Survival ABSURD NERF next patch

Some thoughts regarding this were posted over on the US PTR forums. As much of it is relevant to this discussion, I'll share them here. :)

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Long story short, we agree that: Waylay as a damage mechanic isn’t playing well, and the increased trap cooldown is a nerf that undermines other utility upgrades. We’ve been discussing exactly what we want to do about it, and can share some details:

For starters, the Trap cooldown is going back to a baseline of 30 seconds, just like it is in Patch 7.1. We had initially increased it to 40 based on some concerns that Hunter crowd control might end up too powerful in some situations, but after further consideration, we don’t think that’ll be necessary.

Regarding Waylay, the original intent of the passive was to reinforce Survival’s niche as trap experts (especially with other Hunter specializations getting traps again) by rewarding clever placement of traps when you’re able to anticipate your enemy’s movement. After all, the very nature of a trap is a hazard set ahead of time for an unsuspecting victim, whereas traps today often end up feeling more like lobbed explosives. However, in group gameplay, the movement of your targets is largely outside of your direct control, and any sort of rotational damage benefit of Waylay is likely to be far more frustrating than fun. We’re going to remove the damage-increasing benefit that Waylay provided to Explosive Trap and let its bonuses focus purely on utility. With the Freezing Trap and Tar Trap cooldown now unchanged, this makes Waylay simply a new utility perk over what Survival has on live, and we’re excited about some of the potential ways Hunters can make use of it in both PvE and PvP.

As an aside (and this is relevant to all classes and specs), part of our goal to keep patches coming at a steady pace in Legion means that you’re likely to see more half-completed ideas and strange experiments on PTR than even veteran testers might be used to in previous expansions. Just because a change shows up in a PTR build does not mean that it’s something the team views as a final design (or even a design we’re necessarily happy with). This has been especially true with 7.1.5, and we’ve done a poor job of communicating that thus far. We’d like to apologize for that failing, and it’s something we’re actively working to correct.