I have been testing survival hunter in ptr and I would like to share my comments and observations. Sorry if my english is quite bad as it is not my main language.
I am going to share my observations ordered from highest to lowest priority. This is my point of view and I may be wrong in some remarks I will say below so I would like to hear what you think about it
OBSERVATIONS
1-Increase the focus generation: I can’t even complete monglose bite cycle even if my focus bar is full at 100%. The spec feels slow and clunky… Much worse than BFA. I think this is an urgent matter and it needs to be fixed.
2- Make carve useful: The damage is so low that it is not even worth to use it in most situations.
3- Remove hunter’s mark global cooldown: It is clunky and out of place to use it as survival.
4- Make Mongoose bite baseline: It really feels bad without it. I think mongoose bite adds the uniquess and fun aspect of the spec.
5- Make kill shot usable with ranged weapons: If this is not possible then remove arcane and steady shot. No reason why we should use it.
6- Make steady shot generate focus: Same as above
7- Bonus request: Allow survival hunter to yield dual weapons (one handed) once more: I mean if Blizzard gave 2 handed back to frost death knight, why does hunter can yield dual weapons like it used to in vainilla times?
8- Bonus request: Make flanking strike baseline and move kill command in the talent tree instead: In that way we would be a more melee oriented spec without losing out range capabilities which makes surv hunter unique.
I love suvival hunter I really do but it feels really clunky in PTR and I am quite worried that some specs like shadow priest are receiving good changes and survival hunter has been ignored so far.
I hope blizzard address one of the mentioned requested changes I provided. Please share your opinion if you think that something needs to be improved in our spec or if I am I am missing something.
Note: I shared this topic in the General discussion as well so we can be heard.
Thank you very much for your time and stay strong.
I agree with every one of your ideas for what is needed for Survival to be fixed. Only thing I would like to add is that
Serpent Sting Formula needs to be changed so it works similarly to other Dots. As it currently scales weirdly with Haste in a way that makes it unviable to use after a certain Haste threshold has been reached.
I believe what we have to do now is try and yell loud and clear to blizz as much as we can that our spec is in a dire need for help.
It seems now that the only way to get a response from Blizz is to shout a lot, same way Shadow priests, and arcane mages did.
I hate dual wielding, if they made it a cosmetic only option that would be fine. Most of your post is what people in the hunter discord already wants, we have relayed this to the devs many times so far and have gotten no response. (This includes top SV players such as Thyminde, Urshek, and Avashah who are some of the few people that have completed mythic nyalotha as survival hunter.
Replacing Kill Command with Flanking Strike will make it clunky as hell to use and won’t be fun at all. Steady Shot should not generate focus, instead it should be removed from SV toolkit, it requires a bow to use and we are melee now so its useless. I enjoy both ranged and melee survival, if given the choice I would prefer ranged as a 4th spec instead of making MSV a terrible hybrid of both.
I agree. Look at the priest community, they were yelling so loud in order to get a rework and it was granted finally. I think blizzard is now reading the posts and they are taking actions based on the ideas were set here. It is our chance to tell blizzard what most of us want.
Why would it be clunky? IMO I have always felt weird to use kill command as survival because it belongs to beast mastery. It looks like survival is a “cheap” melee bm hunter because “Kill command” is our only focus generator which is lame.
In my personal fantasy taste, I see survival hunter like a melee fighter who uses bows/guns as an alt weapon and uses the natural environment and different accessories like throwing axes, flare, traps, darts and bombs in order to “survive”
I imagine it being clunky just jumping to your enemy like a rogue teleports behind them, its a cool talent to use but I don’t think it should replace KC. I think they should make a new ability that involves using your pet to replace KC instead of just using a talent.
I think I find it clunky because I am used to spamming KC when targets are out of range and close range at the same time, when you replace it with flanking strike you are jumping to an opponent as a gap closer, how does that fit into the rotation? Would you just continue jumping back into them at close range? It would effectively remove an ability out of the rotation and you would be left with raptor strike, bombs, and carve.
I could honestly just be wrong about that but thats honestly how I feel about it, replacing KC is removing a crucial ability to the rotation, I would rather them create a new SV only ability to replace it.
I love having steady and arcane shot as options to use, even if is not optimal, having a bow and switching weapons is fun for me (im not saying is something that should be that way, or anything, i just like having the option)
I like playing survival as an hybrid mele/range… Using Kill comand from range, wildfire bomb and serpent sting from range (with a bow to shot arcane in between ) is nice
Your point 5 is great!! I would love to have the choice to use KillShot either in melee or range… and it shouldnt be a problem, since we already can use Tranquillizing shot taht is common to all hunters, Killing shot should be common to all hunters and not have a weapon requirement.
SV is not in the best shape, but IMO is in better shape than in BFA
And imagine having a second focus generator with steady shot. It would be amazing using it along with kill shot.
I love being an hybrid melee-range hunter. It is a fantasy that no other class can provide and the closest aproach we have is survival hunter. I think half of our attacks should be performed by a melee weapon and using ranged weapon as an alt (Like link from Zelda BOTW)
To be honest im a bit Scared… i have the feeling that as soon as Blizzard realize that we can play as melee/range they will cut off the options, they wont lets us switch weapons or whatever…
Is a personal feeling and i might be wrong, but everytime i see a class played " on a non conventional way" i see changes on the game to prevent that from happening…
And im really happy with my SV having steady and arcane shot, im happy that i can use binding shot and tranquilizing shot from my bow with out the cossbow animation… But im afraid Blizzard will take the fun away
I dont like that we have many certain things Pet focused, i feel that’s a BM territory… i feel we should focus on traps and not pets, instead of Killcommand we could have a similar skill with a trap…
Dunno, maybe SV will gets his own flavor in 10.0?
Just hope Blizzard dont take away the fun
Survival is focused on pets because without that it literally becomes another Warrior spec. Traps are a nice flavor thing but they can’t really work as the spec’s sole focus.
The spec used to have a unique fantasy before Legion, but with the spec being melee now the “enhanced projectiles” thing doesn’t work anymore.
Just fueling another “no my opinion on melee hunters is better than yours” thread hijack. Some folks on these forums just thrive on searching for likes and attention posting nonsense.
Saw my first ptr dueling vid of survivial hunter, he won’t against most classes. However he did so staying in ranged with a bow 99% of the time.
Now I know in pvp ur usually staying a safe distance and play ranged, however it became obvious that those moments in bfa pvp where u go in and hit ur mongoose bites wherent worth it anymore in pvp due to the focus problem.
Idk how else to explain it and idk if I’m doing it right but anyone who plays Sv in pvp knows what I mean, there’s a def down time in pvp now where u would usually harpoon in and do a mongoose bites.
There’s def. a lot of cool things they can do with survival it’s a unique spec and with all the forums posts there’s def a way to change the talents so that u can play a more melee orientated build or more of a ranged one and still be fine.
With no new classes or races being added anytime in the future blizz has a chance to actually make all specs actually function well. They are very close and most problem specs have gotten some love. I’d say we have a couple months left for us to get some attention or else this is going to look rough
Expansion is out next month, anything that isnt fixed before the pre patch hits live wont be fixed till deep into the expansion…
Changes on the mechanics of class, if not adressed now before expanssion, wont be adressed till 10.0.
I would love for them to pay attention to survival, to let us use Kill shot with ranged weapon… to let us choose if we want to be more melee oriented or more range oriented, to walk away from being pet dependant to be trap or special shots/melee skill dependant… But if i have to be honest, even when SV on ptr looks better than SV on BFA… i have little to 0 hope for this spec to be “fixed” in any way cuz we are already running out of time.
So 10.0 would be our time, maybe