Lol no it didn’t.
The new melee Survival overlaps a helluva lot more with BM than the old one did. But I digress.
Ranged Survival was the most popular spec for years upon years until they killed it during Hellfire Citadel. It was unique, it was fluid. It was fun. Granted, I enjoyed the WoD style for BM(choosing whether to use Frenzy or leave it on your pet, and the old Stampede) too. But to say old Ranged Survival overlapped a lot with BM is laughably false. Especially considering how much melee Survival overlaps with it, even to the point of taking BM’s iconic abilities like Kill Command.
Regardless, while I feel people who want Ranged SV back have every right to say kill Melee SV, since in essence, our spec was killed for it. But I don’t advocate the removal of any content, which includes specs in this case. Plus, a small percentage truly enjoy melee SV. But considering it’s representation across the board is something like 1%, they should definitely add ranged SV back, at least as a fourth spec. Because again, it was the MOST POPULAR HUNTER SPEC AND ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR SPECS IN THE GAME. They want people to come back? Bring ranged SV back. I personally know several folks who quit over Ranged SV becoming Melee SV alone, hell I damn near did.
It felt bad having your spec of over a decade ripped out from under you, for yet another melee spec that doesn’t do anything that the other melee specs can’t do better and has no utility. So yes, fourth spec or whatever, just bring Ranged SV back. We tried having Melee SV for two expansions, and thus far for Legion and BFA, it’s representation has been among the lowest out of ALL specs for ALL content. If that doesn’t scream failure then I don’t know what does.
Melee SV has no identity. It’s literally a BM wannabee albeit melee. Ranged SV had a lot more of an identity than the current one does. How you people can’t see that yet somehow think the current SV is some mega unique spec is beyond me.