Hunter's Mark is a perfect example where unpruning was not the best idea. Everyone's already getting 2 covenant abilities, most of the additions beyond that are unnecessary and not a whole lot of fun to play with. I do miss ranged survival, though Marks mostly has that playstyle (albeit with Lone Wolf), and I'd love to see them do something truly different like make it a tank spec.
Everybody seems to hate Hunter's Mark. Why don't they remove the 5% damage buff already?
Can they delete the melee disaster and go back to ranged now? This experiment of catering to the whiny minority doesn't seem to have gone over well, with melee Surv sitting at more parses than Sub rogue, and Sub rogue only. Not that MM is doing much better, but for all the clamoring that supposedly happened to strip the game of an actually unique spec (a weapon based ranged DoT spec), it's not very popular.
It sounds weird to say "make the spec range again", when Survival does not ever go melee in PvP to be able to kill someone. Just bomb and serpent sting people while spamming Moongose on the distance to kill. I can't talk about PvE since it's not worth playing it when you can play BM, stack crit, spam barbed shot and hit dps charts.
I feel they need to add more range attacks to survival, not like a main rotation, but maybe using a quick bolt as an finisher, and would't mind being able to DW again. Make their melee range farther for polearm but regen faster for DW. I loved way way back and miss it being a mix between range and melee.
SV is one of the best represented specs in AWC this year. That may not be everyone's chosen content, but it is an extremely popular part of the game. Raid PvE is not the be all and end all. I'd be happy to see SV perform better in PvE content, but not at the expense of the most fun PvP spec of any class, and definitely of Hunter."Bring back ranged SV" is increasingly hysterical. It's a "dingoes ate my baby" cry for a lost love. I'm truly sorry that black arrow is gone. I wish Blizzard would give it to MM so the ranged SV crowd could shut up.
the forgotten spec; if it was a druid spec.... :D i can't understand why they dont care about it? there is a ton of design space.this 2 legendary rrelated to trap are a good step forward a cool trap spec but it feels unfinished...really disapointed by shadowland.oh and why dk and fury warrior have some change to their available weapon (frost with 2h and fury with single minded) and hunter can't have dual wield (you know like rexxar and nathanos)
Can't wait to kill everyone as a Black Survival Blood Elf just for the lolz ;)
If SV were to stay melee, it needs some unique features, that no other melees can bring or other Hunters can.The only thing I can see as unique would be traps and close-range grenade.Traps are the hallmark of Hunter class. and no other specs use traps efficiently enough to make their own identities. SV should focus on traps that would make the spec unique and give reasons to take them in end-game contents (M+ or raids).Another feature I found quite interesting in SV is Wildfire Grenade, which reminds me of an army special force from Italy, Arditi. They specialize using daggers and grenades in combat, very unique ways to fight enemies during WWI. Probably the only adaptation of this concept in games is Arditi in Tree of Savior, a Korean MMORPG. Here, the class utilizes daggers to swiftly come in close contact with the enemies, and grenades from mid-range fights, close-range AOE damage and retreat mechanism. SV should utilize such concept as well to improve what SV already has. Instead of daggers, SV performs infight combat with his/her pet, reducing distances using harpoons, slicing enemies with occasional grenades. Improve grenades through talents, give more meaning to push that button, or change talents so they can interact with wildfire. There may not be a simple solution, but changing talents should be the first step for SV to be feel great.The melee concept can salvaged, but only if Blizz is willing to take feedbacks.
This write-up feels like whining.
sorry to say but your first proposed solution is objectively useless.think about what would happen if you gave that same ranged option to a warrior, even if they would lose 2-3% damage a warrior would take a 40 yd range on all their abilities in a heartbeat. this would effectively kill melee hunters and many of us enjoy the overall play style of the spec. the issues with survival aren't created by it being melee or ranged, they come from the rotation itself and wouldn't be fixed by simply attacking further.honestly, the main issues are how tight the timings are. it is way too easy to lose your serpent sting or mess up grenade stacks and both of these systems interfere with the global intensive play style of mongoose bite.they need to do what they did with frost mages, just add a bit more time to everything and let hunters work things in between there rotation without feeling like they have to stop to take out the garbage every 10 seconds. when you get that great chain of mongoose bites going it feels great but anytime grenades get capped or serpent sting falls off while you are doing the chaining it just feels like a hassle.that being said, even if the spec stays exactly the same im still going to play it, i just love wildfire infusion and mongoose bite so i will keep at it no matter what.# AddDualWieldPlease.
Ok, to sum up, Mongoose Bite baseline is a must, that's for sure.Now, I like the idea of Melee-hunter, because spears were the first hunting tool that existed, it deserves a good representation. I do like the idea of making if a DoT-based build centered around bleeds and poisons, and let me explain this one.The whole concept of the Survival spec, RP-wise, is of a hunter who spends most of its time in nature, and all his/her tools come from nature. Poisons from animals and plants, materials like thorns, vines and such to make traps, all that, and that should be the direction it should take.Re-theme Wildfire Bomb as a poisonous smoke grenade, keep Serpent Sting, make Raptor Strike/Carve do more dmg against poisoned targets. Maybe even bringing back the whole Stings utility spells (Wyvern Sting, Viper Sting, and such (Heck, a new Viper Sting that helps with Focus generation instead of Mana would be a godsend for the spec xD))Maybe set up a series of talents, like Bloodseeker, where the pet spreads bleeds and benefits from attacking bleeding targets. Well done, with enough interactions and some talent shuffle, a build of Alpha Predator, Steel Trap and Bloodseeker could be a good bleed build.My last idea would be making Mongoose Bite and Chakrams baseline, move Birds of Prey to the place of MB, and then split up Wildfire Infusion into three separate talents:-Shrapnel Bomb for Bleed builds-Volatile Bomb for Poison builds-Pheromone Bomb for general purposes
I think a core issue with the spec is that the base toolkit and talents have no depth or interaction. The capstone ability for survival seems to be working up to some chunky mongoose bites. This is already a glaring issue when you have to talent mongoose bite to achieve this. None of the other talents really tie in with mongoose bite except for birds of prey, which means you cant talent into wildfire infusion. The latent poison legendary adds a fun waxing and waning playstyle in multi target scenarios, especially with hydras bite talented.There are so many changes blizzard could make to the uninspired survival talent tree. These could revolve around mongoose bite. These talents could work around focus costs, damage procs and interactions between other baseline abilities. For inspiration, look at enhancement shamans Hailstorm talent which was implemented fantastically. Also, allow dual wield or the ability to transmog to it. It's such a simple request that will satisfy so many people and doesn't cause anyone harm. While you're at it, allow hunters to transmog both melee weapon and ranged weapon for all specs.
Loved survival in Legion and played nothing but even when it sucked numerically because of how fun and impactful the slashing abilities felt; hated the boring half-ranged BM-lite they turned it into in BFA. Either commit to melee or just make it back into MM with traps, stop trying to have it both ways with the half-butted rip of BM it's been all BFA.
I really want Hunter's Mark to go away, gcd for 5% damage, not fun to me at all, just a chore.