- Inspiration for Dark Ranger comes from Sylvanas in WC3: Frozen Throne. While iconic, the style didn’t fit as one of the three specs of the Hunter class when it was designed in vanilla. When Hero Talents became an option to expand the class fantasy, Dark Ranger became an obvious choice.
- A lot of the ideas for Dark Ranger came from the Dark Ranger archetype in WoW, like Dark Chains is inspired by Sylvanas’ battle with The Lich King in the Shadowlands cinematic, and Shadowhounds is a reference to Nathanos’ undead pets in Eastern Plaguelands.
Dark Ranger is Marksmanship and Beast Mastery because Dark Rangers are defined by ranged attacks and abilities, with Black Arrow, so it wouldn’t fit the Survival Hunter’s melee theme.
They said it themselves, a melee having a dark ranger theme couldn’t have worked with survival hunter, nor would a melee class