I cant speak for everyone, but hunters have been going down hill in my opinion… lets start off with PVP, now its nothing new that usually 1-2 specs on a class are good for pvp, whether it be 2s/3s. Hunter has 1, and its not as good as you would think, survival is the exact opposite of its title, the damage is mediocre, they have nothing for defensive’s except for turtle, but after that its over. They have little to no recovery, 30% heal on a 3 minute timer (might be 2 mins). The change to survival that was made in Legion is just not what hunter has always represented, the way a lot of us envisioned hunter was a class with a ranged weapon (bow/gun/crossbow) and a pet to fight by your side, Marksmanship is always stale and stuck standing still, Beast Mastery is almost like having a AI do all the damage for you with your pet being your main damage output, survival used to be where you were almost like a hybrid of both BM and MM, that in my opinion was the heart of hunter, now the class is almost unrecognizable, almost like a worse version of ret paladin…but with a pet, all I’m asking is consider it, would make shadowland’s 100 times better for me, and I’m sure a lot of others who have mained the class for so long. <3
While I agree that Survival should go back to something based on its MoP iteration, I disagree on these points:
- Marksmanship being stale
- Survival being a hybrid of BM and MM
First point: Marksmanship does typically have movement restrictions but that doesn’t mean it’s stale and immobile all the time. It could always use a significant part of its toolkit while moving and there is appeal to those hardcasted, heavy-hitting Aimed Shots. It’s the spec that has a really long range and nice burst damage. I have a blast with it in battlegrounds even if it sucks in 1v1 and arenas. I always preferred ranged Survival when it existed but Survival wasn’t just a better MM; it was a different playstyle and identity.
Second point: This comes up a lot on the forums but it doesn’t make much sense. Survival had just as much pet interaction as MM did i.e. it began and ended with having a pet. I guess you could argue that its full mobility made it feel a bit like BM but usually if I heard someone describing a spec as a middle ground between two other specs I would expect it to share mechanical and thematic aspects of those two specs which Survival really didn’t (barring some weirdness with how Arcane Shot was distributed in Warlords of Draenor).
wut?
Are we playing the same game?
Sv is packed full of defensive goodness
Not one but TWO interrupts…one for you(Muzzle), one for your pet(Intimidation).
Feign Death, Disengage, Misdirection, not to mention the pet itself.
if anything SV is maybe too defensive and needs another good offensive for a good rotation.
I am ok with changes to SV, dont get me wrong, but the spec is unbelievably fun to play and i find the damage output to be entirely decent…though I use the Butchery talent…maybe thats the difference.
Go from arms to surv and you’ll notice the survival bit
Sv is in a decent spot right now imo, my only problem with the class is that you do a lot of things in your rotation to not be rewarded with the proper damage. Bm is much simpler, almost braindead, and does a lot more damage than sv.
They really need to tune a few numbers and fix serpent sting, its a pretty bad dot right now
I honestly want SS removed and replaced with a baseline bleed DoT to better fit melee surv.
nothing would make me happier than return of rsv, that has been my number 1 on wishlist since legion prepatch.
Cata surv was better.
No thank you, and I like Survival the way it is.
Also glad you didn’t speak for all hunters like a Goblin I know who does and he whines a lot and I mean a LOT 
Indeed. I really have a lot of fun with survival.
Hunter has always been my most favorite alt since cata, and old survival always been fun for me because of these 3 aspects:
- instant shots
- sustained damage
- aoe serpent sting
It was a great PvE spec, and even PvP if you wanted to wear down opponents, instead of bursting them down. It was almost like BM mobility, but without replying on pet. It felt fun. I was so sad when they took it away. They should absolutely bring it back as a 4th spec or something.
MM is a completely different beast for old survival to be lumped together with it into one spec.
You have no idea how to play survival in PvP if you feel this is the case. Getting duelist on Surv was one of my easiest climbs.
Not true with proper talents.
This is also really false.
You need to learn how to play survival accurately and at a high level before you can make these kind of empty comments.
Melee huntering is pretty much the only kind I enjoy playing. I lost interest with them in vanilla in the late 50s, and rather like the legion changes. I like Surv in BFA; now, I don’t like any of BFAs endgame systems, and I think nearly any spec would be better off if some of those things were baseline, but srv as melee is nice.
I was survival until Legion then went marksmanship. I’m enjoying it.
I seem to be able to move quite a bit.
god i really want survival to return to being ranged again. i miss playing my hunter.
Survival was made a melee spec because it was consistently the least popular hunter spec throughout each expansion.
More people say they loved Ranged Survival than there were players who actually specced Survival.
Current Survival is one of the few fun specs to actually play currently out of any class.
They can make current surv do more damage than the other two specs combined and I’ll still never play it on principle alone. I didn’t roll a hunter to hit stuff with a stick.
Boy if you thought it was unpopular before, I got some bad news for you…
I dont think you understand what I was trying to say, Survival as hunter, as in living in general is crazy bad in arenas, look at the leader board, its dry as hell on there for hunters, look at the top comps, hunter only works with a few comps and its at the bottom of the list. Not to mention, survival hasnt been #1 for dps spec out of the 3 for hunters since it entered the game.
And will now always be one of the least represented specs in PvE because unless it literally does 15% more dps than the other two specs, you aren’t going to spend one of your 5-6 melee spots on a spec that brings LESS utility than BM.