I’ll start this thread out by saying I’m only going to be talking about the class fantasy and aesthetics of the spec, not the gameplay, as well I also didn’t come here to whine about hunters not having three ranged specs like almost every thread discussing survivals class fantasy. I love the fact that hunters have a melee spec and I probably wouldn’t touch the class if they didn’t, I’m pretty sure the only reason people whine about survival being melee is because they want a third ranged spec to play around with when they get bored of the other two or they get nerfed, the amount of people attatched to the pre-legion version of survival from a aesthetic and class fantasy standpoint is microscopic.
Ultimately, my issue is, survival hunters that they feel like they’re in a similar situation to combat rogues, they sort of have a class fantasy, but it’s both compromised and boring. Before they became melee their class fantasy, which was a sort of survivalist tracker and trapper and actual huntsman (like, someone who tracks and kills animals), and that’s still roughly what it is today.
There’s two big problems with this, firstly, even if they stayed or returned to being ranged, very very few players would be interested in survival from a purely class fantasy standpoint, it’s boring and too niche. I’ve been playing since early wrath, I cannot remember a single person saying that survival was “cool” in a aesthetic sense, pre-rework the only reason 99% of players played survival was because it was either good, mechanically fun, or both. The second problem is, the survivalist, tracker, trapper and hunter, makes no sense at all melee, what so ever. Throwing bombs that expode in your face don’t make sense, dropping traps in the middle of combat is comically stupid sounding and I can’t imagine that in a canonical in universe sense anyone is doing this, and there’s no bridge connecting the gadgety mechanical side of survival hunters with their melee moves, which are largely flavourless and from a purely aesthetical standpoint are no different from something you’d in universe see a warrior do.
However, I have to address the elephant in the room, BM from a lore and aesthetic standpoint should have been the melee spec, there are a lot of reasons other people have mentioned, foremost being a beast master fighting WITH (next to, melee) his pets makes more sense, rexxar, whos on the survival hunter talent tree background, is literally referred to as a beastmaster, etc etc, other people have explained it so if you want to know look into it. Despite this, however, I do not think blizzard should have made, BM the melee spec, the ship to rework specs already sailed in legion, but even if you had a time machine BM hunter as a spec is incredibly popular, and radically changing how it played would cause massive upheaval and controversy, and from a business standpoint this just isn’t a good idea, BM absolutely fits melee much MUCH better, but blizzard can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t make BM melee.
So what’s the solution, what should survival be? Frankly, I have no idea. All of the best options have been eliminated, the best I could think of, and this is pretty half hearted, is to rework the entire spec the way they did combat, keeping it melee but ditching the gadgety mechanical side, and perhaps even renaming it. Perhaps making it a “wild man” who is melee and throws spears and is generally uncivilized and outside of society? Basically a warrior (aesthetically, not gameplay) with pets, but this is a pretty half hearted suggestion, in reality I really don’t know, all I know is right now it makes no sense at all the way it is.
TL;DR Survivals class fantasy sucks, if it went back to being ranged it would make more sense but still be incredibly, aggressively dull and boring. And hunters are ultimately a class that has had its lore and class fantasy ravaged and brutalized on the altar of gameplay and community appeasement.
Edit: I forgot to mention, I’m posting this here instead of the hunter class forum because this exclusively has to do with the lore and class fantasy of survival hunters, not gameplay. So I think it fits here better.