Season 4 Survival Hunter Tier Set Problems and Feedback, CC from Community Council

[Nondriel-living-flame]

@Altani-mannoroth

How is that not “hitting like a truck”?

people on this forum tend to ignore reality sometimes

[Greìl-frostmourne]

@Altani-mannoroth

And… why? S3 forced FotE, at least a point in Ruthless Marauder, and full WFB talents even for ST. Many do not particularly like longish channels, and enjoy their being required for damage windows even less.

Maybe I’ve got some bias with FotE since SV took over as my main alt since legion onwards having since played it in Mythic raid alt runs, M+ and pvp (less so this xpac tier sets and their elite versions haven’t really been good enough look wise for me to bother chasing but that’s another gripe).

FotE’s reintroduction in DF has been nothing short of amazing, having a solid animated attack that does quite a bit of damage in it’s short burst window with minimal set-up especially shines when priority targets need to be nuked in a short interval (think brackenhide’s totem on last boss, FotE shreads it like no tomorrow).

Forced talents into it enabled a shorter cooldown gameplay which was in honesty the best version of SV this xpac so far all due to S3’s tier set bonus.

I never got the complaint about forced talents with tier sets, they are meant to synergise with your spec for a reason, and for them to have actual intuitive tier sets each season that feel unique you need to incorporate talents into the design process as so much that was baseline in specs is now in the talent trees.
If we only alter baseline abilities via talents we’ll stagnate into boring tier set combinations leading to their eventual removal again.

@Altani-mannoroth

On the other hand, S1 at worst reduces KC frequency (and only faintly, in the case of its nerfed state), while doing basically nothing otherwise to the base gameplay since it could as easily end up with a spec-wide aurabuff atop a nerf to base RS, MB, and Butchery damage that then… provides equal or greater AoE damage to S3’s but without as many forced talents.

Another thing as a longtime player of this game, you cannot ever believe that blizzard will balance the way you think they will because they will generally leave classes and specs in the lurch for patches at a time with barely anything added to them in making them compete with the higher end.

SV’s lucky that it’s got some good AoE damage options for S4 in their baseline kit, however the fact that you’re already numerically better in not taking that ilvl jump to the new tier, and losing out on secondary stats, agility and stamina on 4 of the highest budget equipment slots make this community’s awfully thought out choice a massive hinderance to their own playerbase.

Pushing higher keys in your S3 set will be nigh on impossible due to having a lower health pool especially with the sark cloak’s reintroduction to the megarares this season which will provide a further stamina penalty so SV’s going to flop massively in keys.

Gameplay differences as well between S3 and S4 are near non existent outside of their cooldown windows FotE’s shorter cooldown leads to much better flexibility than Spearhead.

[Markelf-zuljin]

If you look at surv’s damage profile on warcraftlogs, it’s as flat as BM was prior to their CoTW rework with CA contributing minor spikes. KS from CA needs to hit harder to justify taking those talent points over 8% more bomb damage for the NoCD build for m+. Even a talent like Mongoose bite needs to hit harder to justify the point to ‘upgrade’ it. It’s pretty much interchangeable with Raptor Strike currently. Like I said, the spec needs to be better tuned so spells hit harder and are worth their weight in talent points.

If I was ignorant of reality, I wouldn’t be complaining. Ignorance is bliss.

[Kimshans-bleeding-hollow]

I’d be really curious if it would be too crazy to just remove the Carve/Butchery choice node altogether replace it with just Butchery, and make the ability just have no CD or charges. Maybe it’s a little too pushed but idk it doesn’t seem too bad since you will just get limited by focus anyways.

[Altani-mannoroth]

@Markelf-zuljin

If you look at surv’s damage profile on warcraftlogs, it’s as flat as BM was prior to their CoTW rework with CA contributing minor spikes. KS from CA needs to hit harder to justify taking those talent points over 8% more bomb damage for the NoCD build for m+.

Except your solution to that is to weigh KS higher…??? Not, say, to revise CA (e.g., to have it instantly inflict a basic pet attack on each enemy struck by WFB/KS, with KS also triggering its current bleed)?

Only about 16% of SV Hunters go for the no-CD build in M+, decreasing as you go up in keys. Birds of Prey is already the norm, taken 95% of the time over Bombardier, with either being taken by 84% of Hunters.

@Markelf-zuljin

If I was ignorant of reality, I wouldn’t be complaining. Ignorance is bliss.

Then you’re just actively misconstruing data or purposely offering unintuitive/less-fit solutions?

[Genkai-azjolnerub]

Thanks for saying it here too strut, we are seriously just looking at such an unfun way to play in s4 going forward.

What we really need is a rework to some of the class talents as well as the multiple point nodes to further allow us to diversify our builds. Why is RM a 2 point talent? Especially if you look at the recent WW rework, many 2 point talents moved to 1, new capstones etc. There’s precedence for this to happen now already with class reworks, however hunter is just not being looked at.

Please blizzard, look at s4 feedback, look at TWW feedback and do something

[Femboye-bleeding-hollow]

@Altani-mannoroth

@Markelf-zuljin

Honestly, I’m pretty tired of aura increases, the spec needs to be rebalanced so spells like Kill Shot hit like a truck and surv’s CD like CA are more meaningful and bursty.

…They do. Every SV CA KS Crit hits for up to, what, 2521.5% AP? Even with nothing but the CA buff itself (no externals, no trinkets, no FotE buff, Chakram, SV aura buff, etc.) and meta talents…

• 278.3x(1+[.5x1.4])x(2+[.25x[1.1x1.4x1.04]])x1.4 Attack Power.

So you’re looking at up to over 9500% AP per CA-buffed KC GCD, with only 4 targets required to reach those heights. …How is that not “hitting like a truck”?

To be fair, unless you actually join the Hunter discord, or specifically look up Survival Hunter videos, or you know… don’t skim the wowhead article, a lot of people that play this specialization do not know how:

1. How Coordinated Assault works
2. How much more valuable Kill Shot is over Bomb empowerment
3. How many of X abilities you can fit into the Coordinated Assault window.
4. And this even branches over to the fact some macros allow you full control over the Coordinated Assault Basic Attacks, too.

IMO, CA needs a rework - I’m happy with the gameplay loop of the new CA compared to BFA/SL which was just a 20% damage multiplier. But, just because I like it doesn’t mean the design behind it is a good one. It should probably just be changed to “While Coordinated Assault is active, your Kill Shot does X, and Wildfire Bomb does X more damage” ← Maybe the bombs can be a fixed NUMBER of bombs during the duration. The issue is, that Kill Shot is infinitely a stronger empowerment compared to Bombs. If you miss a Kill Shot, especially in dungeons, that means you probably just missed 3-4million damage. No exaggeration.

Also, if you want your empowerment, and your pet isn’t next to the target, it can’t basic attack, so you don’t get your empowerment until it travels over and attacks. This just is bad design, because you can lose no joke upwards of 2-3 seconds of your pet just… moving, not getting any empowerment. I understand pet play/pet control is part of Hunter, but not even Warlock gets gibbed this hard.

@Kimshans-bleeding-hollow

I’d be really curious if it would be too crazy to just remove the Carve/Butchery choice node altogether replace it with just Butchery, and make the ability just have no CD or charges. Maybe it’s a little too pushed but idk it doesn’t seem too bad since you will just get limited by focus anyways.

That ain’t happening. I can see Butchery go down 1 - 1.5 second cd, but no cd removal. CA builds drown in focus, you will be able to do a continuous gameplay loop forever of bombing.

[Kimshans-bleeding-hollow]

@Femboye-bleeding-hollow

That ain’t happening. I can see Butchery go down 1 - 1.5 second cd, but no cd removal. CA builds drown in focus, you will be able to do a continuous gameplay loop forever of bombing.

I mean this already pretty much happens in CA anyways right?

Your probably right regardless, but Idk it might make the AOE loop just feel better when you don’t have a set bonus to directly help it.

[Femboye-bleeding-hollow]

It doesn’t. That’s the issue with S1 tier. You eventually run out of charges. Focus is not the issue on AoE with CA. It’s the fact you run out of Butchery’s for 8 seconds at a time, and fall behind extremely hard on AoE because you cannot generate bombs.

This enforces that you Raptor/Mongoose during this time - which is something we already naturally do in the rotation when there is a priority target, but now we’re forced to do it without an option, for elongated amounts of time.

I sadly do not have many recordings of keys from S1 as an example, but if you look up on YouTube/twitch someone who does have vods, you can see that gameplay happens in real-time.

[Kimshans-bleeding-hollow]

Wouldn’t just making Butchery have no CD just sort of fix that issue?

Ultimately I just wonder if throwing out bombs every other GCD is really that bad.

[Zeffiri-moon-guard]

@Celinamuna-area-52

there was 0 reason for anyone to expect it would be un-nerfed version

I’m not even sure a majority of the people voting knew it even got nerfed.

[Leaku-illidan]

@Celinamuna-area-52

there was 0 reason for anyone to expect it would be un-nerfed version

Maybe because Blizzard themselves said they would adjust tier sets? This is from the initial blue post explaining the vote:

Please keep in mind that we’re going to update the power of the set bonuses to match the increased power of the new gear in Season 4, so any bonuses you choose will be tuned to be as strong as any others.

Other specs that voted for previous tier sets got them adjusted to appropriate power levels. Arms and Devastation are great examples. They are using previous sets and they were adjusted to be appropriately strong.

Survival and Balance druids are the opposite. Why are their sets weak and tuned poorly, while Arms and Devastation can get proper tuning?

It’s ridiculous that people in this thread are blaming those that voted and assumed Blizzard would do as they said. Stop blaming the players. It’s Blizzard.

[Femboye-bleeding-hollow]

@Kimshans-bleeding-hollow

Wouldn’t just making Butchery have no CD just sort of fix that issue?

Ultimately I just wonder if throwing out bombs every other GCD is really that bad.

It would be similar to Black Powder spam, but as mentioned before, it potentially breaks the identity of the spec. Then again, it’s been “reworked” 3 times since it became melee in Legion. I am not the dev that would be looking at this, nor do I work for Blizzard.

I can only hope that things align better. I don’t care for Survival to be a high damage/best Hunter spec. I only care that the spec continues to be fun to play.

[Femboye-bleeding-hollow]

@Leaku-illidan

It’s ridiculous that people in this thread are blaming those that voted and assumed Blizzard would do as they said. Stop blaming the players. It’s Blizzard.

Yeah… I don’t know if Blizzard just decided to put all their resources toward TWW after one tuning pass or what, but it’s scary that we’re 1 day away, and still zero communication. It’s a “meme season” so, I won’t be pressed about getting a buff on week 4 or 5, but I will personally be neck deep into Pandaria Remix by then, and the tuning pass would be too late (personally).

Also, Hi Leaku, nice seeing you again. You’re in my most recent YouTube video thumbnail lol <3

[Altani-mannoroth]

@Femboye-bleeding-hollow

This enforces that you Raptor/Mongoose during this time - which is something we already naturally do in the rotation when there is a priority target, but now we’re forced to do it without an option, for elongated amounts of time.

@Femboye-bleeding-hollow

I can only hope that things align better. I don’t care for Survival to be a high damage/best Hunter spec. I only care that the spec continues to be fun to play.

Okay, but how is your AoE being balanced around rarely/never having to do anything beyond AoE being ‘better’ than more individually bursty AoE GCDs and more time for focus damage and utility… anything more than personal preference.

Objectively, having that much less limited of AoE actually makes your options during AoE that much more constrained AND constrains the damage per GCD available to them. And if one personal opinion has the weight of any other, having that unpenalized time for things other than AoE spam feels better than not.

---

That being said…

@Femboye-bleeding-hollow

IMO, CA needs a rework - I’m happy with the gameplay loop of the new CA compared to BFA/SL which was just a 20% damage multiplier. But, just because I like it doesn’t mean the design behind it is a good one. It should probably just be changed to “While Coordinated Assault is active, your Kill Shot does X, and Wildfire Bomb does X more damage” ← Maybe the bombs can be a fixed NUMBER of bombs during the duration. The issue is, that Kill Shot is infinitely a stronger empowerment compared to Bombs. If you miss a Kill Shot, especially in dungeons, that means you probably just missed 3-4million damage. No exaggeration.

Also, if you want your empowerment, and your pet isn’t next to the target, it can’t basic attack, so you don’t get your empowerment until it travels over and attacks. This just is bad design, because you can lose no joke upwards of 2-3 seconds of your pet just… moving, not getting any empowerment. I understand pet play/pet control is part of Hunter, but not even Warlock gets gibbed this hard.

Fully agreed. I mentioned the “Pet instantly uses a basic attack on each enemy struck by your WFB/KS, and KS bleeds the target for 50% additional damage” alternative only because of CA’s namesake encouraging at least something done by the pet. I’m fine with that pet interaction, so long as SV is forced to use a pet anyways; I’m just not okay on being finnickily beholden to our pet in the middle of our burst period.

Alternatively, if we just replaced pet auto-attacks, siphoned that damage over to pet basic attack DPS (via increased damage or, especially, frequency), removed the CD from basic attacks, made Dash a focus-spending toggle with auto-cast functionality, and allowed CA to stack up to 2-3 times, that too would greatly mitigate the issue while improving pet functionality broadly.

• (Though, yes, you’d have to revise certain talents, and it would have implications on Beast Cleave, since you could now toggle the basic attack’s auto-casts to hold for next Multi-shot.)

[Femboye-bleeding-hollow]

@Altani-mannoroth

@Femboye-bleeding-hollow

This enforces that you Raptor/Mongoose during this time - which is something we already naturally do in the rotation when there is a priority target, but now we’re forced to do it without an option, for elongated amounts of time.

Okay, but how is your AoE being balanced around rarely/never having to do anything beyond AoE being ‘better’ than more individually bursty AoE GCDs and more time for focus damage and utility… anything more than personal preference.

Objectively, having that much less limited of AoE actually makes your options during AoE that much more constrained AND constrains the damage per GCD available to them. And if one personal opinion has the weight of any other, having that unpenalized time for things other than AoE spam feels better than not.

I am not endorsing having Butchery being widely available but instead a cool down reduction. It is healthy to have gaps in rotation where you need to change up what you’re doing, which we have with ripping poison injection stacks. Ebb and flow.

What is not healthy, is ripping from 5 targets and still waiting on butchery/bomb. (Can even go to the extreme and say you also did a KC/Flanking during this time too)

[Femboye-bleeding-hollow]

Btw, update: I lucked out and got 4p on hero track, so 512-522 ilvl
Can confirm, I am literally doing less damage than S3 tier.

[Nondriel-living-flame]

@Femboye-bleeding-hollow

Then again, it’s been “reworked” 3 times since it became melee in Legion

No? It was reworked in legion, and then in BfA. The spec’s stayed relatively the same since BfA.

[Bellcreek-zuljin]

Luckily you will get to use it in M+ for the whole season!

[Femboye-bleeding-hollow]

@Nondriel-living-flame

@Femboye-bleeding-hollow

Then again, it’s been “reworked” 3 times since it became melee in Legion

No? It was reworked in legion, and then in BfA. The spec’s stayed relatively the same since BfA.

Legion Melee rework
BFA removal of trap gameplay/caltrops/FotE
DF complete talent rework, FotE/CA rework/Spearhead introduced