Survival hunter suggestions

Classes Hunter
1

Helllo!

Figured id put this in one spot. These are only my thoughts on Survival spec. I could be wrong. It’s what I have played the most and I am basing a lot of this on years gone by and what I think felt good and didn’t.

Focus regen:

Focus regen as it stands doesn’t feel good to me. I am not fond of the reliance on my pet for focus. This feels more like a BM thing to me than survival.

To that effect, I would like Kill command reworked if kept I think as a focus spender, it would be a good option.

For regen, I would split up Raptor strike and mongoose bite. I would turn raptor strike into the focus regen ability. Obviously, this would be reduced damage. However, as I said, I think this would flow like the other specs utilizing Cobra shot and steady shot.

The other option would be changing flanking strike to take that spot. Im good with either. But I am not a fan of kill command. I have a feeling of the few hunters out there, alpha predator isn’t being used too often except in pve. I just think with a longer CD and more damage might make it a more viable option. I’m not anti kill command. I just don’t like it how it currently is.

Bombs vs Traps.

Once again, more of a personal preference. I would love the option between wildfire bomb and a wildfire trap. Really, its you all’s fault for adding the trap launcher in Cata. I love the playstyle. I have been a trap master since vanilla. I like my traps.

Traps: Bring back the missing traps. Don’t bring back Snake trap so the casters and healers don’t qq too much (glyphed version was great!)

Aoe:

Bring back serpent spread for carve / butchery. It was fun. Love seeing the ticks fly. It helped level out the focus spending in an aoe phase too.

Aspects:

Bring them back. As they were. Just change Aspect of the turtle back to deterrence. And remove the no damage portion of it pls.

Remove the timer on aspect of the eagle and have it apply to raptor strike and mongoose bite and you now have a semi ranged option for those interesting in that.

Stings: Bring them back too. Viper sting would be better pressure against casters/healers in the kite meta in pvp. Scorpid sting would help defensively in pvp.

Deflection and Counterattack:

Make the combo a pvp talent. Any melee can current close in without impunity. Hi explosive is too weak. (this plus aspect of the monkey might give a decent amount of survivability).

Lacerate. Please add back in. viable option for balancing rotation and focus spending.

Mastery Rework:

Mastery: Survivalist

Your Stamina is increased by XX%.

You and your pets damage are increased by XX% of your stamina.

This is a combination of the old talents Survivalist and Hunter vs Wild. It fits in with how survival atypically had more health. It also might make Mastery more worthwhile.

Thank you and happy holidays!

2 Likes
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Love to see wildfire trals and more traps reintroduced. LOVE me some traps, its what makes a hunter a hunter.

Yes yes yes, theres a skill that throws a serpent sting with raptor strike/mongoose. It would be great for butechery to do the same.

I am personally fine with eagle as it is because it gives a window to disengage and still do damage. But if it had no timer it would be too OP, making it a ranged class with a 2handed weapon. Just dosent jive or make sense. I love switching to my bow for that tactical advantage while eagle is on cool down

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If you are switching to bow when eagle is down you’re just being a hinderance in any content. Could be used in very niche situations during world pvp which is irrelevant anyway but yeah…

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If i were to change survival id make arcane shot work with 2h weapon like serpent sting i would replace Aspect of Eagle with a talent that makes arcane shot reduce the CD of Bombs by 1 sec and gives a dot that does 60% damage stacking up to 3 times for 18 sec causing up to 180% damage over 18sec. But will expire early if MB or RS is used after the dots reached 3 charges and boost the hunters damage by 20% for 10sec but the dot expires.

i feel like this change would give more value to quickshot and KC resets. But still alow for the back and forth hybrid playstyle as you set up your melee strikes but would alow full range play if in situations vs melee.

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5

building a spec around quickshot talent would be terrible. same as a weapon-swapping spec (esp due to penalties for weapon swapping)

they made changes to make survival specifically more melee-oriented. if you aren’t playing it as a melee now you are severely hindering your gameplay.

if you want a ranged spec then survival just needs to be ranged again

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I agree that it feels… off… on Survival, but if you turn it into a Focus spender, you even more tightly mirror BM and/or might as well just make Arcane Shot usable from one’s hand-crossbow.

That would be one of very few designs even worse than what we presently have.

To be fair though, the only issue with our current Mastery (which otherwise works no differently from any other type-specific damage amp Mastery) is that it affects so small a portion of AoE damage, effectively making even a powerfully tuned SV Mastery nearly worthless for sustained AoE relative to Crit>Vers/Haste (even if it might at that point be BiS for single-target)).

Making it a Stamina enchant, on the other hand, would have it avoided for 95% of content overall, and 100% of PvE (unless SV was overtuned enough to somehow be worth taking despite sacrificing damage for increased eHP vs. otherwise OHKO unavoidable mechanics).

Define what the heck you mean by this.

The only example we’ve ever had of Deflection + Counterattack was a 5% passive parry chance and a 5s melee root that requires a parry to be usable. It’d be utterly useless.

Sure, but why limit them to Survival?

See above. All traps, themselves, are on the class tree.

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^ I wouldn’t mind a way to opt-in to weapon-swap rewards, but it shouldn’t be anywhere near the spec’s core. Granted, that’d likely take some baseline adjustments.

For instance, I’d dig it if baseline Arcane Shot was just 30 Focus (down from 40 Focus) and hit for ~78.4% of AP (up from 62.7%), thus allowing MM to skip filler/BS talents like Target Training and for skills to change with equipped weapon, e.g.,

  • Arcane Shot <> Raptor Strike
  • Multi-Shot <> Carve
  • etc.

At that point, you could then give Survival a talent by which to reduce the uptime cost incurred by weapon swaps, or to passively generate charges that would nullify that cost, and/or to compensate it (such as with increased damage and/or reduced Focus costs on the next related attack).

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You dont understand in all pvp SV hunter has to pretend its fully range vs melee. You got get them super low then you charge in and Burst damage with mongoose bite its just as much part of SV playstyle as meleeing a boss as it is the optimal dps rotation what im suggesting is just a more fluid ranged option that isnt just a ranged window and optional to buff up and if there was reason for SV hunter to clear the bosses feet for mechanic that arcane shot would be a free talent to alow hunter to maintain some damage before harpooning back in meaning more uptime.

Also hunters just need more sustain heals or specialized vs aoe damage with alot avoidance built in or healers just need be better if they arnt kicking hunters from groups because we do need more healing even though we avoid more damage then other classes.

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Explosive is not there. Willing to trade explosive for wildfire trap. Snake trap is not present. lots of traps missing. lots of stings missing.

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Survival reworked to be ranged Gadget Gunner\high mobility spec.

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Yes please, mastery needs a rework.

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My suggestion would be.

Id like to see Survival of Fittest upgraded to a 2.5 min spell that does 40% reduction but also has a talent bellow it that will turn that reduction into reflected damage towards enemies. Instead having to feed multiple talent points into it for it to be good.

Buff natural mending to be 6-8 focus per second reduced of Exhilaration.

And buff Wilderness medicine to heal hunter 6% per point every time mend pet is used so at max that be a 12% heal trickle over 10 sec so a 2.4% heal ever 2 sec.

Give turtle a heal like 30% over 8 sec duration or buff the 30% reduces damage more

As for SV hunter id like a talent that gives us more bombs for a ranged aoe playstyle. First thing let Arcane shot be castable with 2h weapon as baseline. Replace Aspect of an eagle with Arcane infusion and each cast of Arcane shot in has chance to reset KC. And upgrade quickshot talent to not only give the 30% chance for a free arcane shot but since its on the bomb side the tree give arcane shot a buff where it reduces bomb CD by 1 sec by each arcane shot you cast. And id add arcane shot to vipers venom.

And in pvp arcane shot with KC resets will be ideal for kiteing and hunter will not have to worry about a 15 sec window that can be CCd but our amazing single target damage will be in our melee still giving alot value to charging in with spearhead and doing large burst of damage but a flexible ranged on demand kit will be nicer then 15sec window.

Then for single target damage id double down on melee change spearhead Charge into essentially warriors colossus smash charge remove all the separate buff and just give us a flat buff to 25% damage for 10 sec and a 20% chance for KC to reset. And keep deadly duo as the same. And tune all our single target abilities to do more damage then Arcane shot that way it won’t replace mongoose bite as core skill but will be a good ranged filler to keep up damage even at ranged for any content.

Also id love see coordinated assault turned into a heroic leap type spell instead of a charge so it can be used for mobility to get away and gap closer.

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13

I mean, we already have the talents made to boost steady, and arcane shot, so why not hook the abilities to the hand crossbow? if they want the can even let us throw our own ranged weapon into the offhand slot and make it needed for ranged damage. This way we can use the skills we already have available, and can pick up things like barrage if we so desire. Also, we can mog the hand crossbow to suit us a little more.

honestly I think the whole class needs a re-work. Lonewolf is something that all specs should get, but it needs to modify skills that require pets so if the hunter finds themselves alone, it can still be used and we don’t become useless if they die. And I’m including CA and spearhead in this.

SV’s mastery is not an issue, our survivability as a whole is, and it effects the entire class. And to be honest, its a lot to do with the pet being dead and us absolutely being tied to it’s survival. Pets should be a companion that boosts us, not that our survival depends on. The other half is we’re so susceptible to CC, if we get stunned, we’re likely just dead because our mobility has been crushed due to the access of the other classes access to mobility, but that is more of a PVP matter. (and after posting this idea popped into my head that we were not nearly as squishy in SL as we are now, we prolly need retuned to be without our conduits, or they can just suck it up and give them back. I mean hey, we earned it, and venthyr was fun even if underwhelming in all but pvp). Sure we can get into a fight, but we likely can’t get back out due to overwhelming CC, and the need to change our camera direction and hope we can turn/jump and clear terrain.

On the point of stings, if we had chimera sting as baseline, and it affected targets based on their abilities (slow them and reduce melee or casting speed based on the target), but what I personally miss is wyvern sting. however, lets not bloat the ability tree too much.

Wildfire bomb is fine as is, if you want a trap, ask for a glyph. We have too many ground reticles as it is, we don’t need another, but we only have 2 hard CCs that we can capitalize on. The first being intimidation, which requires the pet to be not dead, in range, and us not hard CCed, and then is a next attack so it may not activate in time. The other is a marksman pvp talent only that takes 4 gcds.

Our regen is mediocre, but palatable. having steady shot to mix in while KC is on cooldown/waiting to reset would be nice though, but its slow and currently takes a equip swap macro to use, and we can’t even use arcane shot unless we take quickshot, or again weapon swap.

Save for the lack of a ranged option, and disengage needs an severe update to bring it in line with other classes who now have a better version of our ability, I personally think SV is rather fun and strong as is, even if I feel its a bit too tied to the pet, which seems more BM’s thing than ours (which funny enough SV seems to be more of a kamikaze fighter vs guerrilla tactics using ranger). We just take way too much damage, don’t have the defenses that allow us to stay in the fight, and are completely committed to the fight win or lose, cause we’re likely not getting back out alive.

And FFS, we do not need to go back to running Aspects like we’re stance dancing again. Let that crap die, and take Hawk with it. I’d rather see marksman completely culled and its ranged abilities given to the other two specs than do ever go back to that. (as long as we can use them without manually swapping weapons). we have ranged abilities, just everything is either tied to a 2hand or ranged weapon, which is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen blizz do.

And for those saying that we are a melee spec, actually we’re both, so having access to skills while not having to swap weapons mid combat is completely viable thing to ask from our Devs.
Originally, we had both from the start for all specs, had to use ammo for ranged weapons, and were not tied to the pet as drastically as we are now, but Blizz likes this overspecializing mindtrip they’re on and there is not much we can do about it at this point but ask them to throw us a bone.

And by the titans, other than decent PvE numbers, we need some love class wide.

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Than they should add back in the survivalist passive we had in legion and put the mastery back as well.

Worse than now? It is completely not worth any points in pve or pvp to add any mastery. period. same for SL… pretty sure it was the same in BFA.

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SV was the trapper spec in classic, and that should return. Survival should be the spec that has additional trap options like snake, explosive or a shock trap.

Not a part of rotation but as extra CC, which might add more utility to SV.

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Id like see most the stuff you said happen especially arcane shot added back to survival as our ranged sustain damage over aspect of eagle. If it could also help proc KC chance and with poison talent and quickdraw talent and ranger talent it be actually kinda strong. Not as strong as mongoose bite should be but if you find it that melee is a lil to hot at moment at least it be better then spamming poison sting and KC from a distance.

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I always wanted a lifetap Black Arrow. That dark-hunter vibe. Maybe tied to Mastery or scalable with Crit.

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I keep forgetting what black arrow did wasnt it replaced by serpent sting?

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It had a couple different variants … one was just a DoT and you could actually have Black Arrow and Serpent Sting ticking at the same time. It was really fun in PVP. Especially once they updated DoTs to crit.

Another variant was used by MM and Black Arrow summoned a ‘dark entity’ to taunt for the hunter when used (from what I remember).

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They’re also missing from the SV tree.

We’re talking about potential additions, no? My point was merely that utility-laden traps have almost always been available to all specs, and Dragonflight has further solidified that idea by putting all traps in the Class Tree. So why put Snake Trap, etc., only in the SV tree?