Survival Hunter - My Thoughts on Mongoose Bite and the State of Survival

Classes Hunter
1

So I’m not in the beta. I honestly don’t know why I am posting this here since it will probably never be looked at but it’s a thought. Maybe someone in the beta will see it and pass the idea along.

So as it stands right now Survival is in a weird mechanically unappealing spot. Why? Well there’s not a lot of synergy between the abilities for one. And for two, your main damaging dps ability for burst windows is your filler… You set up bombs, you shoot poison, and you raptor strike… Or well in the basically MANDATORY talent choice Mongoose Bite.

I have some issues with Mongoose Bite. Let me first post what it does for those that do not know or need a refresher.

Mongoose Bite
Requires Hunter
Requires level 1

Replaces Raptor Strike.
A brutal attack that deals (90% of Attack power) Physical damage and grants you Mongoose Fury.
Mongoose Fury
Increases the damage of Mongoose Bite by 15% for 14 sec, stacking up to 5 times. Successive attacks do not increase duration.

1 - I don’t like the buff duration not being refreshed on use. Why? Because it forces you to drop everything you’re doing and focus on it specifically to take full advantage of it. And even when you do take full advantage of it, you still aren’t topping any meters.

2 - Again as stated earlier, it doesn’t really support or boost anything else you are doing aside from letting your other dots fall off or worrying about.

3 - As a filler becoming your main focus, it just seems very pointless. It would be like telling a windwalker monk “Okay, you need to manage your mastery buff by rotating abilities, but once you go to burst, I need you to spam tiger palm repeatedly during this small window.”

MY PROPOSAL

The first thing I want to bring as a thought is to first make Mongoose Bite baseline and put a new talent in the row to give something.

I feel like if Mongoose Bite supported the other abilities in some way, that it could make the Spec work more fluidly and in my thoughts could actually be fun.

Mongoose Bite
Requires Hunter
Requires level 1

Replaces Raptor Strike.
[A brutal attack that deals (90% of Attack power) Physical damage and grants you Mongoose Fury.
Mongoose Fury
Increases the damage of all of your abilities by 3%(this % could be increased if needed) for 14 sec, stacking up to 5 times. Successive attacks refresh the duration.]

I feel like by this ability supporting all of the other abilities as well as itself, and being one that can be refreshed, could really solidify and help support the class as a whole. It gives you something more to work towards as a goal to improve your gameplay while also having a negative by losing those stacks and makes you really have to think on when to use your cooldown to make your Mongoose Bite a ranged attack. And lastly it could also be something to make it more competitive in the dps tables.

TLDR - I wish to make Mongoose Bite boost the damage of all abilities with a stacking buff that refreshes on use.

I’m no expert at giving feedback so i apologize for any run-on sentences or rambles. I have always wanted to play Survival but the Mongoose Bite issue has always just felt bad when playing it. I hope this gets looked at, maybe even put on the feedback forums for the Beta.

Thank you all for your time.

4 Likes
2

That is an interesting design. I actually enjoy mongoose bite but this could be really cool.

3 Likes
3

I preferred the Legion iteration of Mongoose Bite - stacked to six, increasing Mongoose Bite damage, but, importantly, Mongoose Bite cost 0 focus. The rest of your focus went into generating mongoose stacks/keeping up dots/keeping up buffs. It was a way more satisfying design to me.

BUT - we don’t have that anymore, and I doubt it’s coming back. So I do think I prefer your version here to what we have now. Yours is essentially the same as the Way of the Mok’nathal talent from Legion, which made Raptor Strike refresh a stacking general damage buff (remember that in Legion, Mongoose Bite and Raptor Strike were totally separate abilities). But yours would be less clunky than WotMN Raptor Strike.

Mongoose Bite is pretty fundamentally unsatisfying in BFA, so yours could be a fresh take on it. My only concern with it is that I feel like with casting Mongoose Bite as a true filler (just maintaining a damage buff…) there wouldn’t be a lot of meat in the SV rotation. No really satisfying button to press. Dots are fine, but compared to, say, slamming 6-stack Mongoose Bites repeatedly into your target in Legion, there’s not a lot in the rotation to be excited about. That’s my feedback.

2 Likes
4

Legion’s SV was a blast. I don’t mind BFA’s SV now that i have enough haste.

5

I really miss Legion’s SV sobs in caltrops

5 Likes
6

Apart way of the mok’nathal, legion sv was awesome.

3 Likes
7

legion survival felt like everything made some sense
bfa survival feels much more clunkier unless you have all the right items and traits

4 Likes
8

Yeah a lot of people have suggested that Mongoose bite be made baseline and perhaps you could have a row of talents that all support your mongoose bite or an entirely new ability to chose from. But blizz seems intent on keeping Tip of the Spear… So if we can’t get Mongoose bite baseline then I would at least like to see the Mongoose bite window increased from 14 seconds to say somewhere between 16 to 20 seconds. Hitting a 5 stack mongoose bite is satisfying, I just wish we had more than 14 seconds…

Also what happened to fury of the Eagle? I miss that spell.

1 Like
9

if blizz is so dead set on melee survival they should at least revert it to legion so its fun again. it would just need some polish and talent changes

3 Likes