So one could say that RSV didn’t even exist till 2006. And it lasted till 2016. So in 2 short years (if SV stays melee all things considered) then we can have a little anniversary celebration
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I would push that date even further back to 2008, to be honest. In BC, the ranged-exclusive talents in Expose Weakness, Thrill of the Hunt, and the trigger mechanism of Master Tactician which required ranged shots (however, the all-source ranged and melee critical strike chance effect was in fact true to Survival) were tacked onto the bottom of the tree. In BC, rDPS attributes were simply added to the tree towards the bottom.
It wasn’t until 2008 that rDPS effectively crept up the tree and began to replace the upper-portion of the mitigation talents.
Deterrence: Removed from the tree and altered into an unrecognizable form, which effectively rendered Counter Attack, Mongoose Bite, and Deflection inoperable.
Readiness: A chief utilitarian talent, was also cannibalized into the wretched Marksmanship tree to make way for the childish Explosive Shot/LnL shenanigans.
What other Hunter specialization could get away with BS like this when faced with an HWL Warrior:
Survival misinfo still reigning in this godforsaken forums? Surv in 10.1.5 is well designed, fun, has a community of players that are identified with the fantasy and the gameplay of the spec and is the hunter spec that performs the best rn in m+ while giving MM a run for its money in raids. Visit hunter discord and talk to people that actually play the spec before spewing nonsense. Hunter needs raid utility, more damage, and small reworks.
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Wyvern Sting?
There’s also Lightning Reflexes; while it benefitted melee, it gave double the benefit to ranged attacks. In fact the existence of this talent alone precludes SV being anything other than a ranged spec in Classic because it meant your ranged attacks would even further outscale your melee with gear.
Delusional statement. SV was already a ranged DPS so it was impossible for added ranged abilities to be “incongruent” or “tacked on”. It was a totally natural and sensible extension of the class. It’s also nonsense to call it lazy given SV had no unique gameplay before WotLK. As if that’s not lazy?
Let me clarify: I think you’re full of it when you say you reacted like this back then. You were either fine with it at the time or you quit for other reasons. Your stated reaction here is made up for dramatic effect.
It’s like when SV Hunters in TSL insist they picked Hunter to play melee back in Classic. Not a chance. They’re making it up because they think it gives their argument credibility. SV Hunters aren’t exactly known for being objective and honest.
“I’m not arguing SV was melee. I’m just arguing that it wasn’t ranged!”
This is really lame. No one is buying it. You are arguing that SV was melee or at least melee-preferring in classic. If you argue that it wasn’t a ranged DPS, that’s what that means.
You’re not nearly as good at being manipulative as you think you are. Everyone sees right through it.
Yes because sometimes we got stuck in melee range in PvP so it was helpful to have some extra tools to survive that?
Bursting Shot right now only works in melee range. Does that mean MM is not a ranged spec and at least has some melee preference?
If you could spend 100% of the time at range in classic PvP, you would. Even as Survival. Because it was a ranged DPS. Even in your own videos, you only go melee when you have such a gear/skill advantage over the opponent it doesn’t matter. The moment they put up any sort of fight you’re back at ranged.
Lol? SV was far, far better in WotLK PvP than it was in BC. In BC it was the least-played spec of the least-played class in PvP. You clearly don’t remember a thing.
MM had Go for the Throat, actually, which gave your pet focus when you crit.
Nevertheless, while you’re right that the talent trees buffed certain parts of the class, you’re consistently failing to understand that you didn’t spend all your points in one tree. Every performant Hunter build in PvE and PvP took early MM talents, for example. In Classic it was actually common for SV Builds to ditch Wyvern Sting in favour of speccing all the way down into Scatter Shot as MM.
This went the other way, too: BM and MM PvP builds especially in BC usually took Savage Strikes, the one (1) talent that exclusively buffed melee damage, and some even went further and took Deterrence. Does this mean they were also not ranged DPS specs in your view?
More bad recollection on your part. SV builds more or less always took the early MM talents even in Classic. They were crucial to SV’s damage output and potency in PvP.
SV had more or less the same gameplay as BM and MM even in PvP back then. Most of the bonuses you got were passive, and most of those were also taken by MM and BM. In fact the one thing you wouldn’t ever see as a BM or MM PvP Hunter in contrast to SV was Wyvern Sting, a ranged ability.
Yes because it was a ranged DPS class and they automatically assigned every single ranged damage ability as Marksmanship.
That’s why they fixed that by giving SV its own unique ranged abilities 
You would say a lot of incorrect things, though.
Also SV Hunters literally had +6 yards to ranged attacks in their very first row in BC so this is just objectively incorrect as per usual.
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Every other mitigation talent stayed
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Deterrence was far more useful as a defensive after they changed it
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Readiness was at the bottom of the tree, and the only reason they moved it was likely because SV would have been absolutely broken if it kept it. It’s already the preferred spec of most Hunters in WotLK (a concept utterly unfamiliar to SV today)
SV was a far more capable, survivable, and potent spec in WotLK than earlier.
MM and BM? Because they both often took Savage Strikes and Deterrence in their PvP builds. You’re also fighting an extremely bad Warrior who’s keyboard turning, and you cut the clip right before you once again fall back to primarily ranged attacks.
Again, you’re not nearly as good at being manipulative as you think you are.
“I’m into spirituality now” do your beliefs condone lying to and misleading people?
Nope, it was ranged from the start in 2004. All talk to the contrary is revisionist and delusional. You’ll have to wait until 2028, and even then it means nothing because it just ultimately highlights that they double down on bad ideas that don’t work. In 2028 SV will have been the punchline of class design for more than it wasn’t, that’s all.
Sounds like you just want to play a Warrior TBQH.
It’s also consistently the least-played spec. Right now 3 times as many players in M+ would rather take a damage loss and play MM in M+, so pipe down with the MM trash talk. Evidently far more players find that to be the more fun spec than SV.
People who play the spec are extremely insulated and self-centred. This is why SV Hunters are infamous for talking up their spec to high heaven like this and acting like they’re God’s gift to WoW.
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It’s just a very dedicated, very loud, and very bitter group of people stuck in 2011, remembering younger days fondly. Most are conflating the carefree days of their childhood with the spec they played at the time and they think if it’s brought back it’ll solve whatever real world problem they’re facing
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Lacerate?
Not really. Lightning Reflexes exemplified flexibility–not ranged rigidity, as it improved all attributes desirable to the Survival Hunter. Ranged DPS, Melee DPS, and evasive mitigation in Dodge.
A fair opinion.
If you say so. I went from hardcore SV back in Vanilla and BC to MM in WotLK, which speaks volumes.
That would be an error in logic, on your end. Survival had the highest damage ceiling from 8-36 yds, but that does not characterize the talents and skillset of the specialization itself and is more accurately attributed to the base class–in particular Marksmanship.
Indeed.
Does Bursting Shot require a melee weapon to acuate?
A viable playstyle option. Do whatever it takes to get the HK and make use of all abilities afforded to your class where appropriate. That was always my message.
I spent most of the time in both Vanilla and BC as undergeared. In those videos, I mainly sported Tier 1 PvP gear, and the Tier 2/3 Blacksmithing Axe for high main-hand damage with the Mongoose Enchant to proc high Agility. I also wielded the Karazhan Tanking Axe (that was Hunter Looted in a raid) as an off-hand that was equipped with a Weapon Chain to prevent disarm effects. The Kara Axe also had a neato ranged damage ability, that was useful for tanks to initiate pulls.
I never outgeared anyone in these videos. In terms of weapons, the MH & OH were low ilvl PvE items.
If you say so. You seem to have an issue with needing something to be popular in order to be valid. Survival was unpopular prior to WotLK and it has been unpopular post Legion. That is correct. But there’s a very good reason that I quit the specialization during it’s more popular RSV phase.
Correct. Hybrid build options are what made the Classic-era fun and challenging whereas now we are locked into a fixed fantasy.
Oh, so the other specializations could only perform as I did in the videos when hybridizing with Survival? Gotcha.
In BC, sure. Hawkeye was originally an MM talent though, so there’s yet another example of more ingression of MM into SV. Thank you, I nearly overlooked that one!
Interesting. So every PvP build needed to hybridize with Survival for survivability, much like every rDPS build needed to hybridize with MM for damage. Check.
There’s always going to be a least played spec. What are you trying to say here? You think a melee DPS without any utility would have high numbers? Kind of an absurd thing to think. Especially as existing as a melee DPS without utility there are still specs around (or recently, even lower!) than SV
So a random person saying they have fun on a spec means the entire community is infamous for enjoying things in game? oh jeez, what a crime 
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Or give us a talent that lowers the cooldown, or heals. Maybe a talent that allows you to still attack for half the damage.
How would changing SV to a tank spec suddenly make it become more interesting? Players did not like the change not because it it is a dps class, but cause it went from range to melee.
Becoming a tank spec would take away even more as those who wanted a melee hunter now loose that as well.
Should sleep on this idea some time then re-think how this idea sounds.
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To be fair towards you, this was one of the earliest posts where you spoke about vanilla SV. Sure, in this post you did not say that it was mDPS in role…but, yeah.
The spec-centric theme of SV was actually short-term avoidance tanking (30%+ parry & dodge with Aspect of the Monkey/Tier 1 BM talents & Deflection)
Here, while you did make note(sort of) of how SV could be played at range, you certainly pointed to how there was an option for a dedicated melee playstyle as well. Or in other words, you’re saying that it was intended by design for players to choose whether they wanted to fight in melee or from afar:
Ignoring the fact that if one chose to do so, especially in PvE, your throughput potential, and available abilities to use, would plummet into barely anything at all.
You’ve also said this:
That said, which was hopefully conveyed without malice, let’s carefully take a look at the post-launch Hunter Specialization symbols, which more accurately shows the finished product, here: /www.wowhead.com/classic/talent-calc/hunter/
We see the Tame Beast icon, representing BM.
Pet DPS.We see a Bull’s-eye icon, representing MM.
Ranged DPS.But what do we see for Survival?
What was its original capstone talent?The rest is for you to investigate.
And then, this:
Allieddeath:
But it is here where we do encounter some ideological friction.
In terms of Vanilla SV, there wasn’t a hard, implicit bias towards escaping melee range. Escaping melee range was but one of several leverageable options that the Survival talents offered, those options being Imp. Wing Clip and Counter-Attack, which are not singularly constrained to setup a kite, but were certainly and effectively used to do so nonetheless.
My message is to think in terms of flexibility, not hard or rigid mental structures.
If this isn’t you saying that it was perfectly viable, and intended by design for us to choose whether we wanted to fight in melee or from afar, I don’t know what is…
Feel free to elaborate on what you mean here.
It certainly was, because back then, it was depending on baseline core abilities of the class as a whole in order to function at all. Those, again, being designed to promote ranged combat over anything else.
See above. Again, vanilla SV was designed to rely on the core gameplay of the class, the core playstyle of the class as a whole. Without said core playstyle, it wouldn’t really be anything at all. Just some passive effects and a few conditional talents(nearly useless in PvE content), + the pure survivability oriented talents ofc.
Again, without the baseline core toolkit of the class, you wouldn’t have a complete playstyle at all. Not even close.
SV, like I said just above here, relied on primarily ranged attacks, which were baseline to the class, from the very start. Without those, you wouldn’t even have a functional, complete playstyle to engage in.
In PvE as an example, if you take out those ranged abilities and attacks, you were left with:
- Melee auto attacks
- Raptor Strike(added damage to your next melee auto attack, with a 6sec CD)
- And nothing else. Unless ofc the enemy was hitting you consistently, which certainly wasn’t intended.
Yeah, that’s the same clip/video you linked a while back.
First off, that’s a TBC video, not vanilla. But since I did not point that out in what you quoted, sure…
Like I said the last time you linked it…in what way is there a substantial difference to your gameplay, and what abilities you had to fight with, in that video, versus what a MM hunter would? As an example.
The video you linked me shows you with PvP gear, equivalent to the T5+T6 season of TBC.
The warrior you referenced, I believe he’s using(couldn’t make out the rest):
I’m not going to read the rest of your post, but it’s not like melees and a melee enhancement weren’t a “functional complete playstyle” in vanilla wow. Look at the “rich” playstyles it competed against (spam frostbolt, spam shadowbolt, wand)
Let’s not pretend than there was any sort of rich gameplay happening here…
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On one side, you compare the choices players made to primarily use 1 ability because that allowed them to maximize their throughput, and on the other end, you equate that to what is effectively a “playstyle” which doesn’t even have a choice to make use of a complete set of abilities which are designed for the purpose of a coherent playstyle.
Again, your options for what you could use(optimal or otherwise) as a melee hunter in vanilla PvE:
- melee auto attacks
- raptor strike
That’s a lot of words for not really addressing anything I said.
What’s a complete set of abilities to you in 2005?
Is this the sort of rich, unique, flavorful, methodical, immersive gameplay that SV competed against in the good ol’ days? This rotation is kind of making my head spin. The way you weave in auto shots with aimed shots is a lot more involved and really cements an identity compared to weaving in auto strikes with raptor strikes.
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Tier 1 PvP Gear in BC.
It’s a 12 second clip, not the whole video. And within it, is shown the near full usage of the Survival toolkit with minimal distortion from the other archetypes. I figure it’s about 75% of an otherwise pure example due to the Pet and a few opportunistic ranged shots that I employed in the duel.
The video links are merely a receipt. Not everyone on the forum has played or has experience with the game in it’s earlier iterations, so sometimes it helps to visualize the discussion.
I never got into PvE so I won’t venture into that subject. But I will add that the AI challenges the player with very tight ability rotations, with scripted events to prepare for, and is quite APM intensive. While in my area of expertise: PvP, you will encounter a separate set of challenges to face apart from the scripted AI when factoring in the steep set of limitations afforded to the Hunter Class. Each spec handled these varied and extensive challenges differently depending on talent investment.
Doesn’t that apply to practically every other class?
Flexibility was the message then, as it is now. If you’re stuck in melee range, don’t be so desperate to escape. Stand your ground, and fight. When the opportunity arises, you can leverage your ranged toolkit.
Yes, it was possible to PvP as a dedicated Melee Hunter in Vanilla. I’ve posted the videos of MeKill (not myself, but a mentor) destroying melee classes in melee range. Unlike myself, he didn’t opt to leverage his ranged abilities. It did work in PvP, whether intentional or not.
I believe I said just enough. Anyway, your argument is based on what players chose to use, it’s based on what was optimal in terms of throughput. My argument is based on what abilities they gave us to use, by intent of the design(not based on what was optimal or not).
I haven’t included conditional abilities such as Mongoose Bite or Counterattack, purely because you’d pretty much never be able to/have any use for them in group-based PvE content, or PvE in general, since it was intended for your pet to tank for you in solo content. Nor have I included Trueshot Aura from MM. Pet-based abilities and traps are also ignored since they weren’t designed specifically with the idea of using either a ranged or a melee weapon.
Offensive(for damage) ranged abilities/attacks:
- Hunter’s Mark
- Auto Shot
- Arcane Shot
- Serpent Sting
- Multi-Shot
- Volley
- Rapid Fire
- Aimed Shot(Marksmanship, available to anyone, even if they took the capstone in another category)
Offensive(for damage) melee abilities/attacks:
- Auto Attack
- Raptor Strike
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Then, I believe it would be Tier 2+3(of TBC). In other words, the later seasons.
Why are you purposefully focusing on a small segment which doesn’t even show the entire toolkit that was available, and was intended to be used? It certainly is not a valid basis for any argument that focuses on your toolkit.
Sure, though, the one you linked to me does not support your basis of how SV had it’s own playstyle/identity. The gameplay, the abilities used were pretty much the same as what you would use if you played primarily as MM.
Okay, still, the design of the class, and the respective categories, it’s not done exclusively for one area of the game. It’s meant for all areas of the game.
Yes, ofc. And?
Again, this logic is based on your so-called area of expertise: PvP. Again, in PvE, if you deliberately chose to venture into melee range for any extended period, if you could fight from afar, you severely handicapped yourself and your throughput potential.
In PvE, if you were stuck in melee for some reason, you couldn’t wait for the possibility of going back out, in order to be able to focus on your ranged attacks.
Again, this is based on a single area of the game, not the entire game. And even so, in that case, it’s an anecdotal reference, one that isn’t based on intent of design, but on an individual’s chosen method of playing/fighting.
Yes, passive abilities and 5 minute cooldowns are great example of rotation altering gameplay. You sure showed me.
and they gave us (particularly, SV) melee abilities
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Perhaps, you are right. Let us see if a frail MM Hunter can out-sustain a Warrior in melee range without hybridizing into Survival talents. 
Because it’s an example of Survival’s performance in melee range with minimal reliance on the other two archetypes. Do you need more stringent examples? I have many clips to throw at this subject until the point hits home. I also have a clip where Survival can out-burst Marksmanship by utilizing the very first-iteration of Double Tap.
The video was filmed at several points in 07’ and 08’ producing a mixture of gear. But mostly, I sported low ilvl Tier 1 PvP gear, so what you see there wasn’t even the maximum potential of the spec, nor was I the best player with the highest level of functional capacity. The Rogue and Mage classes sequestered the fastest and most skilled players as these classes afforded more reliable CC and control in PvP.
I think we’ve discussed this before. PvE is a valid expression of game design, but the AI doesn’t exact as high of a toll upon the design limitations of the class that PvP likewise does impose upon the player.
Sure, but I don’t think the melee toolkit in general finds application in PvE.
I mean the issue is that reworking a spec leads to an old design disappearing.
If hunters were to gain a tank spec, then just add a 4th spec.
Remember when survival was changed from ranged to melee in Legion…
It just never ends well.
The tech for a new spec is there, druids have 4 as well.
And maybe it’s about time every class got a 4th specialization. It would fit with the new support role that augmentation is.
I mean the basics are already there. Rogue getting a bleed spreading spec that makes enemies deal less damage and take more damage from allies. Warlock similar with their curses and corruptions.
Meanwhile paladins could get a support spec like evoker maybe bringing back blessings of kings and buffing the raid like olden days.
Shamans can finally get their tanking spec etc.
Point being, let’s stop being reductionist and asking blizzard to remove stuff, ask blizzard to add more stuff instead.
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I didn’t read thru everything but no. I am a surv main and I disagree with the idea of us being a tank. I mean yes they need to give us a lil more defensive but not a tank.
And our melee toolkit is just fine. We have a button for everything. Yes we are kinda locked in to what we do but that’s fine. It’s extremely versatile can hold its own in any situation and lots of time it amazes the pugs what a surv can do.
Surv is the most reactive of the 3 specs and requires a lot of micromanaging because every button you using has an affect on our rotation. I mean us unholy dks know all about that.
But if people are wanting this to be a tank because they think that surv is bottom of the barrel are extremely mistaken.