Here I am still longing for a spec where I can do optimal DPS at range with a single pet.
Used to be the core of the hunter class and now zero specs can do it.
6 Likes
This right here, if I choose to only have one pet, and be ranged, I’m punished. MM punishes you for having a pet, and BM punishes you for not having 2 pets. Make Animal Companion a choice node, 1 gives you 2 pets, other choice allows one but buffs that single pet’s damage.
9 Likes
Yeah I can’t think of any other class that has strayed as far from its core vanilla class fantasy as hunter. And to make it worse they are the only bow/gun class.
It’s a slap in the face that animal companion and lone wolf are even talents. Not only do I have to ruin the original hunter fantasy but I have to pay a talent point for the pleasure.
8 Likes
I have no issue, visually/thematically, with Lone Wolf or Animal Companion, but both should be real choices, not obligatory (LW for AoE, AC in virtually all cases).
Still a long way to go on this one, and there’s a bit of a fundamental problem visible even prior to the attempt.
At present we have *at least* 4-5 themes people seem to want to see across Hunter, with a ton more sub-themes/variations between them:
- The high-caliber sniper rifle user (one shot, one [or more] kill[s])
- The guerilla warfare type (think WC2 Alleria, or the more movie-esque spec ops sniper type), who may use septic, poisoned, or cursed ammo.
- The Ranger General (fast, smooth, graceful, agile, but not necessarily stealthy), a la pre-death Sylvanus
- DoT archer — lots of DoTs, mostly poisons but not limited thereto; not necessarily but possibly strategic, usually run-and-gun
- The Dark Ranger type — basically DoT archer, but potentially with some Guerilla aspects and some other leverageable tools based around curses, mob control, or summons.
- The Munitions Expert — often genius, occasionally crazed; sometimes overcomplicating things, sometimes preferring simple solutions like “more bombs”.
- The Bounty Hunter — mobile, tricksy, traps and melee and/or ranged quick-drawn sidearms (hand crossbow / hatchets), and other specialized tools; high utility, high number of skills simultaneously offers high leniency to the skill floor by many ways to bail oneself out but also a gigabrain skill ceiling to those who want to really optimize it all.
- The Beastlord (chucking woodchuckers at bosses/mob-packs) til everything dies.
- The Beast Synergist / Summoner — swapping out or second-Call-ing in pets in branching-path strategies for their synergetic value with each other, assuming more distinct pet abilities and greater impact therefrom
- The Beastkin/Wildling/Beast Within — master of Aspect abilities, able to leverage them in new and synergetic ways, avatar of the bestial elements of Ferocity, Cunning, and Tenacity; might or might not use a pet; at least some reason to go into melee a significant portion of the time.
- The Combo Operator / Pet Partner (Wild) - MSV, but not necessarily so focused on melee and with the pet ‘coordination’ actually feeling like coordination instead of just a wonky auto-attack delay.
- Combo Operator / Pet Partner (Old) - Think an revigorated take on WotLK-era BM (i.e., with more individual back-and-forths between pet and master resources and buffs, now with more ways to leverage them, and perhaps more control towards their procs); equal parts reactive and buff-maintaining.
- And more…
Trying to figure out which can actually work together and which, by being too great an outlier cannot is… difficult, to say the least. At present, trying to see if I can combined support both minimize the node-costs of Beastlord and support it, Beast Synergist, Pet-Partner, and Beast Within themes in one spec, because they’d otherwise perhaps overlap too much in aesthetic/damage source and no part seems that much larger than the others, but if that falls through it’ll be back to Beastlord/Beast Synergist with a degree of Pet Partner on one side and many forms of Wildling on the other (that ‘Beast Within’ vibe being just one available aspect of it with some overlap into Pet Partner available but not required). In that way you’d have exploiting Pet | Ranged | Aspects as the cores, with each offering a little overlap into others and traps and munitions being available but wholly optional to all.
- Alternatively, I could make Munitions the core of a spec, but then that’d encourage stripping access thereto from the other specs, which I don’t really like…
Yes indeed, quite a plethora of archetypes to draw inspiration from. I won’t say what you “should” go for, that’s entirely up to you.
…anyway, interested to see what you come up with. 
My approach to the modern realisation of a “Munitions” spec has changed quite a bit since the initial iterations. Much due to feedback from other players, but also based on where my head has drifted to.
The earlier versions were ofc based on the pre-DF class design structures, such as the changes to our talent-system, etc. With that in mind, you had some options for what to do with utility(non-damage based), in addition to purely offensive spells. Obviously, nowadays, you’d approach that side through the class tree, rather than anything spec-specific. At least, that would be my preference.
From the list of archetypes you’ve posted, I’d say that my earlier versions were a mix of:
Essentially, the core was old SV, with additional elements added to support that theme. I also wanted to keep with the classic WoW hunter fantasy, with some focus on the pet, though, purely optional.
The issue with that was that it took a lot from the design space of the core theme itself, with the elements focusing on the pet. It was one of the main points of feedback from other players that, while it was optional, they preferred to not have anything included that focused on pets, beyond the most basic class-wide stuff. Especially since the intent was to keep both BM and current (M)SV as they were, with mandatory focus on pets.
The earlier pre-DF iterations also came with Immolation Trap as a core ability(non-optional).
I gradually phased out all talents/effects directly tied to the pet, in favour of purely focusing on the “Munitions” fantasy and theme.
Looking at the DF class design, with how the new talent-system structure is, I’d say that the current iteration is closer to:
- Some more than others ofc. -
No pet related stuff, anything tied to dealing damage through traps is purely optional(with additional options to make it easier to use).
I’ve also since decided to include some things that adhere more closely to the Dark Ranger-fantasy/themes. Looking primarily at [optional] enhancements to Black Arrow, taking inspiration from the version of the spell that MM hunters had in Legion. Though the intent is to have more variety in summons(undead minions), based on target types; casters/knights/beasts/etc.
Why include elements of Dark Rangers? While I personally think anything with Dark Rangers is better suited if separate to the hunter class, they introduced the new quest line for hunters, with story involving Dark Rangers, so I decided to go with it.
Note that the main post for the latest iteration isn’t fully updated in the tooltip compilation. The pastebin link for importing into TalentTreeManager(TTM) in the post, however, is UTD.
2 Likes
One thing I wish Blizz would either add to the hunter tree itself, or add to a RSV tree if they brought it back would be Flayed Shot. Why they chose Death Chakram baffles me.
3 Likes
So one thing to say is that I envy your ability to post images, since that makes it infinitely easier to convey a design.
Something I do want to point out is that there appears to be a sort of pattern the devs are using for the spec talent trees. It’s not exact numbers like how FFXIV paces abilities, but the tiers seem to be set up in such a way that the first 4 rows add up to 10-12 talent points in general. Rows 5-7 seem to be set up for a total of 19-22 points, and the bottom three rows are also in the 20-ish range as far as how many talents are in it. In fact, this would explain why certain specs have “boring” talents that are flat increases; the devs were likely trying to meet whatever internal requirements they have set for themselves by creating talents that act as padding.
With this in mind, I’ve put together something with a couple more changes. I’ve used some stuff seen floating around some of the recent threads and included some of my own ideas. The only thing to note going into that is that this assumes that Carve is removed from the game and Butchery is a baseline skill for SV (as it is on live with the same damage coefficients and 3 charges with a 9s cooldown).
https://i.imgur.com/kvpde47.png
And now, the headache that is the breakdown…
Row 1
- Raptor Strike: Put simply, the Mongoose Fury mechanic (now called Thrill of the Chase) is baseline, caps at 3 stacks. Attack modifier nerfed to 157% attack power.
Row 2
- Wildfire Bomb: Damage is unchanged from live, but now has 2 charges baseline.
- Harpoon: The cooldown resets when an enemy is killed, but is otherwise unchanged. No damage and no Focus generation.
Row 3
- Improved Wildfire Bomb: Increases initial blast’s damage by 50%.
- Bloodseeker: Removed the attack speed effect. Changed the bleed’s name from Master Marksman to Deep Gash.
- Energetic Companion: Thrill of the Chase increases pet’s attack speed by 3% per stack.
Row 4
- Ranger’s Sidearm: Increases the damage of Kill Shot, Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot and Explosive Shot by 20%.
- Scent of Blood: You and your pet regenerate Focus 30% faster when a target afflicted by Deep Gash is within 12 yds.
- Flanker’s Advantage: Kill Command has an increased 15% chance to reset itself if used on a target under the effect of Deep Gash or Serpent Sting. This increased chance is buffed to 20% if the target is under the effect of both.
- Ferocity: Unchanged from live.
Row 5
- Grenade Pack: Toggle/stance that changes any traps you have learned into throwable bombs/munitions.
Freezing Trap becomes Sleep Canister (puts target to sleep for 20s, breaks on damage).
Tar Trap becomes Sludge Vial (snares target for 8s, loses potency over time).
High Explosive Trap becomes Frag Grenade (AoE stun with a radius equal to Wildfire Bomb).
Steel Trap becomes Shrapnel Bomb (AoE bleed with a radius equal to Wildfire Bomb).
These munitions share the 30s cooldown with their trap counterparts. - Ranger Knight: Increases total armor value by 8% and Versatility by 4%.
- Tip of the Spear/Mongoose’s Bite: TotS is unchanged from live. Mongoose’s Bite increases the number of times you can stack Thrill of the Chase to 5 times.
Row 6
- Explosives Expert: Increases the duration of Wildfire Bomb’s DoT by 2s and increases the blast radius of Wildfire Bomb, Frag Grenade and Shrapnel Bomb by 2 yards.
- Frenzy Strikes: Affects only Butchery, but otherwise unchanged from live.
- Aspect of the Monkey: Replaces Aspect of the Turtle. Increases dodge chance by 75% for 6s and resets the cooldowns of Disengage and Camouflage.
- Perseverance: Kill Command resets reduce the cooldown of Exhilaration by 3s.
- Flanking Strike: Same as live.
- Unwavering Focus: Kill Command generates 8 more focus and extends the duration of Thrill of the Chase by 1s.
Row 7
- Envenomed Shot/Viper’s Venom: Envenomed Shot makes Steady Shot apply Serpent Sting on the target. Viper’s Venom gives Raptor Strike a 30% chance to inflict Serpent String.
- Weakened Defenses: Wildfire Bomb increases damage target takes from your attacks by 10% for 8s.
- Sharp Edges: Buffed to a max of +6% crit damage.
- Spear Mastery: Increases the range of melee attacks and abilities by 3y and increases damage dealt by 15%.
- Camaraderie: Flanking Strike now grants Thrill of the Chase.
- Persistence: Kill Command and Flanking Strike have a 25% chance to make your next Raptor Strike cost 10 less Focus.
Row 8
- Swift Talons: Raptor Strike has a 25% chance to strike the target two additional times, but these additional hits deal less damage and do not grant Thrill of the Chase.
- Coordinated Assault: Instead of your pet’s attack empowering the next Bomb/Kill Shot, your pet’s attack marks the target as a Shared Target for 5 seconds (refreshes every time the pet attacks the enemy), empowering all Bombs/Kill Shots done to the target so long as the Shared Target effect is active.
- Tactical Advantage: Increases Flanking Strike and Kill Command damage by 10%.
- Thrill of Precision: Thrill of the Chase stacks increase your critical hit chance of your melee attacks and abilities by 2% per stack.
Row 9
- Fury of the Eagle: unchanged from live.
- Ranger’s Finesse: Increases the crit chance of Kill Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot and Explosive Shot by 20%.
- Coordinated Kill: Unchanged from live.
- Guerrilla Tactics: Damage over time dealt by Deep Gash, Serpent Sting and Steel Trap/Shrapnel Bomb has a 5% chance to reset the cooldown of a Wildfire Bomb charge.
- Spearhead: Damage is unchanged from live, but activating it also grants 3 stacks of Thrill of the Chase.
Row 10
- Ruthless Marauder: Unchanged from live.
- Birds of Prey/Stashed Explosives: Birds is unchanged from live. Stashed Explosives doubles your Wildfire Bomb charges (from 2 to 4) for the duration of Coordinated Assault and resets the cooldown of all Wildfire Bombs upon activation.
- Deadly Duo: Same as live.
Notes
- A lot of these are combined or condensed talents on live. Again, it seems like they were there to pad things to meet the quantity criteria the devs set for themselves.
- I’m not sure about Guerrilla Tactics. It sounds overpowered but I figured that can be nerfed further down the line.
- Envenomed Shot might appear weird, though I think the fact Steady Shot has a cast time and deals low damage is a decent enough trade-off. I figured it would work for builds that don’t want to spec into Serpent Sting to get to Poison Injection/Hydra’s Bite. It is likewise possible to bypass this talent node entirely.
- While I like the idea of Grenade Pack, I do realize that getting the most bang for your buck from this talent would require speccing into Steel Trap all the way at the bottom of the class tree. Which may mean no Alpha Predator, no Serpent Sting/Hydra’s Bite and so on.
Edit: Spelling corrections and forgot to add that Spearhead was changed to grant 3 stacks of Thrill of the Chase.
1 Like
Almost as if we need more than one class that uses a ranged weapon
I don’t doubt that, but there’s still the matter of how connected/cohesive those themes are. Of them, only maybe two can I imagine having any place on another class, and still as a worse fit than Hunter.
the other day i was playing guild wars 2 and my ranger had an axe and torch and it felt like a much better version of SV tbh. it even swapped between meleeing and throwing the axes depending on how far i was. idk how the concept of rexxar turned into spears and bombs.
2 Likes
As far as I can see, most iterations revolves around range dots and melee or some combination. Personally rhink that would be a good place to start.
2 Likes
That was part of my point though, I don’t think there will ever be worthwhile discussion on survival until both sides get what they want. MSV players want to talk about how to improve or fix the spec and to RSV the way to do that is to revert it. I still don’t get why they didn’t bake a way to pick either MSV or RSV into the new trees but who knows that Blizzard has planned.
2 Likes
You miss that ranged and melee SV would likely require completely different gameplay and mechanics. Melee SV has a slightly worse version of the FFXIV dragoon’s blood of the dragon.
Ranged SV, from what I found looking through the Wrath talent tree seems to be built on a slightly worse version of the FFXIV bard’s Bloodletter proc mechanic (DoT damage allowing or facilitating the use of a stronger attack).
Cramming both into one spec would be arguably worse than when cat and bear druids shared the feral tree because at least druids had their forms to keep mechanics from overlapping.
Okay, but let’s consider what sort of narrowing rings there are to either camp there:
Positions towards RSV seem to narrow along an order of…
Nearly zero positional checks / mobility constraints or related risk-reward.
Any movement-based complexity came solely from Chakrams, Powershot, or Focusing Shot (which many RSV enthusiasts consider to have been anti-iconic). There was therefore virtually zero potential reward for preemptive movement or managing resource accordingly, and only the mildest of rewards for moving ahead of time to get an angle on add spawns (and only in certain builds).
Almost entirely periodic damage, with near constant uptime per damage source.
Not a single specialization source of damage fell short of 60% uptime. As such, one’s per-target damage floor was basically their damage ceiling. There was no rotationally bankable damage. Of course, neither was there any reason to do so. This primarily presented as “relatively high damage against extremely high counts of relatively long-lived targets,” a niche we haven’t seen featured in quite some time.
Should be primarily reactive, uncontrolled. / Any set-up should be rote and all-purpose.
Just get your two DoTs rolling and hit your ES whenever able while having at least 30 Focus ready per natural ES, which could be done by just consistently maintaining a Focus margin of 54+, which had no conflicts outside of a vital add spawns, ES refresh, and BA all occuring at the same time (for which one could just increase that margin to 68, still at no risk of overcapping unless getting TotH and LnL together in the very last BA tick).
Almost no burst to manage.
No advantageous snapshotting. No buffs at all outside of Haste and ICD-locked freecasts. Nothing to get wrong, which is apparently a… good… thing?
Almost no actual gameplay or decision-making based around anything inherent to DoTs.
Your sole decision-making was SS refreshes in single-target and slightly increasing your Focus margining if a natural ES, BA, and an add spawn were all to occur at the same time. That was it. About a fifth, at most, of what goes into any actual DoT spec.
Static APL / zero conflicts except from cascades of mistakes, which even then followed the same static APL to solve.
Outside of extreme add priority situations for which one would normally have swapped off SV anyways, ES was always your highest priority, then MS above X fresh targets, then BA, then MS above X targets, then KS, MS above X targets, AS.
If you could count and could remember whether you already DoTed the adds within the last 12-15s, your rotation was solved.
There was no interaction [you didn’t prioritize your BA over your ES natural; you desynced them once at the start and made sure to spend your LnLs fast enough not to delay your natural ES, thereby maintaining that rhythm]. There were no tactics, no varied strategies, no gambles.
Like the other Hunter specs at the time, it was incredibly simple. But unlike retrospectives on that era’s other Hunter specs, though, that’s somehow often treated as an objectively good thing, as if the one niche Hunter most needed rn was “BM, but way easier.”
The NuSV positions, on the other hand, seem to narrow along a route of…
SV needn't JUST be (the above).
E.g., that SV needn’t…
- lack any significant gap between damage floor and ceiling [read: should be allowed more control over its damage dynamics, such as via less immediate of obligatory reactions to procs and/or more bankable forms of damage]
- have minimal complexity
- be based so heavily around a sapper/poisoner theme
- have zero internal risk-reward mechanisms surrounding positioning
- have zero need for careful target selection on AoEs
- etc.
Wanting something more kill-or-be-killed / living on the edge / something primal-feeling.
This could be in any of various forms of burst control, through the feel of burst windows, or whatever else, but does at least tend to require that SV be allowed additional mechanics and agency there-around (enough bankability/flexibility to engage with it in different ways, and enough contextual variance for that to follow only a single route).
Wanting reasons to go into melee range.
More specific than, say, wanting linear AoEs to force repositioning or wanting occasional cast-times, but to similar effect: being rewarded for more greatly engaging with the positional dangers or “dance” of the fight by not being able to simply run-and-gun anywhere and anytime.
Wanting 'that Rexxar/Huln Highmountain Feel'.
Awkward, as Rexxar was clearly a Beastmaster, and Huln seems to have been made solely to establish Legion SV’s artifact weapon, rather than any well-established character on which the spec could have been based.
Otherwise perhaps to be taken as “I’d really like to see a melee weapon strapped to my back, to stab things, to be occasionally up close with the ability to hit harder per average swing when I do than ranged can manage from range (such as by naturally concentrating damage dynamics around that melee time), and to feel like an outlander / beastyboi.”
Now, you can certainly bridge the desire simply for a Survival that would happen to be purely Ranged build with almost any of those desires from NuSurvival enthusiasts, but it’s literally not possible to support a purely Ranged spec at the same time as one which would offer internal reasons to occasionally go into melee range, nor a purely reactive spec at the same time as one that would offer significant burst control.
Again, I don't really get this comparison. BotD isn't anything like Mongoose Fury.
HW BotD was a system that built a buff duration via GCDs and spent excess duration via oGCD AoE attacks that therefore well rewarded Haste up to certain thresholds and provided optimization mechanics in
- minimizing the duration lost in your final spender before you re-applied BotD via its CD,
- minimizing BotD duration wasted by popping having to pop it ahead of your combo-ender (Wheeling Thrust or Fang and Claw),
- minimizing BotD cooling wasted if it could otherwise provide an extra spender per 90 seconds,
- minimizing rotational desync that’d cause conflict between the three priorities above (usually just through Haste min-maxing around as perfect of uptime as possible in the fight), and
- small fight-specific tricks for maximizing spender hits in multitarget situations, even if at cost of total spender uses — also common in dungeoning.
Once we get to Stormblood, it actually just becomes kind of a paper-thin maintenace mechanic.
By Shadowbringers, it stops even being that, and could be handled by an auto-clicker. You couldn’t mismanage it sufficiently to lose it no matter what, because its duration exceeded its cooldown. It was pure bloat.
And by Endwalker, it was gone, replaced with a way to throw out an extra oGCD every so often, Haste-scaled, with up to 4 GCDs of bankability.
So, this one's a little funny, because the XIV analogs are almost perfectly crossed.
In WoW, we’ve had:
- A chance on GCD hit to grant a charge for a more powerful ST GCD.
- A chance on [CD-locked*] DoT tick to refresh your more powerful ST GCD.
- This prevented us from multi-DoTing and therefore from getting any funnel damage, while that was instead Bard’s prime niche for a time.
In XIV, we had:
- A chance on GCD hit to allow for a more powerful ST GCD.
- A chance on DoT tick to refresh charge* of an oGCD ST or AoE shared-charges spender.
- Later, 3 charges max, but by then the mechanic was detached from DoTs.
However, the closest we get to an oGCD attack in WoW is anything which increases apm, such as by replacing either pure downtime or an over-GCD cast (Steady Shot, Aimed Shot) with a more valuable use of that time that allows allows for a greater number of casts in that span.
We see this most often on Energy/Focus classes through simple Energy/Focus gains. In this sense, the closest we get to an “oGCD attack” is a free one.
So it’s kind of funny in that refreshing a charge, up to a max of 3 charges, would be most alike to Legion Mongoose Bite… except RoB came from DoT ticks (and later from just… chance per 3s for just existing, basically) while MB came from GCDs, and Bard’s ST-only empowered shot procs would in turn come from GCDs, not DoTs.
/shrug
That said, I don’t see why you couldn’t have an old TotH-esque mechanic which could proc additional charges of some spender that could be used from range or from melee for a tiny bonus (significant only in melee builds). Think Mongoose Bite turning into Mongoose Shot, etc. You could easily have a spender and its triggering mechanics be shared across both ranged and melee builds. That much is not an issue.
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The reason I make the comparison is that in both cases “intended” DPS output is locked behind buffs that are designed to expire regardless of player actions. Mongoose Fury is “worse” because it only interacts with Mongoose Bite, while BotD buffed jumps and gave access to Wheeling Thrust/Fang And Claw/Geirskogul. In both cases, you make use of the mechanic to reach said DPS, be it getting 5 stacks to get max damage out of Mongoose Bite or working Wheeling Thrust/Fang And Claw/Geirskogul into the rotation. In both cases, the buff is destined to fall off, but BotD has the advantage because it has a payoff/finisher skill in Geirskogul, while all the current SV design has is hoping you were able to reach 5 stacks quickly enough to get more than one or two Mongoose Bites at full stacks. And in both cases mechanics could screw with you (though getting thrown to the solo room when fighting Manipulator is more impactful then a telegraph forcing you to move away leading to losing Mongoose Fury stacks.
I know you’ve mentioned that with enough Skill Speed it was possible to keep BotD running forever, but I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone consider that seriously outside of the people that were bent on going against the meta at the time. Especially once the theorycrafters started figuring out stat priorities.
Yeah, the thing that stood out to me was how Lock and Load interacted with Explosive Shot. It might involve effects that can’t be kept up forever (Immolation Trap, Explosive Shot and Black Arrow’s DoTs had a shorter duration than their cooldowns) but does follow the general idea behind Venomous Bite and Windbite giving Bloodletter procs.
Fair enough. I took Ilarion’s post as suggesting that something in the vein of current melee SV be crammed in with something in the vein of Wrath/Cata/MoP ranged SV.
BotD stuff
Keeping it going forever wasn’t difficult, only dumb to do. High Haste [Skill Speed] builds merely changed when you’d drop BotD, not whether you’d drop it. BotD only had occasional gains (per 30s, at most frequent, on oGCDs, or per combo [10s] via WT/F&C), after all, rather than any constant benefit. BotD uptime between those points of advantage just meant you were wasting opportunities for additional spenders or wasting cooling on BotD itself.
I mean, the “meta” was just:
- Accuracy cap for flanks (front only if boss forced frontal stack).
- 4% Haste (“Skill Speed”).
- Crit is King
- Dump rest in Det / avoid excess Haste as it could desync and avoid excess Accuracy as it was purely wasteful.
I mean, to be fair… imagine Legion Mongoose Bite/Shot being potentially reset by all instances of Hunter attacks done and, poof, you’ve just got a better RSV LnL mechanic, as it’d actually scale with target count for funnel flexibility.
Thereafter, give MB/MS some interaction with Carve/Multi-shot [Butchery/Flachettes] or vice-versa and now you’re less geared towards focus damage but have a greater sense of agency in AoE.
Not sure why it still shows me as level 14 buuuuut.
The few things im noticing is that Survival cant seem to decide what it wants to be. A great value arms warrior with no MS or a DoT heavy melee spec. The pet feels vestigal, like it exists to enable Kill Command, Flanking Strike, Spearhead and Coordinated Assault. I dont really notice any “gaps” in my AoE with Wildfire + Butchery with Frenzy Strikes.
Leaning into DoTs seems like the more enjoyable playstyle (i personally hated Mongoose Bite so much in Legion that i refuse to spec it now).
However, as someone previously mentioned, it feels like Bloodseeker is a setup for an AA based proc a la Art of War for Ret. Theres plenty of amp and tie ins for multiple bleeds across both trees but… what good does it do if all it does is let you AA faster? AAs havent been numerically relevant for any spec since WoD, for many they were irrelevant before that.
If I were to suggest any changes, itd be Lone Wolf. A complete removal of the pet and altered implementation of the abilities that utilize a pet. Mechanically identical but thematically changed to acommodate the missing pet. Roar of Sac, Masters Call, Flanking, Kill Command, Spearhead & Coordinated could all have aura changes implemented to keep their functionality the same or nearly the same without an active pet.
Hell, Warlocks have Grimoire of Sacrifice which sets a precedent for this already. I see no reason Survival couldnt get it as well.
Id also have the spec lean HARD into a mix of Bleeds, Magic and Poison DoTs. Heavier emphasis on the stick and move playstyle - similar to how WW works.
As im levelling as Surv it feels pretty fun so far. But it absolutely could use some streamlining.
And ffs multi point capstones feels like a kick in the 
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Then you would have a class known for its ranged weapons and pets having a spec with neither ranged weapons nor pets. Pass.
4 Likes
There’s also a class known for its fire and frost magic with a spec that uses neither outside of rare backup utility, a class known for demon usage for which 1-2s spec have often optimally not used any demons, a class known for its shapeshift forms for which a spec frequently uses them only as an extra GCD cost to reach their defensives or mobility tools and all others likewise don’t shift after the first time.
Why? Because none of those classes were actually strictly about those things.
Warlock is likewise known for its having access to pets, but that does not mean every single build of it should be arbitrarily forced to use them; the only thing that would need to use them is its Demonology build, just as the only Hunter spec that would rightly need to use pets is Beast Mastery.
Nor is making it so SV cannot generate Focus as soon as its pet is CCed or killed going to make it feel more that much more pet-related. Better for any “pet-coordination” theme —if kept despite already having BM for that purpose— would be effects and functions that leverage the pet to do new, useful things, rather than just holding basic functionality hostage to your pet’s ability to reach an enemy.
1 Like