Assault is essentially a retooled Bestial Wrath), and an old talent (Spirit Bond), and all specifically because it is melee. If it tries to move away from the pet aspects you end up with something that is just a slightly different Warrior. People act like a 3rd ranged spec is thematically unviable when going melee has led directly to this mess.
The best solution for everyone IMO is to have a Gladiator-style talent for BM that makes it melee optionally, i.e. switches out ranged stuff for melee stuff (e.g. Cobra Shot => Raptor Strike, Barbed Shot => Lacerate, Multi-Shot => Carve) for a sizable damage boost. The problem there is a) balancing it (making it neither mandatory nor useless) and b) figuring out what to do with ranged-only talents like Chimera Shot and Barrage. But at least it would be consistent.
It was a major upgrade for me and probably one of my BiS too. I very much needed it. So I would have declined ~200k, especially since he was on a different server and it would be stuck behind a transfer. Plus, one of the very best trinkets at one of the highest possible item levels is worth a lot more than 200k; go look at what some mythic BoEs go for. His being Survival just made it a lot easier to decline.
I feel like Survival could be made full ranged via talent choices without too much difficulty. Easier than a Melee BM anyways. I ran a M+ with a SV hunter running crows and chakrams last night. Their damage was miserable, but they were ranged 75% of the time.
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