I created my Hunter back in BC and have raided as BM & Marks in most xpacs ever since.
SV is just flat out better than both right now. More fun, more effective, fewer annoying design quirks. I hated the spec at first but gave it another shot after landing a 415 weapon from one of the Nazjatar world bosses and haven’t looked back since.
BM in its current incarnation bores me to tears and Marks is a trainwreck so if SV hadn’t turned out to be so amazing I would’ve benched my Hunter completely. Instead without any Mythic raid gear I’m pulling 30k+ on Heroic EP bosses and almost keeping up with Rogues & DHs on M+ meters, and having a blast while doing it.
SV is fun as hell. Don’t let the naysayers allergic to change put you off, find a decent ilvl polearm then give it a try!
In many ways, Hunter design in Legion embodies our key philosophies for class change. Hunters have a strong “core fantasy”: they’re masters of tracking prey, experts at sniping enemies with bows and guns from a distance, tamers of wild beasts, and trappers of unsuspecting foes
Blizzard’s own definition of what makes a Hunter a Hunter going into Legion and 7.0.
We knew with Survival Hunter that we were making a niche spec. It is a melee spec for a class that has traditionally being range. I think that a lot of existing hunters, they are all hunters because they want to be a range class, and so we don’t necessarily expect them or want them to feel like they should be changing; but for new players picking up that class, it is an intriguing option
Lead Developer Ion Hazzikostas acknowledging that Hunter players by and large choose the class to be ranged weapon users and that Legion Survival was designed for the mythical “new player” at the expense of the existing player.
You also can’t ignore the fact that Legion Survival was imminently more melee focused than BFA Survival which brings back a lot of RSV themed abilities via gimmicks instead of tied to an equipped ranged weapon. That’s pretty clearly an admission that melee hunter isn’t popular and an attempt to win back RSV adherents.
Your opinion of MSV being fun is based on BM and MM being terrible to play. That’s not a recommendation, particularly to players experienced with any of the other 18 melee based specializations in WoW.
And what if you would like to play ranged that doesn’t use cast time abilities as a main part of it’s resource spending rotation (in other words, a fully mobile ranged spec)? Only BM Hunter does this now.
Bringing back Ranged Survival doubles the number of fully mobile ranged specs so you have more options. It also provides the only fully mobile DoT spec along with less reliance on pets than BM.
I loved ranged SV and thought it was a great spec. Hunters have always been my primary class, and I’ve played BM and MM extensively, but was unsure about trying Survival. In vanilla, Survival was something you often wanted to dip into, with all of its melee/defensive abilities, etc.
I think honestly while what they have now could be tweaked or smoothed out, it makes for a very different and very interesting playstyle. (Circle kiting all day gets boring after a while, but I still have my Hunter toolkit!)
I know a lot of people are bummed out about losing ranged Survival, and I totally get that. Not sure how to fix that problem without creating a lot of new ones, unless a 4th spec was introduced that was essentially the old ranged SV.
I think that if MSV was to be changed to Ranged or another spec was added, the ranged should be able to use a melee weapon like they used to, even if it doesn’t do much besides a stat stick.
To be honest when Survival is brought up, its gonna be difficult to avoid attracting protesting and arguments for either version of it, regardless of what is started.