Survival Redesign in Battle for Azeroth

When they announced Legion, they somewhat sneakily mentioned that the Survival Hunter artifact weapon would be a spear. Later, they would confirm that Survival was going to become a melee spec. This met with some controversy, as a lot of people really loved the old Survival and this suggested that the spec they knew would be no more.

Now, in practice, all of the Hunter specs wound up with rather radical redesigns, but Survival practically looked like as new a spec as Havoc or Vengeance.

And it has been, anecdotally, not very popular.

Legion's version of Survival has a lot of different things going on. You've got traps to throw, focus to manage between Flanking Strike and Raptor Strike, and then Mongoose Bite, which is at the center of the rotation and yet feels mostly disconnected from the other elements (well, except Flanking Strike, thanks to your Mastery.)

Additionally there's not a ton of real flavor to the spec. I suppose you could argue it's a little like you're a crazed madman (or madwoman) who comes out of the woods swinging a spear around and furiously carving up your enemies, but the rotation is far more complex than the others - more of a Mists-era Hunter than its Legion contemporaries.

Anyway, in Battle for Azeroth, Survival is getting far more focused, and it's also getting something of an identity as the hybrid ranged/melee spec. You'll still want to be in melee range for auto attacks and Raptor Strike, but all your other abilities have a 40-yard range, and Aspect of the Eagle, your main couple-minute cooldown, turns Raptor Strike into a ranged attack as well.

So the big caveat here: this is practically the first build of the Alpha, meaning this is all subject to change - a lot of change. It's going to get tweaked and adjusted a lot. That being said, those changes will be partially based on feedback (partially though - so don't expect them to change something just because you don't like it) so it's good to look at this stuff early.

First off, Mongoose Bite has been turned into a talent - one that replaces Raptor Strike, which is your main focus spender. MB also spends Focus now, so it's actually at the same table as the other abilities.

So let's go through them:

Raptor Strike is what you're going to be spending most of your focus on, and is a simple damaging strike.

Kill Command actually generates focus for Survival. It also has a chance on hit to not trigger its cooldown, allowing you to get two of these in a row (I believe there's also a talent that makes you attack along with your pet, like Flanking Strike.)

Serpent Sting is back, and actually has you draw a little hand-crossbow out with your left hand a little like an Outlaw Rogue's Pistol Shot. This is a DOT that you should maintain on your target. There's a talent that makes this hit three targets, but I don't know if you can maintain it on more.

Wildfire Bomb is a bit like the current Dragonfire Grenade talent, except that it's baseline. This hits a target and burns them, dealing high fire damage over time to them and then I believe half as much to anyone standing nearby. Aside from multi-dotting with Serpent Sting (if that's possible,) this looks like it will be a core AoE ability.

So, those four abilities will be the core of the rotation, but you'll still have Harpoon and Disengage, and in fact there's a talent that encourages you to do a lot of hopping in and out of the battlefield. There are also many talents that add new abilities, like Butchery or Glaive Toss (both similar to what they are/were) if you don't feel like there's enough going on.

I'm actually pretty excited for this. I like the idea of a Melee Hunter, and while I played a little around with Survival in early Legion, it never really clicked with me on a deep level. Still, that being said, I'm tempted to either try going Survival on my Nightborne or dust off my old Goblin and get back into the swing of it.