Suggestions for Survival

[:1]Just figured i would throw out a few suggestions i have for survival and see what people think.

There are 3 things i wish to address that i think will help improve Survival.

1.) Increase the damage of Explosive Shot. It is their signature shot after all. If players are considering using the filler shot as their primary shot because it does more damage, then that should be a red flag in my opinion that something is wrong with their signature shot. I figure a 10% increase would be a good place to start and see how that goes. It can be adjusted if 10% is too much or too little. Or maybe change the glyph to give it an extra charge, for a total of 4 charges.

2.) Reduce the cost of Black Arrow, Serpent Sting and Widow Venom by 15 focus. The best place i figure to do this is in the talent 'Resourcefulness'. It's a 3 point talent, it could fit right in. Speccing into it could reduce the focus cost of these abilities by 5/10/15, putting black arrow down to 20 focus, serpent sting down to 10, and widow venom becomes free. A significant portion of survivals damage comes from dots, and at the moment, you must cast Serpent sting and black arrow (If it's up) at the start of every fight, effectively burning 60 focus up front, and 2 GCD's (3 if you cast Hunter's Mark as well) for something that is easily dispel-able. This would cut the cost in half from 60 to 30 focus to start. Obviously Dispels are another issue, but i feel reducing the focus cost, specifically on serpent sting, will help wonders on a spec that relies heavily on it, and in pvp has to constantly re-apply it. Widow venom isn't very useful to me, and i figured i might use it a bit more, if it was free.

3.) Replace counterattack with a heal for survival. Survival is the only spec in the game that doesn't have access to a heal via baseline ability, talent or glyph. Counterattack's position in the tree is just far enough down to where other specs won't have access to it. It would be replacing an ability that doesn't get much use, if anyone even specs into it. And the spec needs a heal in my opinion, mostly for pvp reasons. I figure the heal could be something like.

Mend Wounds
15 focus 30 second CD
Instant Cast

Instantly heals the hunter for 15% of his total health.

Why 15%? Because both Spirit mend and Chimera shot's heal, heal for about 15% of your total hp over a 30 second time period. Spirit mend heals me for about 23k over 10 seconds on a 28 sec CD. Chimera heals me for 6.2k (5% of my total hp) every 9 secs, x3 = 18.6k (15% of my health) every 27 seconds. So the heal and cd would be inline with the other specs proportionally. The 15 focus cost is there because unlike the other spec's heals, its a lump sum, like rune tap, so because of this, i put in a bit of a focus cost. This way you need to manage your focus and health a bit, and plan ahead to use the heal, if you feel you will need to. Not to expensive as to not be used in combat, but not free so you may have to pay attention a little.

The other reason, is kind of small, but i thought was fitting. If survival got this heal, and you looked from BM over to survival, you would see the heals change a bit. Spirit mend is a Hot, Chimera is a nuke heal in small, quicker increments, and mend wounds is a lump sum heal. So it gradually transitions from one type to another as you move across the specs. Most probably wont care about it, but i thought it was fitting.

Anyways, i figured i would never see these changes if i don't speak up.

Hope you liked them.
I like the replacement to Counterattack.
The rest, just revert the Survival nerfs from that first patch, then let Explosive Shot and such scale with weapon damage.
Yeah i think the heal is pretty needed.

The 10% buff to explosive shot for the most is reverting the nerf, but adding it weapon damage would also be nice.

I think the reduction in focus cost would be of great help also though.
Focus cost isn't too bad, to be honest. Half the time I get so many Thrill of the Hunt procs that I'm rolling n focus. But the damage and scaling... ugh.
Hate to be one of those guys who says something is fine when obviously you disagree but.. Right now i feel like all the specs are in a pretty good place, at least for PvE. Could give two craps about PvP (sorry!) but right now all three specs seem viable to me.

MM is FoTM but only slightly - there are still many of us who stuck with BM or SV even after the patch and doing pretty well.

Spirit Mend is the price you pay for going with with a lesser dps spec AND having the patience to find a spirit beast AND choosing to use said beast over other sometimes better options. It wouldn't make any sense at all to give SV hunters a heal like that.
I think a heal for survival is most fitting, as i described in my original post. It also appears i'm not alone in my opinion.

Giving survival a heal is pretty needed in pvp, with every class having their own form of self healing now, and tackling dots for a hunter is a problem, especially for survival, or healers who try and slowly wear you down, among a few other things. As for pve, i don't see how a heal would effect pve. It wouldn't effect it anymore then chimera shot's heal, or spirit mend, which the other spec's have.