Survival, I guess they are done with us?

[Yubie-stormrage]

@Bepples-barthilas

This is mostly revisionist history. SV and MM had appreciably different playstyles

SV actually played much more similarly to BM than MM. People who don’t know the class that well focus on the MM comparison because they don’t know how they played so they focus on the immediately obvious thematic distinction i.e. BM depended on a pet while both MM and SV didn’t. Yes that includes the class developers themselves.

Ill be more specific. ALL 3 specs played almost exactly the same even at the height of survivals glory days in cata.

You pressed SS once and had it auto refresh either cobra shot (bm/surv) or chimera shot (MM)
You pressed your spec primary off cd. Chimera shot, Explosive Shot,Focus Fire
You pressed your spec filler off cd. Kill command, Black arrow, aimed shot(if instant pref)
You pressed your class filler if the above are on cd/not available. Steadyshot/Cobra shot, and Arcane shot.

Yes each spec has small nuances overtime (like staggering explosive shots or not clipping focus fire with BW) but the general gameplay pattern idea was pretty much the same. This isnt revistion history at all. Hunters specs didnt get wildly different until WoD where it was pretty much disliked.

@Bepples-barthilas

So I appreciate the attempt to actually go into depth and look at each era but you’re still making a lot of mistakes. The main theme is that you’re assuming in each patch that if a spec is not the best then it must be “troll garbage”

No im not making this assumption that its bad, Im saying when its bad, its bad. Survival was garbage all of classic, C tier-support niche garbage in TBC, hard outscaled in Wotlk past naxx which was the majority of the expansion. When its not garbage and actually decently balance against the other specs, such as in MoP/early WoD, I said as much.

@Bepples-barthilas

SV was generally the most popular in this xpac so it sounds like you’re either making this part up or remembering it wrong.

People only played survival on fights where there was pet pathing issues, BM was the most popular consistently through mop. MM lacked cleave making it the least popular but ST wise they was pretty close all expansion.

@Bepples-barthilas

You seem to be remembering the Blackrock Foundry meta. BM ws good because it got a good set bonus. Before the set bonus SV was actually a very capable spec before then and in fact for much of Highmaul it was by far the most popular spec in the game (not just in the class).

I went off memory at first, but unless theres an error the warcraft logs for highmaul show this isnt true. Survival was popular in PvP by a large margin at the time due to being overpowered as hell, but in raiding it was the least popular hunter spec for normal, heroic, and mythic. Again Im not entirely sure if this is accurate since I thought WW monks was way better at the time, but I could be wrong.

@Bepples-barthilas

Like I said at the start it’s not right to just assume that because it wasn’t meta in that patch it’s “troll tier garbage”

No but its right to assume when a spec is only being played when its overpowered, its not a very popular spec in terms of fun. BM has seen its ups and down, but its consistently the most popular spec for hunters

Antorus is the best ancedote for this. BM was one of the worst performing specs dps wise in the entire game at the time but it was still top 3 for most played even when MM significantly outperformed it. Same was true for ToS. In nighthold when it still did respectable damage, it was only played less than havoc DH which was the new kid on the block. People love BM.

And this was the same for expansions prior to legion. BM even when it isnt the best spec or even when its an objectively terrible spec, is still extremely popular from low end content players to competitive ones regardless of its current patch strength.

Thats not true for survival. When survival is in the dumps, or even when on even playing field, those who are not its diehard enthusiast are not clamoring to play survival as a main or even as an alt. Only when its the absolute best spec like most of cata, or when pet pathing issues on certain fights prevent them from playing BM.

@Bepples-barthilas

I do agree that SV wasn’t as good in BGs as a lot of people remember. It tended to be good in battlegrounds and when there was a skill gap but in cutting edge rated arena it wasn’t great (when you think about it this describes MM right now)

On PvP, MM was consistnetly the competitive hunter spec due to silencing shot until MoP where BM was giga OP with stampede meta, and once that was nerfed, MM went back to being the primary PvP spec. Survival was never “the” spec until WoD S1.

@Bepples-barthilas

That’s why people like me are so upset with melee Survival. Because in fact they took something that was formerly pretty popular and widely-enjoyed and turned it into a largely unwelcome niche spec that just acts as a black hole for time and attention while generating mostly just controversy and bitterness.

People like you are are the reason it generates mostly controvery and bitterness because you, the small subsection of RSV fans,cant let the current MSV fans just be happy.

This is me speaking as someone who liked RSV. I enjoy pet classes and played HLS back in mop with an IRL friend to get my first 2200 rating and elite set as survival only. Survival has always been unpopular. If it wasnt due to pre wotlk it was actually terrible dps, its because people just generally didnt like it. Making it melee didnt change that positively or negatively.

@Bepples-barthilas

“Weakest thematic” is subjective. I would say MM is much more bare thematically and has been for most of its life. SV had a really cool theme of resourcefulness and opportunism with exotic munitions and utility.

In any case I don’t like this defense of the decision with “taking a chance”. Blizzard likes this sort of “don’t knock it 'till you try it” attitude but the tough reality is that some ideas are so obviously bad they aren’t worth trying and this was one of them.

The first iteration of MSV was objectively bad because because it was actually badly designed. The spec has terrible cohesion and the mastery actively made it worse. It was a bunch of plate spinning buff maintence stuff and tight windows that made it generally unfun.

BFA rework #2 fixed most of the glaring issues and made it a much more fun spec. Does it still have issues? ofc. They took flanking strike which was thematically super cool and replaced it with kill command. Giant L. They removed a ton of fun abilities like caltrops and throwing axe but kept steel trap. Talent balance in SL+ BFA is extremely poor with really only one choice between BoP and WFI.

It wasnt bad because its melee. Thats what you dont understand. RSV for most of its life suffered this same fate. It was legitimately poorly designed, especially pre wotlk.

@Bepples-barthilas

This would be a bad decision IMO. It would detract from Hunter’s uniqueness, potentially upset a lot of existing Rogues who came to the class for melee comba

Truth is not a democracy and the truth is combat lacked an identity and defining playstyle. Which is why they went so heavy on the pirate theme. Some people were incredibly upset at just that aswell. The spec was still melee but they heavily disliked the change from something super boring and lame to something distinct and different because they hated pirates or whatever

People will cry no matter what and letting it be an inhibiting factor to make changes is silly.

@Bepples-barthilas

We already saw with Druids and Shamans that mixing melee and ranged in one class is a huge design and tuning challenge. It was very foolish to entertain bringing that situation into any other class in addition.

Its really not a huge design and tunning challenge. Blizzard secured enh’s special bonus niche in shadowlands with WFT. Ele and Enh have seen almost equal performance all of shadowlands, and equal representation as far as raids are concerned.

You can apply this same change to feral and survival, give them a small bonus, and have them be closely balance the same way enh/ele are.