Something like Destiny hunter would be cool. Void hunter was fun.
There probably is a space in the game for a melee hunter. But honestly, it was a kick in the teeth for those of us who played the spec as ranged and loved every minute of it. Think of the backlash if suddenly Blizz made frost mages a melee spec. No explanation, no compensatory additional spec, just “Oh, btw, that spec you’ve played for years is now gone.”
I did switch to BM hunter, but it’s not the same. Not even close to as much pure fun as the ranged SV spec. And people who have commented on BM’s crazy mobility are correct — only spec in the game that can be that mobile. But interestingly, a BM hunter’s pet (which provides the bulk of the damage) has some basic melee limitations. For example, they suffer the same loss of dps as melee if they have to keep switching targets to fairly spread-out adds. This makes BM hunters a kind of “ranged melee” spec.
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Agreed.
(They did provide an “explanation” as to why they removed it, just it was more of an excuse, rather than a valid point of logic)
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I hope they make a hunter or shaman tank spec, or both, we need more variety and or possibilities for tanking and lowering the queue times.
regards, a man who tanks with almost everything : )
True. Me saying no explanation was a bit of an exaggeration. A bit.
My own theory is that they had screwed up the power sources and ratios so badly on SV hunter that they just got sick of constantly throwing it from one unbalanced extreme to the other and decided to throw the whole thing out.
Remember, prior to introducing the melee version in Legion, about halfway through WoD they basically — and on purpose — made the entire spec unplayable. Invalidated the secondary stat values, nerfed the money shots into the ground, etc. That was the point where they totally abandoned it, without any explanation.
Later, as you point out, in introducing Legion, they mumbled a few things about “play style redundancy is bad” and whipped up some nonsense about “spec fantasy”, but it was pretty lame.
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Well, they’ve always had a history of “overdoing” things when it comes to tuning adjustments/balancing. Or well, either that, or being a bit too conservative. Ofc they’ve gotten it right on occasion, but fairly often, things don’t turn out quite like one would expect.
With RSV, I would argue that it was fairly obvious even during the WoD beta that they weren’t putting any serious effort into it. Several things that were promised, never saw the light of day. This to me, while not really as apparent back then, now(after the fact) strongly hints at how they were investing in a different direction for SV, even as early as during said beta, or before.
While I’m not convinced that the effort of balancing/tuning had much to do with the end result, like you said, they’ve come out with several statements over time, serving as excuses to try to justify their decisions.
Some, like those below:
You guys also oversee all the other classes. Are there any particular changes that you’re most excited about?
Adam: I’m super excited about Shadow Priests, Outlaw Rogues, and Survival Hunters specifically. Proceeds to say stuff about the other classes/specs.
And then Survival Hunter…
Travis: It was another one that was missing its niche. It’s kind of like Marksman except more traps? Or different arrows? So it was kind of missing that “what is the core fantasy?”
Having it move into the melee space and actually return to its roots that was the vanilla Survival experience. You got your Raptor Strike and all that and having those come back and play a role, moving into melee, giving mobility like the Harpoon to draw you in – it’s like it finally gave them a unique identity. If this is the beast companion guy that you’ve always wanted to play then you’re going to have that role.
Generally those are the ones that probably got the most drastic changes but every single class – I think one of the things that’s fun to see is when you go into a five-man dungeon now and you can actually pretty readily, visually go: “Oh look the Rogue is doing his roll of the dice right now” or “Oh look the Paladin just threw his hammer.”
You get more flavor both visually and also as a player. That feeling of “What is that experience that I wanted?” and it delivers a little bit more for every class now.
There are several things you can say to pick this answer apart, showing how it simply doesn’t hold up whatsoever. But either way, that’s what was said there.
Next up, while I hesitate to quote something that was said in an informal setting, a non-official capacity, here’s what Chris Kaleiki, the dev who originally brought the RSV fantasy to life, said about the teams thoughts regarding RSV at the time of it’s removal. It’s taken from a DM, so again, not an official interview or anything.
Chris: You’re right that I did foster that gameplay during that time in development, and I was fond of it like you were.
If you can remember, the team at the time had a mission to focus on the fantasies of the different specs. While you did think they(it; RSV) were an ammunition expert and master trapper, they saw that fantasy as not as quite developed and lacking. There were a vocal number of players who did have ambition for a melee spec, and I think the team thought that’d be a good way to break up the 3 specs available to the Hunter. It was a rocky start, but I think a good number of players are fond of that change now.
I would argue that the actual number of players who have an interest in the current playstyle, isn’t all that “good”. Something Ion admitted to himself in an interview. But anyway, that’s what he said.
He(Chris) proceeded to add some of his own thoughts/opinion on the matter:
Chris: However, I think it was the wrong decision to rebuild the old Survival spec into the melee hunter because it disenfranchised all of the players who were fond of the original gameplay like yourself. But I don’t think the team would agree with me, obviously, and perhaps I’m a bit bias since I was fond of that original gameplay.
I do think the team may in the future re-introduce some of the original gameplay (in terms of the tempo and ability usage that Survival had in the past), its definitely something I advocated for.
Again, this last bit wasn’t from an official interview, but simply a direct conversation. And as so, they’re the thoughts of an individual, not the current dev team. Who knows were their heads are at atm.
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no offense but there are 6 classes that can tank already. that’s plenty of variety. the game has 3 ranged weapons that only 2 specs can use, and BM hardly counts as it mostly just spams a green glob shot.
Why not a “ranged” tank, you can throw axes or use a bow short range, rogues use pistols most of the time when it procs at close quarters.
We have Rexxar as the prime tank hunter as an example. And i’m sure there are plenty of shamans too.
Why more tanks ? variety brings more people to it, and the more tanks we got, the lower the queues will get.
I love tanking, but then… i want to do quick content for a while with my mail or cloth characters, and they cant instant queue, unless i heal (which i like, just not as much as tanking).
a 4th spec shaman tank would be cool with earth stuff and rockbiter, but tanking is kind of antithetical to hunters. the whole class is built around having your own personal pet tank already. and rexxar was a beast master not a tank.
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Ranged tank would require some kind of redesign to work. Positioning a pet to tank a raid boss would be extremely difficult in practice.
I guess the ranged tank could put some kind of debuff on the boss that says “Always remains 30 yards away” or whatever. But there needs to be some kind of solution because pets aren’t it.
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Wow! How did you manage to get a response directly from the developer? This is the sort of dialog sorely needed between the developers and the Hunter community on this matter.
He’s/she’s the new Toxic(Metroid). Don’t bother wasting your time. 
To all the people who have played here the longest with a Hunter. We all know for a FACT that Survival range was never great or had a HUGE player/following. We all know that the three specs were becoming the same and not distinct from one another. Even Blizzard said this, FYI.
*They’ve denied Hunters ever had melee abilities but Classic proved them wrong.
*They’ve denied that Survival was a melee oriented buff tree in Vanilla.
*They’ve denied that the Survival tree was originally supposed to be what it is today and that is the melee spec for the Hunter Class.
You can post video’s at them. You can show them the Vanilla spec tree. You can show them current survival abilities that were in Vanilla and this SMALL group of pro-range survival players will still deny it as if they live in a alternate reality.
Its frankly weird to be honest. 
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I’m currently leveling one that is up to level 49. It’s quite fun I think personally! Then again I mostly always play melee classes so it feels more natural to me. I hope they don’t ever remove it.
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Right on and welcome to the melee Hunter team.
Its an unbelievably fun spec and I wish I had all day to play my favorite class and spec but I got school, kids and work to take care of 
I take it you’re not a keyboard turner? Most pro-range players are and probably why this small group of Hunters hate it to be honest.
PVP is great with the changes they’ve made 
Now I want to play but I can’t. I’m at my school getting ready for class 
Hurry up weekend.
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or, even he isn’t exactly range, let him tank with a ranged weapon on melee, or something like that
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We all know for a FACT that it’s the opposite, actually:
- Worldofwargraphs (2013-2019)
- Warcraftlogs (Highmaul)
- Cynwise Blog (2011-2014)
- Armory Datamining (2010)
What you’re doing right now is deflection. You know melee SV is very unpopular and you can’t deny it so you’re deflecting to ranged SV and saying that it was also unpopular. But of course that isn’t true. Stop being dishonest.
This is not fact but rather uninformed opinion. It’s especially nonsense given that the specs were notably and demonstrably more different from one another each expansion. They weren’t coming closer together but moving further apart. All 3 specs were more or less the same with only passive differences in Classic, whereas come WoD they had entirely different primary toolkits and identities.
Even if they were too similar, making one spec melee is a totally moronic way to try to make them more different. That’s making it different via handicap, and the logical result of that is most Hunters avoiding the spec entirely which is exactly what’s happened. I always compare it to coming to the Rogue class, seeing that all the specs are a bit samey, and taking away Stealth from one of them. You don’t make specs more unique by removing baseline class capabilities from them. Legion taught us that it’s a bad idea.
If Survival had the exact same gameplay as it does now but instead had a ranged weapon and Raptor Strike and Carve were ranged attacks, would it suddenly be too similar to the other Hunter specs?
No one ever denied this.
This is a half-truth. No one denied that Survival had melee buffs. What we deny is that Survival was fully oriented around those melee buffs and intended to be played primarily in melee.
This is in fact what we deny because it’s 100% false. The original Survival had a ranged weapon and was intended to be played at range as much as possible. Yes, even when Lacerate was still a thing before the 1.7 review less than a year into WoW. Ranged weapons were considered the iconic, central element of the Hunter class and they designed and tuned the class in a way that made that the case. For example, Agility gave 2 attack power for every 1 melee attack power. The melee buffs of Survival were limited in such a way that sticking to melee was never preferable and in fact the spec was equipped with means like Improved Wing Clip and Counterattack specifically to escape melee range.
100% of melee Hunter PoVs from the era focus on non-competitive contexts with a massive skill and gear gap. They specifically made those videos for the novelty. It was known to be a suboptimal and unintended way of playing a Hunter, so being able to handicap oneself by sticking primarily to melee in PvP and still beating some clueless keyboard turners was seen as a humorous challenge. It’s just like the countless videos of Rogues going around and beating rank 14 players while wearing starter gear.
What; the one with Wyvern Sting as the final talent? The one that gave +15% agility which, again, gave 2 ranged attack power for every 1 melee attack power?
Here is a guide for Survival gameplay in classic. Does it sound like a spec that’s sticking to melee range?
It doesn’t have access to things like Multi-Shot which it had in Vanilla. Back then SV Hunters would even spec into Aimed Shot and use that too. So actually the current SV is a far cry from what it was in Vanilla because, of course, that version had and used a ranged weapon.
The final iteration of ranged SV was a better representation of Vanilla SV than the current one. Because it had a ranged weapon and preferred to kite and stick to ranged at all times just like Vanilla SV. Back then even if you played SV in PvP when you got caught in melee the play was to pop a Raptor Strike for some burst, use Wing Clip + Counterattack if you got a lucky parry, and get back to ranged ASAP. Meanwhile current SV must be in melee range for its full damage potential and totally lacks a ranged weapon which is utterly antithetical to what SV was back then.
(Yes, I’m aware that current SV kites melee around a lot in PvP, but the point still stands that you must be in melee range for the full 100% of your damage potential which is at odds with what SV used to be).
You can argue all you want that the change to melee was a good thing. You’d be wrong, but you can at least play it off as your personal preference. What you can’t argue in good faith is that melee Survival is representative of Vanilla SV. Because Vanilla SV was a ranged spec.
To be blunt, judging by your post count and your armory page, it doesn’t look like you play Hunter at all. In fact I’d wager a guess that you’re a melee main posting on a hastily-levelled Hunter alt for more credibility.
I know SV Hunters get off on the snobbery, but maybe you should consider this is part of the reason why the spec gets a bad reputation.
Is Preach Gaming also a clueless keyboard turner? What about Gingi?
Peak melee brain is posting from a melee character about your minimal experience with the class and then asking for Blizzard to keep Survival melee forever.
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No and it’s never going to be. I can’t stand people wanting to get rid of a fun gameplay spec feature for hunters that people who don’t want to use ranged weapons like.
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Why should any Hunter spec be catered to people who don’t like ranged weapons? That’s the entire point of the class. I don’t like melee weapons but I don’t go to Warriors and Rogues and demand any of those specs get remade just because I might want to play those classes one day without being melee. It’s especially egregious when just looking at the numbers you can see that there really aren’t that many people who both want to play Hunter and want to be melee.
Melee mains have 12 other specs in the game to enjoy including every single DPS spec added to the game post launch. Hunters are the only class that use ranged weapons.
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+1 for Earth Shaman tanks. 4 elements (water, fire, earth, air) for 4 specs just makes way too much sense. I love playing tank so haven’t played my Shan of 15 years. I would make it my main for this.
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The Hunter class was modeled after Rexxar and Mesha. Rexxar is a Survival Hunter, he doesn’t use range weapons. Before you say it wasn’t, it is because that is why Orcs get a bonus to pet damage and why hunters get a pet O.o
You also know that the Hunter class is the equivalent to a Ranger in any fantasy setting. Rangers are known for melee combat in D&D, LOTR, Dragonlance and I can go on and on.
So why should any spec be catered to people who don’t like the broad range of weapons a Hunter/Ranger uses?
Go play a Mage, Priest or a Warlock for an exclusive boring range class and leave the AWESOME options the Hunter class has alone. 