It’s funny how I’m reading this when I see everyone saying that Survival overlapped too much with MM.
It’s also funny how you pretend it’s more distinct from BM now when in BFA it has to steal several iconic abilities from BM. Ranged SV didn’t use Kill Command, for example, but melee SV does.
It’s ridiculous how you’re still here posting these lies about ranged SV.
I know your modus operandi is declaring nonsense about ranged SV and leaving the thread, ignoring all explanations why you’re wrong, so there’s no chance at all any of this gets to you. But this is for the sake of everyone else reading.
It absolutely had an identity as the utilitarian Hunter spec that dealt damage via augmenting its shots with poisons and explosives. That’s a strong, flavourful identity and people liked it. You pretending that it was just “MM but different” is just as baseless as pretending Affliction is just “Destruction but different”.
It had a better focus on poisons and traps and that’s what made it the spec that focused on those. Plus, in its last expansion it was actually the only spec with Serpent Sting. Saying its bonuses doesn’t count because some Survival stuff was available in other specs is doubling down on that “specs must be different classes with nothing in common” attitude that is now admitted by Blizzard to be a bad idea.
Current Survival is the one that has no identity. Two of its abilities are bland melee filler that could easily fit in the Warrior class (Raptor Strike, Carve). Two of its abilities are just stolen straight from BM (Kill Command, Coordinated Assault). The final 2 abilities are actually kind of nice because they fit that “utilitarian” side of ranged SV, too bad they don’t fit a melee spec at all (Serpent Sting, Wildfire Bomb). It’s three separate identities competing for prominence, and the only one of those that has any uniqueness/merit is the one that doesn’t fit for a melee spec at all. Calling out ranged SV for having “no identity” when this is the state of melee SV is extreme projection.
What a misinformed, biased comment. You are clearly speaking from a position of proud ignorance.
Explosive Shot, Serpent Sting, Black Arrow, and Lock and Load contributed towards creating a very interesting and fun spec. If you want to see “tacked-on”, look to the current melee spec which has 3 incongruous identities competing for prominence. Is it a melee skirmisher? A beast master? A utilitarian like ranged SV? All three, apparently.
But what would a Rogue know, anyway?
This is revisionism. Ranged SV had only diverged in its identity and playstyle in later expansions. It played the important role of representing the aspect of Hunters that included buffing its ranged attacks with special effects. This side of the class is now severely lacking because of SV going melee.
Why should you people be afforded a level of respect and security in the knowledge that your spec will remain that you didn’t offer to us?
Or, get this, we should stop shoving “variety” down people’s throats and essentially deleting people’s favourite playstyles to replace them with something else just because it’s “different”?
Variety is not automatically a good thing. They could have made SV a healing spec. That would be far more variety in the class, but I don’t think I need to explain why that would be a horrible idea.
You already have 13 melee weapon user specs in this game. There are 11 ranged classes, and of those 9 are casters. That leaves 2 specs in the game that use ranged weapons. And you think one more is too much? You’re hilariously biased.
Legion SV was the worst iteration of any Hunter spec ever. It utterly failed to represent the class identity and was a haphazard blend of random, tenuously-related abilities. As such, it was the least popular spec in the game by a huge margin for its entire existence.
Lol. 1.7.0 vastly improved the class and especially Survival. Hunters were very happy with the update. Absolutely no one cared about Survival before 1.7.0, and even before then Survival still had and used a ranged weapon.
P.S. Before anyone gets pedantic: yes, that’s hyperbole: I’m sure you can find a handful of people who cared about pre-1.7 Survival, but it was a largely pointless spec that the overwhelming majority of Hunters never bothered with.
… because we were here first?
Cool. I like to play a HUNTER as my main, and I’ll be damned if they continue to cater to people of a different class in case they make a Hunter alt some day.
Stick to your own class. I don’t go around demanding Arms gets made into a ranged weapon user.
Just like Rooikat: I don’t care about your Hunter alt. Many Hunter mains were screwed over by making Survival melee.
Three non-Hunters in a row demanding the class caters to them instead of actual Hunters 
The game already has 12 other melee weapon specs. Why do we need to force a melee spec into the only class that uses ranged weapons?
The class was explicitly defined around ranged weapons. If they wanted a melee option, it should be an optional subspec of BM via a talent. There is simply not enough audience in this class or even outside of it to justify a melee-only Hunter spec, it clashes with the class identity, and it caused the removal of an existing ranged spec. It was the absolute worst way they could have possibly handled it.
Gunning (ironic) for a purely melee Survival spec has been tried and failed in Legion. Ranged weapons have been core to the class identity since the beginning. It doesn’t make sense to have a spec that just totally ignores that essential part of our identity and tries to be a slightly-different Warrior instead.
So enjoyable next to no one plays it.
Obviously Survival is the problem spec here. It’s the one that’s always deeply unpopular and getting remade every expansion now. Trying to deflect criticism to BM and MM is not going to work.
So, in your mind, there is only room in this game for 1 spec that properly utilises a ranged weapon?
That’s atrocious. Look at how many different varieties of “swing a stick” they can come up with. 13 different melee specs and you are seriously telling me there is not enough room for 3 ranged specs?
MM and ranged SV do not do the same thing. One is themed around sharpshooting while one is themed around augmented projectiles. If you think they are not distinct enough, feel free to explain to me what sort of standards for spec differentiation you came up with that somehow excuses Arms and Fury, or Destruction and Affliction, or Discipline and Holy, but apparently says Survival and MM aren’t different enough.
Do you get a kick out of posting misinformed nonsense about Hunters all the time?
Oh, good. So, in a class defined around ranged weapons and pets, we can have a spec that has neither.
Are you people going to continue pretending that you give a damn about the Hunter class identity or have you given up on that?