If Survival Hunter Was Ranged Again

Survival is the Hunter specialization that has probably seen the most change out of the three specializations for that class. It started as an underwhelming melee spec, but eventually developed its own identity as a ranged specialization that liked to use traps and deal elemental damage, especially in the form of damage-over-time effects. After many expansions of this, it was abandoned in Legion in favor of trying to make it a melee spec again. Personally, I am in disagreement with how readily Blizzard abandoned much of their old design as they shoddily attempted to push its remnants into Marksmanship.

Instead, I thought Survival could've gone much further with the aforementioned thematic of elemental damage and trap usage and it helped that there were some concepts in Warlords of Draenor that could've served as inspiration. Specifically, I am referring to Exotic Munitions. While it wasn't a great talent in terms of sheer power, it did explore the idea of enhancing ammunition much like with Rogue Poisons and Paladin Seals. Unfortunately, Exotic Munitions was also discarded in Legion and the source of inspiration was largely lost.

This article will attempt to portray how ammo enhancements could've been expounded upon alongside the previous ranged version of Survival that emphasized traps usage and elemental damage. What I ultimately came up with is a survivalist that uses innovation, whether it be technology or strategy, to make the most of the situations they may find themselves in.

Thematic

Surviving in the wilds is a difficult affair and in order to do so, one must adapt. Other creatures do so by developing new traits through evolution or similar processes. More intelligent beings such as the many humanoid races do so by developing technology or otherwise putting their mind to good use. Survival Hunters are the ultimate expression of this adaptation through the use of both their cunning and wits. While some may go on to become engineers, one thing remains consistent - all Survival Hunter develop their advantages based on what the world provides them with. As a result, many develop traps and specialized munitions to complement the naturally sharp reflexes and tactical mastery they acquire.

Things to Know

As with all the other times I've made a theoretical version of a class or specialization, I should make it clear I'm not good at math. This means that while damage values are based on the damage value of existing abilities, they will probably be imbalanced and abilities should instead be considered relative to each other. This article is also something of an infodump since while I will explain how each ability works along with some interactions with other abilities, I leave it up to the reader to figure out how the specialization as a whole plays. With that said, the intended secondary stat priority for this spec is as follows:

Haste => Mastery > Crit => Versatility

Finally, the iteration of Hunter used for this theoretical version of Survival is the 8.0 patch series version.

Spec Abilities

The following are abilities associated with this theoretical Survival specialization.

Specialized Munition - Passive - You gain access to a variety of ammunition that applies a specific effect on ranged attacks. Ammunition is limited and will only apply for up to 12 of your attacks before requiring you to Reload. While in combat, Specialized Munition changes can be queued without incurring a global cooldown and occur when Reload is cast. The ammunition types are as follows:

• Poisoned Ammo (Nature) - Deal (0.07 * RAP) Nature damage per second per stack, stacking up to 3 times and lasting for 8 seconds.
• Incendiary Ammo (Fire) - Deals (0.1 * RAP) Fire damage to all enemies within 8 yards of the target.
• Chilling Ammo (Frost) - Deals (0.15 * RAP) Frost damage and reduces the target's movement speed by 30% for 4 seconds. The slowing effect diminishes linearly over time.
• Shocking Ammo (Nature) - Deals (0.15 * RAP) Nature damage to the enemy, then damages up to two additional targets for half damage.

This is my attempt to revive the ammo feature that Hunters once had before it was removed as a quality of life change. While ammo was not explored too much beyond its damage boosting capabilities, there was a weapon enhancing effect in Warlords of Draenor in the form of Exotic Munitions. This was a fairly weak talent but I liked the idea so much and thought it worked so well with the elemental damage-oriented Survival Hunter that existed prior to Legion that I brought it back as a specialization-exclusive feature. Each ammo type is intended to be used in a specific situation, as described below:

Poisoned Ammo is intended to be a single target-oriented Specialized Munition, but isn't too bad in other situations, such as when it's not possible to deal sustained damage for a short period.

Incendiary Ammo, also much like its Warlords of Draenor iteration, is meant to be the AoE damage dealing Specialized Munition. It scales with ranged attack power instead of weapon damage this time so that players can compare ammo types more easily.

Chilling Ammo is a damage and slowing effect that's useful for kiting and is mostly useful in solo situations, but can have some practical application in PvP too.

Shocking Ammo is a new type of ammo and is specifically designed for situations where the player is constantly attacking 2-3 targets.

Finally, it's worth mentioning this ability is a little different from Exotic Munitions. For a start, abilities will also apply Specialized Munitions. Furthermore, the general power level of Specialized Munitions should be higher but is counterbalanced by its ammunition system. This means that once 12 shots are used up, the effects can no longer be applied. Ammunition is reloaded automatically while out of combat, but also when the player uses...

Reload - Instant, 2 charges, 15 second recharge - Refreshes your ammunition and generates 15 Focus. This ability is off the global cooldown.
Reload (Rank 2) - Now also reduces the cooldown of Chimaera Shot and Wildfire Bomb by 1 second when cast.

Reload is a bread and butter skill in that it refreshes ammunition and is the primary source of Focus generation. Since it's off the global cooldown, it can be used at the exact moment a player needs it. Its rank 2 effect is meant to reduce the effective cooldown of two core Survival Hunter abilities. One may note that the cooldown of Reload seems a little long though, especially since 12 shots can be done in a matter of seconds. This is where the following passive effect comes into play.

Lock and Load - Passive - Your damaging abilities have an increasing chance to grant a charge of Reload, starting at 5% and resetting upon activation. This chance is doubled when you are out of ammunition.

There was no way I was going to keep the Lock and Load passive away from Survival, even though it has been moved to Marksmanship. I personally found this to be one of the most enjoyable procs in older iterations of Survival but I think it was also flawed since for most of its life, the activation was a flat chance tied to a DoT that was applied on cooldown. I personally believe it to be even more flawed now since it procs off of autoattacks, which makes the proc feel even less under the player's control.

To this end, I made it so the effect procs off of every damaging ability, immediately providing more player agency than every other iteration of Lock and Load. Furthermore, I made it so the chance increases significantly with each subsequent damaging ability since it makes sense that as the player uses more abilities, they're more likely to be out of ammunition. Finally, being out of ammunition massively increases the chance, almost guaranteeing a Reload charge after a couple more damaging shots.

In terms of specifics when it comes to how much the proc chance increases per shot, the chance is cumulative. This means the first shot has a base 5% chance and the second has a base 10% chance and so on. The increased base chance is maintained even in a situation where the player runs out of ammunition after already having used a few damaging abilities. So for example, if the player has used four damaging abilities, then runs out of ammunition before using the 5th, their 5th ability has a 50% chance to activate Lock and Load.

Ultimately, this passive is a large part of why Haste should be a highly useful stat for this spec since more Haste translates to more abilities that can be cast due to greater Focus regeneration and shorter global cooldowns. It also helps prevents the player from being punished for stacking Haste since normally they'd run out of ammunition faster.

Quick Shot - 1.5 second cast - 40 yard range - A quick shot that deals (0.55 * RAP) Physical.
Quick Shot (Rank 2) - Has a 50% increased chance to activate Lock and Load.
Quick Shot (Rank 3) - Can be cast while moving and no longer cancels Auto Shot.

Quick Shot serves as the filler ability for Survival much like Steady Shot and Cobra Shot did in the past. However, while this ability shares the role of being a filler ability when Focus is low, no Focus is generated. It's also slightly different since it allows players to continue to rapidly apply ammunition effects. At the second rank, it becomes important for ensuring Reload is available due to its increased chance to activate Lock and Load. At the third rank, it gains an upgrade that provides functionality similar to Steady Shot in the past, allowing the player to enjoy an almost entirely mobile damage dealing playstyle.

Frontload - 40 Focus, Instant - 40 yard range - Deals (0.2 * RAP) Physical damage and (0.25 * RAP) Elemental damage. The elemental damage type is based on your current Specialized Munition and ignores armor.

This is the primary Focus dump for Survival. It's largely there to deal a burst of damage much like other Focus dumps, but it has some small differences in that the damage type is mixed and part of the damage ignores armor, making it potentially a little stronger against armored targets. Being able to apply ammunition effects faster is nice too.

Chimaera Shot - 30 Focus, Instant, 10 second cooldown - A two-headed shot that deals (1.5 * RAP) Nature damage to one target and (1.5 * RAP) Frost damage to a target within 12 yards, applying Specialized Munition effects once to each. If this attack damages only a single target, Specialized Munition effects are applied twice to that target. Only uses one unit of ammunition.

Once a Marksmanship signature ability and currently a Beast Mastery talent, I think it works best in this iteration of Survival Hunter. Not only does it deal elemental damage, but I think the fact it strikes two targets gives it potential for an interesting interaction with ammunition effects. In this case, I opted to make it so the shot "splits" the ammunition effect over two targets efficiently, applying full effects at the cost of one unit of ammunition. I also increased the cleave range of the shot to ensure it'll find a secondary target more often.

Wildfire Bomb - Instant, 18 second cooldown - 40 yard range - Throws a fire bomb at the target, damaging all enemies within 5 yards for (0.45 * RAP) Fire Damage and an additional (0.9 * RAP) Fire damage over 6 seconds.

This is an ability that is part of the current Survival specialization and effectively replaces Explosive Trap. I think it fits well with a ranged elemental damage dealing Survival Hunter as well, so I don't see why it shouldn't be retained. The player also won't have to toss or place a trap to deal some decent area damage. I did, however, change the ability to target a circular area instead of a cone.

Wildfire Bomb (Rank 2): The damage over time effect has 10% of the current chance to activate Lock and Load each time it deals damage, but doesn't increment the chance.

I also wanted Wildfire Bomb to interact with other specialization abilities in a meaningful way. To that end, I added a throwback to an older iteration of Lock and Load that could be activated by Explosive Trap damage. The chance in this case is fairly small but scales with how many other damaging abilities are used. In addition, Wildfire Bomb's damage over time will have a very high chance to activate Lock and Load against many targets, allowing the player to have more Focus to use on the following ability to sustain their AoE damage...

Multi-Shot - 40 Focus, Instant - 40 yard range - Fires a shot that hits multiple targets for (0.21 * RAP) Physical. Consumes one unit of ammunition, but only critical strikes apply Specialized Munition effects.

This is a fairly basic AoE damage ability, but it also does less damage compared to the Marksmanship version. This is intentional since ammunition effects will deal a fairly significant amount of damage when applied by Multi-Shot.

Empowered Arsenal - Instant, 2 minute cooldown - You unleash the full power of your arsenal, causing your Specialized Munition effectiveness, Lock and Load activation chance, and cooldown reduction rate of your Wildfire Bomb and traps to be increased by 100% for 15 seconds.

This is the major cooldown for Survival Hunter and is meant to greatly improve the thematic abilities of the specialization. To that end, ammunition effects are greatly enhanced, and many abilities can be used more often.

Trap Launcher - Instant, 1 minute cooldown - When used, your next trap will fire at your target instead of a target location.

I toyed with a lot of ideas on how to make traps more usable at range since currently they need to be fired at a specific location. While I like the skillshot aspect of this, it can also be frustrating to miss. To that end, I added a fairly long cooldown ability so that occasionally, the player can opt to have their trap not miss. This helps less skilled players who are learning to play but can also be useful in a pinch when a trap needs to be activated sooner.

Mastery: Survival Tactics - Your Specialized Munitions are X% more effective. When one of your traps triggers or Wildfire Bomb is cast, you deal Y% more damage and suffer Y% less area damage for 6 seconds.

One of the weakest points of the older iterations of Survival was its rather generic Mastery bonus that increased elemental damage. I created a new Mastery in a previous article, but opted to simplify it this time to include what I consider to be the highlights of the spec: its ammunition types and traps. To that end, I made it so the Mastery increased the effectiveness of ammunition effects, which means secondary effects such as slows benefit, and made it so using traps and Wildfire Bomb provide a short duration buff that can be strategically refreshed for offensive or defensive purposes.

Expert Survivalist - Passive - Whenever you suffer direct damage, the remaining cooldown on your Exhilaration is reduced by 2 seconds. This effect cannot activate more often than once every 2 seconds.

Natural Mending is not going to be a talent in my theoretical Hunter class, though there will be a talent related to Exhilaration. While I'm not sure if the other two specializations would get passives that improve their survivability, I definitely wanted to give one to Survival, which I find doesn't always live up to its name. In an ideal situation, the Hunter shouldn't be taking any direct damage, but there are many situations where this passive will effectively cut the cooldown of Exhilaration in half due to normal gameplay, such as in PvP.

Full Spell List

This is a full spell list with the levels they are learned at. Specialization abilities are marked with an asterisk. Note that abilities learned by other specs are also included and are entirely unchanged. Pet abilities are not listed but are also unchanged.

Call Pet (Level 1)
Revive Pet (Level 1)
Critical Strikes (Level 1)
Quick Shot (Level 1)*
Concussive Shot (Level 4)
Disengage (Level 8)
Control Pet (Level 10)
Dismiss Pet (Level 10)
Poisoned Ammo (Level 10)*
Reload (Level 10)*
Frontload (Level 10)*
Chimaera Shot (Level 12)*
Beast Lore (Level 13)
Feed Pet (Level 13)
Mend Pet (Level 13)
Tame Beast (Level 13)
Multishot (Level 14)*
Eagle Eye (Level 16)
Freezing Trap (Level 18)
Incendiary Ammo (Level 20)*
Wildfire Bomb (Level 20)*
Aspect of the Cheetah (Level 22)
Exhilaration (Level 24)
Lock and Load (Level 24)*
Quick Shot, Rank 2 (Level 24)*
Feign Death (Level 28)
Chilling Ammo (Level 30)*
Counter Shot (Level 32)
Play Dead (Level 32)
Wildfire Bomb, Rank 2 (Level 34)*
Expert Survivalist (Level 36)*
Tar Trap (Level 36)
Command Pet (Level 38)
Flare (Level 38)
Aspect of the Chameleon (Level 40)
Fetch (Level 40)
Fireworks (Level 40)
Empowered Arsenal (Level 40)*
Misdirection (Level 42)
Reload, Rank 2 (Level 44)*
Shocking Ammo (Level 46)*
Exhilaration, Rank 2 (Level 48)
Trap Launcher (Level 56)*
Quick Shot, Rank 3 (Level 64)*
Aspect of the Turtle (Level 70)
Mastery: Survival Tactics (Level 78)*
Disengage, Rank 2 (Level 85)

Elite Traits

As you may have noticed, there are no abilities that are learned after level 85. This appears to be intentional design on Blizzard's part for the last few expansions and other character progression was added to enrich the experience beyond level 90 or so, such as Artifacts (Legion) and randomly learned passive effects (Warlords).

However, both of these features were removed, leaving a lack of character progression for all classes from level 90 onward. To address this, I invented a concept I call "Elite Traits," which will be integrated with this theoretical version of Survival Hunter. While I may write an article suggesting the addition of Elite Traits to the game that describes the idea in further detail, I will also summarize it here.

This idea is inspired by Elite Traits on Artifacts, plus some other one-rank traits with unique effects. Unlike the more generic performance boosting Artifact traits, these special traits introduced interesting mechanics that have largely disappeared with the removal of Artifacts. If they happened to be added back, I believe many of them wouldn't be compatible with the Azerite system due to a lack of numerical scaling with Azerite gear among other reasons. Therefore, this feature brings back ability-modifying effects similar to Elite Traits on Artifacts in a manner of progression similar to the Artifact in that the player chooses what they get initially, but they'll eventually learn everything.

At level 90, the player chooses the first Elite Trait to learn. There are two types of traits: Throughput Traits and Utility Traits. Every 5 levels after until level 115, the player can choose a new trait to learn. However, they must choose a trait type that is not the same as the previously learned one. This means Throughput Traits must be learned after a Utility Trait is learned and vice versa. The player's choices can be redone for a small cost at the class trainer, which will be especially useful for players who only have the Legion expansion or want to twink between level 90 and 114.

The following are the Elite Traits for my theoretical version of Survival Hunter with the usual explanations:

Primed Shot (Throughput) - Passive - When you run out of ammo, your next Quick Shot within the next 10 seconds is instant cast.

This throughput trait is intended to improve the feel of playing Survival Hunter by providing some momentum towards activating Lock and Load when ammunition has run out. This is especially useful since Quick Shot should have a massive, if not guaranteed, chance to activate Lock and Load by the time one runs out of ammunition.

Furthermore, my intention of this trait is to encourage clever management of ammunition and Reload charges to maximize the amount of instant Quick Shots the player gets.

Deep Freeze (Utility) - Passive - Your damage over time effects no longer break your Freezing Trap.

This is largely a quality of life trait meant to prevent the Hunter from being punished for using abilities they may naturally use to deal damage over time such as Wildfire Bomb and Poisoned Ammo. Note that direct damage needs to be done to apply either effect, so the Hunter can't get cheap damage in by trying to apply more damage over time effects.

Master Trapper (Throughput) - Passive - Your traps now have additional effects:

• Freezing Trap - The enemy will also take (0.6 * RAP) Frost damage over 6 seconds after the incapacitation effect expires or is nullified.
• Tar Trap - Also splashes all targets in the area of effect with tar, increasing the direct damage of the next Wildfire Bomb on them by 50%. In addition, when the trap triggers, the cooldown of Wildfire Bomb is reset.
• Nullifying Trap - Also briefly knocks all targets in the air, dealing the lesser amount of 20% current health or (0.45 * RAP) as Arcane damage.

This trait adds damage dealing components to all of the Hunter's traps, which gives them a bit of a punch when used. They will already be used to activate the Mastery effect, but the additional effects allow for some strategic use to make the most of them. For example, Tar Trap should ideally be used shortly after Wildfire Bomb.

Careful Planning (Utility) - Passive - Your traps now last for 2 minutes and up to 2 of each can be active at once.

Careful Planning is intended to be a strategic trait that fits well with the kind of cunning a Survival Hunter is expected to possess. Whether they'll have enough time to set up 2 of each trap before combat begins is another question but if a player has an opportunity to and takes it, they may be rewarded.

Note that Freezing Trap can still only affect a single target at a time.

Backload (Throughput) - When your Frontload critically strikes, the cooldown of Wildfire Bomb is reduced by 1 second.

This increases the value of Critical Strike slightly more for the Survival Hunter's Focus dump. It should be nearly impossible to reach a point where Wildfire Bomb's cooldown is lower than the duration of its damage over time effect even with this trait outside of Empowered Arsenal.

Secondary Launcher (Utility) - Passive - Your Trap Launcher now has two charges and its cooldown is reduced by 15 seconds.

This allows the Hunter to launch traps a bit more often if they so desire, striking a balance between players who can use traps skillfully without Trap Launcher and those who cannot. It's also useful for providing consistent trap usage in more intensive situations.

Talents

The talents for Survival Hunter have largely been reworked to match the new abilities they have received. They are as follows, with explanations of the effects:

Level 15

Lone Wolf - Passive - Increases all damage done by 10% when your pet is not active.

Unlike Marksmanship, I didn't want Survival to have Lone Wolf as a baseline effect since I preferred the idea of them being able to use pets. I did, however, want to give players the option to play without a pet. Ideally, this talent is only a slight damage boost similar to that of the other two talents.

Imbued Claws - Passive - Your pet's Basic Attack applies the effect of your current Specialized Munition up to 3 times. Reload refreshes the amount of applications.

Meanwhile, players who opt to keep their pets can use them to apply more of their Specialized Munition effect if they so desire. It won't be applied that fast due to the cooldown of Basic Attacks, but it's a good addition that makes the pet a little more useful beyond the utility they provide, especially in Battle for Azeroth.

Catalyze - 10 Focus, Instant - 40 yard range - Hurls a non-lethal vial that applies a catalyzing substance to the target, increasing your elemental damage against them by 15% for 8 seconds.

The third talent on this tier emphasizes elemental damage, especially single target. Catalyze adds a little more active management that ideally is more of a damage increase than the other two talents.

Level 30

Greased Mechanism - Passive - Your Quick Shot now casts 15% faster and its global cooldown is reduced by 15%.

As the description makes clear, this talent makes Quick Shot faster to use. This means the player doesn't have to cast as much and can activate Lock and Load a little faster and more often.

Ballista Turret - Instant, 45 second cooldown - You place an automated ballista that fires at your target every second for 20 seconds, dealing (0.1 * RAP) Physical and applying your current Specialized Munition. The ballista can hold up to 6 units of ammunition and Reload refreshes it.

This is a throughput talent that emphasizes Specialized Munition usage further, this time in the form of a summoned minion. It doesn't deal a lot of damage but with good ammunition management, it can easily apply Specialized Munition effects on all 20 of its shots. This is intended to be ideal for players who are good at managing Reload charges.

Momentum - Passive - Your Reload generates an additional 15 Focus over 5 seconds.

Momentum also encourages good Reload management, but more in the context of managing Focus at the same time. It's largely an extra benefit as long as the player is fast enough to use abilities after or while using Reload though.

Level 45

Guerilla - Passive - When one of your traps triggers, the cooldown of your Disengage is reduced by 6 seconds.

This is a Survival-exclusive mobility talent intended to encourage strategic trap usage when the player also wants to effectively use Disengage. However, maximizing its power requires later talents.

Posthaste - Passive - Disengage also frees you from movement-impairing effects and increases your movement speed by 50% for 4 seconds.

This is one of my favorite talents available to all three Hunter specializations. I see no reason to replace it due to the mobility and utility it provides.

Relentless Pursuit - Passive - For every 10 yards you move, the remaining cooldown on Aspect of the Cheetah is reduced by 1 second.

I personally dislike the Trailblazer talent as a mobility talent since it feels like a trap talent where the usefulness of the talent is a little narrower than I would like. To that end, I added a new talent suitable for all three Hunter specializations that applies to Aspect of the Cheetah using a creative mechanic that I believe fits the talent name well. This talent encourages the largely mobile Hunter to be on the move when they can and it even performs well in situations where players move for an extended amount of time out of combat like with Trailblazer. By the way, mounted movement and Disengage would reduce the cooldown of Aspect of the Cheetah with this talent.

Level 60

Specialized Munitions: Tracer Rounds (Arcane) - While active, you gain 5% Haste and your single target attacks apply a magical trace, increasing all your damage dealt to the target by 3% per stack and allowing allies to see them on the minimap for 6 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times, but can only affect a single target at a time.

This is an ammo type intended to replace Poisoned Ammo in single target situations. The Haste bonus also makes it generally strong and the ability to track the enemy can be helpful utility. Finally, if spell damage types become relevant like on non-Mythic Argus, Tracer Rounds allow Survival Hunters to capitalize on Arcane damage vulnerabilities.

Exotic Munitions - Passive - Improves the effects of all your ammo substantially:

• Venomous Ammo - Replaces Poisoned Ammo - Deal (0.07 * RAP) Nature damage per second per stack, stacking up to 3 times and lasting for 8 seconds. When the ammunition is applied at maximum stacks, the target suffers (0.07 * RAP) additional Nature damage instantly.
• Shrapnel Ammo - Replaces Incendiary Ammo - Deals (0.1 * RAP) Fire damage to all enemies within 8 yards of the target. Enemies affected by the initial explosion also explode, dealing (0.05 * RAP) Fire damage to enemies within 8 yards. Enemies can only be damaged by this secondary effect once.
• Frostbite Ammo - Replaces Chilling Ammo - Deals (0.15 * RAP) Frost damage and slows the target by 50% for 3 seconds with the effect diminishing linearly over time. Affected targets suffer 50% bonus damage from Frigid Ammo.
• Storm Ammo - Replaces Shocking Ammo - Deals (0.15 * RAP) Nature damage to the enemy, then strikes up to four additional enemies for half damage. This effect can damage the same enemy twice if it hits an additional enemy first.

Exotic Munitions now takes the form of a talent that enhances every ammunition type normally available to Survival Hunter. In general, the effectiveness of each type of ammunition is increased by up to 50% and are even more powerful in the situations where they were already excellent. This is intended to emphasize the niche usage of some of the ammunition types, such as the new Storm Ammo which is excellent in scenarios with 2-3 targets.

Chimeric Casings - Passive - You can now have a second Specialized Munition active at 50% effectiveness. The first can now also be changed instantly in combat without having to Reload, but the second cannot be changed in combat at all.

Chimeric Casings rounds off this talent tier by providing players with flexibility in terms of the Specialized Munitions they use. Not only can they change their primary Specialized Munition at will without having to use Reload, but they can have a second Specialized Munition active as well. This is a great throughput increase, but the second Specialized Munition may not necessarily be suitable for a specific scenario. In addition, the player will have to think about which one they want to have at reduced effectiveness since they may want to be able to switch to a version with full effectiveness during combat.

Level 75

Flare Gun - Instant, Replaces Flare, 1 minute cooldown - 40 yard range - Fires a flare at the target, revealing all stealthed enemies in the path and stunning the target for 3 seconds. If this ability is cast without a target, the flare will instead travel forward for up to 40 yards or until it hits the first enemy, stunning them.

If I recall correctly, Blizzard once played with the idea of making Flare an ability that was intended to be regularly used to improve damage dealing. This never made it into the game but I thought it would be fun to play with a similar idea by giving Survival Hunters a more robust piece of utility in the form of a Flare Gun. The stealth-revealing functionality is based on two existing abilities: Piercing Shot and Explosive Shot (the Marksmanship talent version). When cast at a target, Flare Gun effectively behaves like Piercing Shot in terms of revealing stealth. When cast without one, it behaves more like Explosive Shot instead. Because of this, I think it would be possible for Blizzard to implement an ambitious piece of utility like this somehow.

With that said, its primary function will be to stun an enemy.

Nullifying Trap - Instant, 30 second cooldown - 40 yard range - Places a trap that, when triggered, pacifies all enemies within an 8 yard radius for 4 seconds. Leaving the area removes the pacifying effect.

Instead of giving Survival Hunters Binding Shot, I opted to give them a new trap that provides crowd controlling utility that forces enemies to move away rather than forcing them to stay in place. Because pacified targets can still move, this should allow for some counterplay in PvP situations. The trap will be significantly more useful in PvE situations however, so I reduced the duration a little bit. Furthermore, targets are guaranteed to be pacified for a short time once the Hunter receives the Master Trapper Elite Trait due to the trap knocking affected targets up.

Lasting Exhilaration - Passive - Your Exhilaration heals for an additional 50% of the amount healed over 10 seconds.

While I like the cooldown reduction aspect of Natural Mending, Survival has another way to reduce Exhilaration's cooldown. I also didn't want to copy and paste more talents, so I opted to create a new talent that improves Exhilaration for all Hunter specializations in this theoretical situation. In this case, the healing is greatly increased, providing some additional sustain for the Hunter and especially their pet (if they opt to use one).

Level 90

Potent Volley - Passive - Your Multi-Shot will always apply Specialized Munition effects.

This talent is a fairly simple one that reduces the value of Critical Strike in favor of improving the consistency of Survival Hunter's AoE damage dealing using Specialized Munitions. This is especially useful against a large number of targets and has some great utility potential with Chilling Ammo.

Hydra Shot - Passive - Chimaera Shot will now hit two additional targets for (1.5 * RAP) Fire. In addition, Multi-Shot reduces the cooldown of Chimaera Shot by 0.25 seconds for each target hit, up to a maximum of 1 second per cast.

Hydra Shot makes Chimaera Shot more useful in situations with 3 or 4 targets and allows the Hunter to consistency apply Specialized Munition effects to all of them. It's also not too bad in situations with more targets to the point it may be usable against many more enemy targets.

Carpet Bomb - Instant, Replaces Wildfire Bomb - 18 second cooldown - Incinerates a huge area of 10 yards radius, dealing (0.45 * RAP) Fire damage instantly and an additional (1.8 * RAP) Fire to all enemies in the area over 12 seconds.

For players who prefer to use Wildfire Bomb and wish to make it an even more potent AoE ability, this talent is the go-to option. In addition, this is the only one that directly increases single target damage since it doubles the duration and damage of the damage over time effect. The drawback is the player has to target the ground with the ability and may potentially attack targets they didn't intend to due to its radius.

Level 100

Rapid Reload - Passive - Lock and Load has a 20% increased chance to activate. In addition, Reload gains 1 additional charge and also reduces the cooldown of Empowered Arsenal by 2 seconds when used.

While Rapid Reload is already being used as an Azerite trait that affects Multi-Shot, I think it is far more appropriately used here. In this case, this talent helps to trivialize ammunition management and increase the amount of times Empowered Arsenal can be used.

Deadly Shot - 3 Ammunition, 2 second cast, 20 second cooldown - 40 yard range - Fires a shot laced with an especially potent amount of Specialized Munition, applying the effect 3 times and dealing (2.4 * RAP) Elemental damage based on the Specialized Munition used.

Meanwhile, Deadly Shot encourages more careful ammunition management, especially when it comes to using the Reload ability, because the intention of this ability is for it to be cast on cooldown. In order to do this, it is desirable to have Reload ready in case the Hunter runs low on ammunition. Deadly Shot is also a talent that reduces mobility, so it may be even more of a strategic choice.

Complex Design - Passive - When your trap is triggered, a secondary trap will trigger centered on the target that initially triggered it after 2 seconds at half of the duration. Secondary effects do not progress diminishing returns.

Closing out the level 100 talent tier is a talent that massively increases the power of traps. It effectively increases the duration of the Mastery by 2 seconds with each trap used and has major synergy with other effects such as the Master Trapper Elite Trait and the Guerilla talent. It also makes traps harder slightly more difficult to play around in PvP.

Azerite Traits

Finally, we have the Azerite traits. I have only added 6 since as of this writing, there seem to be only 6 specialization-specific Azerite traits. They are as follows:

Chimaera Breath - Chimaera Shot now also applies one additional random Specialized Munition effect to each target it damages.

This allows players to effectively use Specialized Munitions that are not active, which may give them an idea of how useful other ammunition types are. It can also be used strategically especially with the Chimeric Casings talent since it allows instantaneous ammunition type changes. Incidentally, when this trait is stacked, the same random ammunition type can be chosen multiple times on the same Chimaera Shot, which could lead to some interesting applications of certain types of ammunition such as Poisoned Ammo.

Azerite Munitions - When your ammunition is refilled, your next single target shot is also imbued with Azerite Munitions, causing an explosion that deals X damage to all enemies, and Y healing to all allies within 8 yards of the target.

This effect is admittedly a little bland since it basically just causes a Holy Nova-like effect on the next shot the Hunter uses after casting Reload, but on the other hand, I believe it thematically fits since Azerite seems to have restorative properties in addition its destructive potential.

Controlled Burn - Wildfire Bomb initially deals an additional X damage split over all damaged targets.

This Azerite Trait is geared towards making Wildfire Bomb more powerful when there are fewer targets. This may allow for some strategic usage of both Wildfire Bomb and especially Carpet Bomb if the player wants to focus their damage on specific targets. Note that this will generally be inefficient though and it's probably better to try to stack this trait for specific encounters instead.

Exploitation - After launching a trap with Trap Launcher, your Haste is increased by X for 8 seconds.

This makes Trap Launcher more of an offensive cooldown since in addition to guaranteeing a Mastery proc, it will also give the Hunter an even greater throughput boost while the Mastery effect is active, especially if they have taken the Complex Design talent.

Overload - Your Frontload will consume an additional unit of ammunition to deal an additional X damage.

This trait may arguably be a negative one since it could potentially incur a damage loss in situations where the Hunter doesn't have as much ammunition or manages it poorly, such as if their Haste is low. This is instead meant to appeal to those who manage ammunition well, have taken talents that provide a huge surplus of ammunition, and may even have the stats to support taking such a trait. With that said, stacking this trait won't cause it to consume more than one additional unit of ammunition.

Keen Focus - Every second, your next Quick Shot deals an additional X damage.

There are a few Azerite traits that empower a specific ability based on how long it hasn't been cast. I think this is suitable for Quick Shot, which is a filler ability the player ideally uses rather infrequently. Certain talents such as Momentum and Rapid Reload may help to make the most of this trait.

Closing Thoughts

This concludes my theoretical ranged Survival Hunter idea. Aside from almost certainly being an imbalanced, incomprehensible mess, it also serves to show off an idea that I may expand on further later on to address a lack of character progression after level 90 or so. Beyond that, I hope this article pleases at least one fan of the ranged version of Survival that existed before Legion.