To be fair in legion, although serpent sting was a talent for SV, it was spread by carve/raptor strike.
I never liked that serpent came back but wasn’t spread by default in BFA, and whats worse is that you had to talent into a 3 target capped verision.
Now in SL with target capping all over the place it’s not as bad but still not ideal.
The idea that following guides is a weakness is something I’ve actually seen around before… it’s one of those weird misconceptions that inexperienced players have about experienced players. Another one is the idea that button mashing (repeatedly pressing a button as it comes off cooldown) is bad.
Wait, I’m not sure I’ve seen that / understand that properly. Do some people think that’s bad???
I think it’s bad for console controllers as mashing the buttons can damage the controller, or at least it did with older controllers.
As for keyboards, I don’t think it’s a problem necessarily. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone say it was though, let alone try to explain why.
" * The team still wants niches where certain classes excel at 4 target cleave, and some favor other forms of AOE. Having uncapped AoE still exist but only on certain classes is not ideal and they want to address it." - Ion during Preach interview
Oh boy…
Wonder if they’ll open up the uncapped stuff to some more classes. Or reduce the uncapped stuff.
Concerned for SV though since that is pretty much its only strong point atm.
It’s good because it ensures you’re casting an ability the instant it comes off cooldown. However I’ve met players who think it’s a sign of bad play for whatever reason.
That’s what I figured since I pretty much always mash stuff when I’m trying to cast while waiting on the GCD. Didn’t realize anyone thought that was bad lol.
Well, I can’t speak for anybody but I can share my thoughts.
Personally, I hate button mashing and whenever I see this happens, it makes me wince.
But!
I was born in 1990. That means I’m a ‘90s kid.
I grew up playing console games. SNES, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1 and 2, Xbox, Game Cube, the Wii, and handheld consoles like the Gameboy (I own every generation of Nintendo handheld consoles all the way to the Switch).
Yes, button mashing on those controllers were a bad thing. That’s exactly how you break the controllers, and make them unresponsive and insanely slow. And back in the day, they were not cheap.
And then I played WoW from 2005 to halfway through 2020 on out-of-date iMac laptops.
The first one was a 2002 MacBook; I typed so many essays on it for homework in addition to playing WoW… the keys literally fell off the keyboard! I had to type on those funny little plastic nubs for, like, 3 years before I finally got my next laptop.
So, yeah. It’s been drilled into me since I was like 6 years old to not to button-mash.
Instead, I focused on training my timing so I could hit the button at just the right moment… second, even! 
Button mashing can hurt sv since some abilities can target enemy farther away (unpulled pack) and the other button launch a ranged attack.
If you play to each bomb an use a rotation to each bomb the dps is really good not many can play a survival hunter
This. If you plan the bomb rotation and use it to its fullest you can get decent dps. Exp with Tip of the spear talent. But again I set rotations more to pvp. Though some pve has been fun as well.
It doesn’t work with many castsequence macros (I think it’s fine with the BC BM 41/20 castsequences but I’m not sure) but using castsequence macros is usually a bad idea anyway.
Moreover, the balance in context (outside of sustained raid environments) is often closer than it would seem; there are still SV hunters running 22s who will take Flanking Strike and/or Chakrams, for instance, just because it times out better to their group’s damage dynamics.
Mongoose Bite? Oddly barely more frequent than Flanking or Chakrams now, but it may well take the norm there once 9.1’s 15% buff to ST abilities comes around, if that allows Nesingwary to compete with Clusters in otherwise wholly AoE-focused groups.
Currently on sims, Nesingwary’s Trapping Apparatus is 3.5% higher then Wildfire Cluster for single target dps but WC is 18.9% higher on AoE.
But here’s a few things to take into consideration:
1 - in order for NTA to do that 3.5% more dps you have to take the Bird of Prey talent which is another 9% behind on AoE vs the Wildfire Infusion talent basically making the combo WFI/WFC over 25% stronger on AoE then the NTA/BoP combo
2 - to get that extra 3.5% single dps with NTA/BoP you also need to use you trap perfectly! That mean you must not use it at full focus or you will lose the initial 45 Focus, or if for whatever reason your trap doesn’t proc (ex: tank moving the mob at the same time you throw the trap)
3 - WFC is also not penalized if you have to get out of melee because of boss mechanics or you just kiting a mobs/player.
This is another example of a build/talents that work better on perfect sims but not so well when you play it yourself.
Honestly at this point I would t care if they went more ranged with the spec As long as it’s not 100% ranged.
I loved the idea of hunter back in wrath and lower where we had both melee weapons and bow equipped. I sucked that we didn’t do much with the melee aspect tho.
Survival has the compatibility to becomes the most fun hunter spec as a Rambo melee/ranged hybrid that uses both bow and melee weapons to win, Maybe instead of having it as full ranged they half it so it has to be up close and makes switching to melee easyer.
Either way it going full ranged again would be soooooo boring.
This might be how you think but as it turns out most Hunters find ranged combat interesting and do not view melee combat as God’s gift to class design.
You got two ranged specs I’m sorry you are so stuck in ur ways if “hunter should be pet ranged only how dare blizzard try something new or redefine hunter in a way that scopes other hunter types in the real world”
Ahh humbug man when is are you going to visit the three ghosts of spec design and ur all about that past but the current and future are just plan scary to ya.
I’ve had specs I loved gutted to the ground too but I didn’t mop around it I played another spec and enjoyed something different.
Surivial true melee/ranged hybrid as its ultimate form and Let people have fun doing what they do without your harsh humbug mood killer
Why can’t people who liked RSV have fun to?!? Why delete anything people like? Then try to tell the people that liked the old spec they should just be happy with two ranged specs?
It’s good to come back after a significant break and see literally the same people still whining about a change that is years old at this point. No wonder you can never have a good discussion on this class forum.