Should Survival have been a tank spec?

[ydraw]

Tank shortages have nothing to do with a lack of tank specs. It's that most people don't like tanking. Making Survival a tank spec wouldn't magically make there be more tanks..

Except for the multiple people in this thread who've said they would enjoy tanking on their hunter.

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Let's see:

Warriors can be tank.
Druids can be tank.
Monks can be tank.
Demon hunters can be tank.
Paladins can be tank.

5 classes are not enough tanks?, you seem to confuse that people don't want to be tanks with they CAN'T be tanks.

More people want to be tanks than want to be melee hunters. I am yet to see a survival hunter in this expansion, the spec is a complete waste of space.

[Safetyoff]

I'd play SV if it was a tank spec, insta queues for daily H and dung wq's. As it is now i haven't even bothered to get my SV artifact, if I want to play melee i'll go play my DH or ENH.

[DeicideUH]

I do play as Survival. I can see it working well as a tank. Right now, as a DPS spec, I can solo content in eastern Suramar so long I don't pull too many mobs, so I do think the mechanics could work for a tank.

Damage mitigation could involve letting the Pet tank for a while, so it takes damage instead of you. Defensive CDs could improve its dodge or redirecting damage to the pet. I see it being an "agility" tank that, unlike the other ones (DK becomes huge demon; Druid becomes bear) dodges and distracts its target rather than soak lots of damage.

[Hoofey]

Except for the multiple people in this thread who've said they would enjoy tanking on their hunter.

Seriously, its people saying stuff like this that messed up survival in the first place.
Claims that many people wanted survival to be melee, based off a few comments on the forums, led Blizzard to believe that there was a demand for a melee specc, even though the majority chose hunter to play a ranged+pet class.

All they did by changing survival to melee was to replace a widely played specc that a whole lot of people enjoyed, with a niche specc that you barely even see people playing.
Its just stupid, I've seen more legendaries drop in my groups than I've seen survival hunters in my class hall/groups.

[Kagdar]

Seriously, its people saying stuff like this that messed up survival in the first place.
Claims that many people wanted survival to be melee, based off a few comments on the forums, led Blizzard to believe that there was a demand for a melee specc, even though the majority chose hunter to play a ranged+pet class.

All they did by changing survival to melee was to replace a widely played specc that a whole lot of people enjoyed, with a niche specc that you barely even see people playing.
Its just stupid, I've seen more legendaries drop in my groups than I've seen survival hunters in my class hall/groups.

I don't think they made survival melee only because of players' demands. They wanted to make each hunter spec unique in a way. Surv and MM were almost the same, you use your bow/xbow/gun to shoot arrows from distance with minimal pet usage (or none with lone wolf which was taken by everyone).

BM is pet heavy spec. so they needed to make something really different with either MM or surv. And MM scream range bow abilities. Sure forum suggestion might have game them some ideas about making Surv a melee spec, but it was almost the only option available the other would have been a heavy trap/gadget spec but that would go againt engineering. And Surv WAS a melee/range hybrid spec in early wow.

They made the same with rogues : 1 stealth, 1 non stealth and i "range" spec.

[threads]

I don't think they made survival melee only because of players' demands. They wanted to make each hunter spec unique in a way. Surv and MM were almost the same, you use your bow/xbow/gun to shoot arrows from distance with minimal pet usage (or none with lone wolf which was taken by everyone).

BM is pet heavy spec. so they needed to make something really different with either MM or surv. And MM scream range bow abilities. Sure forum suggestion might have game them some ideas about making Surv a melee spec, but it was almost the only option available the other would have been a heavy trap/gadget spec but that would go againt engineering. And Surv WAS a melee/range hybrid spec in early wow.

They made the same with rogues : 1 stealth, 1 non stealth and i "range" spec.

MM was pretty much the least played spec since focus was added until their HFC tier made them OP and they kept pruning the shit out of SV. They weren't the same specs. MM mastery was annoying. Casting Aimed shot was annoying. SV was 10x more enjoyable in cata/mop.

[MacMathan]

Oh HELL no.

[bloodmoth13]

Perhaps, makes sense name wise, but im happy with the survival spec we got, its one of my favorite melee specs to date. Perhaps in the future we will get 4th specs that give all classes an off role and can bring in subspecs that overlap too much with current classes.
Then we can rename survival to headhunter or something, add a survival tank spec and so on for other classes.

[Deleted]

I couldn't agree more with the initial argument. I personally loved the old SV, and to me it had a clear differentiation from MM. I cannot understand why mages have 3 DPS specs, rogues have 3 DPS specs, and we were the only one that needed a clear differentiation. I can understand that the melee-ranged ratio was unbalanaced, and that the Hunter is one of the most popular classes and so making a change in it would lead to greater diversity. But What WoW was lacking were tanks, not melee classes. They could just have made the hunter a little worse so that it wouldn't be competitive in raiding and just leave it as a tank that brought utility (traps?) for heroics and mythic.

[Kelthos]

I think it could have been interesting to have a survival tank. Perhaps they are a bit squishier than other tanks but use their pet to help spread/mitigate their incoming damage or something. God knows people would not hate on it so much if it had been a tank.

[Bladeweaver]

or complain so much if the pet pulled another group by accident lol. One could always put it down to chain pulling more to clear stuff quicker ^^

[splatomat]

Short answer: yes
Long answer: yes, although BM could have also been turned into a tank spec by making them the polearm-wielding, pet-RIDING, mounted lancer tank. would have been cool as CRAP to ride into battle on your spectral crab or bear. I might have even wanted to tank.

Basically, any chance blizzard has to turn a pure DPS classes' specs into either a healer or a tank, they should take it. Every time they don't, they failed.

[Imonaboat13]

Survival should have been a healing spec!