With a grain of salt; they are not exactly the same as many skills have changed functionality over the years, but either of these two options should feel similar told ranged survival:
Through BM it’s the closest, though Cobra Shot doesn’t add duration to Serpent Sting like it did in MoP.
Through MM, you’d be missing Cobra Shot and Murder of Crows, in favor of Rapid Fire. However, the MoP Rapid Fire worked more like Trueshot does now, and you get that through MM as well.
There’s no pathway through the DF Survival tree that would feel like old survival. But, IMO, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s there in the other 2 trees.
What could help:
Raptor Strike can be used with a ranged weapon, but it deals less dmg if you do so (like Lone Wolf, but a Survival version of it).
Regardless, the new hunter trees need some help, especially the survival tree. There are too many 2-3 point talents that Rogue / Priest get for just 1 point. It will make Survival feel very nerfed.
Neither of those feel particularly like ranged Survival. It’s not just the high mobility and instant casts. It’s the fantasy built around utilitarianism, resourcefulness, and special munitions and it’s the gameplay focused around procs and rot damage. It’s a far better foundation for a 3rd spec than… whatever the hell SV is now.
It’s extremely different from a gameplay perspective. What are you talking about? Those builds you linked would play nothing at all like ranged Survival.
Literally all those skills are there in the new trees.
Did the skill interaction change? Yes, so did for all other specs and we don’t say they stopped existing.
a) SL Frost mage plays NOTING like it did in MoP, but we don’t say frost doesn’t exist anymore; all the frost spells are still there.
b) Priest (on all specs) practically a whole new class with every expansion, but we don’t say their specs are gone, as long as the spells are there, even though they changed a bit in functionality over the years.
c) I could say the same about most specs TBH. Survival is as gone as anything else, and as present as anything else in everything but name.
Do you have to like the current versions of hunter specs? No. But that’s a completely different argument.
Yeah, I guess it’s hard not to miss when Hunter as a class was essentially playing Call of Duty, while everyone else was playing WoW.
It was going to change regardless, not because one spec had to be melee or not. Blizzard just couldn’t figure out a way to make 2 entire specs have uncapped mobility and still be balanced with all other specs. Only reason we kept BM’s mobility is because they also nerfed its dmg to the ground. If we had old ranged survival, it would probably do about the same dps as current BM = bar none.
Half that list is just universal Hunter abilities/talents that have little reason or pressure to change. Explosive Shot is nothing like it was before, Lock and Load is an MM-only passive that affects Aimed Shot, Serpent Sting is diminished and missing Serpent Spread, Black Arrow is gone entirely (no, Wailing Arrow is not an equivalent; it’s different in every single way other than the general theme of being a Dark Ranger ability), and the unique trap bonuses are gone. Furthermore speccing into any of the 3 specs in DF includes necessary elements that are irreconcilable with ranged SV’s theme and gameplay, like Kill Command and Aimed Shot. Arguing that what we have in DF is an adequate substitute for ranged SV is nonsense to the point that I don’t think you’re being remotely sincere.
Hell of a take coming from someone posting from a class with 3 ranged specs.
To add to my previous post since I missed this part: Survival has changed to much greater and more fundamental degree than anything else. Again I can’t take you seriously on any of this.
I wonder if your aware every single ability in the game is much different than it was when the game first came out. But it doesnt fit the need for your arguement so
so literally you with the spec you never played lmfao
it really hasn’t by comparison. You just don’t have other points of reference. Shadow and Disc priest have changed significantly more. MW monk too. Frost mage and Frost DK. Those specs play NOTHING like they used to. They only have the same name.
What is the most oxymoronic about the talent system is that ever redesign adds more range abilities. Legion>>all melee>>BFA/SL>>Two Melee abilities>>DF>>lets just make it range again.
Blizzard has shown that they have just given up on Melee SV and are slowly progressing it back to a range spec.
