Surv is melee with a pet. Unholy DK says hi.
Surv WAS a ranged weapon class that dealt magic damage. Unless casters are actively using their wands and nothing else, that was a unique, fun, interesting spec. I miss it so much.
ALSO BLOOD DPS I WILL NEVER FORGIVE THAT REMOVAL EVER.
My my so the Legolas spec went from Marksmenship to Survival, but nevertheless still range. However I hardly saw the term brought up on the forums during those era this must of been a term on the low or else I would have seen it on the hunters sub forum as well.
Well isn’t that obvious considering the era?
Legolas terminology was used during vanilla - bc for Marksmanship hunters. It was easier to describe the 3 specs back then hence why it brought nostalgic memories to my post.
That’s actually reverse considering the timeline.
No it later turned into a magic hunter. It started out with being the trap master specialist and good at close range using melee abilities. Your fond memories came from Cata - WoD.
You know, this is one of the biggest issues with fans of Melee Survival. You guys literally don’t care that Ranged Survival was one of the most popular specs, one of the most played specs and had vastly more representation in all forms of content than Melee. You don’t even argue that, you just go “who cares”. That’s how a lot of you are. “Leave my spec alone, I don’t care that you lost yours. Get over it”.
If you, in all your expert glory played Survival exclusively as melee back in ye olde days, then unfortunately…How to say this nicely. You were doing it wrong, and in fact, shows how little of an expert you are.
Back during BC, I was thrilled when I got the Vengeful 2H Axe, that way if something did get into my deadzone I could give them a solid Raptor Strike, throw in a quick Wing Clip then retreat back to range to unload more pain. But the entire reason for melee stuff was due to the Deadzone. God I hated Baleroc during Firelands for that reason. God forbid a Shard spawned close to the boss and it was your turn to soak. Welp, time to do zero damage for a bit.
Regardless. Bepples provided logs since you were lazy or blind, or both to look them up. Compare those logs, to current Survival logs. Can you not see the insane difference? Like I said, when a spec goes from the most popular, to…what it is now. That screams failure.
There is nothing wrong with people playing a spec wrong. Hell, I delved from the cookie cutter builds on my DK alt during WotLK. I went far enough into Frost for Unbreakable Armor and Howling Blast, while also going deep enough into Blood to get Veteran of the Third War, Mark of Blood, etc… I even dual wielded cause I preferred that aesthetic. Was it the best? No. But I enjoyed it and it did decent in dungeons due to Howling Blast being OP.
But Survival wasn’t like that, ever. Hunters were predominately ranged. With a few filler abilities for when something did get into the Deadzone. And, Survival even focused on the ranged aspect by improving traps so they snared targets hit, by improving Wing Clip so it rooted when used. All so it could get back to, well, ranged.
Ultimately, people are different. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. What you enjoy, others may not. What I enjoy, you may not. But its childish to spite and incite people who lost their spec of over a decade. Especially when, despite anecdotal evidence proving Melee Survival SHOULD be removed due to such low representation across the board, we don’t want that. Because we know it does have a community, niche and full of trolls who don’t play Hunters, but a community nonetheless. That’s why we just want Ranged Survival to come back as a fourth spec. Lets those who enjoy Melee be happy. Let those of us who long for our playstyle of a decade to be happy as well.
Going into Legion, perhaps.
Going into BfA, not so much. Considering at this point, they decided to copy over multiple abilities/effects from the BM spec, with only very minor changes to them.
As for Counterattack, and for current MSV, it would depend on how it’s designed. But the immobilization mechanic along with it not being possible to dodge/block/parry that attack, sure. That would be useful for MSV.
And, since I’m not advocating for MSV to be removed, by all means, build on it as a spec, add in such mechanics which are actually meant for it’s intended design/theme.
By “do well” you mean…?
When they removed melee-abilities as well as when they removed melee-weapons for us, we had no use for them anyway. We could already make full use of our ranged weapons even in melee range. If you wanted to get away from an enemy target, you could do that despite not having said melee weapon anymore.
How is this an answer?
I replied to your post where you obviously assumed that I’m advocating for MSV to be reverted/removed. When I’ve repeatedly told you that this is not what I’m after.
Fair enough if you don’t think a 4th spec option is warranted/needed. That is your opinion. But just because you don’t agree with my suggestions, it does not mean that you can automatically turn what I’m saying into “I want MSV to be reverted”.
Not once, in all my posts, have I ever said that it should be…
I did speak against the implementation of MSV while we were still in WoD, but once it became obvious that there was no use in doing so, I moved on. I started to look in other directions for how we could keep RSV/get that spec back.
Precisely this!
It was a thing, on a VERY minor scale. And, it was not by intended design of the class. All it was, was players that did not use intended baseline abilities while instead only using 1 ability(Raptor Strike).
Sure, you could pick the two talents: Mongoose Bite, Counterattack as well. But those two were entirely situational and not meant for a reliable, non-dependable playstyle.
I think it’s much the fact that players aren’t looking at the base design of the class, and it’s systems from back then.
Basically, we had NO specializations back then. We had one core toolkit, and nothing you could talent into, would heavily affect that core. Talent options were only meant to further enhance certain core features. Such as our pets(BM talents), our ranged weapon(MM talents), and our survivability(SV-talents, in the form of utility-related abilities and effects, as well as straight up defensive talents).
It wasn’t about catering to defined core playstyles like what we have today.
This wasn’t just the case for those who went deep into the SV talent category. It was the same for everyone who chose a hunter. For BM/MM as well.
You could pick every single talent in the BM category, and you would still have that core toolkit available to you even with no talents picked at all.
Same for MM, and same for SV.
Not a single talent choice back then, intended for us to stop using our core toolkit/abilities. Or well, part from Wyvern Sting, but that was a CC-ability so…it did not really impact the intended design itself.
Yep.
Easy? Debatable.
Possible? Yes.
Though, wasn’t the main argument that we should not be advocating for the removal/overhaul of other specs/playstyles? Or at least they(some) are saying this for MSV.
Something voiced by the devs themselves.
I would agree with this, if it’s intent is to replace main features that are already synonymous with the class as a whole. And to most players who are playing it.
Minor detail 
It actually wasn’t a spec at all before Cata. But at least in WotLK, it allowed for some deeper thematic uniqueness to be added to your toolkit over what the other 2 categories provided.
I’m not sure why people insist on saying that SV was designed to turn you into a melee hunter back then(Vanilla/BC).
Fair enough, this is what you want.
But for most, if not all of those who played and liked RSV, they would probably want RSV back. Not some new version of Outlaw.
Would some want what you suggest in addition to RSV? Probably.
Be ignorant in regards to recorded history all you want. But that does not make what you say true.
Again, the only default melee-ability we had that dealt damage, was Raptor Strike. Mongoose Bite and Counterattack, were both entirely situational, and the only time where those would be useful, was if the enemy was attacking you.
If it was intended for us to stay in melee range, why did we not have more than 1 melee-based damaging ability by default then? Why did we not have more than 1 melee-ability which you could use reliably without additional requirements?
By all means, explain.
Not even true when the enemy was constantly attacking you. You still wanted to get away from the enemy as this would result in you surviving longer as well as being capable at dealing more damage to the target.
Well yeah truth hurts when you can’t accept reality so move on. It’s not coming back. They said in Shadowlands they’re bringing back old abilities so expect counterattack and perhaps deterrence.
Yeah gonna take this as envy because it overrides your ego which it literally does. There is no “you’re doing it wrong”. You play whatever fits your style and survival gave that full potential than the other 2 specs.
I unloaded pain in both fields so there’s that, but you wouldn’t know about that. You never crossed that threshold with survival.
Duh?
Well yeah Wotlk was the big nerf on their melee damage. For those never explored far with it won’t notice a difference so of course in Cataclysm it will still hit like a wet noodle.
Means nothing because if it was still popular as you claim it to be. They would of kept it ranged right?
It wouldn’t be called survival though. It’d be some other name perhaps dark ranger?
Because the melee damage hit like a wet noodle when they eliminated the deadzone. That’s obvious ya know because if they didn’t nerf the melee damage and dead zones was removed. Players would be crying because survival did damage in both fields.
Why would I assume to be removed when I know it won’t. Seriously though how long are you guys going to continue this long rant? You already know my answer and you guys hate it to the point you view me as some noob etc whatever. I could careless because I can tell you never ventured far with that spec besides the range side.
Anyways cheers to hoping for a fourth spec. It wouldn’t be called survival though because that has already been identified. You can continue to prolong this, but I grow tired of redundant posts since it’s nothing, but ego boasting and how you should play the spec etc.
Well go play Classic without ever using Raptor Strike or Wingclip and get back with us.
I like the idea of melee survival, in all honesty it should be DW+traps
No way boo, I like surv.
No one I’ve talked to cares about ranged survival. And no one I’ve talked to thinks about a ranged Outlaw spec. Not even sure most WoW players even think about these things. I doubt Blizzard will care unless there is some kind of consensus or a developer with some pull pushes the idea.
I never suggested you shouldn’t use those abilities. I said you weren’t intended to purposefully move into melee range just to use those abilities.
Bottom line is that if you read the article that was linked, you see that blizzard knows that they were making survival a niche spec that only a niche group of people would play. Arguing over the popularity of the spec before and after the change is pointless. It’s clear that more people played it when it was ranged than now and it doesn’t matter because they knew that was going to happen.
Barring a fourth spec, (which I think is the only way to make everyone happy in this situation) I also like the idea of letting survival equip a melee or ranged weapon and the behavior of their skills act differently based on that.
“Method of play” and “Intent of design”, aren’t the same thing. I can as BM today, choose to only use Cobra Shot and nothing else, for w/e reason. But that does not mean that it’s intended by design for you to only use Cobra Shot as BM.
Only using melee abilities in Vanilla/Classic, was not how you opted to reach the full potential as a hunter back then. Was it wrong for you to only do so? No, you play the game however you want. But that still does not mean that the design of the class back then intended for you to have a playstyle with the main focus being melee combat.
Just to repeat it again. They did NOT remove ranged SV because it was unpopular. Nor did they remove it because they though of it as being a “useless” specialization.
They told us in an interview that they felt that SV at the time “was just like MM but with different arrows, or traps”.
It’s enough to look back to WoD on both MM and SV(those iterations), to see that they were not the same. They were both unique in terms of theme, aesthetics as well as the mechanics themselves.
We’re they different enough by today’s standards? No, they were not. But that wouldn’t really have been a problem if they did the same to RSV going into Legion as they did with all other specs, would it? Meaning, doubling down on the whole “spec fantasy”-concept.
In truth, the bullsh1t excuse we got in that interview, was just an attempt from them to mask the actual reason for why we got MSV. In short, they just wanted to add a melee spec to the class. No matter what the playerbase, the part of, who were invested in this particular class, thought of such a change.
Something of less importance really. But now that you mention it, they could go with the same theme for it’s name, as they originally did for the other categories back in Vanilla.
Beast Mastery, being about the pets/beasts.
Marksmanship, being about the archery/sharpshooting.
Survival(current MSV, needs a name change as well), about the melee aspect of the class, as portrayed by certain archetypes currently in the game. As it’s no longer about the main focus of increased survivability(in the form of utility/defensives).
Old RSV, could be called Munitions due to it’s intended focus on ammunition/arrows, and it would fit the whole Trap-element as well. It doesn’t have to be called that, but it should have something tied to the theme of the spec.
Have seen this suggestion a few times. The thing about Dark Rangers, is that they have very little to do with the actual class that is the Hunter.
Dark Rangers are in some ways, the complete opposites of what hunters are.
Sure, they use bows, but they have no interest in preserving the balance of life, and the wild. They are about unholy magic/necromancy. Something Hunters shy away from.
Maybe a few. But most players would ask why we still had melee abilities when we could now use our regular ranged abilities no matter where we were, opposite the enemy target(s).
Not what I said. I said that the reply you posted, made it sound as if you were assuming that I was advocating for the removal of MSV.
You mean this particular discussion with you or, us posting feedback as to what we want to see in the game, going forward?
Noob? …eh.
But when you say things like this, where you claim that “if we only would have gone far enough into SV, we would have somehow found a playstyle that intended for us to fight in melee at all times”, that this was an actual thing back then. Yeah, I can see why some would question your level of knowledge/experience.
By all means, if you played as a hunter, only fighting in melee range back then, that was your choice. But that does not mean that this is what the class(or the SV category) was designed for you to do.
And?
Check other forums, not just this one. It’s not just us here who are asking for it to return.
I’ve talked to many players over these past 3.5 years who used to play RSV and who would love for it to come back. They aren’t posting about it though as they never visit these forums. They don’t think that the forums are worth the time, in any aspect of it’s purposes.
It has been suggested several times before. Many? Maybe not, but more than once.
We have seen this trend increasing over the later years yes. They have ignored feedback(not just that of the hunter class) time and again, in favor of implementing ideas of their own. And when players have replied with what they thought about those implementations? It has again been ignored. Not all, but a lot.
So, is it likely that they will suddenly start taking everything we say to heart? No, not really. But if we stop posting feedback, we certainly won’t see any changes in the future that are closer to our preferences.
Essentially, it would be the only way yes. Even if they were to add in a completely new class with the old RSV included, this wouldn’t be welcomed in the same way as a 4th spec would be.
Stop being dense. Survival fulfills both roles. You can do both. I am tired of you lot ignoring both factors that can be done. Those who came into close quarters with a survival hunter will get hit hard by melee abilities specifically raptor strike. If the enemy distance themselves due to the survival hunter melee pressure then they get hit hard by their range attacks. That’s survival tree at full potential done right. Seriously you guys are really bad at understanding simple mechanics of the spec and yet claiming to be experts.
Can’t believe people were this “simple” not understanding how to explore the spec much.
Later.
…it’s performance in M+ and raids is actually pretty good, so you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. In Uldir it was literally the best single-target spec in the game and it was still underplayed.
https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/gamescom-2017-world-warcraft-legion-patch-7-3-interview/2
When asked about Survival’s representation, they didn’t say “It’s actually pretty popular except it’s performance isn’t good and that’s why it’s not seen in raids”, they said “We knew with Survival Hunter that we were making a niche spec. It is a melee spec for a class that has traditionally been ranged.”
Maybe you should actually find out what Gish Gallop means instead of making ridiculous claims like this.
Why should I care what you like?
I certainly know more about this topic than you because I’m not the one making increasingly revisionist claims about how things were in Classic and TBC.
Survival is not played in melee in Classic right now. What makes you think it was played in melee in Burning Crusade? It did not gain any new melee mechanics in TBC but it certainly gained several ranged ones.
Ummm, your fault? Since you are making this claim, you are the one who needs to prove it.
What are you talking about with this “you didn’t gear your Hunter that way”? There was no way to gear your Hunter towards melee damage over range damage unless you were taking green Strength gear and I don’t think I need to explain why that would be a terrible idea.
No, we don’t need to wait until WotLK servers are open to prove this because we have patch notes. You can look up any ability on wowpedia and it will show you the full history of changes made to that ability. Here is Raptor Strike:
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Raptor_Strike_(old)
As you can see, there were no changes before 4.0 (p.s. read the “tactics” section, too). Is this incomplete? Maybe, but this is usually reliable back to Vanilla WoW for any ability I look up (for example, here is Serpent Sting: https://wow.gamepedia.com/Serpent_Sting). Once again, if you can find a patch note that demonstrates how Hunter melee was nerfed by 90% I will happily accept it but you are consistently evading this. I don’t accept that you “have that knowledge” because you have presented nothing more than a mixture of faulty memory and outright revisionism.
Why am I having to explain to you the value of direct evidence over anecdotal evidence? This is common sense stuff. I don’t have any reason to trust you or your memory.
“Exploring Survival Hunter to its fullest” meant kiting and control in BC. Did it also mean carrying a 2-hander, speccing into Savage Strikes, and using Raptor Strike when an enemy got close? Sure thing, that was legitimately a valuable thing to do since we couldn’t use our ranged abilities up close and Raptor Strike’s damage was legitimately strong. Did it mean deliberately running into melee or sticking to melee over ranged? Absolutely not. Survival was never played that way. Not only was the ranged damage higher, especially considering the multitude of talents that buffed ranged such as Mortal Shots, but it was a safer place to be since the melee classes couldn’t hit you there. SV was great at kiting and it’s ludicrous to think that you would nullify that benefit by deliberately running into melee.
… 6k to 8k would still be brokenly-high damage. I’m literally looking at BC PvP videos right now and Raptor Strike is not doing anywhere near that sort of damage.
It’s not just that, either. You are claiming that it was then doing far, far less damage in WotLK based on nothing but your faulty memory.
It’s your job to show proof of these things and so far you haven’t showed a thing.
Plus, you know Survival didn’t actually buff Raptor Strike’s base damage in an exclusive way, right? It had Savage Strikes which increased the crit chance only, and that one was so high up in the Survival tree that any PvP Hunter could take it regardless of spec. I’ve seen MM and BM PvP builds that all take it, too. In the same fashion, Mortal Shots was the single most powerful ranged-buffing talent Hunters had and it was high enough in the MM tree for any Hunter to take it and murder people with ranged crit damage.
Yeah this is exactly the response I’d expect from confronting someone who has no proof of any of his claims.
This doesn’t make sense. If people liked the melee as much as you say they did and there legitimately was a giant nerf to melee then they would still be complaining about that nerf.
There are already plenty of 2-handed specs that can use polearms.
The idea of each spec using one weapon type was a Legion machination and it was widely considered to be a mistake. Now, as Survival you can use any 2-hander and specs like Arms and Retribution can use a polearm.
By this logic, I can say that we need a spec for each of the three ranged weapon types (Bow, Crossbow, and Gun) so the 3 Hunter specs should each take one of those.
Firstly, I don’t know what part of Vulpera or Mechagnome speaks “vicious melee fighter” to you. Those are probably the 2 races that least fit that aesthetic. You might have made a point here if you were talking about Zandalari Trolls or Highmountain Tauren since a spear-wielder with a pet would actually make sense there.
Secondly, you’re just detailing some hyper-specific interpretation of a melee spec with a pet. For example, there was already a spec in the game that is a melee fighter that fights alongside a pet and can use a spear along with quite a bit of ranged utility: Unholy Death Knight. I understand the aesthetic is not the same as what Survival is now but the point is what you described is nowhere near as unique as you’re pretending.
What makes this worse is that you’re placing more value in this hyper-specific aesthetic of a melee spec than basic exploration of ranged weapon concepts other than what Marksmanship does, because that’s what we lost by making Survival melee.
Finally, enough with the buzzword-soup.
Good lord, are you really going to go down this route? The Hunter specs were significantly more similar and indistinguishable before WotLK. They didn’t even have any unique rotational abilities.
It was the trap master all the way through, actually, as it had passives such as Entrapment and Trap Mastery. Legion was, in fact, the expansion to remove those iconic elements and now that Explosive Trap and Waylay no longer exist the current iteration of Survival is the least trap-focused out of all of them.
We’ve already established that the spec was far less melee-oriented than you think it was.
Should we also expect Explosive Shot, Black Arrow, and a ranged weapon for Survival?
They said their goal in Shadowlands was to reinforce class identity instead of focusing only on spec identity. There is no single worse example in the game of spec identity over class identity than melee Survival (they have directly named it as an example) and there is no better way to reinforce the Hunter class identity than making Survival ranged. It’s already likely getting Kill Shot and Hunter’s Mark back. It could then also get Distracting Shot and Tranquilising Shot back as well as talents like Barrage. You know, the actual iconic Hunter stuff.
For the record, I don’t think they will do it, but they should do it.
We’ve already established that Savage Strikes was easily reachable from the other 2 specs and that was the single most important part of Survival’s melee capability so you’re still wrong on this one.
What he described was the proper melee play of BC. He is literally getting the most out of both ranged and melee. What you’re describing is arbitrarily sacrificing the superior ranged play to focus on melee. Why would you stick to melee beyond the Raptor Strike and Wing Clip?
A Hunter expert should know this.
You have still failed to provide detail of this alleged nerf.
They also turned Demonology and Subtlety into vastly less popular iterations. Clearly the popularity of the spec was not on their mind, especially now that they’ve admitted they knew full well they were creating a niche spec.
The data doesn’t lie.
Oh, please. Once Steady Shot was added there was little reason for any melee mechanic to exist at all. The amount of people actually calling for melee back was minimal. If people liked melee so much they would have turned up in force to protest both this phantom melee nerf and the removal of melee altogether. Instead people were quite happy to see the deadzone go and people were calling for it to go for many expansions before MoP.
Why don’t you go play Classic while only using Raptor Strike and Wing Clip, because that’s what some people here are pretending the spec was.
Why should I care what you like? Evidently you don’t care about what the ranged Survival Hunters liked.
I don’t care about what goes on in your social bubble. People have been talking about ranged Survival for years and there was strife about its removal right from the Legion announcement. If you think anecdotal evidence counts for something I meet Hunters all the time who want ranged Survival back, both on the forums and in-game, almost every Hunter main I know personally wants it back and I even know 2 people who quit the game over it.
… cool story? This is still a ranged-focused spec that doesn’t deliberately run into melee. No one is arguing with the fact that Raptor Strike was heavy damage and a good back up for when an opponent came up close. What we are arguing with is the notion that the current iteration of Survival, which is one that lacks a ranged weapon and wants to stick to melee range as much as possible, is representative of that earlier iteration of Survival. Because it isn’t.
What you’re consistently failing to understand is that Savage Strikes was taken by all Hunter PvP specs, not just Survival. In fact, Survival had the best tools for getting back to ranged and used them for that purpose all the time.
The irony of claiming you dont do it… in a GIANT post. Classic!
Yep… how easily you forget about the dead zone.
Well, his opinion isn’t wrong, but it kinda sucks that to appease people who didn’t like the class for what it was, they took stuff away from people who did.
The entire other side of this argument smells a lot like it does in Naz after we lose a Battle for Nazjatar and the other side is screaming “Y O U LO SE”
There’s a lot of hunter hate and it makes me think that these people aren’t happy because they got a spec they like; they’re happy because they took a spec people liked away from them.
…Which seems to be the only tune WoW players sing anymore.
Apparently not enough people to make it happen. It’s hypocritical that you would make a post about what you like and then tell someone else you don’t care what they like. If you don’t care what I like, then why should I care what you like?
Because it sucks that people who never played hunter and/or didn’t like it had more say in what became of the class than people who did.
I get that this would be a thing if not a lot of people played the class, but plenty already did.
I play a hunter as well. I mostly play beast.
Hunter had melee abilities way back when they had a dead zone. You want the dead zone back too?
I imagine they made a survival melee spec because a bunch of people wanted a pet hunter class that was melee like The Beastmaster movie. Survival being melee allows for more play-style diversity within a class. That is better than having three ranged specs in my opinion.