Your first impressions on survival?

[Iridar 80]

How's the spec looking to you, guys? Y'all know I wanted a melee spec, and now that it's here, and my hunter can finally wield a 2-handed sword, but I'm too busy playing outlaw rogue instead :p

I've messed around a dummy with SV for a while, and can't say I'm overly enthusiastic over what we got. The "rotation" feels kinda boring and it seems the "skill" with that rotation is not tripping over your own feet while trying to do 3 completely separate things: manage DoT, manage focus with Flanking Strike and manage Mongoose Bite charges. 

Compared to Outlaw, with its harmonic flow of saber slashes and pistol shots, SV doesn't feel all that good. 

[demonardvark 556]

I'm actually a pretty big fan of it. I was distraught even in WoD when old survival got nerf bagged and thrown out the back door. When I found out it was getting completely gutted I was displeased. Have to say though, I like what they made. Huge utility tool kit compared to a lot of specs. Reliable and easy burst. A rather simple yet complex rotation at the same time. As you said there are three main priorities but with the right talent spec there's never wasted GCDs and certain things feel powerful now. Traps in general were more or less not used dps wise so its great to see them hitting hard. 

So, I like it. Plus, I feel its sort of a middle ground in rotational complexity. Many specs got flattened into one or two button rotations. Only a couple have (IMO) very complex rotations. Survival is a nice middle ground to me. Requires some thought, there is room to mess up, however, its not super difficult. Also, there is room for good players and bad players to arise. Blizz wanted to get away from huge dps gaps between top players and lower players, and I feel in many of the new specs they succeeded. However, with dot management and proc management survival is one of the few where good players will stand out. 

[skylinkdave 1]

I enjoy the playstyle, but it remains to be seen how viable survival will be come raid time in Legion. 

Edited July 30, 2016 by skylinkdave
clarification

[demonardvark 556]

On 7/30/2016 at 5:00 PM, skylinkdave said:

I enjoy the playstyle, but it remains to be seen how viable survival will be come raid time in Legion. 

We honestly will have no clue about any class until ED is released. Each raid wave always brings huge tuning changes. However, we can sorta guess at viability for "competitive spots". From a raid lead perspective, why should I bring a XXXX to this raid? Survival has a good toolkit for itself, but as far as raid comp benefits, ehhhh not seeing too much. Also considering there is a plethora of melee classes, survival will have to fight hard to get a good foothold.

[ForumWarrior 5]

Managing 3 completely different things is boring and pressing 3 buttons is not.

I will never understand such posts.

In terms of pressing buttons all specs are more or less the same. It's only numbers and your own preference that coosing a spec depends on. 

[Iridar 80]

22 hours ago, ForumWarrior said:

Managing 3 completely different things is boring and pressing 3 buttons is not.

I will never understand such posts.

It's not boring, it's just disconnected. The spec feels like a bunch of random token abilities thrown in together without any overarching thought.

Even Fury Warrior is more enjoyable to play, with its 4 button rotation and simplest priority - just because those 4 buttons have great synergy, and your choices have clearly defined impact.

I also very much hate that SV's strongest burst is just pressing Mongoose Bite over and over. Engagement-wise, It's one step above monk's Fists of Fury - their strongest ability is a 4 second channel. "Hey look at me, dishing out all that damage without any effort whatsoever! Look how skilled I am!". 

Hunters in Legion got the same treatment as warrior in WoD - completely gutted in every aspect, and lost without a sense of direction. It's extremely frustrating. Without active focus generation, we lost the only thing that made us unique and held us one skill step above every other DPS class. 

I'm a die hard hunter main, so I'm sure I'll eventually come to terms with these changes, and learn to love and enjoy this new hunter, but right now I can't look at it without tears. 

I just wanted to know if there are other members of community who share my view. If it's really a problem with hunter, or my perspective is flawed.

Edited August 4, 2016 by Iridar

[Raverbasher 0]

On 4 August 2016 at 8:53 PM, Iridar said:

I'm a die hard hunter main, so I'm sure I'll eventually come to terms with these changes, and learn to love and enjoy this new hunter, but right now I can't look at it without tears. 

I just wanted to know if there are other members of community who share my view. If it's really a problem with hunter, or my perspective is flawed.

I don't think you can say your perspective is flawed. Clearly you had a deep connection with Hunter that's been ravaged by the changes Blizz has made, and your reaction is only natural.

 

Personally I'm loving Survival Hunter. Out of all the classes I've played it's the one I'm having the most fun with so far. Harpooning enemies and then throwing out traps and hacking away with my pet is awesome fun. With Moongoose I've got it assigned to my mouse wheel which I can set to free roll, which is entertainin just setting the wheel spinning.

 

Whether or not it's viable in the future is another thing, but at the moment I'm really enjoying it. I don't particularly like what they did to MM and BM, and I really thought I'd have to shelve my hunter. The survival spec has made me reconsider simply because I'm having a lot of fun playing it.

Edited August 19, 2016 by Raverbasher

[Iridar 80]

13 hours ago, Raverbasher said:

I don't think you can say your perspective is flawed. Clearly you had a deep connection with Hunter that's been ravaged by the changes Blizz has made, and your reaction is only natural.

For what it's worth, I've more or less warmed up towards MM. I still have issues with Sidewinders - this ability doesn't make any sense. I also kinda dislike that our ability to do immediate damage hinges solely on RNG, but in worst case scenario, that can be fixed with talents and cooldowns. Dislike Barrage being 25% of damage done. 

But MM's AOE burst is just crazy strong and satisfying.