I wonder if survival will go back to its proper place as a mindless mongoose bot this expac? That is where it was last time I played it, it was really engaging gameplay hitting 1 all the time until I ran out of focus in which I hit something else.
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I love these posts, they usually reflect on internal conflicts of the poster. The forum isn’t a place to tell us of your insecurities, quite frankly no one cares for your opinion and no one cares about MSV.
Trash post, by yet another trash MSV player.
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I think assassination as the ranged spec is a better candidate.
I would argue neither is…
…which is/was kinda the point really.
The excuse they gave as a justification was that “RSV was sort of like MM, but with more traps, or different arrows”. They said that they thought it was lacking depth(underdeveloped) and a niche of it’s own.
The thing is, the depth argument does not hold up as they could’ve just done what was intended with Legion and that would’ve solved itself, in case it was in fact an issue to begin with.
Then we have the “no niche of it’s own”-thing. Which is flat out wrong, in several ways. The niche of RSV compared to other Hunter specs, was that of a focus on DoTs and rot-gameplay. It’s fantasy-theme was about augmenting shots (arrows/ammunition) and traps, something the other specs didn’t do to any degree worth mentioning. Compared to the other hunter specs, it also held it’s own mechanical advantages and disadvantages based on combat application and mechanics.
So again, an empty argument without a solid ground to stand on.
And as it so happens, it was the same with the last one, that being the comparison between MM and RSV at the time. The two specs did not share anything other than the class-wide theme of ranged gamplay using ranged weapons, which is the equivalent of how all Mage specs are themed around casting spells. Same with Warlocks. Same with Rogues where all specs are themed around using 1h melee-weapons and stealth.
And like I’ve also mentioned before about how current SV shares more with BM than RSV did with MM when it comes to certain mechanics and even the theme/fantasy.
So…yeah…justifiably, one can ask again what valid reasons did they actually have for removing RSV from the class?
Or was it just: “We want to add a melee spec, so we’re gonna do just that” ?
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Or is it that Ion hates hunters over all?
All 3 specs have had their brief shining moments over all since Legion , but honestly it has felt like we’ve been treated like the red headed stepchild class since Legion .
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There’s a quote on this somewhere, was something along the lines of RSV was too similar to MM according to the devs.
Absolute BS imo. The two specs are nothing alike. But hey, we aint the devs.
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You hush yo mouff 
Counter-counter offer, just convert everything to melee instead:
MM = Meleeman
BM = Beastmelee
I miss SV from the WOTLK xpac. Tossing a flame trap in, applying black arrow and serpent sting, then hitting with massive explosive shots… It felt so good. And the meters were topped by SV all the time.
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I know I just dont get it, but it doesn’t sound that different from current SV to me. (Aside from topping the charts, which HSV opponents say doesn’t matter.)
I’ve talked about it in previous replies, but in short…
In what ways a spec focuses on the fantasy/-ies of specific elements, for example how traps work with a spec that is designed around ranged combat instead of melee, how venom/toxins are utilized through ranged weapons, explosives and fire, and so on…
All that matters for a lot when determining playability, in the eyes of players that is. It’s all about what identity you can create for yourself, through the options available to you. For example, Serpent Sting as it’s designed for MM vs it’s design for MSV can be what determines if someone likes it or not. It’s a simple thing, but still, a ranged shot that relies on your equipped ranged weapon vs something that’s essentially not a weapon attack at all but just an animation, despite the similar practical applications, can still be what serves as a deterrent.
Yeah, I gave my thoughts about that in that same reply.
Here’s the interview where they talked about SV(scroll down the page): https://www.gameaxis.com/interviews/interview-wow-legions-lead-class-designer-senior-producer/
I havent responded to you in a while because our conversations generally go nowhere, and I kind of find you… I dont know. There’s a personality conflict and its probably me, not you, but I think there is some stuff here that is relevant to the discussion in the community as a whole.
Though I dont think the way melee elements were reintroduced to the class was well done, I do think there is definitely a place for those elements in the hunter class. This is no small part of that.
While I agree, this is a bit schizophrenic when the conversation is often (even in this thread) that MM and SV were so different because of mechanics alone. Here, it seems that mechanics being generally similar, at least in terms of a ranged dot theme with poisons, bleeds burns and explosives, the ability to equip a ranged weapon takes on sudden importance. Its almost like the community says “So what if they both used a bow, the playstyle was totally different?” and switches to “so what if the playstyle is generally similar, you cant wield a bow?”
And that said, the importance of the bow, in the psyche of the general hunter population, in my opinion, makes the SV solution much easier than just “bring back RSV” or “give us 4th spec RSV”. For much of the population (though not necessarily the fine people on these forums) simply bringing back the bow would likely be enough (not to mention performance tweaks).
I wish they would bring ranged survival back. It was my main spec. Haven’t raided competitively since it’s deletion.
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I somehow really doubt that removal of SV was why you quit “competitive raiding”
Since if you were actually doing it, you would be swapping specs according to the meta.
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I’m no Ghorak, but from my perspective I have two things going on:
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I have always preferred a strong class identity over a strong spec identity, which is why I strongly prefer the MoP-and-before over WoD (the first foray into spec identity trumping class identity) and especially Legion.
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Yes, both RSV and MM had Serpent Sting, but they interacted with it differently. For RSV, they needed Serpent Sting active on one target so they could spread it to the other mobs through Serpent Spread by using Multishot. But with MM, we needed Serpent Sting active on our single target because it massively buffed our Chimera Shot and it enabled the healing aspect of Chimera Shot. No Serpent Sting = Chimera Shot that didn’t heal and hit like wet paper.
As you can see, the same core class ability functioned differently with the three specs (Serpent Sting was just a mere DoT for BM if I recall correctly).
And honestly, THIS is my preferred design/approach to design. Have all 3 specs share 80%-or-more of their toolkit, but have these spells interact differently with each other by spec.
(Edited to fix grammar. Shouldn’t be posting 10 minutes after waking up. 
)
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Another great example of this was traps. Before Legion every Hunter spec had traps but Survival had enhanced traps. That’s how it cemented an important part of its spec identity; it built off the base class. Then Legion rolled around and Blizzard couldn’t comprehend SV being the trap specialist without being the only one with traps so they removed traps from the other two specs. This was an extremely damaging change both from a gameplay perspective (BM and MM got screwed in PvP because of this) and from a thematic point of view because it diluted and weakened the class identity. They did go back on it eventually, but it should have never been done in the first place.
It’s a great case study for why the philosophy behind Legion’s class design was just bad; Blizzard talked a lot about class fantasy while actively undermining it in a misled attempt to make each spec a different class. As it turns out, both class AND spec identity are important. You can’t have so little spec identity that specs don’t matter beyond minor passive differences (e.g. Classic Hunter) and you can’t have specs that are so different that they might as well be totally different classes (Legion Hunter). Basically bring back MoP Hunter.
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Honestly, I was so angry about them removing traps (!!!) from MM from the prepatch until 7.1.5, I’ve blocked it from memory.
It still makes me angry to think about today.
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Amen! Most fun I’ve had in the game was Cata/MoP hunter!
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I do agree with this, and like I’ve said several times before, this is the whole reason as to why Im pushing for a 4th spec to be how RSV is brought back.
I assume you chose that term due to what you think of as conflicting statements regarding past design, and desires for future design?
Anyway…
I can’t speak for every pro-RSV’er here but…the thing really is that it’s not about the mechanics on their own. It’s also not just about the aesthetics or the intended fantasy. It is in fact about all of the above.
And not only that, the coherency of the design, when you, as an example, put all the mechanical imputs together and judge them as a single unit, what it all amounts to also heavily determines whether it’s something you’d enjoy playing. No matter whether you’re talking about mechanical applications or aesthetics, fantasy…consciously and subsconciously, you do judge every element on it’s own, and at the same time, you judge them when put together.
This is the whole reason as to why some people are so adamantly against the idea of, again as an example, merging current MM with what was the old RSV. And, why many do not agree with how we should just allow current SV to also play with a ranged weapon. It wouldn’t actually achieve the intended goal.
This is also why I’d argue that…
…would not do it. It wouldn’t be the right solution.
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