It’s unbelievable you still think this is a good argument to make after I linked it.
In any case asking for proof that Survival is unpopular is like asking for proof that ice is cold. It’s something that’s been evidently clear for years. It’s not just warcraftlogs either. The spec is very unpopular because most Hunters don’t want to play melee and most melee are more interested in other classes – including you. They devoted an entire 3rd of the class to melee mains with a passing interest in the class who just end up having a parked SV alt and fanboy over it on the forums while playing something else. There are a handful of Hunters that are dedicated to it, that’s true, but it’s peanuts compared to what SV was before Legion. Go look at the engagement SV gets in WotLK and see how far it’s fallen.
I see them in game too. It’s like 1 in 30 Hunters on a good day, but I see them. Does that mean it’s a popular spec? Hell no.
It’s wild that you’re here pretending actual data from the game is flawed/missing context or whatever yet you seriously believe “I see them all the time” carries any water at all. How out of it do you have to be to post this?
Survival is unpopular in casual content as well. Don’t try to pretend this is just a mythic raiding thing. In fact, the one time melee Survival did have a lot of players (M+ last season when it was a required pick) it was proportionally a lot more represented at higher level keys than lower level where Hunters would generally stick to BM or MM.
Why don’t you post from your Hunters?
What’s surprising is that a Hunter spec widely played and enjoyed by Hunters would be removed and replaced by something openly aimed at melee mains that didn’t care much for Hunters in the first place.
It’s hilarious that you would post this. Jinday has always been extremely protective of melee Survival. Here’s the usual Jinday:
Fact is, even for Survival (which is saying a lot), DF is a steep drop in quality. It’s playstyle is worse. It looks like they felt guilty about the increased focus on Wildfire Bomb and the reduced focus on melee so they’ve overcompensated and made Mongoose Bite the centre of the universe for Survival. So it plays, to be frank, like crap. Yes I did try it on the beta. It’s bad. Much worse than SL/BFA Survival.
Now I’m not going to say that it’s impossible to make a good playstyle for SV as a melee spec. There have been times when its playstyle has actually been good. I am going to say, however, it’s impossible to make a coherent identity for the spec as melee and that influences playstyle. People aren’t just hating on melee SV and wanting it to be ranged for no reason. Not only did it suck to lose ranged SV, since contrary to revisionist belief it was actually a popular and successful spec in its ranged days, but to see it replaced with something that is always floundering and always having to be remade over and over again only to miss the mark every time makes it much worse.
Blizzard could have spent a fraction of the effort to just iteratively update ranged Survival going into Legion and beyond and I’m confident 99% of the people involved would be happier; including the devs themselves and most of the people who actually like and play melee SV. It’s impossible to say from an objective standpoint that making SV melee has been successful. We’re here 6 years later, going into its 4th expansion, and there’s still this much strife about its design. As we can see even many melee SV fans are not happy. Deny all you want but making SV melee will go down in history as one of the worst decisions of MMO class design.