I’m checking the other class forums to ask your experiences and opinions on the Survival Hunter. Why don’t you have an SV hunter? If you do, why dont you play it?
The hunter forums can be a bit of an echo chamber, so getting the opinion of people who obviously like melee would be helpful to the discussion.
Because surv is still more of a ranged spec with its focus on bombs and serpent sting being ranged instead of a poison applied to their weapon. If it were more like a warrior with a pet, I’d be playing it right now.
Also yeah: Hunter forum is the worst class forum.
I’ve been playing survival as an alt for about a month now, and I’ve been enjoying it. The nessingwary’s trapping apparatus build is stupid and annoying, but I enjoy the wildfire infusion build. Pretty much the play style in single target involves setting up for your next bomb, which is nice because it’s not as repetitive as some other spec’s rotations. In aoe it feels super hectic, even though it is survival’s strength. That rotation is mostly pumping out as many bombs as possible and dotting up targets in between. The main annoying thing about this is that if there’s a priority target or one with an important cast you have to interrupt (like the big robots in spires) it can be tough to get switched back over to it in time.
Honestly I think it’s a fun spec, but it does suffer from a lot of bad community perception, and the fact that it destroyed a popular spec when it was created made a lot of people very understandably angry. Like Enzil said I think it would be better as a more warrior type spec since a lot of its abilities can be used from range which makes it feel weird sometimes. I did start playing it because I liked the idea of a spec where I could fight side by side with my irl dog, but it didn’t quite live up to that for a few different reasons.
I enjoyed the old ranged Survival spec, I never asked for a melee conversion of the spec. If I were to play my Hunter, it will be as Beast Mastery.
Also, having two strong ranged specs, but choosing to hang in melee in Raids, is frankly annoying, when they offer nothing really unique. At least it is a great spec in M+.
I can’t agree more with you man. Even with facts they are delusional.
The only hunter spec I play now is survival. A lot more fun than mm or bm IMO. But I’m not a ranged fan. Feral is really the only druid spec I’ll play for the same reasons.
What facts do you have for us?
They’re like a bunch of jilted lovers who can’t get over being dumped six years ago.
Yeah… har har. We are bad. Im kinda more just interested in what non-hunters have to say about the spec. It isnt designed to cater to ranged DPS enthusiasts, and yet doesnt attract very many melee enthusiasts as well (if covenant participation numbers are to be believed) so Im trying to determine why.
I played Survival back in Legion and in all honestly, I enjoyed the Legion version of the Melee Hunter Spec then them adding a few ranged abilities later on.
If they kept it strictly a melee spec and expanded the tool kit that way, my Hunter Alt would have stayed Survival.
Does a lot of damage in keys… but so do the other hunter specs.
You’re basically opting into melee without really gaining anything for it, and there’s already other melee specs that bring more utility, more damage, or more survival (go figure) than Survival hunters. Aside from the fun factor, there just isn’t a practical reason to run it over the alternatives. The same problem applies to Feral druids. Why play Feral when Boomkin is right there?
TBH, the only time I REALLY enjoyed SV was during Wrath with Explosive Shot and Black Arrow I agree with Wagglestorm. We didn’t need another melee spec.
I don’t hate SV by any stretch; it just feels like it slightly lacks ‘punch’ in its core.
It’s still a decently fun spec to me in certain builds, but I slightly preferred the Legion version, and would rather it had been polished --and, ideally, the more fun features of the Legion and BfA/SL version be made baseline.
It also needs at least some unique advantage over the other hunters, imo, even if it’s something as simple as slightly stronger trap utility and/or a party-wide movement speed buff.
:: I’d still rather BM had turned into a pet-synergetic (following up well on what all is unique about one’s pet) hybrid-range spec, rather than RSV getting turned into MSV – or, better yet, Hunter getting a fourth spec.
I love Survival. I find it fun and funny to be a melee Huntard.
Do wish it was a bit better.
FLANKING STRIKE BASELINE PLS!!! Having another melee ability would be nice and make the spec a bit more interesting.
I do dig the bombs.
it’s actually a very simple answer, SV hunters are only good when run in a group, healer, tank, etc…etc… But if you try to pvp it’s a waste of time compared with REAL melee specs like Warrior, DK and a Pally, i never saw the point of making a SV hunter to start with, i’d rather have a healer/tank hunter spec instead !!!
Nice necro
Survival hunter is very strong in M+, but it is very deceptive in calling it a melee class. Same as Enhance shaman right now. The Elementalist Enhance doesn’t really need to be in melee, at least not in the sense that true melee … well, in the sense of Warrior melee range. Seems a lot of classes except warrior have insane melee range.
Nice Necro bump
I found Beeples alt
The design choice they made always confused me. They trialed around with Survival as a melee spec in the WoW alpha but abandoned it, and that’s the only reason I believe they went back to SV to turn it into melee again.
From a logic, lore, and fun standpoint? Beast Mastery should’ve been the pseudo-ranged melee spec instead of SV. Emphasis on one handed axes/swords/daggers. Many abilities focus on melee attacks like raptor/mongoose, while having pet-command abilities feel extra awesome when you’re commanding and fighting alongside these ferocious exotic creatures.
Survival was IMO it’s most fun during Cata-WoD, where they really leaned into the rambo-style fantasy of tipping your bullets/arrows with bombs, poisons, munitions, etc. Specifically during WoD, I recall having so much fun with it in conjuction with Camouflage. Good times. Still have [Exotic Munitions] on my extra action bar, because by removing it, that acknowledges that the good old days are gone :')
But yeah, BM should’ve been the melee spec where you effectively play like Rexxar, throw axes, deal big dmg up close, and fight alongside a devilsaur or corehound for extra awesomeness.
As it currently stands, SV feels like a clouded vision uncertain (still) of what it’s even trying to really be, because ranged SV and a proposed melee BM both fulfill each fantasy of a survivalist and melee hunter better, respectively. Throwing bombs, generically attacking with a 2h, and having a very regular animal beside you is like, the most milquetoast you can get as far as melee goes tbh.