Survival Hunter Guide
CHANGES FOR SURVIVAL HUNTER
On the Patch 12.1 PTR, there have been some class changes for Survival Hunter.
New Talent: Razor Edge – Raptor Strike, Raptor Swipe, and Kill Command gain 10% increased critical strike chance and 10% increased critical damage dealt.
Primal Surge has been moved up to an easier to access location in the talent tree.
Shower of Blood has been removed
(Pack Leader Hero Tree) Lethal Barbs has been updated – Auto-attacks now have a very high chance to generate 3 Focus, rather than granting 1 Focus per auto-attack.
Survival Hunters are receiving a few changes going into the new patch, the bulk of it being that Primal Surge is being moved up from a capstone talent to much higher in the tree. This change was much needed as Primal Surge is mandatory at all times for the specialization's gameplay loop, so having it be a capstone was very oppressive from a talent tree economy perspective. In a perfect world, this new position can open a lot more wiggle room to buildcrafting without needing such a heavy investment. However, there are a few problems with the current tree that makes this moot.
The new talent Razor Edge is very strong and is the new talent in the capstone position Primal Surge occupied. Not only that, but competing capstones (namely the Flamefang Pitch branch) continues to neglected by tuning and remains too weak to use for optimal amage. Something to consider is that Razor Edge is suspiciously a 2 point node, which is very odd to see for the bottom of the talent tree. Many of us think this may be in error, as the blue post does not mention it being a two point node as it typically would, and having an expensive node exist there may actually do the opposite of their goals and may end up being too restrictive, depending on tuning. Either way, with how powerful Razor Edge is, and how weak the other side of the talent tree is (and how little synergy/buildcrafting it allows for), there isn't much true variety being introduced.
Speaking of tuning, our hero trees still need some attention, specifically Sentinel. Unfortunately for our Elune fans, Pack Leader has been the go to hero talent tree for almost 2 years at this point. Sentinel was looking quite strong in Midnight's Pre-Patch, but it was knee capped before the expansion ever saw real content, particularly in its Wildfire Bomb cooldown reduction mechanic ( from 6 seconds to 4 seconds) and it's never recovered since. Additionally, spec talents that provided Wildfire Bomb cooldown reduction have been reworked (Lunge); the main mechanic of Sentinel is often overwritten by itself as we simply don't have enough Wildfire Bomb to spend. Sentinel is creeping closer and closer to Pack Leader in single target, but is far behind in AoE, which is a bit disappointing to be playing the same hero tree for ages.
survival hunter 12.1 tier set early impression
As a refresher, here are Blizzard's stated goals for tier sets moving into season 2 of Midnight.
Create set bonuses that are more complex than the Season 1 set bonuses.
Create cool, impactful set bonuses that introduce a variety of gameplay in Season 2.
Utilize the Cooldown Manager where it feels correct with these set bonuses. The set bonuses are largely an extension of the spec that you’re currently playing and we should leverage the tools available to us.
These set bonuses should increase consistency of damage. Alongside our larger burst damage reduction initiative, we didn’t want to reduce your burst damage and then immediately reintroduce significant burst damage with the new set bonus effects.
And here is the Survival Hunter 12.1 tier set as of 6/21
2-Set Bonus: Raptor Strike damage increased by 15%.
4-Set Bonus: Mongoose Fury also increases the damage of Wildfire Bomb by 10%.
Aside from being probably numerically impressive, this tier set bonus falls short of all of their stated goals for tier sets this season. Both the 2 and 4 piece bonus are entirely passive and increase your damage in the background regardless of your actions or thinking. Unfortunately, this bonus isn't cool or impactful from a gameplay perspective and it's even more simple than our 12.0 tier set bonus. Neither effect utilizes the in game Cooldown Manager at all, as the two piece is a flat tuning buff and the four piece revolves around Mongoose Fury, a stacking buff that keeps itself up as long as you are pressing your main damage button. That being said, the 4-piece is a good idea to ensure Wildfire Bomb stays relevant and appealing to use. However, as it stands now, our tier set bonuses don't really interact with each other at all and are effectively just two separate and dull damage modifiers.
We're really hoping this tier set gets a second pass and reworked entirely. It would be very interesting to see the bonus designed around the Mongoose Fury effect itself; whether that be extending the buff using Boomstick as a throwback to Legion's mechanics, aggressively generating stacks, or something else entirely to offer gameplay considerations, cooldown management, and more cognitive load than the 12.0 tier set.
