Survival changes are mostly destructive to the core of the spec

In Development The War Within Patch 11.0.5 PTR
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Continuing the discussion from 20th Anniversary Update PTR Development Notes:

Ruthless Marauder change is bad. Nobody wants haste…it’s our lowest priority stat. Removing bomb cooldown and crit damage bonus in favor of Tip stacks is also bad. Only buff here is making it a 1 talent choice.

Merciless Blows change is devastating for cleave when coupled with the cooldown change to Butchery.

Fury of the eagle going from 4 to 3 seconds along with the damage increase is good as long as the player doesn’t get CC’d in any way and ruins the entire cooldown. The biggest positive change you could have made here was make us immune to certain CC while channeling.

Kill Command resets no longer reducing the cooldown on Fury of the Eagle…not sure why this needs to happen? I personally just line it up with Coordinated Assault anyway.

Butchery changes are completely uncalled for and maybe the worst change listed here. Currently, Butchery is absolutely required for lowering bomb cooldowns. Changing it to 15 seconds will make that a complete non-factor. Also, Symphonic Arsenal in the Sentinel tree depends on Butchery spam to function. Symphonic Arsenal ends up being around 5% of my dps after a dungeon run. Decreasing the proc by that extent means Symphonic Arsenal needs to be completely reworked.

Ranger and Terms of Engagement swapping positions…why? Terms of Engagement is a vital mobility talent for Survival. Swapping it to the other side of the tree and much lower on the tree doesn’t make sense, especially for a low level player. I don’t believe it makes much difference once we have all of our points allocated, as I end up picking up both anyway, which still makes me wonder why this is even a thing.

Survival is currently in one of the best states it has ever been in since going to a melee spec. Yes, it could use some tweaks, especially Pack Leader, but fundamentally changing the base rotation like this makes zero sense, especially so far into the season.

Overall, it looks like a massive nerf to our AOE, especially when going Sentinel. Dungeon AOE is our main niche and these changes will really hurt us in that regard without doing anything, from what I can tell, to buff our single target.

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and survival is mostly destructive to the core of the class…

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What are you talking about? Is this some juvenile attempt at derailing the topic?

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no i’m just saying that Melee welding Survival is not part of the class fantasy for a hunter that should be RANGED… and frankly its been at the top of the charts to long…maybe time for it to have its knee’s kicked out from under it and another hunter spec rise

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Oh come on. By this point melee survival has been around for almost 10 years.

To the op: I think the issue is you can’t have your cake and eat them too. They’re trying holistic changes and it’s easy to take them in a vacuum as good or bad, but they’re looking at larger changes here. The butchery one is the biggest offender, especially since as you mentioned they have long since used the charges of butchery within other talents.

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Are you a child? Rexxar has been in Warcraft since before WoW even existed.

And Survival being “at the top of the charts for to long”? I assume you meant “too long”…is just factually incorrect.

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i’m aware of how long its been around i railed against then and i continue to be unconvinced by its dominance in mythic+ and on the mythic tiers. i continue to hope for its relegation to C tier

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Although I’m vociferously not fan of melee Survival and Blizzard’s removal of a play style/ranged spec out of the game, it’s here now to stay.

Let’s give constructive feedback instead, and not muddle the conversation.

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Troll somewhere else. That’s not what this thread or In Development section is for.

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Just imagine having 2 ranged specs and seeing a problem in another one being melee plus completely different spells, animations, rotation, fantasy class and plus beinc canonic.
This is completely absurd and i laugh hard every single time i watch someone saying this about melee hunter, pathetic

Fun fact is that survival CRUSHS apart the other 2 specs in the fun aspect every single season

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I personally really liked the Butchery - > Bomb gameplay loop and this change is getting rid of that for no reason. This was the fun aspect of Survival to me and others. Keep the Merciless Blows Butchery bleed - that’s fine, having to weave RS/MB in between Butchery took some getting use to but was clunky and it was my primary feedback for the current live patch. I just want my charges and positive feedback loop back and as you mention, it kind of ruins Symphonic Arsenal to an extent.

On that note, perhaps they move Lunar storm to Butchery cause now having to hold bombs for lunar storm will be even more clunky.

On PTR, the 15s Butchery is okay I guess, just feels like what made Survival fun was removed. I won’t be surprised if they add Carve back and we’re right back where we were in SL or earlier choosing between the two. You throw less bombs and have to use MB as a filler more which is kind of meh but I see what they’re trying to do.

FoTE change is good. Ruthless Marauder change is a start I guess to make up for a 3s channel with some haste. It’s better than what it was - the points were never worth investing in and 35 - > 50% was weird. Kill Command not reducing FoTE is another change I’m neutral on, it’s not bad but not great either. Having a predictable CD isn’t inherently bad.

I’m still waiting on Pack Leader to have a proper defensive cause Den Recovery is so weak and isn’t a defensive compared to any other hero tree.

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Exactly. We just got rid of so much clunkiness that was in the spec and it plays smoother and more fun than it ever has. Now we are going right back to a mess again.

As far as Butchery goes, instead of a bleed, it could just apply Serpent Sting to all affected enemies, but I guess they want more synergy with other bleed talents.

I’ll try to get into the PTR and test for myself.

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Why would you make these changes?

Ruthless Marauder currently gives Fury of the Eagle amazing synergy with Spearhead and Deadly Duo, giving us bigger crits from Fury of the Eagle, as well as with Flanking Strike and Exposed Flank, giving us more frequent use of Flanking Strike which gives us more uptime on cleaves from Kill Command.

Your proposed changes quite literally destroy every bit of synergy Fury of the Eagle has with the rest of the spec and replace it with a consolation prize of some Haste and more stacks of Tip of the Spear that we don’t need.

Please repeal these changes and go back to the drawing board. This is a huge step in the wrong direction.

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Just logged on to the PTR and …oh boy…these changes are even worse than I imagined. Roughly half the time in AOE situations, none of our AOE is available. Everything is on such a massive cooldown that we are just standing there using raptor/mongoose since we can’t even count on Kill Command being up.

This spec is 100% dead if the changes, especially for Butchery, go through.

I have been maining Survival since Shadowlands Season 1 and can’t believe the spec has got nerfed to this extent.

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You never play Ruthless Marauder with Spearhead. One is strictly single-target and the other is only valuable on AoE. You do not run Fury of the Eagle on single target and you DEFINITELY don’t run Ruthless Marauder on single target.

The changes are a good step in the right direction and overall better for the health of the spec.

There was too much going on in AoE situations, which was frequently brought up through the entire beta cycle. Fury of the Eagle never truly had room to breathe with Kill Command->Bomb->Butchery->Raptor Strike loop worked. Ruthless Marauder would overcap your bombs consistently while the rest of your abilities would become capped on charges or you would cap your focus. The opportunity cost was too high.

This is such an exaggerated statement that I don’t know where to begin. If you’ve been maining Survival this long, you should understand the current pitfalls with the spec. There is TOO much going on.

You aren’t just standing around and you DEFINITELY are not standing around as Pack Leader. There is a talent where Wildfire Bomb reduces the cooldown of Butchery; try it.

It’s a different playstyle and it’s not inherently bad just because it’s different. Change can be good. Butchery and Merciless Blow do a LOT of damage.

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There isn’t currently “too much going on”. If you feel that way, it’s because you spec’d into “too much”.

I have no interest in playing Pack Leader. My comments are based on the core of the spec and how it plays with Sentinel.

They are more than welcome to adjust Pack Leader talents all day long without screwing over the other option.

Merciless Blow did just under 14% of overall dps in my testing, not nearly enough to make up for the absolutely massive nerf to Bomb, the dot from Bomb, less Butcheries, and a whopping 80%+ nerf to Symphonic Arsenal.

My complaint isn’t “durrrr change is bad”. My complain is the spec was playing the best it had ever played. We went through months of testing and feedback in Beta to get it to where it was, and it was all for nothing. It was all completely thrown out the window for this clunky mess.

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No, it’s not because I’m spec’d into too much. It’s because there is too much going on. This was feedback provided throughout the entirety of beta and is still being provided. This isn’t an opinion, it’s just how the spec is currently. You should realize this.

Why are you even providing feedback if you won’t play every option available to you? Do you not realize how ridiculous it sounds if you ignore an entire hero tree that works with the changes that just happened?

We went through months of testing and feedback to improve the spec. The spec can still be improved, hence the changes.

It’s a bit odd to be so exaggatory. What was thrown out the window? How is it a clunky mess? You just said you were standing around and weren’t bloated with GCD’s. How is this clunky? It’s the opposite.

The spec is currently clunky in AoE. There is too much going on between Butchery/Wildfire Bomb/Merciless Blows/Kill Command. It isn’t even optimal to run Fury of the Eagle with the opportunity cost it comes with. How is this thrown out the window? The design wasn’t working. It gets improved to make it work.

I don’t know what you are doing for “testing” purposes but I would love to hear it.

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I ignored Pack Leader because it was anywhere from 20-30% behind Sentinel. I did play it some, but it was a horribly undertuned. Was I supposed to keep playing it, despite how bad it was, just to make an argument on a forum instead of getting results in the game?

IMO, current survival is absolutely not bloated at all. It is a fun and exciting spec that always has something productive to do.

Maybe your reflexes are just too slow? In that case, try to change out all your haste gear so your GCD is slower. Not even joking.

Also, you won’t stop harping on Merciless Blows. I don’t even use Merciless Blows as that talent is just clutter for the Sentinel rotation. Like I said, you spec’d into too much and overburdened yourself with button bloat.

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Acting like an expert against someone who is clearly better at the spec and understands it better is truly a forums moment thanks for the chuckle

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That is terrible feedback - an extra DoT goes much further with our other talents.