…then petition for a 4th spec like druid and stop trying to remove the current iteration of survival for those that enjoy it. Survival didn’t play all that differently from MM so I get why it was culled; it didn’t have that significant an identity. You may have enjoyed it over MM or BM or current melee Survival but it’s identity was pretty weak. The melee Survival community isn’t petitioning to remove Marks or BM for their sake so stop already.
That being said, just a reminder Blizz, there is in fact a 3rd hunter spec. I realize you might have forgotten since you a) haven’t improved it in ages to make it competitive in any environment and b) it was what, the 2nd least played dps spec in BfA? But it exists and it is soo close to being a great, viable spec.
Bravo for breathing life into Sub & Arcane, but maybe give some of the other specs that have been languishing in mediocrity for ages some attention too. Survival has to be near the top of that list. Feral too, poor cats…
Survival played completely differently from MM so I don’t get why it was culled; it had a significant identity. I enjoyed it over MM or BM, and it’s identity was pretty strong.
Sure, 4th spec is best option. But don’t come in here with all that “it was the same as MM crap”. By that logic we can lose a mage spec, warlock spec, and at least a few melee specs. As far as I can tell all melee specs play the same anyways. Can’t see why we need more than 2 or 3 of them…
That’s what most people are doing. I would love for you to point out who is petitioning to have MSV removed, so I can metaphorically slap them on the hand.
It played nothing like MM. This is revisionist history.
Except it does, it’s was the utility/dot spec of hunters, similar to Affliction Locks, except instead of using curses and magic, it used poisons and explosives.
Because they already have what they want and there would be no point to trying to remove MM or BM to force in another melee spec.
Again the RSV community is not petitioning to have MSV removed for the most part.
And yet it’s still better in pvp than MM or BM.
Every spec is viable. Just because it’s not optimal does not mean it’s not viable.
That would depend on the content you are considering and how willing you are to ignore the realities of the game. If the gap is large enough, viability is no longer guaranteed. I enjoy the off-meta specs, spices it up and offers a fine challenge otherwise I wouldn’t be championing Survival. That being said, when you get kicked from your average 15+ pug group purely due to your spec, there’s probably as issue with how viable it is considered. It is competitive in PvP, I’ll give you that, but not a top performer. It’s “ok” in M+ and Raid up to a point, but many don’t aspire to “Ok”. I don’t mind Blizzard’s tendency to give certain specs their time on top so long as there’s something resembling balance. Having the same X specs routinely dominate constitutes a failure to balance.
Yeah no. You can do Mythic Ny’alotha as Survival. You can do M+15 as Survival and beat the timer. You can do all the content as survival. Are you the best? Nope. Viable in the context of gaming means you can get the content done. Optimal means you’ve made all the best choices to get the content done as quickly as easily as possible. Survival is not the optimal choice in pve when it comes to hunters, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get the content done.
That doesn’t make your spec not viable, that makes people in the pugs jerks. If you got a guild group, I guarantee you’d be able to do a +15.
People being jerks does not make the spec unviable.
No, but again, this does not mean survival is not a viable spec for content.
Can you specify WHY it’s identity was weak?
HOW did it not have a distinction of it’s own?
What part of RSV was too similar to that of MM?
Besides, the argument of “but RSV wasn’t all that diff…” has no basis anyway. Not even if it was true.
Why?
Because it does not matter how different the specs were in Cata, or in MoP, or WoD. Going into Legion, nearly all specs were undergoing massive changes with the sole purpose of giving each of them their own completely unique and distinct fantasy/theme. Incl spec-specific talent choices.
The only thing that matters, the only question worth asking, is whether RSV could’ve been designed in a way that gave it said identity to a level fitting of modern philosophies.
Survival has gotten 2 complete overhauls in as many consecutive expansions(Legion + BfA).
Yes, i’d rather have a 4th spec. but i’d also rather have ranged survival back than melee personally. nothing against people who like it, really, but that’s just what i’d want more.
Hopefully a 4th spec happens, but i want ranged survival back one way or another
Probably a very unpopular opinion, but maybe just a set of replace-ability talents that bring back the old survival play style. I feel like we really only need Black arrow, old explosive shot, old lock and load, and serpent sting back to get back old survival play style.
So just change the current explosive shot to the old one. Have it replace aimed shot and do enough damage to compensate.
and change the current lock and load talent to Blackarrow with old lock and load effect baked into it.
I mean it wouldn’t be perfect but it would be close enough for me. I doubt it would be the top damage build but as long as it wasn’t less dps then no talent at all I would be fine with it.
Taking away survival had severe implications on the game. We now have 1 less ranged spec than melee spec. You may scoff at this and say it’s only 1 spec. The game is already so melee heavy. This wouldn’t really be much of an issue if they added more ranged classes. They’ve only been adding more melee. Also, hunter is the only Ranged Physical class in the game, and the loss of one of the ranged specs is a very big deal. Bringing back RSV as a fourth spec would help balance out the number of melee and ranged dps again. Who knows? They may bring another ranged dps hero class or class in general for 10.0. But then again they already have enough trouble designing the classes we already have, so that may not happen either. So right now we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place with things.