Here you have an image of what I’m thinking about. In terms of how it could be made more realistic:
https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/27/26465/HeadHunter.jpgYou can also see the “Carrier” for the extra spears on the back. It can contain 2-3 extra spears. You can have designs that fit throwing axes and such as well.
Those spears, aren’t Polearms. They are made with the intention to be thrown. However, due to their design, they can also be used as Melee-based weapons.
I think you’re missing the point. Your weapons would stay melee weapons. However, your range would be extended to 40 yards.
If you stood in melee range, you would melee the target.
Outside of melee range, you would throw your weapons.
You’re not losing anything…
I dig what you’re shovelling.
This concept is a much better slution than have MSV throwing spirit birds every minute and a half.
Just give a streaking effect and a flash striking effect to make it look cool.
Did you really just complain about the believability of being able to carry an endless supply of axes while playing as a goblin with dinosaur pets…
It clear that you never paid attention in history class otherwise you would know Goblins rode Dinosaurs.
Considering MM is unplayable by many hunters, I expect a ranged Survival would be just as bad. We would be back to rotating between ‘least broken spec of the month’ in such a case.
I’m sorry but…what?
That statement doesn’t make much sense considering MM have a different playstyle/focus to what ranged Survival will have if it would come back to the modern game.
If all your focus is on only playing the spec that performs the best, sure.
Thank you for making sense
An outcome that I haven’t seen mentioned is for Blizzard to just make hunter a 2 spec class with bm and melee surv and make a ranger class with mm and ranged surv
I have seen that before (it was surprisingly common during Legion beta), and I still think the idea is horrible.
No.
Just no.
I created Watermist in 2005. For 14+ years, she has always been MM.
And you’re saying a good solution is to flat out REMOVE my 14-year-old main’s spec to an entirely different class, as a way to “solve” the mess Blizzard made when THEY decided to delete ranged SV?
No, thanks.
That would be the thing to finally make me quit WoW after 14 years of nonstop playing AND make me leave the Warcraft franchise after being a loyal fan since the Warcraft 1 days.
What they are suggesting is not to remove MM but to move it into its own class, and at the same time bring back RSV.
It an intriguing concept, would give another range dps class and be closer to the ranger/ archer type some players have asked for.
Blizzard could add a third spec with Dark Rangers.
MSV could be redesigned to be more like BM with more focus on player/pet interaction.
I understand what they’re suggesting.
Still, no thanks. Watermist would be left behind with BM and melee SV. If I want MM, I’d have to ditch my main of 14+ years to re-roll.
So… no thanks.
Edit: in the end, two 2-spec classes still equals 4 specs. It’s easier and better to give Hunters a fourth spec, rather than to alienate all the MM and ranged SV players, by forcing us to abandon our long-time mains and re-roll.
dark ranger is not a spec. it’s so annoying seeing that suggestion. they are literally dead. it would be like paladins having a DK spec.
Very much this.
As stated by others with Dark Rangers, despite the fact that it might be an appealing playstyle to add in. Dark Rangers are essentially undead/forsaken Elven rangers. Even if you remove the Elf-restriction, you still have the undead/forsaken part. It does not make sense for a Tauren or Goblin, or even a Night Elf to be a Dark Ranger as an example.
And like Mists said regarding splitting the class into two. Technically, it might be an appealing choice. But if people think adding in a 4th spec to the Hunter class(in the form of RSV) require a lot of time and work, imagine what would be required to create an entirely new class, even if certain core abilities already exists.
You would have to come up with a entirely new base toolkit for that new class. New utility, new forms of CC, new defensives, and so on.
You cannot bring over the abilities that already exists within the Hunter class. Nothing pet related. No ranged slows, incapacitates nor any Traps could be brought over to the new class(unless removed from Hunters).
I mean, technically you could do that, but that would in general make us have two different classes with the same core toolkit. I very much doubt that it would happen.
Call me biased due to my prior suggestions, (suggested design for a 4th spec RSV option). But I believe that the 4th spec-route is the one that requires the least amount of work while not affecting any existing hunter specs in any really negative way, as in: not affecting other specs general designs/directions.
With BFA coming close to its end we can expect MSV will not be made range next expansion; however, we can look to improvements that can be changed or added to MSV that would encourage more Hunter to try it, or even old RSV die hards to give it another play.
I like to give it more trap options, and have it able to play range or melee through a aspect toggle than a cooldown. Have it focused on elemental damage than pet dps.
Personally there is no compromise that includes melee at all that would make me play the spec.
If melee is such a hindrance to Hunters’ acceptance of the spec then it should not be melee, simple as that. Constantly changing and tweaking the spec and making it numerically optimal are not real solutions and are just avoiding the main issue.
Yeah, it’s unlikely they will make it ranged again but it was even more unlikely to make it melee in the first place but they still went ahead and did it. It is not unthinkable to reverse it.
More trap options will achieve nothing at all. The brutal fact is Explosive Trap, Immolation Trap, and Snake Trap always had niche usefulness if any at all. When Explosive Trap was part of the rotation people hated it. Trap Mastery MIGHT help (why was it ever removed; how can people argue melee SV fulfills the trapper identity when it doesn’t have improved traps??) but frankly the spec is already tuned to ridiculousness in PvP and is STILL getting buffs as they continue to bribe people to play it.
Making a ranged/melee toggle is pointless. There would literally be no situations where you would prefer to be melee so they would have to give a damage incentive to being melee, in which case you’re just effectively back to the current state of the spec: a spec where you can do a lot of damage at range but you prefer to be melee. Making such a thing a TALENT is better because that’s a choice with permanence e.g. you don’t switch it in combat or anything so it’s more defining of your identity as a Hunter. But such a talent should not be Survival; it should be BM.
You can’t separate pet damage from Survival. Hunters are defined by two things: ranged weapons and pets. If you don’t have one, you have to focus on the other. If you have neither, you’re a Warrior. MM has little focus on pets so it doubles down on the ranged weapon aspect, which makes sense for the pet. So a melee Hunter is necessarily dependent on a pet to still be a Hunter at all. Even keeping the pet aspect but minimising it wouldn’t work because so much of SV’s current identity depends on the pet. It really is melee BM.
I’ll take any excuse to get my Survival Hunter back. I don’t want to play EQ Beast Master. If I want to melee, I have a Paladin and a Rogue for that.
I also don’t begrudge the EQ Beast Mastery class. Just make it it’s OWN CLASS…if I remember correctly, they could tank as well. So there, they’d even have an additional role :)……and hey! How about you let them heal using the old “magic” pets, there’s a 3rd spec.
Now you have a new class to showcase in the next expansion and I get Survival back (unmaimed please).
<3
While I get why you would make a suggestion such as this one, I think that there would be quite a few current hunters out there who wouldn’t want BM to be removed from the class.
Like with a prior suggestion a bit further up in this thread regarding splitting the class into two. Where one would be made up of BM + current SV and the other would be MM + old ranged SV.
For one, there would most likely be a lot of hunters not wanting this.
Second, the amount of work required to essentially create two classes that somehow retains the fantasy of the Hunter while still being unique enough to warrant the split, would be on the…larger side.
Some people come back and say that a 4th spec option for the Hunter class is out of the question due to the time and work required to get it into the game and to make it balanced/tuned well enough, that it would just be too much.
Imagine creating a completely new class in order for the various playstyles to work.
#ReturnRangedSurvival
Sorry, I’m a bit biased 
Sorry, I would NEVER ask to have the WoW BM spec removed, even though I don’t personally like it.
What I am referring to is making the NEW survival spec it’s own class. It very closely resembles the Everquest(EQ) Beast Master, and additional specs to go with it, since the current one would be DPS. That way the current lovers of new survival would not have to suffer through being erased from the game as well.