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Im a survival main and I love it too though most the abilities are ranged now compared to the legion version and its survival tool kit is very much meant for kiteing. I love it but I feel like it is still lacking and there 2 ways to fix it.
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Make it ranged and melee can do both effortlessly with the melee weapon be it throwing weapon animation or pocket crossbow or passive aspect of the eagle and make melee bursty in damage and hit 360 degrees around hunter so they can get up close and mess with line of sight with other ranged specs so the spec can choose to kite or melee them based on the situation and foe. This type of playstyle will work better with hunters defensives.
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keep it the same but change the defensives to suit jumping into danger instead of leaping away.
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Of course you exist. Its the best spec atm and all the dwellers here crying about it are using it to stay on their raid team.
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just gonna say, you have a very abnormal talent setup that I would not recommend for any situation. But I can see why you feel this way
What you meaaaaan? I just use the PVP build but I use Murder of Crows instead of Steel trap cause I like using a black raven and its fun.
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What did you play before switching to Survival in Legion?
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Uhhh let us see I played hunter then death knight in Wrath…then DK thru all of Cata…then hunter again then boosted a druid at the end MoP and played Druid thru Warlords then picked up hunter again then was going to play druid again but they took away the saberon form so I decided to stay with hunter into legion then tried monk in BfA and went back to hunter. I had to think out the timeline and type it out and left it in. The answer is Druid and some Hunter.
I played SV Cata-WoD and then SV in Legion for a short time and now i am playing SV again. I still miss ranged SV but i also missed pre-Legion MM and now that we kind of have that back and I find I dont enjoy it like I used to, I wonder if I would enjoy ranged SV or if those days are gone.
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More interested in the OP’s answer before I make a proper response.
He talks about switching to SV in Legion but not what he was switching from; another Hunter spec or another class?
I think current MM with the set bonus is quite a bit different from MM in WoD.
In WoD Aimed Shot was a mobile cast like Steady Shot. So even though it was the primary focus dump you could move while casting it. And when it became the best spec in WoD it had the 4 set that made Aimed Shot an instant cast. The mobility compromise came from Sniper Training which felt more flexible.
Another difference was Aimed Shot didn’t supersede all other priority in the rotation. You still cast Chimera Shot and the T90 talent. In contrast Aimed Shot currently has the absolute highest priority over everything. Here’s a log from our Lords of Dread kill yesterday:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/4XLqk71zByZYpWJc#fight=14&type=damage-done&source=11
Aimed Shot and Wild Spirits (triggered mainly by Aimed Shot) are almost 75% of my damage. Arcane Shot is just under 6% and Rapid Fire is under 4%. I basically only use them as mobility fillers or if I need to spend a bit more focus on Arcane Shot to get Aimed Shot back into 4 set proc range. That feels pretty bad. The whole point of giving Aimed Shot charges in the first place was to prevent this sort of thing.
Old MM was similar in that it was a lot of Aimed Shot spam and there was some RNG in terms of having enough focus for the next Aimed Shot. IIRC Aimed Shot returned focus when you crit so you might have enough focus to cast Aimed Shot again or you might not, just like how now you may have a Vigil proc or not. The difference is that with Aimed Shot being instant cast in T18 you would lose no uptime because of the GCD; you’d have a second of GCD to tell whether or not to cast Aimed Shot again or go into Steady Shot. In the current tier if you don’t get a Vigil Proc you only find out at the end of the cast when the GCD has already expired which means there’s necessarily some small downtime after the Aimed Shot, and that small downtime adds up.
If you want to see how old SV played there are plenty of videos at the time because contrary to incorrect belief it was a popular spec at the time. Here’s me playing it at a time when it was in fact the most represented spec in the game:
Here’s a Survival PoV I found from Siege of Orgrimmar:
The first thing to note is that it’s very fast paced and mobile. No hardcasted physical damage burst like MM. The second thing is that it’s versatile. I linked both these fights because both of them involve the Hunter performing a special role that required a lot of ranged mobility with little ramp-up. Survival’s identity was all about versatility and opportunism and nothing represented that better than being able to fit into any mechanical role like this. Nowadays an SV Hunter just wouldn’t be used on something like this because it’s melee and while it does have a lot of ranged capability it’s still worse than sticking a BM Hunter on it.
Another way to experience ranged SV is playing WotLK classic when it comes out, although having played WotLK recently I think people will be surprised at how much it actually feels like extended Classic. Hunters still have mana, ammo, and pet happiness, for example. Survival was great in WotLK but I’m of the opinion that it fit particularly well with the focus change of Cataclysm. The best expansion for SV was easily MoP where it was a premier and widely-enjoyed spec for the entire expansion. I think it’s unlikely we’ll ever get MoP classic so the only way to directly experience it is via private servers. Those are of course against ToS but they are openly referred to on the classic and BC forums so it seems Blizzard doesn’t actually care that much…
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I definitely think WoD hunters were the pinnacle of the class design and its been downhill since.
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I mained a Ret Pally during WoD, and before that I was a huge alt-o-holic who never really got any one toon up to max. But mostly warriors and hunters that wouldn’t make it past like, level 30 lol! I didn’t like my Pally and I believe he was my free boost from the WoD preorder bonus, so I didn’t even level him, but I say I mained him bc I used him for raiding with my guild at the time. This character is the only one I ever leveled to max. Only one I enjoyed enough lol! This is very interesting stuff, and yes, I never experienced this stuff from back when Surb was ranged, but it looks very cool, I’m not surprised people didn’t like the switch to melee. Perhaps the key lies in giving options? Like being able to choose to use a melee weapon or a ranged, and altering abilities based on that? Best of both worlds.
So do you see the problem here? You talk about your “fellow hunters” and bemoan the fact that most Hunters don’t like the spec, yet you didn’t actually play a Hunter until SV was melee and you came from a melee class. Sure, you think it’s great that Hunters have a melee option and you don’t want to see it removed… but you’re a melee player.
One of the reasons many Hunters don’t like SV is because of this sort of thing; they removed a spec many Hunters like to chase an audience of melee players like you. That, and this so-called “variation” you speak of is just taking the strongest selling point (ranged weapons) away from one of the specs; the one that’s meant to be about resourcefulness, no less. That’s like if they took Stealth away from a Rogue spec to add “variety” in the form of a Rogue that confronts people in the open rather than hiding away. After all, some Warriors might like that idea.
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Yes, I certainly see your point of view, and understand better now why people didn’t like the switch. I think what makes Surv Hunter stand out from other classes though is the reliance on the pet as a resource builder/pocket tank. Which is what I love about it, but yes, I think perhaps they should’ve just added a 4th spec to be melee. All the Survival mains before Legion must’ve been bummed.
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This 
Perfect explanation.
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Also the OP doesn’t seem like they play any endgame content. At all.
It is a good PvP build! And fun is what matters, I am with you. I think the more standard PvE builds tend to create a better flow to everything. But it is an amazing hybrid spec regardless, and you have made it work to your preferred style…and that is glorious!
So as someone whos been a sv main since wotlk, and continues to be one to this day, there have been a lot of things done right with sv, and a lot of things done for the sake of a meme.
Its seems like every iteration of sv gets a few interesting elements and some that just flat out don’t make sense.
In legion there were a lot of things about sv that made sense, it had dots, offensive traps and talents that could give you quite a bit of combinations. WHat didn’t make sense is that none of that mattered because 50% of your dps came from mongoose bite. This wasn’t the worst thing in the world because for the first time ever sv actually had burst dps that was really strong, and an actual spec specific damage cd (no black arrow doesn’t count). The pet synergy even made sense in legion because it helped and supported you on multiple levels.
Then came bfa. They took away the mongoose bite charged system, made sv a basic box generator spender, made aspect of the eagle a generic range extendor for just raptor strike not carve, made flanking strike a weird talent thats never taken it while giving us kill command, making sv feel like melee bm and to add insult to injury the new cd they replaced aspect of the eagle with “coordinated assault” TO THIS DAY has the same visuals as bestial wrath. Wild fire bomb is better than using explosive trap but still it doesn’t make up for the fact that we now have to talent into serpent spread, and sv has no interesting baseline synergy between abilities or good passive.
The talents are nice but many of them seen like they need to be baseline.
And then 9.2 came and this freaking tier set was introduced. Like as someone who mained sv before it become this fotm mess, that tier set is the literal worst thing they have ever introduced for sv. Yeah its strong and the procs are ok but the problem is that it revolves around KILL COMMAND. Why for the love of all that is focus would KILL COMMAND resets be how it procs? The synergy with pheromone bomb is nice but the mismanagement of resources is horrible and the fact that it doesn’t give a charge, only gives a buff that lets it not incur a cd is problematic as well. Like they could have used focus spent, they could have use tics of serpent sting so that hydras bite becomes a strong go too but no they had to use kill command resets and honestly, it sorta killed my enjoyment of the spec for this tier and i was so exited for double legendary because venthyr sv is really fun.
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Not really anymore, no. I raided in BfA, but I stopped around the time Shadowlands came out because of IRL stuff. I’m much more casual now. I’m really glad to hear these different opinions, especially from the people who have been playing survival much longer than I! This has opened my eyes a lot, I think I really understand the frustration better now. I think maybe they should just have 4 specs for hunter, bring back old Survival for the people who enjoyed that, and make a fourth, new spec for people who enjoy melee with the pet dynamic. I agree that it’s not fair to the old Surv mains that they took the entire spec away to appease melee lovers like myself.
I personally play hunter because i like bows\rangers idea.
However survival just feels so much better to play than MM and BM. The grenades, steel trap, tons of toolkit and utility. I am more jealous of survival as a MM player.
Survival at the moment i think is a great spec and im fine with them leaving it as is as long as they actually make MM a good spec\rework it.
After they pruned MM in post legion they never reworked it and its been bad ever since.
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i unsubbed back when sv was considered bottom of the barrel; what did sv get that makes it so good now?
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