Once again, just because you didn’t like something doesn’t mean it was garbage.
It was a very fun spec and many peoples favorite.
I’m not advocating for the removal of melee survival, just like, a 4th spec of getting ranged survival back.
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They didn’t really take anything away. All of the abilities from ranged survival still exist except that little arrow that summoned an undead dog for no apparent reason
They put most of it on marksmanship, which is the complete opposite of what I played survival for.
You don’t even remember most of the spec including Explosive Shot, the main ability, yet here you are trying to give authoritative takes on it. God damn, melee players just cannot resist polluting Hunter threads with this sort of drivel, can they?
“Strange pet synergy that BM already uses” what, you mean Kill Command which current SV copies (along with Spirit Bond and a renamed Bestial Wrath)? Because ranged SV didn’t take any pet interaction from BM. It even had access to Lone Wolf in WoD. Stop projecting the failures of your darling melee Survival spec onto its far better predecessor, thanks.
You’ve already demonstrated that you don’t know anything about what ranged SV was or how effectively it performed. Drop the pretense already. You’re a greedy melee player who wants Hunter design to favour your preferences and you’re making up excuses along the way to justify that.
Pro-tip: BM can also fight in melee range.
We don’t need an entire spec devoted to being a worse Hunter. Just make a talent within BM that makes it get a damage boost in exchange for using melee weapons, if using axes is so important. Taking up 1/3 of the class for a concept no more than 1/20 of it actually wants is nonsense.
It wasn’t a skillcap because Hunters still prefer to escape to range. Kiting and CC strategies still apply. That part doesn’t depend on there being a minimum range. Like I said and as you detailed here, it was removed because it was utterly unworkable in the modern WoW environment.
Now I remember you from an older thread.
You have a nasty habit on going on a tirade and inventing stuff as you go along.
Firstly, I don’t give a damn what a melee Shaman cares for out of his Hunter alt. Design Hunters for Hunters and no one else. The community of this class is largely sick to death of melee mains demanding all sorts of melee aspects get shoehorned onto a class where it neither fits nor is welcome; a class most of them don’t even play to much extent. YOU might like melee, but all that means is you should get lost to one of the 12 other specs that focus on melee including every single DPS spec added to the game post launch and the spec you’re posting from right now.
Secondly, as I said, they didn’t “bring back” anything. Hunters always had a ranged weapon and always preferred to use it whenever possible before 7.0. A Hunter spec lacking a ranged weapon has no precedence in WoW design before Legion. Stop pretending modern melee Survival is representative of anything from older expansions.
Thirdly, spare me with the god-awful regurgitated “ranged SV was just different MM!” takes. Is Affliction just a slightly different Destruction? Is Arms a slightly different Fury? Is Assassination a slightly different Subtlety? Just because two specs have the same general foundation (i.e. they are specialisations of a baseline class and that is a totally normal and optimal thing) doesn’t mean they are interchangeable and expendable. Survival had a very different identity and playstyle to Marksmanship; and that variation is much appreciated and needed given that, as I said, every DPS spec added to the game post-launch has been melee. We have 13 melee weapon users and 2 ranged weapon users. Words cannot express the levels of pro-melee bias you have to have to look at that breakdown and think that a melee spec was the way to go for Hunters.
At most they should make a talent within BM that gives you a damage boost but swaps out your ranged shots for melee strikes and requires you to get one or two melee weapons. Anything more than that is egregious melee favouritism because, as has now been shown from 5 years of melee Survival being the most avoided, abandoned, and ridiculed spec in the game (why do you think the OP posted this thread in the first place?), most Hunters want nothing to do with melee combat.
2 ranged weapon users v.s. 13 melee weapon users (including all specs added to the game post-launch) yet this melee brain thinks more melee is more variety 
SV was not a halfway between BM and MM, especially since it had access to Lone Wolf. It was a separate thing. I wouldn’t go around calling for your spec to have Stealth removed just because it shares a lot with the other Rogue specs and according to melee brain standards removing core aspects of a spec is a great way to make them unique.
What a ridiculous and misinformed post (yet so typical for melee players talking about Hunters). Almost nothing survives from ranged Survival. Black Arrow and the passsive trap buffs are entirely gone. Serpent Spread exists as an extremely diminished and pathetic SV talent. Explosive Shot and Lock and Load exist as extremely diminished and modified forms in MM talents to the point where the only thing they retain are the names and icons. The identity and playstyle of ranged SV cease to exist without replacement.
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Asana the Windwalker Monk.
Beaupeep the Enhancement Shaman.
Kazghani the Death Knight.
Dendritus the Feral Druid.
Gwyzlin the Rogue.
Terranox the Enhancement Shaman.
Sinelius the Demon Hunter.
Vaníssa the Rogue.
Take note of how most of the absolute worst of the melee SV fanboy takes of this thread are from melee class players.
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This is honestly what they should have done to begin with, if they wanted a melee hunter spec. The people actually playing Survival at the time it was changed to melee, were not overwhelmingly thrilled to suddenly not be ranged. The change was only super-loved by people who weren’t playing the class at the time, which is not a good sign in my opinion.
The spec’s problem is that being a melee hunter was SUCH a huge joke and insult for SUCH a long time. When they shoehorned it in an actual spec older hunters like myself have a hard time taking it seriously. It’s still a joke in my mind. Add in, from a group building perspective, have no idea why we want yet another melee spec. There are already a lot of reasons to not want another melee along.
But to answer your question:
Of course they did. In the past, they removed a ranged spec to make it into melee: Survival hunter. 
It was a ranged spec for a decade. (Albeit a ranged spec with melee elements.) So the answer is “yes”. Would they change it back now? I feel that’s unlikely, so I wouldn’t lose sleep over possibly losing your favorite spec. 
(But obviously, I am also not a dev.)
Since you like the melee hunter spec, fun fact for you, OP (in case you don’t know): In the original hunter epic bow quest from vanilla, given by receiving the Leaf item in Molten Core, the demons you fought frequently needed to be fought with melee abilities since you were barred from using a pet while fighting them. You could not always get to range. Simone in Un’Goro specifically comes to mind and, when I ran the quest on level, I needed one of the ever-infamous “Vendorstrikes” (the usually unwanted Shadowstrike polearm from Sulfuron) to be able to win against her. (One of it’s modes gave some self-healing.) Sadly, the quest is now removed from the game, but you probably would have really enjoyed it if you could still run it now.
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I kind of want it to be a tank spec. That’d be cool. I think warlock should get a fourth spec as well for tanking. Seems to be a very lacking role in M+ so maybe we just need more options!
You realize I used to main hunter before they changed it to full range? I would have a say in this. I have like 5 hunter alts. More then shaman. I do play the class, I don’t main it anymore since they took out parts I loved about the class. The using mixed melee and ranged weapons was fun for me, and they removed that in MoP leaving a bad taste in my mouth that I didnt even want to touch my hunter much after that haplened.
SV brings that back in a way. Of course it needs improvements. That is stuff they can fix. Giving up on it is not the way.
I used to make my alts BM just because they are the only spec that has access to exotics. I think SV should also have this since BM also has two pet cleave options.
SV playstlye is also much more interesting then bm. Heck I switched off bm on my alts to SV because it just feels more fun.
I play my ranged classes as well, frost mage, shadow priest, boomkin druid, demo warlock.
Some of the sv talents should be baseline imo. They could come up with fun talents, much of the rotation is decided on talents. I think instead they can make talents more cd based choices, and more utility based instead. The bomb talent for example should be baseline, the serpent sting talent would be nice baseline, or green bomb should apply serpent sting instead of refreshing its duration. The refresh feels too clunky.
Nice to see you’re still around to strongly advocate for Ranged Surv 
After taking plenty of time to think about all the stuff Bepples has said over a very long time, I’ve gotta admit that melee SV is a bad idea. I used to be a hardcore Melee SV lover, but this man will whittle down your love for melee until it becomes the same hatred he has.
Anyways, current Survival has no reason to exist. It’s completely ranged except for Raptor Strike just because Blizz refuses to admit they messed up by making SV melee. Take away the melee aspect, compare it to BM and MM, and you’ll quickly realize current SV has nothing interesting.
It would be so easy for Blizz to revert SV to its original glory and then offer a passive that lets you use melee weapons over ranged weapons (if you like axeing yourself in the foot). Boom, melee handicap for melee SV lovers. Meanwhile, everyone else gets the original SV back AND the melee lovers get an actual interesting spec too!
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Place my bet on the “no” column. But to the OP’s point this is really something out of our hands. Yes you can advocate whether or not you want melee SV gone but at the end of the day the choice is in blizzard’s hand. I do not get the final say as to whether melee SV will stay, nor do you OP, nor do any of the posters here. We can express our thoughts and our opinions but at the end of day blizzard is the decision maker.
But for my money, no I do not see blizz getting rid of Melee SV-quote me on this.
Probably not.
I udnerstand that survival can be a melee spec but i keep seeing it used way more as a ranged spec lol
They are such meele that has 1 meele ability rest are ranged.
You could argue that SV is so melee that they only need 1 melee attack that anything more than raptor strike/mongoose bite is to much.
But yes I would love if SV got at least 1 more melee ability baseline.
Nobody even plays with Moongoose bite anymore as far as I know
It’s not going no where. It may see more changes than it already has…which is quite a lot actually, but it will never be deleted given Blizz’s history with the spec.
My vote is for wildfire bombs, terms on engangement, flanking strike, and wildfire bombs to be basline. And make the talents more fun.
And let survival hunters wield both melee weapon and ranged weapon. Using the ranged weapon for ranged spells. Could put some of the magic based spells and ammunition on them. Aspect of the eagle could be a more powerful melee/caster form, and finally add autoattack to aspect of the eagle.
If you are meleeing in your bombs, it would also be nice if your melee attacks got enhanced with the magic type from wildfire bombs.
If SV got to use Exotics that would also be cool. Got my hmt night fae tauren, that would love to use the gorms. My undead maldraxxus would love to use worms and aqir. Also would be fun if we can pick what talent tree’s our pets can use again. I am limited to ferocity pets most of the time for lust in group. And solo play for the leech. Would be nice if I could use say my Tauralus as a ferocity pet!
I mean I don’t think that it’s going to change. Spec is doing good and it’s the best 2v2 Arena spec in the game by far. It has insane utility but high skill-cap.
Personally I prefered Legion Survival than BFA/SL one.
Trap → Granade → Flanking Strike → Axes was insanely fun way to burst and 40 y.d. Harpoon was insane. Legion Survival was truely meele spec. Current one is ranged/meele hybrid.
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I like Survival too. I mostly play in a PVP context but it has a very unique and cool playstyle, even compared to the other hunter specs. I usually take flanking strike and chakrams and having 2 extra buttons makes the priority system feel pretty complex and flexible.
The fact that you say this about RSV, the playstyle it held between WotLK and WoD, means you have no idea what it was about, nor how it played.
Great, another one without a clue, one who bases it all on personal bias.
Please just stop, clearly you never tried the spec when it was still in the game.
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Hey, I found it!
I’mma quote what I said here, over there.