Just hit 120 with my suv hunter today I’ve enjoyed leveling him a lot soon as I hit 120 I started spamming time walking dungeons for gear and noticed right away the survival part of our class name is a joke I did well in the dungeons dps wise but keeping myself alive especially when paired with mediocre healers/tanks is a chore, I think and maybe it’s just me but if sv hunters had access to spirit mend we could live up to our name un till we can I’ll just have to turtle feign death and carry a lot of healing potions
I dunno, personally i think survival is the tankiest of the hunter specs. Leech from a ferocity pet and exhilaration every minute ish is usually plenty. But generally speaking hunters are naturally pretty squishy so /shrug. I don’t think being tankier would make it any more wanted for high end Pve content. It just needs to bring something to the table that BM or MM doesn’t bring in exchange for being melee.
Timewalking dungeons aren’t set for fresh 120s. The gear is at ilvl 365 according to Wowhead.
SV already has enough of both PvP utility and abilities stolen from BM. If you want SV to live up to its name and survive more, make it a ranged spec.
6 Likes
Don’t rely on the name of the spec really.
The spec name Survival, is a relic from the old days of Vanilla(and TBC) where we did not have specializations that provided completely unique playstyles/fighting styles.
Back then the specs we had, for Hunters at least, were meant to enhance parts of our core toolkit.
Going fully into the MM tree did not make you a ranger back then. You still relied on using a pet to aid you in combat.
Going fully into Survival, did not make you make you want to abandon your ranged abilities and weapon. Nor did it actually make you want to shy away from using melee abilities when possible.
In short, it was just designed to improve our Survivability.
Unlike today. Or at any point since the end of TBC(partially WotLK as well).
While I wouldn’t say that it should be a ranged spec. Bepples is not wrong here.
If you struggle to stay alive in e.g. content, the fact that you’re in melee range much of the time, can at times certainly be a factor.
2 Likes
He is. If you want Survival to live up to it’s name, you make it a tanking spec. If you want it to live up to the theme, you keep it as it is.
1 Like
Very few things would actually make Survival live up to it’s name anymore.
Due to the reasons I posted in my previous reply.
Anyway, I agreed on the ranged combat since it generally makes it easier for people to stay alive.
But like I also wrote, I don’t agree that this is what should happen to MSV.
Learn how to avoid stuff while in melee range and you will also be better at surviving.
The theme of what?
Survival?
No.
2 Likes
For the most part yes. I’ve died because I was behind the healer in fights and he did not see me in time to heal me.
That wasn’t the point. The point was that making SV harder to kill would make it live up to it’s name.
Yes.
Trust me on this. I’m a bushcrafter and have been since the 90’s. I’m also a martial artist, a hunter, and I’m trained to fight with guns, knives, sticks from a few inches to a couple of meters, swords/machetes, and sais. It does as it is. I really don’t want to go further on this with in game examples and RL examples.
2 Likes
I meant in reference to what the original design intensions of the SV spec were about, looking at Vanilla + TBC(and partially WotLK).
But sure, with what you said in mind, all iterations of the spec could’ve lived up to the name.
You could literally boil it down to:
I’m a hunter.
I need to hunt for food to survive.
I choose to do it in the way of >Insert any iteration of the Survival-spec here<.
This was not what I was talking about above. But fair enough. I definitely agree on that way of looking at the theme of Survival and what it could be about.
2 Likes
Look at the old talent trees, it’s not that far off than it is today. Half of Vanilla’s talent tree is melee and the other half Traps. I’m saying this as someone who is going Ranged SV on Classic Servers. The problem with Vanilla/Classic is that it’s an unfinished game.
ETA Fingers are not cooperating today.
2 Likes
The thing about the old talent trees from back then is that, it wasn’t about defining you as a ranged fighter or a melee fighter.
SV talents back then were literally about improving your tracking skills, your defensive capabilities, some utility along with providing you with a niche melee-ability to counter dodging enemies.
Why? Partially, because of the minimum-range/deadzone penalties we had back then.
Compare that to today when it’s more about defining fighting styles or unique fantasies.
Happens.
You should see me when I go about writing forum replies on my phone…
(Can take multiple sessions)
1 Like
Which is why you had talents to buff Raptor Strike.
There was talents to buff your Melee abilities, and there also was some things to that, but it wasn’t viable. When I say that it was unfinished, it was clear that there was different ways that they wanted to go but just stopped and left it there.
It’s my nervous system acting up. Glad to hear that I’m not the only one with problems though.
1 Like
Like I said, we had things such as that in order to…make us at least somewhat stronger against enemies which we had a hard time staying away from.
I would argue that, there was much more than just the Survival spec back then that wasn’t entirely finished.
I mean…they literally gave us a resource that did not really make that much sense for the class. This resource being Mana.
Their original intentions for the class were actually Focus. Just that they could not make it work in a satisfying way prior to release. Which resulted in them drastically changing it very late in the process.
Sad to hear. Hopefully you can work around/with it?
1 Like
I’m talking about the entire game here. Another example is Tankadins not having a taunt and how viable Shaman were at tanking. In a lot of ways BC was Vanilla being finished.
It’s not as bad as it seems, there are others who are a lot worse. It’s got it’s ups too. My senses are pretty sensitive which means that I enjoy the foods I like more, can see better than most half my age, ect.
1 Like
I’m not disagreeing, I’m saying that Melee Hunters were probably planned from the start and that the current theme is still pretty close to what it was in the beginning. You have the ability to escape, to close in, trap your opponent, you have several routes you can go through utility and damage.
1 Like
Agreed.
Which is also a big reason for why I prefer many design decisions made after…that time.
The fact that specs nowadays DO allow us to choose a fantasy we like(might), being one.
Sure, we might end up with only 1 playstyle that we like.
But with the old design, if you did not like the core toolkit, there was little you could do to change that.
Glad to hear it!
Can certainly be a positive.
1 Like
I would agree.
And as you know from what I’ve said for the longest time. MSV, should stay.
Dno how much you know about it but, the original iteration(s) from early game development, when the spec was still called “Outdoorsmanship”, many of the talents were focused on your melee abilities, and to make you stronger in melee-range.
Along with some other stuff ofc(check below for specifics).
I believe this was what the Outdoorsmanship talent-tree looked like:
Posted this in another thread on the EU forums a while back.
Entrapment
Rank 5/5
Gives your Immolation Trap, Frost Trap, and Explosive Trap a 25% chance to entrap the target, preventing them from moving for 5 sec.Savage Strikes
Rank 5/5
Increases your critical strike chance with melee weapons by 5%.Precision
Rank 5/5
Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 5%.Improved Raptor Strike
Rank 5/5
Reduces the cooldown of your Raptor Strike by 1 sec.Improved Wing Clip
Rank 5/5
Gives your Wing Clip ability a 20% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.Lightning Reflexes
Rank 3/3
Increases your Dodge chance by 3%.Melee Specialization
Rank 5/5
Increases the damage you deal with melee weapons by 5%.Improved Freezing Trap
Rank 3/3
Increases the duration of your Freezing Trap by 6 sec.Improved Explosive Trap
Rank 2/2
Increases the initial damage done by your Explosive Trap by 60%.Improved Frost Trap
Rank 2/2
Increases the duration of your Frost Trap’s movement slowing effect by 3 sec.Improved Immolation Trap
Rank 5/5
Increases the damage done by your Immolation Trap by 15%.Deflection
Rank 5/5
Increases your Parry chance by 5%.Improved Mongoose Bite
Rank 5/5
Increases the damage done by your Mongoose Bite ability by 20%.Deterrence
Rank 1/1
Instant 5 min cooldown
When activated, increases your Dodge and Parry chance by 25% for 10 sec.Counterattack
Rank 1/1
45 Mana
Instant cast 5 sec cooldown
5 yd range
A strike that becomes active after parrying an opponent’s attack. This attack deals 40 damage and immobilizes the target for 5 sec. Counterattack cannot be blocked, dodged, or parried.Lacerate
Rank 1/1
65 Mana
Instant cast
5 yd range
Requires Melee Weapon
Wounds the target causing them to bleed for 77 damage over 21 sec.
Why they moved away from this? Several reasons probably.
One of them might’ve been the fact that it wouldn’t make you strong enough even if you went deep into the Outdoorsmanship-tree at the time. You would still be fairly easy to kill compared to any hunter who opted to focus on ranged combat.
1 Like
nothing says survival like harpooning directly into everything and throwing bombs!
6 Likes
Sv hunters only get 10% leech b&m hunters get 15% leech and spirit mend and there not even in the frying pan they just sit back and pew pew lol 
also someone said time walking dungeons only dropped 365 ilvl gear according to wowhead I think that’s out dated since everything that dropped for me was 390-405 ilvl u can check out my character he still wearing a lot of it, As for the nay sayers to spirit mend on sv hunters I don’t think it’s a game breaker it’s strong for pve dungeon/raids as for pvp I don’t think it’ll make sv any better or worst like I said above b&m is already getting 5% more leech then sv + spirit mend and they are a hard hitting ranged class but that doesn’t make them pvp kings food for thought
Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t make BM kings in PvP. Survival is STILL substantially better. So why would it make sense to give Survival more of BM’s utility?