Survival feels absolutely horrible in keys at the moment speaking from a mid-high end key enjoyer (2940 last patch, currently 2975 in S2 through pugging).
Last season Surv went through a couple of iterations from launch, to the initial patches tweaking some things but when the anniversary patch came in it felt like surv had really hit its stride.
The playstyle of spinning several plates was engaging and fun, the balance of not overcapping Wildfire bombs, not starving yourself of Kill Command charges to keep generating and spending your Tip of the Spear stacks created a fun and engaging gameplay.
The most iconic thing of Surv in recent years has been Wildfire Bomb and having access to butchery which not only need great damage but also gave you a large number of bomb charges felt like once you got a handle on the core concept you were able to settle into a rhythm that output Good AoE and still have really good Single Target which made playing it extremely fun in keys.
The raid build leaned into the power of Kill Shot procs which was hard carried by old Pack Leader which was a mess of a hero spec but at least it made Kill Shot feel fun and worthwhile to press. The new pet summoning feels a lot more interesting than the passive effects of old pack leader however its left Kill Shot in such a horribly underwhelming state that you never press the button which should not be the case for an ‘execute’ ability.
The current raid build largely falls down to, ignore tip of the spear for pretty much everything except Flanking Strike and 4p buffed Mongoose Bites and simply yeet bombs on CD and alternate Kill Command/Mongoose Bite. All of the nuance the spec had the anniversary patch is gone.
I am very disappointed with this patch and hope Blizzard will revert the exclusivity of Butchery and Flanking and push Survival back to where it was mid-end of last patch.
Side note: Den Recovery is absolutely trash, I don’t know why this exists. Don’t Look Back however is absolutely goated.