Have you tried playing the bomb build? The gun projectiles being swapped to bomb projectiles that much different?
I’ve only tried MSV during Alpha/Beta phases of new expansions. And while doing so, it’s just to look at what’s new.
In a game where the whole point of class and spec development is to allow players to pursue an identity of their own, such things matter quite a lot yes, for a lot of players. To everyone who plays the game? No, but that’s beside the point.
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Why don’t you give it a shot? It’s rather nice to use a class with 2h swords/axes/polearms/staves as primary fighting weapons. Next tier’s set also looks promising.
You have a point. But I think the current sv hunter still has stuff from the old just in different forms.
Like most hunters, when playing as a hunter, I have no interest in melee combat. It doesn’t matter if only X% of the time spent fighting is done using melee-abilities. If it involves melee, I won’t play it.
On a superficial level, sure, ofc it does. That was very much what they were after when they designed it. The problem is that, even though current SV involves the use of Explosives, Animal Venom, etc., because of how the base concept and design differs from the fantasy of applying said elements to a spec focusing on ranged weaponry, by default, it becomes a very different fantasy.
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I would say it offers a more intimate side of hunters. Fighting close to your pet alongside them. Close to the action. Its fun to harpoon around with your pet charging in with you.
This is how they marketed the new MSV, yes. The problem, however, is still that it came at the loss of a playstyle that a lot of players enjoyed.
Anyway, I should probably clarify, I’m not interested in having current SV removed. Here’s what I want(note the mentioned preference of a 4th spec, in that link):
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I would like to see a previous incarnation of Survival (maybe WotLK version?) renamed and added as a fourth spec to hunters, because the game is in dire need of more ranged specs (especially non-caster ranged - with BM being more of a remote control melee spec it’s really only MM that’s true physical ranged). The melee:ranged ratio is ridiculously tilted in favor of melee right now.
Removal of neo-Survival (melee version) isn’t really necessary though.
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Pretending that lacking a ranged weapon is not a big deal is an extremely cringeworthy angle. We have all tried melee SV. It does not at all fulfil what was great about ranged SV, so stop trying to sell it to us. Lacking a ranged weapon is a dealbreaker. Any dependence at all on melee range is a dealbreaker, in fact.
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I am not trying to sell you on anything Bepples. I asked the other guy. I know you abhor melee classes. He said he only tried it in Alpha/beta. I think it plays really well with all the covenants and legendary.
They could add tinkers as a new class with a range spec. May even try to recreate SV with it some way.
Use mechanical pets, explosives, and guns. It will not capture 100% sv, but be a start.
I said that yes. The problem with these arguments is that they’re made, seemingly, without an understanding of what they’re meant to counter. That, or they’re made in spite of it, simply for the sake of continuing an argument.
Like I said earlier, I haven’t played current SV at any point beyond some initial testing of new abilities and effects, during alpha/beta cycles. If you’ve visited the hunter forum, you know Toxic/Metroid loves to counter this by saying that we, those who haven’t played current SV for X amount of time, we lack in-depth knowledge of the spec, and thus, should not participate in these discussions.
The thing is, if the reason as to why you(anyone) avoid current SV is because of it’s focus on melee-combat, then you don’t need to have in-depth knowledge, or having played it for 100+ hours, to understand that you will not enjoy playing it more.
If you like the new MSV, that’s perfectly fine. No one is saying that you can’t/shouldn’t.
The problem is that RSV was a quite popular choice for players, when it was still in the game. In fact, if you look at overall representation across the expansions, the median level of representation for Survival was higher than it was for both Beast Mastery and Marksmanship, while it was still ranged. They(the devs) removed this spec/playstyle in favor of one that, no matter its’ relative strength or potential, ever since Legion, roughly only 4-6% of all hunters tend to stick with/play. This has been the case since BfA as well, despite how they reworked it yet again after just one expansion, in an attempt at making it more popular with the playerbase.
And not only that, their argument for removing RSV, was that “it was like Marksman, except with more traps, or different arrows”. This is ironic considering the specs did not share any abilities, nor did they share a common main fantasy, only the base core class fantasy of focusing on the use of ranged weapons. They replaced that spec with one that, as we can see on live right now, have taken/borrowed several abilities and effects from Beast Mastery.
It’s very simply, these are some of the main reasons as to why discussions such as this one are still happening.
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If you guys loose Melee Hunter, you’ll always be welcomed in Classic SoM.
People these days are super sensitive about everything and anything. 
Melee hunter do not exist, seudo-melee hunter if it exists.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, but I’m also not betting it will be any time soon. The spec has some of the lowest representation out there and is a failed experiment of reworking a spec from that perspective. Most people seem to now approach the class as either MM/BM or surv and people don’t play hunter for melee. This class design would have worked fine on launch, but the class design is very ingrained in the culture now.
I know some people love it, but some people love every spec regardless of performance so it’s not exactly grounds for keeping it around. Still, I don’t think Blizzard has any massive reworking plans.
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Wait until they find out Survival isn’t melee in Classic.
Even if it were properly melee on launch (i.e. did not equip a ranged weapon and stuck to melee range) it would have been far worse off than BM and MM simply because depending on melee range is strictly worse than not depending on melee range. Enhancement and Feral have perpetual issues with appealing to players v.s. the ranged specs of their own class; they always need some special utility bribe to make them appealing choices. Those specs were melee from the start, they exist in classes that don’t have ranged weapons cementing them as ranged-centric classes, and those classes each only had one ranged weapon. That makes it all the more baffling that Blizzard thought it could ever work out in the Hunter class.
3 weapon types being usable by only 2 specs in the game is ridiculous.
If they aren’t going to have ranged survival, they need to add a new class that uses bows, xbows, and guns.
Bards maybe? Tinkers wouldn’t use bows, maybe not even xbows much, and they aren’t going to itemize raids with just guns. Also, Dark Rangers is another possibility.
dark ranger 4th spec for hunters blizz bring back the magic hunter with black arrow! nobody plays melee!
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It was the defining class fantasy that I had wanted from warriors or paladins, bashing heads with a sword and board
I miss it. But it still lives on in prot warrior. Although it felt fun to run a sword and board and do decent numbers. Tank damage potential is not as strong as previous expansions.
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