This has very little or potentially nothing with what I said. Hell, you quoted the portion that proves this:
Rexxar is “a survival hunter, if one were to ascribe him any kind of class and specialization.” But he’s not a player so he doesn’t get a class like that. He gets whatever works best for him.
He’s a hunter-ranger-survival type character of some sort of amalgamation, with strong ties and respect for animals that he fights besides as opposed to using to fight for him, and he’s one of the best trackers in all of Azeroth. If one were to ascribe him a class or specialization, there’s only one thing that fits all of those traits and if you disagree with me - please go and do the Survival Legion Artifact quest and know that it is the only one out of the three specializations that do any amount of real tracking.
You are getting hung up on bombs when they are completely and 100% irrelevant to the conversation. Largely seemingly because of this:
Survival fits into the role because of class fantasy of a tracker, ergo why the Legion questline is quite important in this regard. Beastmaster is about the beast, not the combined fighting of beast and hunter - BM is quintessentially “I take care of beasts and they do my work for me out of respect for what I do for 'em.”
It is a very different class fantasy to being a tracker, and survival needed to be fixed due to the complete identity crisis it had prior to Legion.
in my humble opinion to be quite honest after having done keys and raid on arms and also sv (my main since s1 of sneedolands), survival is like arms if arms were good. you have spectacular priority damage and pretty good cleave as well, does good aoe but you get the most bang for your buck with the prio dmg fs provides.
as far as design goes, in legion they wisely realized that hunter is one of the most flavorless specs out there and this was the expac they decided they wanted to go all in on spec identity (rather than class identity which imho is the better design philosophy). because really, you just had:
guy with bow/gun that has 2 pets (and can use exotic beasts that are exotic because…because they just are, okay!!!) and can sometimes call in more for help
guy with bow/gun that has no pet that doesnt meaningfully interact with your kit that specializes in shooting things from farther away.
guy with bow/gun that has a pet doesn’t meaningfully interact with your kit and specializes in different types of ammo? i guess?
and now we have the same thing except now survival is:
guy with sword/axe/polearm that can fight at close and mid range alongside their pet that they work in tandem with
I’m definitely going to need more insight on this.
It plays a bit like arms war/enhance. If you are trying to aoe, don’t. That is almost passive with bombs.
Your main damage will be mongoose bite. And because of how that ability works, you’ll want to stack it.
So you’ll find a rhythm of dumping bombs and kc/mongoose swapping.
It’s going to feel super clunky at lower lvls due to lack of talents.
Then where does Explosive shot fit in? And what’s the deal with Tip of the Spear? Does the game want me to alternate between Kill Command and Mongoose Bite, or do I use Tip buffs on Wildfire Bomb too?
I have never been more confused trying to understand the core of a spec than this one.
Basically on cd. You’ll have procs with it too. If you know there is going to be a big pull, sit on it a few. But try to use it on cd.
Your bombs can also reset explosives shot cd as well AND make it hit multiple targets.
It’s a stacking damage buff from kc and flanking strike. (also from fury of the eagle and coordinated assault later on)
Abilities like mongoose strike and bombs will consume a stack.
Comes in handy for aoe with bombs and single target when you are at 5 stacks of mongoose and hit flanking strikes for instant stacks to burn of mongoose.
And pack leader also makes the combo even stronger. One of the perks refreshes your mongoose timer to full duration allowing you to stay at 5 stacks of mongoose for a lot longer. This allows you to essentially alternate KC and mongoose for single target and get full benefit of tip of the spear.
Yes.
KC is your builder, mongoose is your spender. Swap mongoose with bombs for aoe.
Yes.
A lot of these things can be done almost passively. KC constantly gives you tip stacks. If you are in aoe, you’ll be spamming bombs a lot. So KC for focus AND tip stacks, bombs/mongoose to spend.
There is a lot of nuance with it, but imo that’s what makes it more fun.
Once you figure it out, it all becomes muscle memory.
As you go down the talent tree, you’ll get a lot more synergies.