I dont hate melee survival. I have played it as an alt in legion, BfA, SL ect. I played it when it was dumpster and OP. I have seen the value in it. But, there is a lot fundamentally lacking in the spec. There doesnt seem to be a clear idea or direction of what the spec is.
Its melee, but ranged, but mid ranged, and ranged sometimes. It has a pet, and pet abilities, but a few, and two melee attacks, but its a melee. It throws grenades. It has a pocket crossbow for poisons. Its mastery only affects focus spenders for you and your pet. But a lot of your damage comes from your focus generators and grenades. The spec is all over the place. And the talent trees dont make sense for it. It even has Arcane Shot and Steady Shot, which require a ranged weapon, so cannot be used by survival. But they have those abilities.
And looking at statistics, it is one of the least played, if not the least played specs in all forms of content. As with everything in the game, there are pockets of players who are die hard for it. Survival needs help or a full re-work.
It almost feels like 4 different people developed Survival. But they each only developed it by themselves for 1/4 the time. And couldnt work as a team on it. Because survival has a bunch of ideas going for it, but none of them are really fleshed out or synergistic.
I mean, I love melee survival. Although not as much in this expac because it is kind of button bloaty. But I like the fantasy. If anything Survival hunters should get dual wielding like Rexxar or other famous fantasy rangers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a melee ranger fantasy that has existed in fantasy games for decades.
Itâs not played very much because itâs kind of underperforming. Of course, I hope they keep giving it buffs because Survival actually secretly pumps and the more buffs they give it means I can use it to be OP for a while.
Survival needs to lose any sense of auto attack mechanics / abilities in the rotation. (The pet can do that, and maybe make micromanaging pets more of the rotation too)
I think thatâs a cool idea, to give Hunter a tank spec, where your beast holds aggro. Would take building pet commands into your actual skills, but i think that would be a fun rework.
As much as I like survivalâs style - except the pet, which I think doesnât really fit -, I think the melee spec should have been BM.
Havenât played survival yet this expansion, and did not play the game during memelands, but I can say that Legion and BFA survival were cool, in a way. Just seemed like they did not have much going for them in respect to rotational abilities.
Survival, to me, should have been the cowboy/bounty hunter spec. Master of traps and elemental(explosive) damage. While marksman remained the ultra-range physical-damage focused, with emphasis on bleed, maybe a bit of poison.
If you want a ranged survival hunter then I suggest we look at a 4th spec. I know that just means more balancing issues but as a long time hunter player I will admit I enjoy the melee spec a ton. I just wish they would give us back dual wield
It does need significant tuning however, including their mastery, which we screamed about on beta and got ignored about.
A stat should not be a dps loss.
We begged the Hunter dev to please redesign the Survival Mastery because like 12 other specs had their masteries redesigned and they said no because they donât have time.
You tend to do this a lot and it comes across as argumentative. I said that âit has run its course in my opinionâ. Instead of posting that you disagree, I think X is fine/bad, You simply say âNo it hasntâ. As if you are stating facts rather opinions.
Survival has been the least played spec since it was changed from ranged to melee. Based on the information available, Survival had two M+ seasons where it was popular and 1 raid tier since it was implemented in Legion in PvE. In PvP it fared much better, but it still was under played. The information would be io scores and keys ran. Raid logs. PvP rankings.
My opinion is that the spec needs a lot more than tuning. It needs a re-design. Either for melee, or Ranged.
My issues I have with melee are as I have said. The spec is all over the place, with no real direction or rhyme or reason. It is a melee spec with 2 to 3 melee abilities. It is a pet spec with 1 to 2 pet abilities. It is a mid ranged spec with 1 ability. It is a ranged spec with 1 talented ability and 2 abilities that dont work with the weapon type survival uses. And it is a 3/4 ranged spec during a CD. It has a mastery that is a DPS loss stat as you mentioned.
For me, as I said previously, Survival feels like it was designed by 3 or 4 different people, who didnt work together on the spec. There is just a large lack of cohesiveness to the spec.
I personally think making survival ranged again, and giving the hunter spec that 3rd ranged spec, would be better. Also when stacked up against the other Melee specs in the game, Survival as Melee, either needs to do S+ tier dmg as it doesnt have much utility or survivability, or it needs to be given some good utility back.
And last⌠on a Survival Doomer Note: Survival still has arcane and steady shot in its spell book. They have abilities right now which require a ranged weapon to use. Why are they still there? Leaving them there is confusing for newer players, and it just feels to me like this was a discussion
âHey should we remove arcane shot and steady shot from the Survival Spellbook.â
âWhat those are still in there?â
âYea and they still require a ranged weapon to use.â
âEhh, dont bother. No one will use them anyway, and its not worth the time to remove them anyway.â
Im just happy that you stated outright that people will play the best performing spec. For years, people just kept saying ânobody wants melee survivalâ âpeople would play survival if it were ranged againâ etc.
No. They just want to play OP specs and be carried.
The issue is def with survival fluidity tho. Itâs clunky, has been, will be. It was enjoyable in BFA to maintain permanent uptime on your buff, but it was still a clunkfest.,
I feel like the same people complaining about the melee redesign of Survival are the same players that complain about Holy no longer being a healer in plate for no reason standing 40 yards behind the group.
Except I played Melee Survival. Both in Legion and in BfA. I got AoTC on my hunter playing survival and pugging in 8.0. I have played it in SL too. I have really tried it. But, it was only largely played when it was OP. And even then, people said it didnt feel good to play, it was just spamming bombs.
I donât get why people think Rexxar is the messiah of the Hunter class.
Heâs a second-rate side character that makes for a good poster.
SV to me just feels like Arms but theyâve substituted being an actual Warrior with getting to have a pet. I wish theyâd go all in on bombs and traps.
I refuse to ever touch surv again after the melee switchover. I hate melee in WoW. I didnât roll the bow icon to play melee. Thereâs 30 million other melee classes. We lost a burst DoT hybrid spec toâŚblah blah Rexxar fantasy.
Melee hunter is cool and has a place. In concept. Why take a spec away for it?
If they keep surv as it is, they need to reintroduce the old gameplay as a new elemental archer spec or something. Being stuck between current Marks and BM sucks.
