Survival has been bottom tier since it went melee. You have to be a masochist if you still play it.
I guess. Any argument for pets as companions sort of went out the window with all the homogenization, though.
I don’t think it would take much, TBH. The existing kit is close enough to ranged as it is that you wouldn’t have to monkey with but a few things. They could also use things like Grape Shot, Hot Shot, Bolas, Sticky Bomb, Punji Sticks, etc. Realistically, you’d just need a ranged focus dump and a ranged cleave option. And then a ranged slow. So three things need to be juggled and tweaked.
I also had a funny thought about traps… Have a Bear Trap, but instead of it being a trap that’s a big set of jaws, it instead sprays some kind of juice that makes a wild bear come maul the target for X damage. Or a Crab Trap makes an actual crab pin you for a duration. I know, I know. Silly. Made my chuckle, though.
How do they do so without it becoming ranged again though? I know about the interview but quite frankly it comes across more as Ion being stubborn than anything. They very well could stick to that, but it wouldn’t be the first time Blizz has changed their mind / course corrected years later after digging their heels in.
Blizz is going to do what they think is best for their game, and part of that is what players actually want. Players have shown very little desire to play as, or with, current SV. The opposite has been shown based off the history of the spec when it was ranged however.
People are going to keep asking about it until it happens. That’s the truth of the matter. We got knock off high elves from people who were persistent in wanting them. Or classic (which is getting BC classic released soon) after the infamous “You think you do, but you don’t.”
Blizz will almost certainly realize that how they implemented the current spec was a total unmitigated disaster and a failure on their part, both to old and current fans of the spec. Because not even the current fans are being treated well, the spec has been left to languish for five years in obscurity.
This is why I argue for a 4th spec constantly. Blizz needs to learn from their mistake rather than eventually repeat it and push more players away. It’s not good for the long term health of their game.
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This. UDK, which granted I did kinda forget about, doesn’t really interact with their pet much. The entire sum of their interaction, actually, is Dark Transformation on a 90s CD (or less with talents), and their equivalent of Intimidation. I mean, MSV’s interaction with their pet isn’t stellar, but it still puts UDK’s to shame. UDKs are about as much of a pet class as frost mages are (honestly, less, since frost’s elemental can at least shatter combo things like Comet Storm)
Also, it’s not just about rerolling. DHs have a completely different class fantasy, and since they are a different armor class, different silhouette and transmog options.
Eh, given that neither Explosive Shot or Lock and Load work for MM like they did for RSV, they could easily just rename the both and give the originals back to RSV unaltered.
People aren’t asking for current SV, except ranged. They’re asking for the ranged Survival spec that was removed. ie. WoD or MoP era RSV. Making the current SV have a ranged filler and cleave wouldn’t fill the ask, tbh.
Do you honestly still believe that after so much time and evidence to the contrary? Blizzard is going to do what their devs want, regardless of what players want, and their primary and singular goal is simply to pump those stockholder metrics. The Blizzard that cared about making fun games is looooong dead.
The important part was
Bolded it. I’m not saying they will do what is most “fun” or anything like that, Kaedys. I’m saying they will do what they think will make them the most money. Part of that does mean actually appealing to players, contrary to popular belief. Which is why I gave examples of stuff that were obvious money grabs even though they were things players have asked for for years.
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I’d argue its abysmal performance over several years is a much bigger influence on its player numbers than people’s actual desire to play it.
I know personally i find the idea and theme of the spec very appealing but its track record is a big turnoff.
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Potentially, but that wouldn’t explain the few tiers or even the start of BFA where it was performing well but still have an abysmal showing. And in BFA it was good in PVP for most of the expansion.
So it’s not like it hasn’t had moments where it has shined. People still just don’t play it.
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Yeah, well, I want WotLK MM, but I’m not getting that, am I? Though I guess I kinda am soon enough 
The odds of getting RSV in any form seem pretty low. Getting RSV in WoD-guise is even less likely. I wouldn’t mind reshuffling across the two trees to getting them both back to something closer to what they were, but I’m not holding my breath. I suggested the other stuff because, realistically, it wouldn’t take much to get some form of playable RSV - a point from which to leap, so to speak.
Sure. I just wondered if they might see similarities here that would push them to yank stuff out of MM. This probably sounds like a ridiculous thing to say as these things evidently work differently per spec as you say. And yet their reason for turning the spec. on its head in the first place was based in an opinion that the specs. (MM & Surv.) were too much alike. That’s all I had in mind…
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True, though ironically they created a similar issue with BM and SV since they are sort of both fulfilling the Master and Pet partnership vibes. Not that I think MM and SV were similar in the first place though.
They could rework some of the talents if they want. I don’t see why not, give talents that actually fit more with MM’s theme rather than the half baked version of some of old SV’s abilities. I know Ghorak has made a thread in the past with his ideas of how a 4th spec could look like. I’ve also posted my own version before. I think whatever Blizz goes with, if they end up putting in the effort to bring back RSV in any format, I have to imagine they would be taking a look at the class as a whole. BM has some talent issues that really should be looked into as well for instance.
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Think ye might be projecting a bit, broski. I don’t think anyone really has the data for current, but at least during Legion, there were several periods where MSV was objectively the strongest hunter spec, and it still never saw more than 1% representation.
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You can thank Bellular and the rest of trashtubers for that. As well as the rest of hunter community at the time
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Probably because it was never good enough to be a FOTM spec/class.
It was good enough to be well above many other specs at multiple points. I don’t think using the history of MSV’s balance state is a great argument as to why no one plays it. I think the obvious answer is the most accurate one. No one plays it because most hunters do not want to be melee, regardless of performance.
Otherwise you’d see plenty of people just swap to it who are already in the hunter class when it is performing better than the other specs. But that’s not what happens.
It’s a niche spec, Ion even said as much when talking about the transition.
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There is no future for melee SV. It’s been a meme since it was added. The spec will never out perform ranged as said by Ion. Dmg buffs won’t make people want you in their group. 4 specs will only make it more of a meme “you have 3 ranged and you choose melee? lol!” The spec will rot for probably the rest of the game.
Its almost like certain classes have specs that are best for just pvp, and in that field they’re fine.
It’s amusing to me that MSV proponents seem to live in this fantasy land where the spec itself is actually highly popular, but people have just not played it for a cascade of ancillary reasons and happenstance. It’s always because it’s undertuned, or because some influential youtuber trash-talked it, or because it needs to not just be strong but actually broken.
Statistically, we’ve never seen more than 2% representation for MSV since the rework, and the majority of tiers have been at or under 0.5%. Some of those tiers MSV has been objectively the strongest hunter spec available, and people still didn’t play it. That’s the data we have.
Now, if you want to insist that people are just chomping at the bit to play MSV, and only this mystical confluence of hurdles keeps getting in their way, I guess that’s on you, but it fails the smell test, and is also substantially less likely for the data we have than the alternative explanation: the majority of hunters simply do not like MSV, and won’t play it regardless of how strong it is tuned.
If it has to be tuned so strong that it becomes a FOTM, then the people that would only play it in such a case aren’t actually wanting to play MSV. They just want to play whatever is the most powerful spec.
The assertion herein is that:
If that were the case, then the period where it hasn’t been tuned poorly should show massive swings towards it as people that want to play it, but haven’t been able to justify it due to tuning, are finally able to play it.
And yet that’s not what we saw. Heck, even at the expansion boundary between Legion and BfA, which both revamped a fair amount of the MSV kit and represented a reprieve from systems and a free period to simply try whatever peeps wanted (and was also one of the periods MSV was balanced as the best hunter spec), MSV hit it’s highest ever representation since the revamp…
2%. That’s all of 16% of hunters. And a full third of those players quit SV by the time Uldir came out, despite MSV retaining it’s strength through that first raid tier.
So 5 out of 6 hunters weren’t willing to try MSV even when it was tuned strong and when it least mattered (during expansion prepatch), and 1 in 3 of those that did abandoned the spec by the first raid despite the spec remaining strong for that period.
But ya, I’m sure it’s just because of tuning… /s
Erm…which ones? Arms is the king DPS spec for warriors in PvE atm. Frost is now an extremely strong PvE spec for mages. Sub was behind outlaw, but definitively ahead of Assassination until the latter was buffed in 9.0.5.
The concept of “PvP specs” hasn’t been a thing for literally over a decade now.
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Has to be anything but the obvious answer. Otherwise people would have to face the truth. That the spec isn’t popular and never will be because it is a melee in a traditionally ranged class. There’s always an excuse but the simplest answer in this case is the obvious correct one.
Facing reality opens up the possibility that Blizz was wrong to do what they did to give them the spec they enjoy. That the very same thing that happened to RSV not only can, but likely will eventually, happen to current SV.
I hope Blizz decides to give us a 4th spec to avoid that as I do want everyone to have what they enjoy. But at the end of the day, I want my spec back more than anything else.
Yep. I can’t believe anyone still believes PVP specs are still a thing despite all of the evidence to the contrary, and Blizz making clear steps to try and make every spec at least viable in pvp with pvp talents.
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Hunters are pretty squishy… There’s also a limited amount of melee spots you can bring in a raid.
Like it or not representation starts at the top. Until Survival becomes ranged again and has a legitimate niche, you’re not going to see a whole lot of them in high end raiding and thus the community as a whole.
I play Survival because I love the fantasy of being a survivalist. I like the idea of being Rambo (First Blood Rambo, the actual Rambo), hiding in the brush with custom traps and using makeshift weapons. Guerilla warfare type of stuff.
Old SV can be a munitions expert for all I care. Just let me use more traps, more funhouse abilities that allow me to bleed or poison people out. Give me the ability to heal myself up with some first aid using herbs and sticks. Or let’s go fully Predator and let me stalk the crap out of my opponents.