Honestly I have no numbers to back this up. This is purely a claim out of playtime and observations. But today I hit 2k M+ rating and I went to go check the rankings of where I stood at that point. And honestly it feels weird that barely peeking 2k has put me into the top 1300 in the world. Plus, through a few weeks of consistent playing I have not queued with or seen another Survival Hunter. Everyone in my guild talks about how I only compete with 10 people worldwide because they never see them either.
Is this spec just dead? Do people really not play it? I love it(loved it more when it was ranged but that’s a different conversation) idk. I feel like there is no other classes/spec I just see such a massive lack of. I even see Affliction locks in keys and that is by far the worst spec for it.
its well known that not a lot of people want to play survival. It has nothing to do with how good the spec is and everything to do with the fact that most hunters just want to either play ranged or have exotic pets, most hunters play bm, a good amount play mm, and very few play surv. Its been this way for a few expacs now.
I was super surprised they didn’t make the Sepulcher Survival tier set baseline for survival. It was the only time survival was popular since it was changed to a melee spec in WoD. If they brought it back, I feel a lot more people would play it. Also not restricting exotic pets to BM might bring more people to the spec.
The biggest problems it has are it’s a melee spec competing with hyper mobile ranged specs and it doesn’t really have a core identity. By core identity, I mean a mechanic or ability the spec revolves around. BM has kill command, Destro warlocks have chaos bolt, Fury Warriors have rampage, but survival cant decide if it wants to be about throwing bombs or using raptor strike (which is rather boring imo)/mongoose bite. It feels like a hodge podge of different abilities mashed together. The spec designers need to pick a core mechanic and build the spec around it.
That tier set relayed on their legendary power and mostly uncapped aoe, It revolved around fishing for procs off kill command resets, the only reason this made survival popular was because of its insane dps numbers with relatively low complexity. This did not equate to great game play and honestly i hated that tier set bonus. Fishing for kill command resets for extra bombs was horrible, the current tier set around fury of the eagle is much better.
It definitely felt bad in single target, for sure, but it was the most fun I’ve had in M+ in years. Tons of stuff to micro manage, with multi dotting serpent sting and saving butcher to stack bleeds for blue bomb. The insane numbers were fun too though.
player count deff lower then normal cus of how strong BM is but gernally it is low, its actually higher probably in the pvp communuty of hunters who push rating cus how well it plays against melees and ranged with alot of utility and how you play it weaving in and out like a hybrid (alot diff then pve), but i think its such a unique spec and fun spec, there isnt many or any specs like this in another MMO, i do think as people get the 4PC ppl will start playing it more, its getting a huge jump from 4pc from what ive seen too
if they do that, then they have to make fury of the eagle baseline no? or it will be the meta pick every patch.its a pretty strong tierset but i love the tierset in pvp and pve, but not sure they will do that
I get the point on it not having a direction. I do think they should lean more into the Wildfire Bomb stuff and Guerilla combat feel. Personally I will never understand with how important Wildfire Infusion is to the class why it’s not just the normal function of wildfire bomb and instead we have had to use a talent point on it essentially since it was added to the game.
But honestly I really hate how quickly they gave up on how it worked in Legion. Though it was a mess, it had a play style. Stack up Mongoose Bits to make Fury of the Eagle deal more damage. That was a gameplay loop, it was engaging and getting a fully stacked Fury off was a challenge of the class. But they completely scrapped it and now it is what it is today where it just seems like you’re pressing buttons because they are there, and not because there is a reason to
i love the direction or what it is right now, i love that i can use serpent sting and wildfire bombs and KC and glaive toss and explosive shot from and at range and when i need to kite or move i can do it as well as any other range, but that i have to go in and use mongoose bite. Coordianted assault IMO is the most fun CD in the game, give me my Kill shot that spreads to 3 targets and puts a bleed on people. there isnt a spec like this in any MMO. it feels like im playing a ranger thats proficient in melee, range and has a connection with his beast. we get to use literally poisens,bleeds,bombs/explosives,a pet,traps, have plenty of range abilities. i enoy it alot.
Certain specs are just never going to be very popular, regardless of how good they are. See also: Feral, or Boomkin before they got Glyph of Stars.
Survival’s been very strong all expansion in PvP, but doesn’t see much representation even so. It’s a melee/ranged hybrid in a class that’s otherwise full ranged, which makes it inherently unappealing both to many ranged players and many melee players.
I didn’t mean in terms of ability to heal. I meant that it is a hybrid of melee and ranged capabilities, neither pure melee nor pure ranged.
In PvP, at least, it has to weave from one to the other depending on circumstance. Ergo it’s not necessarily appealing to pure melee zugzug players, nor is it necessarily appealing to pure ranged players. It’s trickier, with a higher skill cap, and lower skill floor.