Ranged survival also filled a niche that doesn’t exist now. A hunter spec that has incentive to use traps, is mobile, has significant dot damage, and doesn’t rely on a pet for most of its damage. I’ve seen a few folks in here claim mm and survival were somehow identical, but these people are outright wrong.
Now we have a melee spec that isn’t particularly mobile compared to better mobile agility melee, that has no trap synergies, for raid fights at peak performance is encouraged to hit ONE button(mongoose bite) over and over again while only applying dots as an afterthought. This melee hunter is also crippled if its pet is gone instead of inconvenienced.
My biggest gripe though is old explosive shot is still gone. That was my favorite ability in the game, and it STILL has no good replacement.
I’m obviously in the minority but I wouldn’t play Hunter if it had no melee because that’s what I play and enjoy. Melee Survival Hunter is the most fun I’ve had playing this game in some time, certainly since I took a lengthy break at the end of MoP.
I feel for Hunters who are nostalgic for old SV and there’s definitely room for some middle ground which I hope Blizzard will explore.
I could as well claim you are outright wrong… and that nostalgia is clouding your judgement. The survival you know would have stayed the way you know it. If current survival stayed with range only, it would had change and you would hate it as well.
Current SV fulfill all those roles except relying on pet.
Survival has a good mobility really. A long charge, a low CD disengage, can go range mode for period of time. It doesnt have the best mobility compared to all melee DPS, but its far from having the worst. At the base though, you cannot use such comparison. Hunter isnt rogue, isnt warrior, isnt w.e other class. It is an hunter.
Define trap synergy, cause in my book it never was the case for any hunter specs. If you’re speaking of the talents that was in Legion with the “melee” hunter, than yes… it no longer has it sadly.
Right… if you think so.
Because its a spec that works with their pet… makes sense. Just like BM where their DMG is mostly the pet. An in some case, the Demo locks as well… pets it their dmg.
Name didnt fit its effect… the ability could come back as something else in the future. Current explosive shot fits perfectly the name.
Side thing, if you look at old survival version, no wonder it was changed. It lacked things to make it apart from the others. A ranged dots class? it was all the same dots with different times and magic school… how was that unique?
You could say affliction warlock was that, but that’s wrong. Corruption was a long steady dot, agony was a ramping up dot, siphon life had the purpose of life stealing, UA is a curse as well a dmg boost.
Hunters… poison sting… regular dot of nature dmg, explosive shot… short dmg dot, black arrow… medium dot duration that shares cd with traps.
So survival can fill a ranged slot in a raid instead of wasting a melee one, one that can be better filled by literally anything else? Survival dots in their current state are laughable compared to the past, current survival damage revolves around hitting mongoose bite as much as possible to maintain near permanent uptime on coordinated assault and blur of talons which makes up its big single target build. If you don’t know this then you probably don’t play survival at a competitive level as far as raiding goes.
Yes and just by being survival you throw away your mobility to force yourself into melee, hurting any group you join so you can spam mongoose bite, all you get is a charge with a string attached. Even compared to other melee survival isn’t the standard for moblity. Monks and demonhunters completely outrank survival mobility, and rogues, warriors, enh shamans, and feral druids are on par with survival’s level of mobilty. But even among hunters your mobility is worse because being melee is objectively less mobile then being able to attack 40 yards away, and some fights really make that fact known.
Well to begin survival had talents that improved traps. Like Survival is where the trap talents were. In fact it still has trap talents that aren’t even used like that dead talent bear trap that is just freeze trap with a bleed, steel trap i think it is. Though beyond that though lets talk about cataclysm lock and load. The variation of lock and load that was a survival talent that caused you to proc your big damage ability by activating traps. It was functionally very similar to how mages did and sometimes still do shatter. I would say that cataclysm lock and load would be a great example of the trap synergy i was talking about. I don’t even think current survival has a azerite trait that effects traps, and any talents that do are dead talents. Cataclysm lock and load for reference: “Lock and load: rank 0/2 You have a 50% chance when you trap a target with freezing or ice trap to cause your next two explosive shots to cost no focus and trigger no cooldown. Effect lasts for 12 seconds.”
If you want a pet based spec we have bm, survival now has its main energy builder based on their pet’s existence. Once upon a time the pet was just for some damage and utility. Survival had a pet but it was more akin to destro/aff locks having a pet, there for utility and some damage but being somewhat outside the core survival toolkit.
One of those type of guys uh? Numbers shouldn’t be on topic… the spec mechanics and etc should. Numbers always change. But you continue your sentence with something unrelated to whether it fulfill all those roles or not.
Im sorry, but just at the 2nd paragraph now and the only vibe you give is: I hate SV a lot. So I’ll remind you by saying why “I” hate SV. That’s your opinion, its fine to have one… but you cannot deny that SV has a good mobility. The part where you compare SV to different class and then to ranged class… I dont think you are making any point there. You just hate melee and keep repeating it instead of providing good arguments.
Yes, we still had that in Legion, thats only recent with BFA that we get nothing to improve our traps. (Except some pvp talents). I do wish we’d have those legion talent back.
The second part, yea ok… which really is used only on openers. Certainly more useful in PvP. Black arrow used to share cd with traps.
A pet focus spec, yes… did you read what I typed?
Yes… the spec has evolved and SV works with his pet. The two are different, even if they both need their pet alive.
If you dislike having to manage pet, you can go MM and turn Lone Wolf mode or still use pet with minimal management.
That was the case back pre legion, yes. Now it ain’t a valid argument to use. The new survival spec is fine. Surv is loved in pvp because its awesome on how you can control, not as good as a rogue obviously. MM does great in BG scenarios.
PvP isn’t only arena. The only one doing not so great is BM, due to some nerf, how crit is for pvp and how its main dmg is pet.
If you wish to troll, just leave. It brings nothing here.
Its fine if you want to be dismissive, by saying that all my gripes with survival are because I hate the spec, but it doesn’t give much credence to your words. I don’t really, I mained survival in uldir in fact, my gripes are entirely based on my own experience.
I don’t hate survival, i hate where it currently is. Survival in its current state is objectively worse then bm, and i hate that more then anything. I hate having all my damage being pet damage as a hunter. I hate not contributing as much as I can for any group I join. I hate that mm was broken going into bfa so its bm or go home for the entire expansion. I hate that survival still has no draw because survival has no unique benefits beyond some above average single target damage provided by borrowed power that is going away in shadowlands.
So tldr I don’t hate survival I’m just incredibly salty that for all of bfa bm hunter has been the only complete hunter spec, and mm and survival won’t be fixed. Survival could be fixed by making it ranged, i’d like that, but it could also be fixed by just giving it some utility and not making it a “do aoe or do single target: choose one” type of spec. Survival is just in a awful place right now and I hate that the most.
Why? There were plenty of melee specs already in the game, and melee SV is essentially just a warrior spec with a pet. It is a valid argument because Hunter had historically been the ranged class, and now a third of that was deleted for no reason and replaced with a melee spec that caused tons of Hunter players to drop the class outright.
That was the message you were saying in your own words, I hate melee sv. Which is your personal opinion. You hate it thats fine, but saying it doesnt bring anything to the table that just lying to yourself and others.
If there’s one thing current SV is missing is “NUMBER TWEAKS” to bring their dmg up. Its not the spec’s fault, mechanic issues… its the numbers attached to it. Which will always be an issue for 2 specs out of the 3. One will always have higher DPS.
Numbers… tweaking… thats all is needed. Mechanic the spec is fine. You just hate not being #1 on Details / dmg meters.
Being melee is not an issue, it has utilities but you dont use it or think it ain’t.
You cannot handle truth or facts apparently.
Because a lot just think with emotions. Anger / hate makes them not even use logic. When you toss those emotion aside you see clearly. You also have people hand picking data to prove a false points… thats lying to yourself and others.
On the contrary, we think with logic and emotions.
Logically, melee SV is extremely mechanically different from ranged SV and is therefore not merely a ‘changed’ version of ranged SV. Therefore ranged SV was deleted for no reason, as melee SV was a new spec entirely.
Emotionally, lots of players loved ranged SV and they have a right to be angry about it being deleted for no reason. Also emotionally, we recognize that deleting melee SV would do the same for a few other people, so we don’t want to remove melee SV.
The conclusion? Return ranged SV as a fourth spec and return melee SV to being purely melee. Ranged SV players win. Melee SV players win. Blizzard wins because returning ranged SV and solidifying melee SVs fantasy can only be profitable.
There is neither an emotional nor logical reason as to why ranged SV shouldn’t be returned as a fourth spec. The straws you’ve been grasping at have all been shown to be utterly bogus. You have no data, so you claim that literally all data anywhere is just ‘hand picked’. You have no reason, so you claim that everyone else is just a bunch of angry haters.
So what side are you taking here? Not the ranged SV side. Not the melee SV side. Not the Blizzard side. It seems you are just taking the contrarian side, arguing that a universally positive change shouldn’t happen. Therefore you shouldn’t be surprised if and when people label you as a troll.
Freezing traps
tar trap
feigh death cheese / skips
growl with pet trick
immunity turtle
stealth
misdirect
binding shot
can go range for a moment to continue dps
etc
Not counting the extra one that comes with pet.
What the fel are you talking about ? Do you even play hunter?
It’s a perfectly valid argument. Tons of people that play hunter rolled their character pre-legion. It should be obvious that they don’t want one of their favorite specs turned into a melee spec, when they specifically made a hunter to NOT be melee. This type of re-work makes no sense at all. For these hunters, including myself, it now feels like my class only has two specs.
And again, let me reiterate: people do not “love” surv pvp. They play it because it is the ONLY viable option. Marks and BM are currently terrible pvp choices.