I've always loved survival as a fantasy and playstyle ever since legion, but it's as you say, I've just been pushed off from trying it out because everyone has this innate aversion to it. Thankfully I found your channel a while ago and it's been reigniting my interest for SV. And I'll definitely roll it as one of my alts next season regardless of what happens with buffs/nerfs, I just find it so much more fun as a playstyle. Thanks for your content man, keep it up!
I really hate how people write off the spec without even looking at how it performs because it really does put people off from playing the spec since there's so many dougebags out there who will kick you from a group or just berate you with insults because you're not playing what they consider a meta spec. It's so bizarre and stupid. But it really is awesome to hear that you're going to give it another go as an alt next patch!
I've definitely experienced the "Why are you playing Survival" thinking. Ha. I came back after ending in Warlords, played all 3 specs to get a feel for em, and decided SV was the most fun to me. ( I mained Hunter since Vanilla and SV was always my fav anyway even though I didn't always get to play it ) Man did the other hunters in the guild give me grief. Until I raided and did + keys with them. I have not heard a peep since :p Or the other day a guy I know asked me to help his guild with their H Raz kill for their AoTC. Get in, do a pull, get done, and afterwards the raid lead there goes "Whoa, SV is slapping. When did it get that good." I enjoy people's surprise when it's not this pile of poo they think it is. I don't pug keys often but I have gotten the "you're the first survival I've seen" comments here and there. Thanks for the vids, Nimze!
That is the one plus about everybody thinking its bad when its actually not. Getting those comments where people are surprised, it's kind of like we're an exotic animal they thought was extinct or something.
SV was regularly a solid and widely-played spec before you quit in Warlords, though. The stigma against SV came with it being made melee in Legion. People assume its performance is bad because they see very few people playing it and probably none in person themselves. So the assumption is Hunters avoid it because of bad performance, when in fact they're avoiding it because they don't want to be melee.
@@Bepples no I was there when it switched. I still have vids of me raid testing of it on the PTR. I guess my thing is, I just don't mind if it's ranged or melee. Like, that doesn't concern me and I'm ok with either. I know you hate it being melee with a passion and that's your thing and that's ok. Coming back and playing all three specs for a while, it was the most fun of the three to me. I liked it ranged back in the day. I like it melee. It can be either to me. If I strongly despised it being melee I wouldn't play it. Now if they make it not fun to play, then it will not be fun ranged or melee and either way I wouldn't play it because I wouldn't enjoy it.
summed it up perfectly lol, I kept my Surv hunter up to about a 407 ilvl and got 2200 on it so far and people are always like wow you did good damage. like yea? the only issue I've had this season is not having a DR with a 45 or 60s CD like other classes. Other than that I've had so much fun playing it.
That's one of the positives with being consider a meme when you get those reactions from people when they see you doing good damage with a spec they thought was trash. Keep it up!
That's like going to Marcelianonline where they do a tier list and put Survival on the button and talk about SV as if they knew it's bad without even testing. They say the tier set is bad when addresses what we were lacking last season, AOE, and also changes our playstile a lil bit which is ok and opens up different builds which is always good. Ppl just believe in whatever is said without checking themselves
Exactly and practically everyone who makes these tier lists no very little if anything about the spec because how is one person supposed to keep up with every spec in the game to correctly rate them. It's not possible
Marcelian typically ranks things based on how fun they are to play and they have indicated that they don't typically enjoy Dragonflight SV's design. They play SV avidly and have been huge advocates for it so it's a little nonsense to pretend they haven't tried it.
Nimze, thanks for Championing survival. A bit of background for you. I have been maining enhancement shaman since BC. Over the few last expansions, enhancements performance, and overall gameplay was pretty poor. In fact, it was so poor that I chose not to play shadowland due to blizzard not making the promised changes after a full expansion. In the meantime, I picked up the new survival and was really enjoying it all the way through Legion And BFA. When Dragon flight was announced, and I saw all the changes and talk about how well enhancement was doing, it was the first class I leveled to 70. It was doing well, but some thing was missing. Maybe the over complicated rotation, and or the massive amount of key binds, I don’t know somethings didn’t feel right. After leveling my mage, and then a rogue to 70, I didn’t think I necessarily wanted to level my hunter, but a part of me missed it. My survival hunter is now my main. I am a filthy casual and have only done a few mythic pugs and LFR raids. But I’m always topping the DPS meters whenever I’m playing. And understand I also like to PVP and I’m enjoying the play style in battlegrounds and in arenas with survival as well. It is my go to class now and I’m really enjoying it. Keep on playing keep and posting. I’ll ask you to reach out to MARCELIAN online and post on their channel. One of the creators really likes survival but two months ago posted a video about how messed up the tree was. He just posted a video about a week ago , playing and pushing mythic keys with survival. He used your your videos as a guide. Also, they did a tier list for 10.01 and rated a D, because they just felt that blizzard is not giving the class a fair shake. Thanks again and happy hunting.
It's nice to hear you're enjoying the spec so much its your go to class now! Yeah I hear enhancement is overly complicated this expansion though I haven't played or looked into much myself. I know one of the guys from Marcelian online enjoys survival and the talent tree is a bit of a mess so I totally understand that they're upset with it. Though it's sad to hear they rated the spec is D for next patch (the specs looking good so that's pretty damn low).
I have always wanted to play this spec but because of all the general negative comments or people seeing it as a meme had me away from it, but thank you I’m gonna give it a try
This video was really interesting to me. Until i saw it i considered Survival to be one of the worst specs in the game, not because i have seen them doing bad, but because i have actually never seen one in keys in the whole season. Since they always are in the lowest tier everytime i open subcreation i never bothered to think otherwise. I understand now data like that might be highly influenced by the popularity of some specs. Im going to give surv a try as my alt in season 2. ^^
Survival is the underdog spec for sure but give it a try, it's really fun and pretty strong especially going into next patch. Plus like you said you haven't even seen one in keys before so you'll surprise people and it's always fun to see their reactions so give it a try
It might help to look at fighting games. Often a character might be labelled as low tier at the start of the game. But over time they get buffs until they become a great overall character. But they never shake that low tier reputation and as a result they rarely get picked. Anji Mito from Guilty Gear Strive comes to mind.
I think what blizzard might do and what they definately have to do is to give SV some unique stuff, which only this spec can bring. For ex, rogues can deal less damage, but you will always have a rogue in top keys because of shroud and vanish pulls. Why can’t SV do some unique stuff like that? It also can be a good fantasywise. The spec called SURVIVAL, its about surviving, we can be one of the tankiest spec because of that! Or somehow, we can boost team survivability by a lot. Make bombs give buffs to teammates, make camoflage to stealth 5 ppl in the group, make ability, which turns your pet into 2nd tank, for maybe 10-15 seconds. They just dont give a damn about the spec
Sorry for the late reply but don't listen to bepples he be trolling. No lie I like the pet being able to taunt a boss for a few seconds. If it had a really long cooldown so it could only be used once during a boss fight, it could have a niche use if one of your tanks messed up a tank swap and could prevent a tank death if the pet could survive an auto attack or two to get to whatever the boss mechanic is. It's super niche but I like it. I think it needs some unique stuff whatever it is, just something.
@@NimzeWoW yeah, it would be great but not enough. In this particular case - people dont like mechanics, which assume fails/death. For example holy priest has talent that makes him resurrect after Spirit of Redemption once per 10 minutes - sounds great, but nobody plays with that talent because you want be better in good situations instead of being amazing in bad situation)
Got to be honest with you, this spec when i started to play with it from 2 months ago blew me out of the water with it's single target damage. I can outdps 3/4 of specs in single target boss encounters and it shocked my guild members with that damage.
That's why I don't get how people can still call it bad and a meme since it's been topping single--target dps charts all expansion so far. It is fun to be able to shock people though since nobody realises it is actually pretty good
I use 'tellmewhen' that shows ability cooldowns and buffs ect in the middle of my screen and I know a lot of people ask and don't know about it at all so I could do a video on at least that addon sometime. Thanks for the suggestion! Other than that I use a weakaura for my focus bar, elvui for the action bars and some of the ui (mainly just the chat and minimap) and then things like bigwigs/littlewigs, details and just all the usual stuff
I leveled a hunter because I wanted to play a ranged, I always play melee classes. A few days ago a polearm dropped, so I thought I'll try the "meme" spec. I gotta say, its my new favourite, not only it has crazy good single target and aoe damage, its also really fun to play, probably the most fun I played so far. I only played one low mythic run though, but that was promising, gonna try climbing the ladder. I'll never fall for the tier list memes again.
Yes!! keep giving it a try, it is genuinely really fun. Glad to hear you won't fall for the tier lists anymore they are all very unreliable and never should be taken very seriously it's just a fun thing people like doing
The problem is that it's easy to play the other hunter specs, BM especially. Your pets do almost all of your dps and you can run and gun while topping charts. Basically a hybrid of a caster and melee. People tend to gravitate to the easier, higher dps classes because it's the meta or because they want to play on EZ mode. Survival will always be my top dps spec, mainly because of how fun it is.
I totally get that a lot of people will play BM because of its simplicity even when its not doing very good damage but survival is super fun and I wish more hunters gave it at least a try
BM is a simple spec but pets doing most of the damage is not why. The BM Hunter still has to initiate that damage dealing. For example, Kill Command is pet damage but the Hunter casts it. It's not automatic.
I only really played in cata and I remember always wanting a melee hunter spec my computer sucks so I haven’t really played in a bit but I’m about to start again and I want this class to feel a bit better but I’m definitely playing it Pets are pretty much all viable right? I dislike that the pets seem to do the same thing other than lust etc
Yep all the pets do basically the same thing. There's 3 pet families: one gives leech and lust, one gives a defensive and extra health and the other gives move speed and a snare break. I'd advice just using the leech+lust family type for the self sustain but other than pet families all pets do have a minor ability but none of them have any impact.
I use an addon called 'tellmewhen' to track all my abilities cooldowns and buffs ect (the thing in the middle of the screen) I get asked this a lot and always feel bad since nobody uses tellmewhen so I can't just simply answer by sending a weakaura export string. The only weakaura I really use is my focus bar.
@@wshark23 Yeah have a mess around with it. It's very similar to weakauras it just can't do as much and is more limiting but it's what I'm used to using and I like it's simplicity. If you want me to send my tellmewhen groups over I'll happily send you an export string for that. 🙂
I will say, it feels good to have people be genuinely surprised at how good SV is. I'm only in a heroic raiding guild but even my guild leader was dumbfounded at how much damage I was doing. "Wow, SV actually does good ST huh?" Uhh yep, that's kinda our thing currently lol. Keep on repping the GOOD hunter spec my friend. I gave up on it for a little bit but just seeing your positive energy towards the spec helps with bringing potential newcomers into one of the most fun specs in the entire game. I just love that SV is one of those specs where skill expression is so huge and that keeps me coming back as well.
That's one good thing about everybody thinking it's a bad spec, when you get those reactions from people being genuinely surprised. Sad to hear you gave up on it for a while but it sounds like you still like the spec I just hope you weren't drawn away from it because of peoples negativity towards it. Anyway thanks for the positive comment it's always good to read peoples experiences and thoughts with the spec
@@NimzeWoW For sure! And yeah it was a mixture of negative perception and my own anger towards Blizzard. But I can't get over how fun this spec is. This along side my rogue is the only characters I took to 2500 for the first time ever and I hope to push for 3k with sv next season. Appreciate your videos bro, truly an inspiration and helps to have someone with knowledge of the spec push the good word out there that we're actually decent lol
The spec is an abomination that needs to be replaced, tbqh. I don't really care for the few of you that enjoy it. After all, there's a reason there's so few of you. Blizzard could come up with any nonsense spec design and with millions of players at least some handful of them will insist it's God's gift to class design.
Can't say I had the "time of my life" as a survival hunter main in season 1, but honestly it wasn't all that bad. Getting into +20 ++ keys was a bit of a struggle, but managed to achiev a decent rating nonetheless. Not sure what to think of the tier set next season tho. Have done a fair amount of PTR testing, and forcing bombs into single target rotation feels a bit clunky. I think Wildfire Infusion need a rework, it doesn't fit well into the revamped talent tree system. Same with Mongoose Bite. No wonder we got so many talents increasing damage of x by x%.
I think it's good that bombs are part of the single-target rotation again because it feels odd to miss it out of the rotation but I do agree that wildfire infusion needs some looking into because the idea of it is really cool
Hey could you possibly do a review on how the tier set is with the most recent nerf. I want to main survival since I’m having the most fun with it. Just having trouble surviving harder content solo more so than with other classes I’ve played.
I can possibly, I'll see if I have time tonight or tomorrow sometime to maybe make a quick little video about it since I've seen a lot of people already say r.i.p to the spec since it keeps getting nerfed. The nerfs suck but its not as bad as it looks
ty for video. I've been a MW main since bfa and was considering a dps spec. So I'm giving this a try. Do you think the wowhead guide is good and acurrate? It seems confusing as I primarily only play M+ and there was a new survival spec per dungeon for s1 listed and other class specs typically list 1-2 talent guides.
Wow head guide very good. Every spec has a dungeon specific set like that bc you're under m+ guide. If you go to just 'talent builds' you'll get the generic ST vs AOE vs tyrannical. Imo as a p solid surv, the beauty in the aoe is that it's ASTOUNDINGLY consistent. You can't really burst insane or ramp. But you can choose multiple talent routes and builds with similar outputs regardless of 3T, 5T, +6, +20. So for the most part you can just play what you want to with no huge losses.
@@EASTSIDEDELI personally I run the standard m+ for all fortified and a slightly changed tyrannical build for tyrannical weeks. The only thing I change dungeon to dungeon is a specific utility I might need like tranq shot, tar trap root, etc. But I hardly ever switch my spec talents from dungeon to dungeon. Only time would be if I felt harpoon > aspect of eagle but the gap closing on harpoon can be risky in m+ so I tend to never use it.
Okay. Lets count usual melee spots in raid. 1 dh, 1-2 warrior for shouts/buffs, 1 monk , rogue, ench, retribution after buffs, 1-2 dks for grips. Lets cut warrior for tank, and monk for healer. I switch to surv and topped damaged when we proged senarth, but there was a hell on any spread, same with Dathea, council. And than I switch to bm - easy boss for range, lost nothing, free space for melee. It's realy just a matter of melee slot. Why go melee in m+ in melee heavy meta? To kill each other with affixes?Anyway, love you rasza pov, insane damage, will try surv myself on it :D
@@AngryPomeranian Yeah I didn't bring it up in the video but I know the main reason the spec isn't brought is that it doesn't bring any raid utility or raid buff unlike basically every other melee. Still it's a very viable spec and does do some big damage and like you said, since everyone thinks it's bad when you join a random group the people think you're insane doing loads of damage as 'the worst spec in the game'.
I think the issue is Survival just doesn't bring it's own UNIQUE utility. Like it provides a ton of good support and does great damage, but my god there is really no advantage to trading the ranged benefit.
I hit 70 on my hunter today and grabbed 390ilvl from forbidden reach (no optimised gear, no perfect crafts, 395 weapon). My first dungeon I did was a +11 where I did just over 90k overall... survival is more than a good spec. People just cant, or more importantly, wont play it.
It's really good I just don't understand why people won't play it. It makes no sense to me since it's really fun to play as well but maybe I'm missing something
@@NimzeWoW You could just ask some Hunters why they don't play it. The answer you will hear most often is that they don't want to be melee. It really is that simple. Not sure where the confusion comes from.
We got 3 hunters in our mythic raid team. They are all equal in terms of m+ score. Also, funny enough, they are all pretty much equal on the meteres through progress.. They are alle long time hunters for years n years, and they enjoy each specc. They can play em all too, but its funny they play each specc and are usually in top anyways cause they know what to do. I agree people are too caught up in tier lists and FOTM speccs.. It has not been one tier where i havent beaten any meta specc with a non meta specc in either keys, pvp or pve content. So ive never really cared about tier lists , same goes for healing too. I always enjoy playing "off meta" things just to prove that on a "normal" level.. it doesnt matter, never has and never will. It will matter for the top 0.001% maybe.. But how many is that? Not enough for anyone to notice atleast... they could literally do anything and noone would notice if people just did what they think is fun and giving.
Well said! People get way too caught up on what's considered meta and assume the differences between meta and non meta classes are actually really big when they really aren't
They just keep nerfing us. Even after the nerfs we're still looking like the best hunter spec for single-target (MM is close but BM is wayyyy behind) so I'd say there's still hope. Technically the nerfs were justified but it's just sad to be nerfed and by so much too :(
It was def my favorite hunter spec in dragonflight, BM and Marks makes me feel like I’m playing a class meant for toddlers/ the elderly. It so mind numbingly boring and easy. And I also top the dps charts in M+ is funny 😂
I think Survival is pretty hard to play even though i like the spec compared to other hunter specs and other classes i started playing Arms Warrior before the buffs at the start of Dragonfight and was doing better damage and surviving in solo content better then i was with my Survival hunter something not clicking in my head and many other players heads just don't know how play it anymore or hate how plays then says it sucks because they die too much... or they look at guides but have zero clue how to use each ability optimally or get overwhelmed by the amount of abilities. Like i forget to use anything out of mend pet and exhilarate and cheetah and Feign Death outside my usual rotation even though we have tons of traps and other abilities.
That makes sense plus it is very different than what it was like at the end of shadowlands which is when loads of people tried the spec so nobody would have been used to it, saw it wasn't broken OP and moved onto other specs
Love survival hunter, 416 and I made it mid-season and I refuse to play anything else now. It's got all my favorite combat mechanics rolled into one spec. Filled out my LFR-Mythic/Mythic+ logsheet with purps and oranges. But I have quickly accepted that I bring nothing to the table except for above average damage. For the higher content, it needs to be able to bring more to the table to be easily accepted. If I were building a raid team, and my last spots were limited between a Monk, Warrior, Mage, Priest or Survival hunter; all those win before it because they all bring a group buff that makes the whole roster perform better by simply existing. Balancing a choice between 1 player doing 100k dps or 16 players all doing 10k more dps for 160k extra throughput, the buff helping the 16 players do more damage wins out. A class buff is more valuable to the team than our spec as a whole. Same logic goes for keys here, although it shouldn't. I think people just don't separate the two when it comes to evaluating their potential team composition. Survival just kinda modestly pumps stuff and is super sensitive to burst damage. I switched from a healer and believe me there's a little bit of stress to taking on a hunter in the group as I felt as I had to watch them extra carefully. It's not a great reality for us. But it's so fun this doesn't hurt my enjoyment that other people aren't privy to inviting me to content because I'm not 'meta.' There's definitely a lack of understanding surrounding the spec, but it isn't untruthful to say there's nothing special to know about it as an outsider. Still, I will be playing this spec until the game gets boring or I'm globally banned from signing up for groups based on my spec.
It does suffer from not bringing a major raid buff/utility but once your group has it's mandatory melee spots there's still room for a survival hunter. But yeah considering like all the hunter specs, it doesn't bring anything other than it's damage, it is harder to fit it into any raid group or m+ group.
@@Bepples ... so another zzzz ranged spec? Pls no, they are already there: bm and mm. I LOOOVE the hybrid action-acrobatic playstyle! I f you don't like, don't play it. Have fun on the other two ranged hunter specs, thats ok.
I still get the surprise almost every dungeon with my dps as survival. Even in mythic raiding its full of BM and then they see a survival smashing shit and they're always like wtf? It has capped AoE and outside of ST is decent but not great. But on ST people should know by now SV is fantastic and you should want one.
Exactly! AoE the specs not brilliant but in ST the spec is crushing it and nobody seems to consider it for some reason. But at least you get to have fun watching peoples reaction when you beat them on the meters and they aren't expecting it
Everyone's always so negative about the spec and I've never understood why. I keep seeing people say they get kicked from groups just for playing survival hunter and it frustrated me so I felt inspired to rant
9/10 times would get removed from groups I join when they see I'm surivival. The whole "Meta or GTFO" bullshit that's happening right now is killing the enjoyment of this game for me. Over the past two months, so many people have told me they'll switch to a meta spec in S2, not because they want to, but because otherwise they won't get invited. #Sadge :(
This is so true and it makes me really sad. Feeling forced to play a spec you don't enjoy is a really bad feeling as that's going to majorly make the player enjoy the game less. It's so frustrating hearing stories of people being kicked from groups or insulted by other players just for what spec they are playing and not how well they are playing is soul crushing and doesn't make any sense
they dont want us because they fear us, jokes aside yeah i can feel your pain or every survival hunters out there feel the same. hearing ppl saying doing your own key is the best way, yea its true but imagine everybody have to do their own key eh? but lets us take that as a challenge by itself and hope for a brighter future :)
Survival hunter really need a re-design now. If they want us focus to the bomb build then just bring back Wildfire cluster to us. I can't believe they remove one of best spell of sv hunter for some talent we don't ask.
I don't think it needs a massive re-design it just needs the talent tree to be looked at. It very much still feels like it's in alpha/beta compared to all the other specs in the game
@@NimzeWoW Agreed, one of the biggest issues is our "DPS Cooldown" button is basically a complex rotation changer instead of an enhancer and we have far to many basicx % stat increases that pad out the spec, we also have things like Flanking strike, which feel so out of place as it's basically a copy of Kill Command with a slight dash.
It really does, the specs fun but the talent tree is a shambles and really needs some love from blizzard so hopefully it'll get some tweaks going into 10.1.5 or 10.2
Yep, we get one spec specific raid buff/utility and then we're sorted. It's possible we'll get one at some point since practically every other melee dps gets something
I am a MM hunter main. I play hunter because it's a ranged spec. I was really mad being forced to play Survival in SL S3/4 but it was just to broken. But now even if it's a little better I would never play it. If I play melee, I play Havoc or rogue. You know classes that are meant to be melee and have the proper tools. Survival had bad tools and bad survivability compared to other melees
That's completely fair but I wouldn't say it's a class that shouldn't have a melee spec. There's already 2 ranged specs so why not have 1 be a melee. Plus there's lore hunter characters that use melee weapons so it makes sense and it brings more people to the class that don't enjoy playing ranged.
@@NimzeWoW "why not have 1 be a melee" Because we already had a good ranged spec in its place, it's a very bad fit for the class, it will forever be in the shadow of the ranged specs, Hunters will not want to play it, and from a fantasy standpoint it's nonsense (why is the "resourceful, opportunist" spec not using the most important, unique, and powerful resource the class starts with at literal level 1?). It's not like this is hypothetical, either. I mean here you are wondering why SV is always so avoided. Why do you think that is? "there's lore hunter characters that use melee weapons" There are also lore Hunters that use shields. Lore characters are not a perfect fit for the classes nor should they be. Replacing existing specs to chase random lore characters is bad class design especially when it ends up not even emulating those characters correctly. The go-to example is Rexxar yet SV right now is nothing like Rexxar aside from the aspects it lifts straight from BM, the original Rexxar-inspired spec. "brings more people to the class that don't enjoy playing ranged" I mean in this video you lament how SV is always unpopular so you know first hand that SV has done an extremely bad job at bringing people to the class.
Damage wasn't really the issue. I think it's more a lack of utility and the fact that the roster for melee dps in the game is already bloated. If survival had more unique utility to bring to the game, such as a raid debuff on bosses or unique traps, it would be used a lot more. Survival has always been the strongest in PvP where it's utility kit really shines. In PvE... Not so much. If you compare other melee dps specs you'll notice the cracks in survival hunters kit pretty quick. Pretty much every other melee spec offers something unique to the groups comp, survival doesn't. (Unless you count bloodlust which is the most common and comes at the price of a very good defensive cooldown) I'm 2600 rating survival hunter for season 1 and during tyrannical week I was always top dps. I believe now when season 2 is coming survival will be topping meters during fortified as well and become a pretty popular m+ pick. I doubt we will see any survival hunters in raid though, they bring absolutely nothing except for mediocre single target and pretty crap cleave.
But I do agree that survival has a way worse reputation than it deserves. Not sure if it's the class fantasy (melee hunters omg wtf) or just that it's been shot down so many times by influencial youtubers tier lists. It is strange that it isn't a more popular spec since it is fun, deals high damage and easy to learn.
I'd say the single-target is much better than 'mediocre' but I get your point about the spec not bringing anything to raid in a meta where 90% of classes bring something and you basically have to bring at least one of that class. After you take all the mandatory raid buffs there is still room for a survival hunter though. There is definitely space it's just a less required class/spec
@@NimzeWoW Yeah, I should've clarified that I meant for season 2. With mongoose bite nerfed with 10% and also the the extra 15% damage from set piece and the 4-piece bonus disappearing, survivals single-target is gonna take a serious hit. That's why I doubt there will be any guilds that take the spec seriously when it comes to raiding next season.
I think one of the biggest issues with Survival is its survivability (ironic). Survival defensives seem pretty bad and very squishy for a melee spec. Dead dps is no dps.
But are they though? People who don't play the spec keep saying this but I rarely finish a dungeon where I'm not the least healed spec from the healer because the spec both heals itself lots and is really good at avoiding and reducing a lot of the damage you take. It's only when there's an ability that would one shot you that happens 3 times within 2 and a half minutes where we start to die. (Even then we can pet swap to avoid this). Plus on log statistics were middle of the pack for both self healing and how often a spec dies compared to BM and MM which are right on the bottom of both of those. I know a lot of people agree with what you're saying I just haven't personally experienced any times where I've felt squishier than any other specs. Apart from rogue they are busted in terms of survivability.
@@NimzeWoW From my experience they feel squishy, but I am sure I have a lot of room to improve gameplay wise. I seem to face that gap in defensives far to often when playing survival compared to other specs/classes... which I am then just sitting there praying the healer(s) will keep me up. Ive been focusing on reducing avoidable damage, but even then there are time where 0 avoidable damage taken doesn't feel like enough. I will definitely try to run a defensive pet more often (havent been taking advantage of that), or even health pots instead of battle pots.
@@l3rettmac It's rare where swapping to a tenacity pet for the def actually matters its only in situations like the 3rd boss in nokhud where the tornado spawn one shots you and you won't have a def to save you on the 3rd tornado spawn unless you pet swap. Maybe vexamus as well if you get really unlucky with mana bombs. But health pots are very useful, also you can still battle pot, they don't share a cd.
@@NimzeWoW Survival lacks the ability to mitigate big damage outside of cooldowns, as funny as it sounds, talents like Elemental protection in Shamans for instance can help ALOT. Hunter has no passive damage reduction outside of the AoE one.
Survival needs an identity as a melee dps spec. Like, is it the king of sustain melee single target dps? Make that a part of it's identity then. Bring a favored enemy buff back.
@@Bepples What it always should have been is hybrid. THere was so much potential. Have survivals sustain dps be range, and move in for the burst, weaving in and out. THAT would have made it unique.
@@RubixNinja No, it should have always been ranged. Building on the core Hunter identity is important. It can still be unique as a ranged spec, especially since it's only up against the two other Hunter specs instead of the wealth of melee specs in this game. Hybrid is a bad idea because it's a lot of busy work to ultimately still be worse than just ranged purely for the sake of chasing uniqueness. It would also be unique if Marksmanship had to do a jump and 360 spin before every jump but that would be a bad idea. As it turns out, chasing uniqueness for the sake of uniqueness at the expense of everything else is bad game design. Uniqueness is part of a good experience, not the entire thing.
For most hunters yeah I can see that being true but for melee enjoyers who would only play one spec anyway, I'm surprised none of them want to give survival a go
I get that but also the other 2 specs are ranged so surely there's room for one of the 3 specs to be melee. Plus survival was technically a 'melee' spec in classic and there's lore hunter characters that use melee weapons so it makes sense for it to exist
@Dominic Kennedy " It wasn't good enough to simply ignore your ranged abilities" So it was not a melee spec, then. In fact it primarily used its ranged weapon and if it could spend 100% of the fight at ranged, which was both safer and higher performance, it would.
@Dominic Kennedy What the fuck are you talking about? It was absolutely most effective to be fighting with your ranged attacks and therefore a) doing more damage and b) staying out of danger. Your pet could still hold aggro as Survival. The idea of facetanking mob after mob and using just melee attacks to bring mobs down is laughable. Don't even begin to pretend that's "efficient". If that's really how you played classic (and I have no reason to believe you're not just making it up to sound like you have experience) you had no idea what you were doing. Go play a Rogue if you want to pull with a ranged attack then spend the rest of the fight meleeing. That is absolutely not how Hunters played in Classic. P.S. You do know that Survival only had one melee DPS talent (Savage Strikes). The rest of them either buffed both via cit/agility or weren't DPS. There's also no chance you wouldn't spec into Marksmanship for Aimed Shot and Mortal Shots.
I think the problem is that hunters have bad survivability and survival by being a melee hunter is less survivable despite its name. Also people dont really want to play melee hunter that much.
Our defensives and survivability are more than fine idk why people think they're so bad. Though log statistics aren't super accurate with deaths, MM and BM are two of the highest specs that die the most often in raid where as SV is middle of the pack. And SV is also middle of the pack for self healing in log statistics where as BM and MM are once again at the very bottom. But I do get that one of the biggest reasons people don't play survival who already play hunter is because most want to use a bow and be at ranged
@@NimzeWoW Nah our defences are pretty damn trash, we have an okay % damage reduction, an immunity that also basically drops us from the fight and a heal that is again alright, but a bit useless if you are oneshot. The issue Hunter's have is passive defense, aka, we have next to none of it so if we're hit by unavoidable magic damage we usually crumple.
Nope! I was my twink, but gear 419.. I always was top on the meter! I did m+ to 23.. …. The reason why i tryed sv, was the f tier!! So forgett this fucking tierlist!
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I've always loved survival as a fantasy and playstyle ever since legion, but it's as you say, I've just been pushed off from trying it out because everyone has this innate aversion to it. Thankfully I found your channel a while ago and it's been reigniting my interest for SV. And I'll definitely roll it as one of my alts next season regardless of what happens with buffs/nerfs, I just find it so much more fun as a playstyle. Thanks for your content man, keep it up!
I really hate how people write off the spec without even looking at how it performs because it really does put people off from playing the spec since there's so many dougebags out there who will kick you from a group or just berate you with insults because you're not playing what they consider a meta spec. It's so bizarre and stupid. But it really is awesome to hear that you're going to give it another go as an alt next patch!
"since legion"
melee colonist
@@Bepples Okay, what's your argument? We're talking about melee survival hunter, not wrath survival hunter. (Which I also enjoy the playstyle of)
I've definitely experienced the "Why are you playing Survival" thinking. Ha. I came back after ending in Warlords, played all 3 specs to get a feel for em, and decided SV was the most fun to me. ( I mained Hunter since Vanilla and SV was always my fav anyway even though I didn't always get to play it ) Man did the other hunters in the guild give me grief. Until I raided and did + keys with them. I have not heard a peep since :p
Or the other day a guy I know asked me to help his guild with their H Raz kill for their AoTC. Get in, do a pull, get done, and afterwards the raid lead there goes "Whoa, SV is slapping. When did it get that good." I enjoy people's surprise when it's not this pile of poo they think it is.
I don't pug keys often but I have gotten the "you're the first survival I've seen" comments here and there.
Thanks for the vids, Nimze!
That is the one plus about everybody thinking its bad when its actually not. Getting those comments where people are surprised, it's kind of like we're an exotic animal they thought was extinct or something.
SV was regularly a solid and widely-played spec before you quit in Warlords, though. The stigma against SV came with it being made melee in Legion.
People assume its performance is bad because they see very few people playing it and probably none in person themselves. So the assumption is Hunters avoid it because of bad performance, when in fact they're avoiding it because they don't want to be melee.
@@Bepples no I was there when it switched. I still have vids of me raid testing of it on the PTR. I guess my thing is, I just don't mind if it's ranged or melee. Like, that doesn't concern me and I'm ok with either. I know you hate it being melee with a passion and that's your thing and that's ok.
Coming back and playing all three specs for a while, it was the most fun of the three to me. I liked it ranged back in the day. I like it melee. It can be either to me. If I strongly despised it being melee I wouldn't play it. Now if they make it not fun to play, then it will not be fun ranged or melee and either way I wouldn't play it because I wouldn't enjoy it.
summed it up perfectly lol, I kept my Surv hunter up to about a 407 ilvl and got 2200 on it so far and people are always like wow you did good damage. like yea? the only issue I've had this season is not having a DR with a 45 or 60s CD like other classes. Other than that I've had so much fun playing it.
That's one of the positives with being consider a meme when you get those reactions from people when they see you doing good damage with a spec they thought was trash. Keep it up!
That's like going to Marcelianonline where they do a tier list and put Survival on the button and talk about SV as if they knew it's bad without even testing. They say the tier set is bad when addresses what we were lacking last season, AOE, and also changes our playstile a lil bit which is ok and opens up different builds which is always good. Ppl just believe in whatever is said without checking themselves
Exactly and practically everyone who makes these tier lists no very little if anything about the spec because how is one person supposed to keep up with every spec in the game to correctly rate them. It's not possible
Marcelian typically ranks things based on how fun they are to play and they have indicated that they don't typically enjoy Dragonflight SV's design. They play SV avidly and have been huge advocates for it so it's a little nonsense to pretend they haven't tried it.
Nimze, thanks for Championing survival. A bit of background for you. I have been maining enhancement shaman since BC. Over the few last expansions, enhancements performance, and overall gameplay was pretty poor. In fact, it was so poor that I chose not to play shadowland due to blizzard not making the promised changes after a full expansion.
In the meantime, I picked up the new survival and was really enjoying it all the way through Legion And BFA. When Dragon flight was announced, and I saw all the changes and talk about how well enhancement was doing, it was the first class I leveled to 70. It was doing well, but some thing was missing. Maybe the over complicated rotation, and or the massive amount of key binds, I don’t know somethings didn’t feel right. After leveling my mage, and then a rogue to 70, I didn’t think I necessarily wanted to level my hunter, but a part of me missed it. My survival hunter is now my main. I am a filthy casual and have only done a few mythic pugs and LFR raids. But I’m always topping the DPS meters whenever I’m playing. And understand I also like to PVP and I’m enjoying the play style in battlegrounds and in arenas with survival as well. It is my go to class now and I’m really enjoying it.
Keep on playing keep and posting. I’ll ask you to reach out to MARCELIAN online and post on their channel. One of the creators really likes survival but two months ago posted a video about how messed up the tree was. He just posted a video about a week ago , playing and pushing mythic keys with survival. He used your your videos as a guide. Also, they did a tier list for 10.01 and rated a D, because they just felt that blizzard is not giving the class a fair shake.
Thanks again and happy hunting.
It's nice to hear you're enjoying the spec so much its your go to class now! Yeah I hear enhancement is overly complicated this expansion though I haven't played or looked into much myself.
I know one of the guys from Marcelian online enjoys survival and the talent tree is a bit of a mess so I totally understand that they're upset with it. Though it's sad to hear they rated the spec is D for next patch (the specs looking good so that's pretty damn low).
SV does not need "championing" it needs a redesign led and guided by people who actually play the class and not recent Shaman rerolls.
Totally enjoy SV. It feels ‘meaty’. Took awhile to settle into it after BM autopilot. 😅
So true! I've been SV since Legion and always top bg charts and do very well in raids. Thanks for keeping it real.
I have always wanted to play this spec but because of all the general negative comments or people seeing it as a meme had me away from it, but thank you I’m gonna give it a try
That's awesome to hear! Yes give it at least a try, I think it's an incredibly fun spec so hopefully you find some fun with it
This video was really interesting to me. Until i saw it i considered Survival to be one of the worst specs in the game, not because i have seen them doing bad, but because i have actually never seen one in keys in the whole season. Since they always are in the lowest tier everytime i open subcreation i never bothered to think otherwise. I understand now data like that might be highly influenced by the popularity of some specs. Im going to give surv a try as my alt in season 2. ^^
Survival is the underdog spec for sure but give it a try, it's really fun and pretty strong especially going into next patch. Plus like you said you haven't even seen one in keys before so you'll surprise people and it's always fun to see their reactions so give it a try
It might help to look at fighting games. Often a character might be labelled as low tier at the start of the game. But over time they get buffs until they become a great overall character. But they never shake that low tier reputation and as a result they rarely get picked. Anji Mito from Guilty Gear Strive comes to mind.
That's a really good comparison. I don't play many fighting games but yeah that makes a lot of sense
It's actually because most Hunters don't want to play melee.
I think what blizzard might do and what they definately have to do is to give SV some unique stuff, which only this spec can bring. For ex, rogues can deal less damage, but you will always have a rogue in top keys because of shroud and vanish pulls. Why can’t SV do some unique stuff like that? It also can be a good fantasywise. The spec called SURVIVAL, its about surviving, we can be one of the tankiest spec because of that! Or somehow, we can boost team survivability by a lot. Make bombs give buffs to teammates, make camoflage to stealth 5 ppl in the group, make ability, which turns your pet into 2nd tank, for maybe 10-15 seconds. They just dont give a damn about the spec
What stupid ideas. Just make it ranged again.
Sorry for the late reply but don't listen to bepples he be trolling. No lie I like the pet being able to taunt a boss for a few seconds. If it had a really long cooldown so it could only be used once during a boss fight, it could have a niche use if one of your tanks messed up a tank swap and could prevent a tank death if the pet could survive an auto attack or two to get to whatever the boss mechanic is. It's super niche but I like it. I think it needs some unique stuff whatever it is, just something.
@@NimzeWoW yeah, it would be great but not enough. In this particular case - people dont like mechanics, which assume fails/death. For example holy priest has talent that makes him resurrect after Spirit of Redemption once per 10 minutes - sounds great, but nobody plays with that talent because you want be better in good situations instead of being amazing in bad situation)
Got to be honest with you, this spec when i started to play with it from 2 months ago blew me out of the water with it's single target damage. I can outdps 3/4 of specs in single target boss encounters and it shocked my guild members with that damage.
That's why I don't get how people can still call it bad and a meme since it's been topping single--target dps charts all expansion so far. It is fun to be able to shock people though since nobody realises it is actually pretty good
Nimze could you do a video about addons ? or show what addons you use
I use 'tellmewhen' that shows ability cooldowns and buffs ect in the middle of my screen and I know a lot of people ask and don't know about it at all so I could do a video on at least that addon sometime. Thanks for the suggestion! Other than that I use a weakaura for my focus bar, elvui for the action bars and some of the ui (mainly just the chat and minimap) and then things like bigwigs/littlewigs, details and just all the usual stuff
I leveled a hunter because I wanted to play a ranged, I always play melee classes. A few days ago a polearm dropped, so I thought I'll try the "meme" spec. I gotta say, its my new favourite, not only it has crazy good single target and aoe damage, its also really fun to play, probably the most fun I played so far. I only played one low mythic run though, but that was promising, gonna try climbing the ladder. I'll never fall for the tier list memes again.
Yes!! keep giving it a try, it is genuinely really fun. Glad to hear you won't fall for the tier lists anymore they are all very unreliable and never should be taken very seriously it's just a fun thing people like doing
The problem is that it's easy to play the other hunter specs, BM especially. Your pets do almost all of your dps and you can run and gun while topping charts. Basically a hybrid of a caster and melee. People tend to gravitate to the easier, higher dps classes because it's the meta or because they want to play on EZ mode. Survival will always be my top dps spec, mainly because of how fun it is.
I totally get that a lot of people will play BM because of its simplicity even when its not doing very good damage but survival is super fun and I wish more hunters gave it at least a try
Bm Is ez to play but hard to master....
BM is a simple spec but pets doing most of the damage is not why. The BM Hunter still has to initiate that damage dealing. For example, Kill Command is pet damage but the Hunter casts it. It's not automatic.
I only really played in cata and I remember always wanting a melee hunter spec my computer sucks so I haven’t really played in a bit but I’m about to start again and I want this class to feel a bit better but I’m definitely playing it
Pets are pretty much all viable right? I dislike that the pets seem to do the same thing other than lust etc
Yep all the pets do basically the same thing. There's 3 pet families: one gives leech and lust, one gives a defensive and extra health and the other gives move speed and a snare break. I'd advice just using the leech+lust family type for the self sustain but other than pet families all pets do have a minor ability but none of them have any impact.
@@NimzeWoW thanks! Resubbing tonight when I’m home from work lol I’m so close to unlocking zan trolls 🤣
Thanks for the survival videos, theyre great! Do you have your weakAuras posted somehwere?
I use an addon called 'tellmewhen' to track all my abilities cooldowns and buffs ect (the thing in the middle of the screen) I get asked this a lot and always feel bad since nobody uses tellmewhen so I can't just simply answer by sending a weakaura export string. The only weakaura I really use is my focus bar.
@@NimzeWoW Oh cool, I'll try it out and mess around with it
@@wshark23 Yeah have a mess around with it. It's very similar to weakauras it just can't do as much and is more limiting but it's what I'm used to using and I like it's simplicity. If you want me to send my tellmewhen groups over I'll happily send you an export string for that. 🙂
@@NimzeWoW I would love your tellmewhen groups, I tried messing around and making one that looks like yours but i just cant seem to get it right
@@Obzoleet90 Give this a try (let me know if it doesn't work, also the groups aren't all labeled correctly I haven't properly tidied them)
To import them copy and paste this into the black box at the bottom of the tellmewhen window. Then to the right press the 'import/export/restore button' then the 'import to string' and it should show up:
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I will say, it feels good to have people be genuinely surprised at how good SV is. I'm only in a heroic raiding guild but even my guild leader was dumbfounded at how much damage I was doing. "Wow, SV actually does good ST huh?" Uhh yep, that's kinda our thing currently lol.
Keep on repping the GOOD hunter spec my friend. I gave up on it for a little bit but just seeing your positive energy towards the spec helps with bringing potential newcomers into one of the most fun specs in the entire game. I just love that SV is one of those specs where skill expression is so huge and that keeps me coming back as well.
That's one good thing about everybody thinking it's a bad spec, when you get those reactions from people being genuinely surprised. Sad to hear you gave up on it for a while but it sounds like you still like the spec I just hope you weren't drawn away from it because of peoples negativity towards it. Anyway thanks for the positive comment it's always good to read peoples experiences and thoughts with the spec
@@NimzeWoW For sure! And yeah it was a mixture of negative perception and my own anger towards Blizzard. But I can't get over how fun this spec is. This along side my rogue is the only characters I took to 2500 for the first time ever and I hope to push for 3k with sv next season.
Appreciate your videos bro, truly an inspiration and helps to have someone with knowledge of the spec push the good word out there that we're actually decent lol
The spec is an abomination that needs to be replaced, tbqh. I don't really care for the few of you that enjoy it. After all, there's a reason there's so few of you. Blizzard could come up with any nonsense spec design and with millions of players at least some handful of them will insist it's God's gift to class design.
@@Bepples cool
Can't say I had the "time of my life" as a survival hunter main in season 1, but honestly it wasn't all that bad. Getting into +20 ++ keys was a bit of a struggle, but managed to achiev a decent rating nonetheless. Not sure what to think of the tier set next season tho. Have done a fair amount of PTR testing, and forcing bombs into single target rotation feels a bit clunky. I think Wildfire Infusion need a rework, it doesn't fit well into the revamped talent tree system. Same with Mongoose Bite. No wonder we got so many talents increasing damage of x by x%.
I think it's good that bombs are part of the single-target rotation again because it feels odd to miss it out of the rotation but I do agree that wildfire infusion needs some looking into because the idea of it is really cool
Hey could you possibly do a review on how the tier set is with the most recent nerf. I want to main survival since I’m having the most fun with it. Just having trouble surviving harder content solo more so than with other classes I’ve played.
I can possibly, I'll see if I have time tonight or tomorrow sometime to maybe make a quick little video about it since I've seen a lot of people already say r.i.p to the spec since it keeps getting nerfed. The nerfs suck but its not as bad as it looks
ty for video. I've been a MW main since bfa and was considering a dps spec. So I'm giving this a try. Do you think the wowhead guide is good and acurrate? It seems confusing as I primarily only play M+ and there was a new survival spec per dungeon for s1 listed and other class specs typically list 1-2 talent guides.
Wow head guide very good. Every spec has a dungeon specific set like that bc you're under m+ guide. If you go to just 'talent builds' you'll get the generic ST vs AOE vs tyrannical. Imo as a p solid surv, the beauty in the aoe is that it's ASTOUNDINGLY consistent. You can't really burst insane or ramp. But you can choose multiple talent routes and builds with similar outputs regardless of 3T, 5T, +6, +20. So for the most part you can just play what you want to with no huge losses.
@@kowardlywow ty, so do you find yourself swapping talents a lot per dungeon? Or do you stick with an overall M+ one?
@@EASTSIDEDELI personally I run the standard m+ for all fortified and a slightly changed tyrannical build for tyrannical weeks. The only thing I change dungeon to dungeon is a specific utility I might need like tranq shot, tar trap root, etc. But I hardly ever switch my spec talents from dungeon to dungeon. Only time would be if I felt harpoon > aspect of eagle but the gap closing on harpoon can be risky in m+ so I tend to never use it.
Okay. Lets count usual melee spots in raid. 1 dh, 1-2 warrior for shouts/buffs, 1 monk , rogue, ench, retribution after buffs, 1-2 dks for grips. Lets cut warrior for tank, and monk for healer. I switch to surv and topped damaged when we proged senarth, but there was a hell on any spread, same with Dathea, council. And than I switch to bm - easy boss for range, lost nothing, free space for melee. It's realy just a matter of melee slot. Why go melee in m+ in melee heavy meta? To kill each other with affixes?Anyway, love you rasza pov, insane damage, will try surv myself on it :D
+it's fun to top damage as a surv, other people think you are God gamer (but they don't know that we press mangouse 200 times and thats all)
@@AngryPomeranian Yeah I didn't bring it up in the video but I know the main reason the spec isn't brought is that it doesn't bring any raid utility or raid buff unlike basically every other melee. Still it's a very viable spec and does do some big damage and like you said, since everyone thinks it's bad when you join a random group the people think you're insane doing loads of damage as 'the worst spec in the game'.
I think the issue is Survival just doesn't bring it's own UNIQUE utility. Like it provides a ton of good support and does great damage, but my god there is really no advantage to trading the ranged benefit.
Or they could just not trade away the ranged benefit in the first place.
Yeah I agree with that. Enhancement gains windfury totem unlike elemental. Survival needs that little extra thing to make it stand out a bit more
Ya I just hope they stop nerfi g us when they got pallies to work on
True. paladins are looking sweet and we've already had back to back nerfs recently so I'd be happy if blizzard laid of us for a while
I hit 70 on my hunter today and grabbed 390ilvl from forbidden reach (no optimised gear, no perfect crafts, 395 weapon). My first dungeon I did was a +11 where I did just over 90k overall... survival is more than a good spec. People just cant, or more importantly, wont play it.
It's really good I just don't understand why people won't play it. It makes no sense to me since it's really fun to play as well but maybe I'm missing something
@@NimzeWoW You could just ask some Hunters why they don't play it. The answer you will hear most often is that they don't want to be melee. It really is that simple. Not sure where the confusion comes from.
We got 3 hunters in our mythic raid team.
They are all equal in terms of m+ score.
Also, funny enough, they are all pretty much equal on the meteres through progress.. They are alle long time hunters for years n years, and they enjoy each specc. They can play em all too, but its funny they play each specc and are usually in top anyways cause they know what to do.
I agree people are too caught up in tier lists and FOTM speccs.. It has not been one tier where i havent beaten any meta specc with a non meta specc in either keys, pvp or pve content. So ive never really cared about tier lists , same goes for healing too. I always enjoy playing "off meta" things just to prove that on a "normal" level.. it doesnt matter, never has and never will.
It will matter for the top 0.001% maybe.. But how many is that? Not enough for anyone to notice atleast... they could literally do anything and noone would notice if people just did what they think is fun and giving.
Well said! People get way too caught up on what's considered meta and assume the differences between meta and non meta classes are actually really big when they really aren't
they just nerfed our 4 piece bonus again what do you think about this? still hope? xD
They just keep nerfing us. Even after the nerfs we're still looking like the best hunter spec for single-target (MM is close but BM is wayyyy behind) so I'd say there's still hope. Technically the nerfs were justified but it's just sad to be nerfed and by so much too :(
It was def my favorite hunter spec in dragonflight, BM and Marks makes me feel like I’m playing a class meant for toddlers/ the elderly. It so mind numbingly boring and easy.
And I also top the dps charts in M+ is funny 😂
It is fun to top the dps charts as a spec nobody expects to be good
I mean it's not like SV has particularly complex gameplay. Just look at its single target rotation.
Recently played sv hunter alot of fun tbh and performs really good in m+ better than most mages i ever encountered this patch.
It's is super fun and yeah it's performing really well too. Very undervalued spec but I'm glad you're having fun with it
I think Survival is pretty hard to play even though i like the spec compared to other hunter specs and other classes i started playing Arms Warrior before the buffs at the start of Dragonfight and was doing better damage and surviving in solo content better then i was with my Survival hunter something not clicking in my head and many other players heads just don't know how play it anymore or hate how plays then says it sucks because they die too much... or they look at guides but have zero clue how to use each ability optimally or get overwhelmed by the amount of abilities. Like i forget to use anything out of mend pet and exhilarate and cheetah and Feign Death outside my usual rotation even though we have tons of traps and other abilities.
That makes sense plus it is very different than what it was like at the end of shadowlands which is when loads of people tried the spec so nobody would have been used to it, saw it wasn't broken OP and moved onto other specs
Love survival hunter, 416 and I made it mid-season and I refuse to play anything else now. It's got all my favorite combat mechanics rolled into one spec. Filled out my LFR-Mythic/Mythic+ logsheet with purps and oranges. But I have quickly accepted that I bring nothing to the table except for above average damage. For the higher content, it needs to be able to bring more to the table to be easily accepted.
If I were building a raid team, and my last spots were limited between a Monk, Warrior, Mage, Priest or Survival hunter; all those win before it because they all bring a group buff that makes the whole roster perform better by simply existing. Balancing a choice between 1 player doing 100k dps or 16 players all doing 10k more dps for 160k extra throughput, the buff helping the 16 players do more damage wins out. A class buff is more valuable to the team than our spec as a whole. Same logic goes for keys here, although it shouldn't. I think people just don't separate the two when it comes to evaluating their potential team composition.
Survival just kinda modestly pumps stuff and is super sensitive to burst damage. I switched from a healer and believe me there's a little bit of stress to taking on a hunter in the group as I felt as I had to watch them extra carefully. It's not a great reality for us. But it's so fun this doesn't hurt my enjoyment that other people aren't privy to inviting me to content because I'm not 'meta.'
There's definitely a lack of understanding surrounding the spec, but it isn't untruthful to say there's nothing special to know about it as an outsider.
Still, I will be playing this spec until the game gets boring or I'm globally banned from signing up for groups based on my spec.
It does suffer from not bringing a major raid buff/utility but once your group has it's mandatory melee spots there's still room for a survival hunter. But yeah considering like all the hunter specs, it doesn't bring anything other than it's damage, it is harder to fit it into any raid group or m+ group.
Yes Survival is not desirable. They could start by making it a ranged spec again.
@@Bepples ... so another zzzz ranged spec? Pls no, they are already there: bm and mm. I LOOOVE the hybrid action-acrobatic playstyle! I f you don't like, don't play it. Have fun on the other two ranged hunter specs, thats ok.
I still get the surprise almost every dungeon with my dps as survival. Even in mythic raiding its full of BM and then they see a survival smashing shit and they're always like wtf? It has capped AoE and outside of ST is decent but not great. But on ST people should know by now SV is fantastic and you should want one.
Exactly! AoE the specs not brilliant but in ST the spec is crushing it and nobody seems to consider it for some reason. But at least you get to have fun watching peoples reaction when you beat them on the meters and they aren't expecting it
Nice rant. Voice for the people.
Everyone's always so negative about the spec and I've never understood why. I keep seeing people say they get kicked from groups just for playing survival hunter and it frustrated me so I felt inspired to rant
I simply can't decide who my main and alt is out of eye and survival, im keen to play an underplayed spec tho
Survival do it!! It's the least played spec, does good damage and its super fun to play. But give it a try and see what you think of it
9/10 times would get removed from groups I join when they see I'm surivival. The whole "Meta or GTFO" bullshit that's happening right now is killing the enjoyment of this game for me. Over the past two months, so many people have told me they'll switch to a meta spec in S2, not because they want to, but because otherwise they won't get invited. #Sadge :(
This is so true and it makes me really sad. Feeling forced to play a spec you don't enjoy is a really bad feeling as that's going to majorly make the player enjoy the game less. It's so frustrating hearing stories of people being kicked from groups or insulted by other players just for what spec they are playing and not how well they are playing is soul crushing and doesn't make any sense
they dont want us because they fear us, jokes aside yeah i can feel your pain or every survival hunters out there feel the same. hearing ppl saying doing your own key is the best way, yea its true but imagine everybody have to do their own key eh? but lets us take that as a challenge by itself and hope for a brighter future :)
Survival hunter really need a re-design now. If they want us focus to the bomb build then just bring back Wildfire cluster to us. I can't believe they remove one of best spell of sv hunter for some talent we don't ask.
I don't think it needs a massive re-design it just needs the talent tree to be looked at. It very much still feels like it's in alpha/beta compared to all the other specs in the game
@@NimzeWoW Agreed, one of the biggest issues is our "DPS Cooldown" button is basically a complex rotation changer instead of an enhancer and we have far to many basicx % stat increases that pad out the spec, we also have things like Flanking strike, which feel so out of place as it's basically a copy of Kill Command with a slight dash.
I start to play as survival, bro its so funny. I really like it
I love survival hunter it just needs some love from blizz talent tree is horrible no wonder its not people's favorite
It really does, the specs fun but the talent tree is a shambles and really needs some love from blizzard so hopefully it'll get some tweaks going into 10.1.5 or 10.2
I needed this video ❤
Loved the rant and totally agree with you, but you could at least show us the Raza kill 😢
My game froze and I died near the start of P3 so it wouldn't have been fun to watch the rest otherwise I totally would have
@@NimzeWoW Shit, you where so clean tho
we need something to offer to the grp :(
Yep, we get one spec specific raid buff/utility and then we're sorted. It's possible we'll get one at some point since practically every other melee dps gets something
Would love to give a portion of our pets passive to the raid group.
Was that lice story about you IRL Nimze? :)
Shhh tell no one
I am a MM hunter main. I play hunter because it's a ranged spec. I was really mad being forced to play Survival in SL S3/4 but it was just to broken. But now even if it's a little better I would never play it. If I play melee, I play Havoc or rogue. You know classes that are meant to be melee and have the proper tools. Survival had bad tools and bad survivability compared to other melees
That's completely fair but I wouldn't say it's a class that shouldn't have a melee spec. There's already 2 ranged specs so why not have 1 be a melee. Plus there's lore hunter characters that use melee weapons so it makes sense and it brings more people to the class that don't enjoy playing ranged.
@@NimzeWoW
"why not have 1 be a melee" Because we already had a good ranged spec in its place, it's a very bad fit for the class, it will forever be in the shadow of the ranged specs, Hunters will not want to play it, and from a fantasy standpoint it's nonsense (why is the "resourceful, opportunist" spec not using the most important, unique, and powerful resource the class starts with at literal level 1?). It's not like this is hypothetical, either. I mean here you are wondering why SV is always so avoided. Why do you think that is?
"there's lore hunter characters that use melee weapons" There are also lore Hunters that use shields. Lore characters are not a perfect fit for the classes nor should they be. Replacing existing specs to chase random lore characters is bad class design especially when it ends up not even emulating those characters correctly. The go-to example is Rexxar yet SV right now is nothing like Rexxar aside from the aspects it lifts straight from BM, the original Rexxar-inspired spec.
"brings more people to the class that don't enjoy playing ranged" I mean in this video you lament how SV is always unpopular so you know first hand that SV has done an extremely bad job at bringing people to the class.
Damage wasn't really the issue. I think it's more a lack of utility and the fact that the roster for melee dps in the game is already bloated. If survival had more unique utility to bring to the game, such as a raid debuff on bosses or unique traps, it would be used a lot more. Survival has always been the strongest in PvP where it's utility kit really shines. In PvE... Not so much. If you compare other melee dps specs you'll notice the cracks in survival hunters kit pretty quick. Pretty much every other melee spec offers something unique to the groups comp, survival doesn't. (Unless you count bloodlust which is the most common and comes at the price of a very good defensive cooldown)
I'm 2600 rating survival hunter for season 1 and during tyrannical week I was always top dps. I believe now when season 2 is coming survival will be topping meters during fortified as well and become a pretty popular m+ pick. I doubt we will see any survival hunters in raid though, they bring absolutely nothing except for mediocre single target and pretty crap cleave.
But I do agree that survival has a way worse reputation than it deserves. Not sure if it's the class fantasy (melee hunters omg wtf) or just that it's been shot down so many times by influencial youtubers tier lists. It is strange that it isn't a more popular spec since it is fun, deals high damage and easy to learn.
I'd say the single-target is much better than 'mediocre' but I get your point about the spec not bringing anything to raid in a meta where 90% of classes bring something and you basically have to bring at least one of that class. After you take all the mandatory raid buffs there is still room for a survival hunter though. There is definitely space it's just a less required class/spec
@@NimzeWoW Yeah, I should've clarified that I meant for season 2. With mongoose bite nerfed with 10% and also the the extra 15% damage from set piece and the 4-piece bonus disappearing, survivals single-target is gonna take a serious hit. That's why I doubt there will be any guilds that take the spec seriously when it comes to raiding next season.
I think one of the biggest issues with Survival is its survivability (ironic). Survival defensives seem pretty bad and very squishy for a melee spec. Dead dps is no dps.
But are they though? People who don't play the spec keep saying this but I rarely finish a dungeon where I'm not the least healed spec from the healer because the spec both heals itself lots and is really good at avoiding and reducing a lot of the damage you take. It's only when there's an ability that would one shot you that happens 3 times within 2 and a half minutes where we start to die. (Even then we can pet swap to avoid this). Plus on log statistics were middle of the pack for both self healing and how often a spec dies compared to BM and MM which are right on the bottom of both of those.
I know a lot of people agree with what you're saying I just haven't personally experienced any times where I've felt squishier than any other specs. Apart from rogue they are busted in terms of survivability.
@@NimzeWoW From my experience they feel squishy, but I am sure I have a lot of room to improve gameplay wise. I seem to face that gap in defensives far to often when playing survival compared to other specs/classes... which I am then just sitting there praying the healer(s) will keep me up. Ive been focusing on reducing avoidable damage, but even then there are time where 0 avoidable damage taken doesn't feel like enough. I will definitely try to run a defensive pet more often (havent been taking advantage of that), or even health pots instead of battle pots.
@@l3rettmac It's rare where swapping to a tenacity pet for the def actually matters its only in situations like the 3rd boss in nokhud where the tornado spawn one shots you and you won't have a def to save you on the 3rd tornado spawn unless you pet swap. Maybe vexamus as well if you get really unlucky with mana bombs. But health pots are very useful, also you can still battle pot, they don't share a cd.
@@NimzeWoW Survival lacks the ability to mitigate big damage outside of cooldowns, as funny as it sounds, talents like Elemental protection in Shamans for instance can help ALOT. Hunter has no passive damage reduction outside of the AoE one.
Survival needs an identity as a melee dps spec. Like, is it the king of sustain melee single target dps? Make that a part of it's identity then. Bring a favored enemy buff back.
That would fix its identity and yeah it's been going through an identity crisis for a while now
It needs to be a ranged spec again.
@@Bepples What it always should have been is hybrid. THere was so much potential. Have survivals sustain dps be range, and move in for the burst, weaving in and out. THAT would have made it unique.
@@RubixNinja No, it should have always been ranged. Building on the core Hunter identity is important. It can still be unique as a ranged spec, especially since it's only up against the two other Hunter specs instead of the wealth of melee specs in this game.
Hybrid is a bad idea because it's a lot of busy work to ultimately still be worse than just ranged purely for the sake of chasing uniqueness. It would also be unique if Marksmanship had to do a jump and 360 spin before every jump but that would be a bad idea. As it turns out, chasing uniqueness for the sake of uniqueness at the expense of everything else is bad game design. Uniqueness is part of a good experience, not the entire thing.
@@Bepples No... hunter always had melee abilities. SURIVAL was supposed to be the spec that supported that part of its kit.... but not BECOME melee
I sometimes get "You'll still use BL, right?"
I get that sometimes too. I don't understand, I guess some MM hunters don't bring out their pet to lust or something
@@NimzeWoW Yeah i think so. I was MM for a bit and that was most annoying haha
I think most people don’t want to play survival because they want to be range.
For most hunters yeah I can see that being true but for melee enjoyers who would only play one spec anyway, I'm surprised none of them want to give survival a go
One thing that made me pick Hunter way back in classic was Rexxar; I wanted to be a wildman cleaving shit up with a beast by my side.
alot of players when you say hunter its range with bow. i have friends weird out cause its a melee hunter.
I get that but also the other 2 specs are ranged so surely there's room for one of the 3 specs to be melee. Plus survival was technically a 'melee' spec in classic and there's lore hunter characters that use melee weapons so it makes sense for it to exist
@@NimzeWoW "survival was technically a 'melee' spec in classic" no it wasn't. Stop revising history.
@Dominic Kennedy " It wasn't good enough to simply ignore your ranged abilities" So it was not a melee spec, then. In fact it primarily used its ranged weapon and if it could spend 100% of the fight at ranged, which was both safer and higher performance, it would.
@Dominic Kennedy What the fuck are you talking about? It was absolutely most effective to be fighting with your ranged attacks and therefore a) doing more damage and b) staying out of danger. Your pet could still hold aggro as Survival. The idea of facetanking mob after mob and using just melee attacks to bring mobs down is laughable. Don't even begin to pretend that's "efficient". If that's really how you played classic (and I have no reason to believe you're not just making it up to sound like you have experience) you had no idea what you were doing. Go play a Rogue if you want to pull with a ranged attack then spend the rest of the fight meleeing. That is absolutely not how Hunters played in Classic.
P.S. You do know that Survival only had one melee DPS talent (Savage Strikes). The rest of them either buffed both via cit/agility or weren't DPS. There's also no chance you wouldn't spec into Marksmanship for Aimed Shot and Mortal Shots.
I think the problem is that hunters have bad survivability and survival by being a melee hunter is less survivable despite its name. Also people dont really want to play melee hunter that much.
Our defensives and survivability are more than fine idk why people think they're so bad. Though log statistics aren't super accurate with deaths, MM and BM are two of the highest specs that die the most often in raid where as SV is middle of the pack. And SV is also middle of the pack for self healing in log statistics where as BM and MM are once again at the very bottom. But I do get that one of the biggest reasons people don't play survival who already play hunter is because most want to use a bow and be at ranged
@@NimzeWoW Nah our defences are pretty damn trash, we have an okay % damage reduction, an immunity that also basically drops us from the fight and a heal that is again alright, but a bit useless if you are oneshot. The issue Hunter's have is passive defense, aka, we have next to none of it so if we're hit by unavoidable magic damage we usually crumple.
Nope! I was my twink, but gear 419..
I always was top on the meter! I did m+ to 23..
….
The reason why i tryed sv, was the f tier!!
So forgett this fucking tierlist!
It is for sure the underdog spec