I guess I view it as the same thing? I just don’t enjoy playing a class that nearly dies to standard unavoidable damage mechanics.
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Wouldn’t that just be an argument to make it ranged? I think a tank would be a very poor fit for the Hunter class.
More popular than any prior patch since Legion, more like it. Before Legion there were patches where SV was the most popular spec in the whole game.
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from a purely do no content view point its unlimited stealth. sneaking around is the best
I feel like survival hunter is like going to Redlobster and ordering a hamburger. Can you do it? Does it taste good? Probably. But why not go to an actual burger joint instead?
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Interesting take. Thanks.
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I play both. Why is that not an option or consideration? Why does it have to be one or the other?
Just because it’s got a melee spec doesn’t mean you have to compare it to Rogues.
That’s like asking Enhancement Shamans “why not SV Hunter?”
SV is fun and fast enough paced to keep things interesting with a neat tool kit and abilities. Things could be tweaked, yeah, but that can be said for any class. My first Hunter I made was a SV Hunter back in Wrath when it was 50/50 melee/ranged.
I welcome the melee Hunter spec. But if we look at it, how many of its abilities are actually “melee” and ranged for melee? You’re dealing damage with a weapon that’s a pole arm instead of a gun/bow. But aside from that, you’ve got ranged abilities for the most part.
Jumping in an out with your pet and having ranged abilities and melee base attacks just feels good all the way around in my mind. I welcome it.
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That is the purpose of these topics. He wants to know why the players that only play it as an alt, why it’s not their main. And he wants to know why those who don’t play it at all, why that is the case.
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That is the premise of OP. The question doesnt revolve around either or, but statistically, for the majority of 3 expansions SV hunter has been virtually unplayed, despite melee dps being exceedingly popular.
Hunter forumgoers like to speculate as to why that is, but I wanted to ask melee forumgoers why (if they do have an SV alt) they don’t play their SV alt… because statistically speaking— they dont.
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The premise of the thread is why people don’t play Survival Hunters. That’s literally the title.
Statistically, they do. There’s just a bad community perception about them so they’re not really taken on high end game content.
It’s that simple. If it’s not meta, the community thinks it’s not viable
For most of the expansion, while the other 2 specs have been played in the thousands, SV has been played in the hundreds.
SV has been woefully under represented. So statistically they are not played. Almost at all.
Yes, people who play SV love SV, and play it despite being a melee in a class with no other melee options and no other role options (like tank or heal). They play it despite being a melee DPS with no unique utility unlike all other melee DPS except enhance shaman and feral druid (which both have better representation than SV hunter).
However, a LOT of people, presumed to be the target audience of SV changes, just don’t play the spec. This is often used as an argument to revert those changes. I could probably link 5 hunter forums posts (mostly from Dawnspirit-wyrmrest-accord) making a forums record of the accurate SV player numbers in comparison to other low-representation specs… but I won’t do that because it’s not important. I’m not trying to convince anyone that SV is under-represented. I’m trying to invite non-hunters who prefer not to play SV hunter (for reasons other than perception) to the conversation.
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This would be equivalent to asking me to speak up on behalf of Mages. I do not like mages. I do not play mages. I don’t care how good their numbers are, I don’t enjoy it so I don’t play it.
A lot of people feel that way about melee as it is. And most people who play Hunter do so for the ranged aspect of it.
I mean if we go based off of:
Could be said for Enhancement in the Shaman class
Feral in the Druid class
Mistweaver in the Monk class
Sub Rogues S1, Outlaw Rogues S2-S3
So on and so forth. SV is going to get a giant boost here in 9.2 in terms of popularity thanks to the tier sets + double legendaries.
Things shift and move around all the time. Both Feral and SV were not high contenders in PvE but kings in PvP.
This thread is “you’re playing melee, why aren’t you playing SV Hunter as your main!?”
Some people are. Some people aren’t. But they’ve got the same problem Feral does. The other specs have the same utility, higher damage, and the perks of being ranged (which fits meta).
Welcome to every spec that doesn’t fit the meta
Is not the same or equivalent to
From the original post.
Edit: If what you dont like about SV is that it isnt meta (even if it has been top m+ AoE DPS all expansion) that is a very valuable response. Otherwise, this might as well be asked on the hunter forums because we are just speculating as to why other people dont play it, which is the usual conversation.
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You don’t really read through the Rogue forums do you. There’s plenty of complaints.
Not liking something because it isn’t #1 is not considered a valuable response. Valued responses would be one talking about strengths and weaknesses and how to bring it up or down accordingly to be balanced with other classes/specs.
So why aren’t you on every class forum asking about every single spec then? Why is it solely SV Hunters?
To review the purpose of these threads,
I have gone to a number of forums for melee classes (specifically the ones that arent also healer classes, but including warriors and DKs which have tank specs) to ask melee DPS players what it is about hunter’s melee spec that they dont like, because it is a fact that melee players dont play SV hunter (even as an alt) statistically, despite it being melee. This is a conversation that has been beaten to death by hunters who like or dont like the spec, and play or dont play the spec based almost entirely on hating melee or not hating melee. The value of this thread and the others like it on the other forums is being able to get the opinions of people for whom melee isn’t the reason.
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I love rogue and I love mm hunter survival just feels clunky compared to rogue on gcd and it’s has quite a ton of keybinds to map out over the other two hunter specs. Not saying it’s difficult, just that it doesn’t feel good compared to rogue in melee and feels okay not amazing at range compared to mm.
He’s not implying it has to be one or the other. He’s asking melee players why they don’t play Survival because, in case you haven’t noticed, melee Survival has consistently been one of the least popular specs in the game (in fact often dead last place). It’s not just Hunter players that are avoiding it; melee players aren’t picking it up en masse either.
He did actually make this thread on the Warrior forums as well. Not sure what you’re trying to argue with this statement. This isn’t specific to Rogues.
SV in WotLK was thoroughly a ranged spec. There was in fact a minimum range where you couldn’t use ranged attacks but this was a handicap; you were thoroughly gimped if you spent time in melee range. The spec had Explosive Shot and Black Arrow. You could force a Lock and Load proc by running into melee and dropping a trap but you had to get out ASAP (after all, Lock and Load gave you free Explosive Shots which had a minimum range). Describing the spec as 50/50 melee/ranged is missing the mark by far. It’s not even a good description for classic SV which didn’t have Explosive Shot.
Statistically they do not. Were you really under the impression that Survival’s popularity is just perception and that it’s actually a widely played spec?
Here is some data from earlier this expansion. This isn’t just a Shadowlands anomaly either; here you can see it was consistently unpopular throughout Legion and BFA as well (the big drop off on that graph is patch 6.2 in WoD where they gutted the former ranged SV and it hasn’t ever recovered).
Even other off-meta specs typically see much better representation than Survival.
No other spec is as consistently unpopular as Survival. Every spec will struggle when it’s far behind in damage but they will also typically see seasons of better representation. Throughout BFA Subtlety was behind Survival in raid representation but then it picked up in SL. Survival never really moves beyond “extremely low” representation and is often dead last.
It might, but it’s not like this is the first time Survival has done good damage. In early BFA during Uldir SV actually had the highest single target damage in the game and extremely good AoE. It saw some increase in representation and actually surpassed Marksmanship (which fell to nearly last place in that patch on account to being a mostly nonfunctional and unviable spec… on account of most of their BFA Hunter development being spent on the Survival rework), but it was still one of the least popular specs and fell off quickly after Uldir.
If Survival needs to be unquestionably one of the best performing specs in the game if not the best just to be an unpopular spec but not dead last as it usually is, clearly there’s something more pressing that’s keeping people away from the spec and it’s worth exploring what that is. We can’t keep pretending that everything’s normal and fine with Survival and it’s just like any other spec. It’s had a very different and controversial history to any other spec and the barriers keeping people from playing it are a lot more formidable and varied beyond just “performance”.
Of course, the entire community knows the real reason Survival is so unpopular, but they collectively minimise and ignore it because admitting it would mean that the largest single spec rework ever was a mistake and all the pride that Blizzard and the community staked on it was misplaced.
Things shift and move around all the time. Both Feral and SV were not high contenders in PvE but kings in PvP.
Nice not-so-subtle addition of the “as your main” qualifier here. Mawthorne did not say that. In fact the original post even asks if you have an SV alt.
You’re trying to steer this thread in a direction it never intended to take. It’s just asking why Rogues aren’t playing Survival because, as a matter of fact, even most melee players don’t play Survival and the rework of Survival into a melee spec was explicitly meant to appeal and reach out to melee players at the expense of existing Hunter mains.
Some people are. Some people aren’t. But they’ve got the same problem Feral does. The other specs have the same utility, higher damage, and the perks of being ranged (which fits meta).
He literally did ask this question on the Warrior and Death Knight forums as well.
I’m not even sure where you’re trying to go with these arguments at this point. You’re just making up grievances against the OP and attacking them.
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Just wanted to point out that this isnt my quote.
Enhance Shamans and Ferals are right up there with SV hunters as well. The biggest problem is having specs in the same class that bring the same utility, but have the perk of being Ranged as well. That’s the killer for all melee, is they’re not ranged. Ferals have Boomkins, Enhance has Elemental, and SV has both MM and BM.
That’s the main reason.
Right, I saw the Warrior one, but didn’t see the one in Shaman. The point being was: not everyone who plays a melee is AVOIDING SV for any specific reason. Some people just have a fancy to certain classes. Dual wielding 2handed weapons is a big class fantasy to some people. Just like some people only play mages, or only play Druids. It’s not because SV is bad or underperforming. It’s simply they have no interest to play another class.
The threads of “why not SV hunter” is implying people are avoiding them for specific reasons and choosing other melee specs for fundamental reasons when it could simply be: don’t like mail classes. Prefer plate look.
And those numbers are 2 months after the expansion started (over a year ago)…And have not been updated since. Find something a little more relevant and we can discuss the representation then.
I skipped most of WoD so I can’t speak on that. But I do know the change to melee is what killed it for a lot of folks. Not their performance, but simply the fact that it became a melee spec and lots of folks don’t like melee (like me, I don’t like ranged specs).
Feral would like to have a word with you.
Tying this back to it being melee. Most people who played Survival Hunter did so for when it was ranged and preferred it that way. And as you said, it’s never truly recovered from that point on.
Agreed. And this is again IMO, largely due to the fact it moved to a melee spot. Melee is not favored in M+, even in raids ranged take priority. And in SL, it didn’t start off on a good footing. Why play a melee hunter when your counterpart (either of the other specs) are meta and perform so much better. Feral dealt, and still deals, with this exact problem.
I dunno. Survival is my favorite hunter spec. Only reason I don’t main it is because 1) Nothing beats the utility of Druid (plus I can swap between Feral and Guardian), and 2) I’m focusing on tanking in 9.2 and working on a Warrior, 3) I don’t have the time to keep 3 characters fully up to date and be geared and ready to go. I got 3 toons KSM last season and that was a hassle (especially since I took a break in 9.0 and 9.1 and had to play major catch up).
Now the Hunter community sees Survivals rework as a major mistake, and I played Survival in MoP and I loved that version of it (I just really enjoyed Black Arrow), and I agree, it’s a major shock going from that to the Melee version it is now. There was absolutely nothing wrong with 3 ranged specs for Hunter (look at Mages and Rogues for example). And the change pissed off the majority of Survival Hunters at the time.
Do I think it’s as bad as everyone makes it out to be? No, but I’m also biased and prefer melee > ranged, so I like the current SV playstyle.
Because they want to play Rogues. I thought that was evident?
My point is, we can make the same argument for any spec that’s not currently meta right now. Why the focus on SV. I literally put the point in as a question that you quoted.
Yeah that’s mine lol I was gonna say.
And the reason I added “main” to that is because:
he claimed that those who play SV don’t do it as alts.
No. I said, even if many melee fans do have SV alts, they dont play them because of the hunters participating with covenant features, very few were SV.
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Meaning if you’re not playing it as an alt (because you said if you have an SV alt you’re not playing it), the only ones playing SV would be those who main it.