SV and MM being similar LMAO, they were NEVER similar, not even close. MM has always been slow, measured and deliberate. R-SV WAS a fast paced, unpredictable, exciting and extremely fun Ranged spec to play from WotLK to MoP. Then they made it the lowest ranged dps spec in the game in WoD knowing it was being removed in Legion. For many of us R-SV was the most enjoyable time playing a game we loved. I have played almost every other dps spec, ranged and melee, and have not been able to replicate the fun I had playing R-SV. I tried raiding MM and BM, did mythic raid progression with both over the years, neither compares to what SV once was. You can disagree with what spec that you find most enjoyable to play, go at it, but saying MM and SV were similar is just flat out wrong.
Blizzard could take what they have now with melee SV and re-add explosive and Black Arrow to have a range spec that was distinctive enough from MM.
It would be completely focused on DoTs and AoE damage. They could have mad bombardier or lock n’ loaded as it main proc. Then change SV Mastery to improve the damage DoTs add, or just have it related to elemental damage.
Correlation is not causation, but if I’m finding the spec rather Gucci at the moment that’s a good thing. Hah! In all seriousness, people have no right to be angry. I dare argue that back in Legion and BFA, you had a right to be angry at SV’s failure. It. Just. Didn’t. Work.
Before tier sets made a comeback I saw this coming. People bragged about Wildfire Bomb all the time, and Blizzard responded to that energy. Nobody gave two poos about Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, Flanking Strike, and Fury of the Eagle(back in Legion). I find it hilarious that the melee-only abilities SV has can never come close to the kind of damage Stings and KC does, to speak nothing of the almighty “MIRV” grenades.
I played MM ever since I picked up this class in WoD and I’m having a blast with SV. SV isn’t as stealthy in my WPvP play but it’s fun. The only thing I regret is not having a petless option that I can utilize for better stealth play. The pet does all the serious melee the way it’s set up, which means you got to do pet management.
hey should really just make sv the bomber aoe class at this point
Ha ha. I didn’t even realise it was melee in Vanilla.
Lovely arguement to keep it melee. And look at Lacerate and whatnot to flavour up the spec further. 
It wasn’t. Any argument saying that it was ignores the fact that the categories back then were not designed to provide us with multiple defined playstyles like the core specs we have today, do. In short, no matter which one you went for, you always had the core mechanics of the class, those being designed for us to focus primarily on ranged combat(the only exception being if an enemy got to close and thus we were then forced to fight in melee due to the minimum attack range on ranged weapons). With that, the general intent as a hunter was to do what you could to get back to attacking from afar again.
Survival back then did not change any of this. Nor did either of the other 2 categories.
It’s better than MM and BM and since it’s melee people who main hunters don’t like it, but kinda feel forced to play it.
Based on comments that always bounce from main post topic or question, some people are obsessed with ranged SV. They’re trying to make everyone believe it was go to spec and people who think differently are clearly delusional and didn’t play the game back in old days which refers probably WoTLK-MoP era.
I love both version of SV hunter, with little bit more bias towards current SV play style. Old ranged SV was almost perfect if it didn’t had Black arrow. I hate the idea having hunters playing around with shadow magic. Reason I don’t play MM is because of arcane shot. Seriously? Arcane damage? Again this is my opinion.
True it was never meant to be pure melee. SV tree was more pvp oriented even back in vanilla. If you dedicated fully to SV tree , you had improved escape chance out of dead zone, with better dodge chance, and slightly better damage with melee.
Paired with BM tree back then it was close to todays SV where your pet was dealing damage with you. Still you had same ranged spells like today. Arcane and SS. Unless you focus on MM tree to get AS in which case is not SV anymore is MM hunter.
But it was mindset of players that didn’t wanted to go melee as hunters even you had to wear melee weapons for stats. AS was always broken and good damage to be left behind. Ranged is easier to play then melee and I understand frustration of hunters
Maybe you should read some of the responses before gullibly accepting what OP is saying and developing such bad takes.
P.S. How would a generic Rend clone give the spec flavour? We already have 5 specs other than SV devoted to physical melee. It’s just silly to continue wanting to push SV as well in that direction. Serpent Sting is far more unique, iconic, and a better fit for Hunters.
That doesn’t sound accurate, wasnt survival an active spec in vanilla, tbc, wotlk, cata, mop and WoD? The melee iteration of SV hunters did not come about till Legion which has only been 2.5 expansions.
Im not mad at survival but it should be able to do ranged and melee in a way that both feel great and not just good and if you don’t want to use the melee side you don’t have to. I think for range they should bring back the Dots playstlyle and for the melee is should be a sustain damage with burst. So a hunter can weaken down an opponent at ranged then harpoon in for the kill if you combine the playstyles.
well the main reason hunters had some melee abilities in vanilla is solely because (if you were there playing or not) hunters had a dead zone back then. if a player in pvp or a mob would be on top of you then you were unable to use your ranged weapon. aka the dead zone. and that and that alone is why hunters had melee abilities. once blizzard realized how dumb this was they removed the dead zone and hunters made it to their glorious form of full ranged.
survival vanilla was most certainy melee and could dual wield
All three specs could dual wield.
Survival was played as a ranged DPS as much as possible. Melee damage buffs were for situational usage.
not
i played as a brawler and it was fine
Its melee toolkit was scarce and undertuned. Sticking to melee came at a big hit to survivability and damage output. Because it wasn’t a melee spec.
it’s weird how we just replayed classic wow and people still think hunters had a melee spec in vanillia lol
“Fine” is hardly something i would use to quantify a spec defining feature, you could argue playing fully ranged survival in 9.2 is “fine” but you would be wrong.
And what the heck is a brawler?
similar to how a good combat rogue played
the re released classic wow isnt true vanilla
ie no true human racials
no reckoning paladins
no proc double hit swords
no proc stun maces.
i played from alpha to beta to release.
many people here werent even born yet.
so until you played the release version of classics these current iterations are vastly sub par
I’m not sure if this point was made but by the time SV became melee in Leg there was already three new classes: DK, Monk, and DH which were all melee. This never needed to happen unless the hatred towards RDPS wasn’t real.