yeah i absolutely loved the old survival with black arrow. and as much as i love BM, it was just my pet tamer until that unfaithful day where they made that change to melee.
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I mean honestly the biggest problem with Survival is just that it’s melee and it’s bad to be melee.
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I’ll run with sv any day. They do work. 
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This is an admirable mindset but this wouldn’t be possible or feasible for a few reasons. Most importantly ranged SV and the current melee SV have different aesthetics and mechanics. It wouldn’t be possible to just cram both into the same spec.
There’s no added “versatility” to having both ranged and melee attacks. If you have any dependence on melee at all to deal your full damage potential that’s inherently less versatile than a spec like BM that can do 100% of its damage from 0-40 yards.
All 3 specs should be ranged baseline. There should exist a talent for BM that swaps out its ranged shots for melee strikes in exchange for a damage boost. That’s the most practical and sensible way to approach melee Hunters.
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From 3.0 when it got Explosive Shot until 6.2 when it was last ranged SV was actually more often than not better than MM. SV was better during:
- All of WotLK until late ToC and into ICC
- All of Cataclysm outside of Firelands
- All of MoP
- WoD from the early Highmaul balancing until HFC’s release
As Apples said these aren’t things SV brings that ranged Hunters don’t. Ranged Hunters can also bring pets to bloodlust and use traps and Binding Shot.
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They are a pretty great spec for pvp tbh. A really good amount of surviability, can stay kite melee, can close gap ranged i like the playstyle a lot. Very versatile gameplay.
They have been pretty strong in 9.1 i saw some doing 9k+ overall dps in a SD.
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SV was even better in PvP as a ranged spec (SV’s current strengths in PvP are in spite of being melee not because of it) and 9K+ over all in a SD is low.
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I’ve been having fun with it. I’ve played MM and BM and just recently decided to try Survival. I don’t do any raiding or keys though. Just casual play.
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The old spec isnt coming back and never will. So chill a bit. It would be more probable to introduce a new class with old surv mechs, which was pretty much Dots.
Its not that much of a melee class at all, it just has the option to go melee if it has to. Which is cool.
Also too many pvp skills SV has were never avaiable before. Such as the bandage, net or frozen trap.
Not for someone with a 226 wep.
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/glances at WC3 rexxar
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The problem with discussing present-day Surv is that there is so much bad blood among a lot of the hunter community over losing a ranged spec, or having their preferred spec changed out from under them. I get that.
But none of that has any bearing over whether current Surv is good or not, or fun or not. I don’t know how “good” it’s going to be at end game, because I haven’t gotten there yet, but I’ve got one up to about 170-180 ilvl right now and if fun is the measurement, then it’s a winner to me because it’s fun. From reports just in this thread, it sounds like it will prove to be a good M+ spec once I get that far.
As for the great change that got us here, I didn’t like to see it at the time because the game has too much melee as is. On the other hand, there has been a lot of spec overlap in hunters at times over the years, or at least it felt that way (hunter alt here since TBC), so I understand the change even if I didn’t agree with it. Thematically, it fits because humanity has had pet-assisted spear hunters as part of their culture for thousands of years.
I think if Blizzard had it do over again, they would (or should) have considered a fourth spec. Ultimately, I think we needed a Commando spec that sort of combined current Surv huinter with Outlaw rogue, but where do you put it?
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The thing is, there was no overlap between MM and RSV in WoD. The argument they used to justify changing it to melee was based on the general class fantasy of both specs focusing on the use of ranged weapons, despite how as soon as you looked at specific abilities and effects, or general themes altogether, they weren’t all that similar after all.
Here’s an example of what RSV could’ve looked like if brought forward into Legion, or brought back to present day WoW. Would that amount to a core playstyle that is the same as, or even similar to current MM? I’d say far from it…
Agreed.
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Whoever dares to play the non-meta specs at higher content is usually really good at what they are doing, often times much better than those playing the meta specs who are barely average due to FOTM fever.
I don’t pity them, instead I respect those people who refuse to join the meta-meme.
Then you can accept that it will be a largely-avoided pariah spec forever. All discussion about bailing Survival out is a waste of time if Blizzard isn’t prepared to drop the melee part for whatever reason. Seriously; can anyone tell me why this spec is still melee? It’s evident at this point that it’s just holding the spec back and it’s not like the spec is even emphasising its melee weapon very much.
No, that wouldn’t work because ranged Survival had a real specialisation philosophy in that it meaningfully built from the base class. It emphasised the utilitarian side of the Hunter class and it specialised in things that were part of the class including explosives, poisons, and traps. It would not fit in another class.
Great! Making it ranged again shouldn’t be a problem, then. After all, BM and MM also have the option of going into melee if they need to. In fact, they are more versatile as they can do full damage from 0-40 yards while SV cannot beyond 5 yards.
This is because PvP talents didn’t exist before Legion.
The problem with this logic is when the Hunter class in WoW is built around ranged weapons making one of the specs lack a ranged weapon is effectively making it unique via handicap rather than strength.
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Nice wall fo text arguing about useless stuff.
Nobody cares if you don’t enjoy it my dude, the spec is there, some hate, some love, thats all it will ever be. It can do any content atm.
Its not like combat rogues are getting their spec back either btw.
Well ain’t that a hell of a bar to clear.
People do care, by the way, that they replaced a very popular ranged spec with a melee spec that’s consistently one of the least popular options in the game.
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About this. Out of all of the things that they would change throughout the years due to lack of popularity among the players, you’d think that by now, the third expansion after the revamp that they’d change survival back or at least make a fourth spec based on what the old survival was because of how unpopular it is among the players.
I like and have played all 3 of the hunter specs since vanilla but survival is by far my favorite one, its fast and engaging combat is a nice change of pace from ranged dps and I always enjoy the goofy responses I get from people when they see you playing it especially from other surv hunters
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Same with Legion Shadow
Now I’ll sit and wait for all the hate mail to come in
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No, because they’re a very good dps spec now. No reason not to bring one unless y already have a couple melee.