Thinking to main survival....

[Bepples]

Because I'm talking about HIM playing another spec. Outside of world race guilds, most players will play a class they enjoy better than whatever FotM sims higher or what they're being told is better damage.

This logic is flawed. In 6.2 we all played Marksmanship whether or not we liked it because Blizzard botched tuning in 6.2 and BM and SV were pretty much unplayable (moreso SV). Even people who didn't like the spec could just as well play optimally and be considered a "good MM hunter". All my parses were in the >90th percentile ranges (Except for Kil'rogg because I was never assigned to the soak group ) and I hated the spec, coming from BM/SV.

The complaint was you rolled Hunter to be ranged, you still can.

Overused shitposting argument. There is no suitable substitute in game right now for what SV was before 7.0.

What you're saying now is that with "being ranged" meant "playing a spec that I enjoyed in specific expansions but even if it was still ranged now, it may or may not still exist in a similar style"

There would still be a better chance of it becoming better and building on what made it good previously if it were still ranged. Going melee = committing to a failed idea with no easy way out.

You're butthurt the spec you enjoyed is gone, we get it. But if I understand your posts correctly, you've never played the melee Survival as it is now, so you're not really forming a substantiated opinion on the spec.

Why should I? I don't like melee DPS. I don't see why I should invest time and AP in a spec I know I won't like.

I played SV for a bit on the 7.0 PTR. I did not like it. I can also go find out how SV plays now from second-hand (e.g. videos, guides), which I have. None of what made SV good in the past is there now.

You also seem to blame any and all issues BM & MM have on Blizzard devoting all their time on Surv, although you a) have no data to back up such claims

BM received no major changes from the beginning of Alpha to the release of 7.0. MM received some bandaid talent revisions. SV received constant gameplay tweaking and tuning buffs. This sort of dynamic also existed after 7.0 had released on live servers.

and b) if that was true, wouldn't surv perform far better, as it has triple the focus other specs do?

You are dealing with a highly incompetent design team here, so no. Look at the amount of time Holinka and the PvP team spent on Ashran trying to make people like it and it STILL crashed and burned.

- - - Updated - - -

Being someone's alt doesn't validate your argument in anyway btw, so I would give up on that shitty angle if I were you. Some of us don't raid with guilds and just pug shit while playing multiple classes and enjoying them equally as our mains.

Being an alt hunter = being less invested in the class and therefore caring less about the class. That means caring less if specs go bad or get carved up for the sake of some nebulous ideas of "innovation" or "class fantasy".

Most people who actually play Survival and advocate it on these forums play a hunter casually or on an alt, and they flat out don't give a shit about anyone who got screwed over by SV going melee because they never had anything invested in the old SV playstyle beyond very casual play so it doesn't matter to them. That's not at all fair to the people who played and enjoyed SV for years but ultimately weren't listened to and were just treated as negligible collateral damage by everyone.

[Usagi Senshi]

Being an alt hunter = being less invested in the class and therefore caring less about the class. That means caring less if specs go bad or get carved up for the sake of some nebulous ideas of "innovation" or "class fantasy".

Most people who actually play Survival and advocate it on these forums play a hunter casually or on an alt, and they flat out don't give a shit about anyone who got screwed over by SV going melee because they never had anything invested in the old SV playstyle beyond very casual play so it doesn't matter to them. That's not at all fair to the people who played and enjoyed SV for years but ultimately weren't listened to and were just treated as negligible collateral damage by everyone.

Yeah, you should probably stop and take a break from the game if you're reaching this far because people are enjoying a spec and you're not. I played an enhance shaman for 12 years and probably cried more than you have and I got over (new enhance sucks major dick IMO) it and ultimately quit the class and moved to monk.

Its a new and fun spec (which the game needs and I hope warlock and mage get the treatment next time), its not going away like Prot DPS did as it had some actual dev time done to it with its theme, weapons (worst looking two-handers of all thew new relics though :/ ), and talents, and it requires more skill to play than the other two specs (more so BM, wtf is that shit? Its like that one button fighting game on Steam, lol) do.

One thing I do agree with you on from an older post is that it should have been a 4th spec but eh, whats done is done.

[Guran]

This logic is flawed. In 6.2 we all played Marksmanship whether or not we liked it because Blizzard botched tuning in 6.2 and BM and SV were pretty much unplayable (moreso SV). Even people who didn't like the spec could just as well play optimally and be considered a "good MM hunter". All my parses were in the >90th percentile ranges (Except for Kil'rogg because I was never assigned to the soak group ) and I hated the spec, coming from BM/SV.

Took a break then, so no first hand experience, but one case in the past does not mean it's the same now, we're no longer in 6.2. I'm also assuming "we all" refers to the Hunters in your guild, because I doubt you can speak for what every hunter at the time felt about the spec's performance.

Overused shitposting argument. There is no suitable substitute in game right now for what SV was before 7.0.

Neither is their for 2H Enh Shams, reckoning bomb pala, 3-button disc priests competing on DPS, Frost DK tanks and Wrath's 1-button Warrior tanks (both of em). Stuff changes, either you learn to adapt or go back to your private server, to which the current discussion is not relevant anyway.

There would still be a better chance of it becoming better and building on what made it good previously if it were still ranged. Going melee = committing to a failed idea with no easy way out.

I could argue that it's hard to find a lot of good things to build on if the spec is so botched most people swapped out of the spec. Regardless, I think a lot of the core mechanics have still remained in the spec. Lacerate (with 7.0 CD) replaced Black Arrow for me, Raptor Strike (WotM & SS) or Flanking Strike (AI & AotB) replaced the non-CD spender/upkeep part of Arcane+SS in my eyes, CDs like Explosive Trap & MoC are still around... The major differences are LnL (moved to MM as Mark/Vulnerable) and the Mongoose window to replace the LnL procs.

Why should I? I don't like melee DPS. I don't see why I should invest time and AP in a spec I know I won't like.

I played SV for a bit on the 7.0 PTR. I did not like it. I can also go find out how SV plays now from second-hand (e.g. videos, guides), which I have. None of what made SV good in the past is there now.

Yet you ARE investing time in Surv, by coming on these forums and complaining constantly. Either accept the fact that you don't like the new spec and swap/leave or try and be constructive building the spec towards one you would like to play.

BM received no major changes from the beginning of Alpha to the release of 7.0. MM received some bandaid talent revisions. SV received constant gameplay tweaking and tuning buffs. This sort of dynamic also existed after 7.0 had released on live servers.

This isn't proof of time spent on a spec though, as Hunter specs were not the only ones being considered unpolished at launch time. I personally think that they tried to release Legion too soon and should have taken more time for it, but that's an executive/marketing decision and imho is not inherently part of the Surv spec or hunter class in itself. As for bandaid revisions, Surv got a lot of them as well, with a lot of number tuning & fixes only coming in 7.1.

You are dealing with a highly incompetent design team here, so no. Look at the amount of time Holinka and the PvP team spent on Ashran trying to make people like it and it STILL crashed and burned.

I don't think comparing PvP design to class design is fair, especially when changes seem to always focus on PvE, with PvP only being adapted retro-actively or as an aftertought. The stat equalization & PvP-only abilities, talents etc just further prove that point. Also, your argument still does not provide an answer. If an incompetent team has triple the time on a spec as for other classes, would it not be more likely they get it right at some point, regardless of their competence? Monkeys and Shakespeare, right?

Being an alt hunter = being less invested in the class and therefore caring less about the class. That means caring less if specs go bad or get carved up for the sake of some nebulous ideas of "innovation" or "class fantasy".

Most people who actually play Survival and advocate it on these forums play a hunter casually or on an alt, and they flat out don't give a shit about anyone who got screwed over by SV going melee because they never had anything invested in the old SV playstyle beyond very casual play so it doesn't matter to them. That's not at all fair to the people who played and enjoyed SV for years but ultimately weren't listened to and were just treated as negligible collateral damage by everyone.

This argument is based on a terrible fallacy. There is no reason for someone to care less for a class simply because it is not their main. There isn't even any proof that the people advocating Survival around here play less than the people who main BM/MM but want old Surv back. By that reasoning, you shouldn't even have a say, because you just claimed you're not willing to invest time in Survival at all. (outside of ranting on these forums about the 'good ol' days' ofcourse) To then assume those alt players do not give a gnoll's ass about other hunter players or that their opinion matters more to blizzard for some reason is at best an opinion claimed as truth and at worst a direct ad hominem on anyone not agreeing with you. Game design is not a democracy, nor a plutocracy based on time invested. It's an authoritarian dictatorship with Blizz devs as rulers, with the only rule being that if you don't like it, you are free to unsub and bugger off. Or you could actually be constructive and try to move forward with the current situation instead of complaining about wanting to turn back time.

[Bepples]

Yeah, you should probably stop and take a break from the game if you're reaching this far because people are enjoying a spec and you're not.

Their enjoyment is built on the lack of enjoyment of a much larger group of people because their spec is now gone. Please spare me the "just let people enjoy their spec!" angle because they did not let me enjoy the spec I played (ranged Survival) so why should I be accommodating to them?

I played an enhance shaman for 12 years and probably cried more than you have and I got over (new enhance sucks major dick IMO) it and ultimately quit the class and moved to monk.

Don't care about your life story. Enhancement is still, at it's core, the same role as it has been since the beginning and built on its past designs, however much it has deviated (can't comment on that because I've never played it because lol melee).

Its a new and fun spec (which the game needs and I hope warlock and mage get the treatment next time)

"Who gives a shit about the people currently playing those specs! Fuck 'em! Remove their specs from the game because I want something mildly more interesting in case one day I make a warlock/mage alt!"

its not going away like Prot DPS did as it had some actual dev time done to it with its theme

I mean, so did old Survival but that didn't stop them from removing it.

it requires more skill to play than the other two specs

In spite of it being melee, not because of it.

One thing I do agree with you on from an older post is that it should have been a 4th spec but eh, whats done is done.

If ranged Survival can be undone after 8 years, so can melee Survival after 2 years.

Took a break then, so no first hand experience, but one case in the past does not mean it's the same now, we're no longer in 6.2. I'm also assuming "we all" refers to the Hunters in your guild, because I doubt you can speak for what every hunter at the time felt about the spec's performance.

If you had no first hand experience you really shouldn't talk so as not to embarrass yourself as much as you did here. There was no real option other than MM for hunters in 6.2 for a number of reasons. It was the only hunter spec that was any good at priority add damage and HFC was full of priority adds. It was also the only one that made real good usage of the legendary ring. Compare that to Survival which got hit by a 20% nerf due to....ahem...a "bug fix" according to Blizzard, and BM which was only good for sustained AoE fights (i.e. pretty much nothing in HFC).



So no, your assumption is not good because when I say "we all" I mean ALL hunters and I can absolutely speak for what every hunter at the time felt: Marksman was the only good option.

Oh, and the usual #NotAllHunters disclaimer: Yes, you will find the occasional exception to the rule. On that graph you can see how you had some people playing as BM. But you can also see that the vast majority of hunters were Marksman. Survival was simply not an option thanks to Blizzard design failures.

Neither is their for 2H Enh Shams, reckoning bomb pala, 3-button disc priests competing on DPS, Frost DK tanks and Wrath's 1-button Warrior tanks (both of em). Stuff changes, either you learn to adapt or go back to your private server, to which the current discussion is not relevant anyway.

Just stop. None of those are comparable to a spec being literally removed from the game.

And no, I am not obliged to accept negative changes, so you can "adapt" to seeing criticism of your beloved company on forums or GTFO.

I could argue that it's hard to find a lot of good things to build on if the spec is so botched most people swapped out of the spec.

Lol? Never mind the fact that the spec was nerfed to the fucking ground and got out-damaged by tanks, apparently.

If we wanted to play it WE WOULD HAVE, but WE COULDN'T. Before Blizzard fucked the spec with tuning nerfs it was very popular.

Regardless, I think a lot of the core mechanics have still remained in the spec.

Ignored the rest of this paragraph because if it's backing up this point it's undoubtedly all stupid and a waste of time to read. If it's melee, it's not at all the same. Case closed. No debate. Not negotiable.

People liked Survival for it being a unique, fast-paced, mobile, multi-dotting, utilitarian, RANGED spec. Not "some other melee" like it is now.

Yet you ARE investing time in Surv, by coming on these forums and complaining constantly.

Yes, the time I spend on the forums, which is like 1 hour a day on a busy day (while also doing other stuff at the same time) and NOTHING on most days is totally comparable to spending hundreds of hours investing in a spec. Once again, just stop.

Either accept the fact that you don't like the new spec and swap/leave or try and be constructive building the spec towards one you would like to play.

Wanting the ranged spec back is actually constructive. Removing it like Blizzard did is actually the opposite of constructive. I would like to play a RANGED spec like the one I had before. If you think that's unfair, how was it fair for the (few) people who wanted a melee spec to have our spec removed in the first placed?

This is what's great about these arguments. You can't say things like "be constructive" or "let people enjoy their specs" without being a massive fucking hypocrite because a big part of why this melee spec exists is that Blizzard were destructive and they didn't let people "enjoy their specs"; same for the people asking for Survival to go melee (once again, what few of them there were).

This isn't proof of time spent on a spec though, as Hunter specs were not the only ones being considered unpolished at launch

> BM and MM had less polish
> Not proof of less time spent v.s. the spec with more polish

SV had more polish and more active changes (and from what I hear even that didn't mean much), that means they spent more time on SV. Period.

I personally think that they tried to release Legion too soon and should have taken more time for it, but that's an executive/marketing decision and imho is not inherently part of the Surv spec or hunter class in itself.

> 13 months of 6.2
> Legion released too soon and they should have spent more time

Oh, and also the usual:

> Deflecting blame from one bad Blizzard design decision to another bad Blizzard design decision

As for bandaid revisions, Surv got a lot of them as well, with a lot of number tuning & fixes only coming in 7.1.

Sucks. Maybe they shouldn't have made such large changes to begin with if they apparently didn't have the ability to see them through. That should be the lesson for the utter mess that is post-7.0 class design. ESPECIALLY for melee Survival.

I don't think comparing PvP design to class design is fair, especially when changes seem to always focus on PvE, with PvP only being adapted retro-actively or as an aftertought.

Completely irrelevant as to why Ashran sucked. But if you need more direct examples I have plenty. How about the time Celestalon insisted elemental shamans were fine on WoD beta before having to rescue the spec with massive hotfix buffs post-launch when it turned out they had trouble with quest mobs? Or what about that time when they hotfix nerfed Rain of Fire to the ground and then the day afterwards admitted it was a mistake but refused to revert the nerf because it would have been "too big a change to make via hotfix"? Or what about that time when Survival was completely unviable raiding for over a year due to a supposed "bug fix"? Or what about how Dire Frenzy was implemented in early Beta in 2016 but didn't work with our tier set bonus until 2 weeks ago? Or what about that they had a talent for Elemental which was a DPS loss over an empty talent slot and as a solution they nerfed the other 2 talents in the tier?

I can go on and on. This is perhaps the most incompetent development team I've seen for any AAA game ever. This is the kind of shit you expect from a trashy Steam Greenlight indie game staffed by amateurs, not people who are being payed to manage the largest subscription MMO out there. I am FULLY confident they can make a team of 12 random >80 percentile players, one from each class, with NO game development experience, that can do a better job.

If an incompetent team has triple the time on a spec as for other classes, would it not be more likely they get it right at some point, regardless of their competence? Monkeys and Shakespeare, right?

Wrong. They can easily instead make it steadily worse which is what's happening to Hunters right now. I used Ashran because it was a similar situation: they spent a massive amount of time trying to make it likeable only to just continue failing the whole time. The same is happening for Survival. A whole bunch of time and effort for something nobody likes. If the class developers aren't feeling like total wastes of their company's salary budget right now they really should be.

This argument is based on a terrible fallacy. There is no reason for someone to care less for a class simply because it is not their main.

Not main = less time spent = less effort = less care. Simple. I have a boosted Rogue alt but I'm not going to go over to their forums and demand that Outlaw becomes a ranged spec even though that would improve the spec's appeal to me personally because a) I still probably wouldn't play it and b) It's absolutely not my place because I am not a rogue main and Blizzard should not be listening to me when I talk about rogue design since my own preferences clash with those of people who main rogues and spent a whole lot more time and effort playing the class.

The problem is that Blizzard did listen to all the rogues/warriors/death knights/whatever who cheered them on when they made melee Survival which violated rule b) above because they didn't have a significant amount of time invested compared to the people who actually mained Survival and they ended up invoking rule a) by not fucking playing the spec anyway. Funny how that works.

There isn't even any proof that the people advocating Survival around here play less than the people who main BM/MM but want old Surv back.

I mean, we are right about the part where it's less played. As for whether or not the people here advocating it are Survival mains: I'm sure a lot of them are but at the same time I've seen a whole lot of people defend it saying stuff like "My 4th alt is a hunter and I just got him to 110 as Survival and it seems pretty fun in random heroics so nah it's not a failure". Hell, the guy I was replying to that started this whole discussion was an alt.

By that reasoning, you shouldn't even have a say, because you just claimed you're not willing to invest time in Survival at all. (outside of ranting on these forums about the 'good ol' days' ofcourse)

I mained a hunter and I played Survival so I sure as hell should have more of a say than people who have an alt hunter that they rarely play or "couldn't get into hunters before melee Survival" like so many people on these forums

To then assume those alt players do not give a gnoll's ass about other hunter players or that their opinion matters more to blizzard for some reason is at best an opinion claimed as truth and at worst a direct ad hominem on anyone not agreeing with you.

The fact that Blizzard listened to them over veteran hunters means their opinion mattered more to Blizzard. Simple. If they cared about Survival players before 7.0 they wouldn't have a) actively fucked the spec in the ass in 6.2 and b) removed it in 7.0 entirely. Very simple.

Game design is not a democracy, nor a plutocracy based on time invested. It's an authoritarian dictatorship with Blizz devs as rulers, with the only rule being that if you don't like it, you are free to unsub and bugger off. Or you could actually be constructive and try to move forward with the current situation instead of complaining about wanting to turn back time.

Someone who invokes "might is right" to defend shitty design decisions has no business throwing around words like "fallacy". Good class design satisfies the players playing a class. That's what makes 7.0 bad class design.

I'm also free to bitch on the forums about hunters until they stop being shit (if ever) so you will be hearing from me for a long time. Even more reason for you to stop being such a white knight for Blizzard and also heckle them until you get a better class out of it. That actually IS constructive, contrary to your narrow-minded belief.

[Kudos]

Guy above me needs to take a break from the game. Blizz ruined Demo locks for me too. I just rolled another class after maining a Warlock since Vanilla. #feelsbadman

[Bepples]

Guy above me needs to take a break from the game. Blizz ruined Demo locks for me too. I just rolled another class after maining a Warlock since Vanilla. #feelsbadman

I sympathise with Warlocks after their treatment in 6.2, but being able to abandon your class doesn't make it any less shitty so "oh just reroll" means nothing. No ranged spec in the game plays like Survival did. There was no good reason to change it and no good reason not to add it back in SOME capacity (even as a 4th spec for Hunters).

Demo warlocks got pretty well fucked in 6.2 and 7.0 too but at least it remains in the game as a spec at least slightly recognisable as to what it used to be. No spec has ever been changed to the extent Survival was in 7.0 given that it was REMOVED. The only thing not changed is the name.

[Khrux]

Do you even play the game, or just post in Survival threads raving and ranting about your 6.2 spec? Its getting tiresome watching you move from thread to thread posting the same graphs and multi quoting everyone that disagrees with you.

We get it, you hate the spec and want the ranged version back. There, your contribution is noted and you don't need to post it anymore.

[Guran]

Do you even play the game, or just post in Survival threads raving and ranting about your 6.2 spec? Its getting tiresome watching you move from thread to thread posting the same graphs and multi quoting everyone that disagrees with you.

We get it, you hate the spec and want the ranged version back. There, your contribution is noted and you don't need to post it anymore.

You missing a big part though, it's all those people on their alts that actively worked to destroy ranged Survival that are to blame for everything!

</sarcasm>

- - - Updated - - -

Wait, so your proof as to the melee Survival failure (as a spec build) is bad numbers and you proclaim 6.2 Surv to be the better build of the spec, yet in the graph you link, 7.0 actually sees the same or more popularity for Surv?
Doesn't that mean that 6.2 Surv is an even worse design? You know, that design you want to go back to?

But hey, feel free to bitch & moan about melee hunters being bad, claiming your arguments are more valid because Survival is your main. (but it isn't anymore, is it?) Not like I mained Survival Hunter for atleast 4 expansions and only swapped to my Shaman fulltime because ... the guild needed more melee and as officer, I sacrificed myself. Man, if only Hunters had a melee spec, I'ld still be maining it right now! (And yes, I sticked to Shaman after that most of the time because I had a decent healer OS and it was often needed)
And good design does not focus on current players above others, it focuses on an entire playerbase, including new players who have no knowledge of the class history. Designing only to suite current players is also impossible, because any change will have both positive and negative feedback. This supposed design guideline mainly leads to one thing: no change at all.

PS: It's ironic that you bring up Outlaw Rogue, but refuse to comment on changes that would make it more interesting to you, because you haven't played it. (melee, herp derp) So how do you expect dev to make it more interesting? Just throw out random changes and wait for activity numbers to change? Or actually listen to people with constructive feedback? And by that reasoning, shouldn't you be the least vocal about 7.0 Survival because you outright refuse to play it? Even those 4th alters have put in more time than you now, so their opinion matters more, according to your own reasoning?

Let the ranting begin!
#popcorn

[Bepples]

Do you even play the game, or just post in Survival threads raving and ranting about your 6.2 spec? Its getting tiresome watching you move from thread to thread posting the same graphs and multi quoting everyone that disagrees with you.

We get it, you hate the spec and want the ranged version back. There, your contribution is noted and you don't need to post it anymore.

Today I learned that proper forum etiquette includes only contributing to a discussion once and then never, ever again regardless of how often the discussion pops up on the forums.

Actually, no, that's not how it works. The issue is still relevant so I'll still be here to discuss it.

Wait, so your proof as to the melee Survival failure (as a spec build) is bad numbers and you proclaim 6.2 Surv to be the better build of the spec, yet in the graph you link, 7.0 actually sees the same or more popularity for Surv?
Doesn't that mean that 6.2 Surv is an even worse design? You know, that design you want to go back to?

What a terrible attempt at deflection. You claimed that I couldn't say with certainty that most hunters were MM in 6.2. That graph shows that that was the case.

6.2 Survival was the same as 6.0 and 6.1 Survival. There was no design problem (well, besides the fact that the spec was missing a cooldown and an execute that it had in the previous expansion for some very nebulous and stupid reasons) because Survival was massively popular in those earlier patches. What changed in 6.2 was a so-called "bug fix" which wiped out 20% of SV's single target and almost all of its AoE capabilities. Add to that the legendary ring, which was GREAT for MM and TERRIBLE for SV. Add to that shitty SV set bonuses versus brokenly overpowered MM set bonuses. Add to that a raid full of fight mechanics that massively favoured MM and punish SV. SV just had no chance that tier and it was all due to careless planning and execution on Blizzard's part.

Notice how this is the exact opposite problem that Survival has now. In 6.2, Survival had a popular design (as evidenced by the fact that it was popular in T17) but was totally unviable for raiding. In 7.0 Survival is perfectly viable but has a very unpopular design. Unfortunately for Blizzard, tuning issues are vastly easier to fix than design issues.

So yeah: go back to a design at least similar to MoP/WoD and make sure it's actually viable in raiding unlike the mess that was 6.2 (although, to be honest, that was probably a deliberate attempt to empty out the spec and make people less attached to it in preparation for the switch to melee). It's a tried and tested and PROVEN design, and it was very popular in its time. Neither of those can be said about the current iteration of Survival, which at best MIGHT become popular in the distant futre.

But hey, feel free to bitch & moan about melee hunters being bad, claiming your arguments are more valid because Survival is your main. (but it isn't anymore, is it?) Not like I mained Survival Hunter for atleast 4 expansions and only swapped to my Shaman fulltime because ... the guild needed more melee and as officer, I sacrificed myself. Man, if only Hunters had a melee spec, I'ld still be maining it right now! (And yes, I sticked to Shaman after that most of the time because I had a decent healer OS and it was often needed)

When making such a large change to a spec, the opinion of people playing the spec matters first and foremost. Although really we should be talking about all hunters here since hunter was a class which had a lot of shifting between specs, just like the other pure DPS classes. And it's pretty damn certain at this point that most hunters didn't want a melee spec.

Blizzard made a change that was in the interests of people who didn't play hunters rather than hunters themselves. This ended up alienating hunters and failing to attract any of those other players.

And good design does not focus on current players above others, it focuses on an entire playerbase, including new players who have no knowledge of the class history.

According to that logic, Survival is STILL bad design because it failed to appeal to the playerbase at large, not just hunters. And believe it or not, you can make changes that benefit both groups of people.

Designing only to suite current players is also impossible, because any change will have both positive and negative feedback.

Yes, every change will have both positive and negative feedback. It's up to Blizzard to maximise the positivity. It's hard to argue that Survival had more positive feedback than negative because while it has a small, dedicated following, most players out there avoid it like the plague.

This supposed design guideline mainly leads to one thing: no change at all.

All specs undergo revisions every other expansion. I play a paladin as well, and they got changed in 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0. Ret is still a melee DPS. Prot is still a tank. Holy is still a healer. So no, sticking to one role (i.e. working to satisfy the current population of a spec) does not lead to "no change at all".

Survival underwent major revisions in 1.7, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, and 7.0. All those revisions were largely successful and increased the appeal of the spec, with the exception of 7.0 which threw away everything they had built up. It's the ONLY spec in the game that has changed roles (i.e. ranged DPS to melee DPS). Therefore you can't just treat it like any other spec revamp, because now it is something entirely different to the core and not at all what the former Survival players wanted from the spec. It's not at all what most hunters in general wanted from the spec. Your personal preferences and opinions mean nothing here because what matters is the general opinions and trends, and they're all largely against Survival.

PS: It's ironic that you bring up Outlaw Rogue, but refuse to comment on changes that would make it more interesting to you, because you haven't played it. (melee, herp derp) So how do you expect dev to make it more interesting? Just throw out random changes and wait for activity numbers to change? Or actually listen to people with constructive feedback?

You have a bad habit of totally missing the point. I would not play a rogue no matter what they did to it. It's not for me. I don't like melee DPS. It's not my place to demand a rogue spec stops being a melee DPS even if I personally don't like melee because that works against the interests of the people who DO play rogues.

Just as how it's not the place of people coming from the billion melee specs in the game to demand that a hunter spec goes melee pretty much purely because they wan't an easier time telling MM and SV hunters apart and not due to any actual time investment in the class.

But I guess that point isn't very accurate because it implies that there was significant external demand for a melee hunter spec when in reality there was almost no demand at all, external or internal.

And by that reasoning, shouldn't you be the least vocal about 7.0 Survival because you outright refuse to play it? Even those 4th alters have put in more time than you now, so their opinion matters more, according to your own reasoning?

No, that isn't how it works. You don't get to run off with the spec and say "It's mine now and you have no say in it!". We are not even half an expansion into the era of melee Survival so the previous 8 years of Survival are still relevant, as are the people who playd it.

[Draugnakh]

Well, the previous 8 years are kinda irrelevant to me. I stopped WoW because of all melee removal at Cata and the MM-magical-like SV (well, sadly since BC...). Stopping was my choice instead of crying on forum that people did not deserve to play "my spec" which wasn't the same anymore btw...

Make a break, really.

[Deleted]

I gave SV a try after a few weeks into legion, never switched back to MM or BM ever again.

SV is a hard rotation but when you pull it off, can be very rewarding. I am not the highest on the DPS meters but not the lowest either. It's best to just try it out and see if it suits your playstyle. I personally just got sick of having to wait for focus while playing MM with sidewinders (tried MM again with 7.1.5, arcane shot spamm wasn't my thing either).

Just check out the hunter class discord, there are plenty of people around there willing to help you with getting into SV.

[Guran]

What a terrible attempt at deflection. You claimed that I couldn't say with certainty that most hunters were MM in 6.2. That graph shows that that was the case.

Actually, I claimed you couldn't say those MM Hunters were 'forced' to swap specs and did not enjoy being MM. My old GM used to be an MM/Surv Hunter, because he disliked trusting pet AI doing a large part of his DPS, although he would spec BM if that was the best damage. While he quit permanently at that time, I know he would not care about Surv being shit DPS, as long as atleast 1 spec was viable. Similarly, atleast 2 specs are still Ranged.

6.2 Survival was the same as 6.0 and 6.1 Survival. There was no design problem (well, besides the fact that the spec was missing a cooldown and an execute that it had in the previous expansion for some very nebulous and stupid reasons) because Survival was massively popular in those earlier patches. What changed in 6.2 was a so-called "bug fix" which wiped out 20% of SV's single target and almost all of its AoE capabilities. Add to that the legendary ring, which was GREAT for MM and TERRIBLE for SV. Add to that shitty SV set bonuses versus brokenly overpowered MM set bonuses. Add to that a raid full of fight mechanics that massively favoured MM and punish SV. SV just had no chance that tier and it was all due to careless planning and execution on Blizzard's part.

Notice how this is the exact opposite problem that Survival has now. In 6.2, Survival had a popular design (as evidenced by the fact that it was popular in T17) but was totally unviable for raiding. In 7.0 Survival is perfectly viable but has a very unpopular design. Unfortunately for Blizzard, tuning issues are vastly easier to fix than design issues.

If low numbers are not an indication of a design failure, then higher numbers in 6.0 & 6.1 can't be an indication of success either. As said before, there is an unknown portion of the Hunters that swapped from Surv to MM simply because they only care about the highest damage spec. These people will have played Surv in 6.0 & 6.1 if MM was crap at that time and is in no way an indication of how popular the Survival spec as a design really was. And the data in your graph does show that. Again, I agree that these people swapped, but you can not attest as to WHY all those people swapped without asking each and everyone about their reasoning.

So yeah: go back to a design at least similar to MoP/WoD and make sure it's actually viable in raiding unlike the mess that was 6.2 (although, to be honest, that was probably a deliberate attempt to empty out the spec and make people less attached to it in preparation for the switch to melee). It's a tried and tested and PROVEN design, and it was very popular in its time. Neither of those can be said about the current iteration of Survival, which at best MIGHT become popular in the distant futre.

Conspiracy theory aside, the WoD spec might actually not have been able to be viable in Legion. If a lot of Hunters felt about the MM spec as you did, then Blizzard was right to try and change it in 7.0. Considering how the spec ended up, it definitely feels similar to old Surv to me (damage comes from bursts gained through procs, also has an AoE/Cleave component) and that would just make the 2 specs too much alike in my opinion. Perhaps there were other arguments as to why Blizzard decided to change Survival, butI think one of the key components is that both specs were close to eachother lore/feeling-wise, that they felt it restricted their options in the future without being too much like just physical & magic MM. And again, it's not because people played it, that it was a popular design. The Enh Sham community right now is full of people stating "I don't like this build, but it sims better than my favourite with tier/legendary/random things, so that's what I'm playing". And yes, that's only talents, but aren't they both just a trip to town and a shift in stat prio?

When making such a large change to a spec, the opinion of people playing the spec matters first and foremost. Although really we should be talking about all hunters here since hunter was a class which had a lot of shifting between specs, just like the other pure DPS classes. And it's pretty damn certain at this point that most hunters didn't want a melee spec.

I dislike your use of "first and foremost", as to me, that sort of feels as if you're trying to say all other opinions are irrelevant. Also, it's not because they have an opinion and it matters, that Blizzard is required to listen to them. 2H Enh Shams, Frost DK tanks, Glad Warriors, Fistweave Monks, Smite-spam Disc Priests were all severely changed or cut in some form of another as well, and I don't recall the people that wanted it to stay the same getting their way either.
Not to mention, it might not be that not a lot of Hunters ASKED for a melee spec, but that is not the same as a lot of them NOT wanting one. All the Hunters I know personally felt either indifferent at the time (prefer BM anyway) or thought it was interesting and might give them the option to swap between ranged & melee specs in the future. (Fight design, just have an 'alt' on the same toon) They also all knew that it would most likely end up with MM merging parts of Surv in, but none of the cared, as the spec was due some change anyway. (They had expected/hoped that the things they liked in Surv would replace the things they didn't like in MM)

Blizzard made a change that was in the interests of people who didn't play hunters rather than hunters themselves. This ended up alienating hunters and failing to attract any of those other players.

See, I don't get where you're getting this conspiracy theory from. Where did Blizzard ever say "hey, sucks if you're Surv now, but we care more about new players trying out Hunter than you!" Heck, it almost reads as an attack on those that DO play Surv now as some sort of "you made Blizzard kill my fun!" accusation.

According to that logic, Survival is STILL bad design because it failed to appeal to the playerbase at large, not just hunters. And believe it or not, you can make changes that benefit both groups of people.

Actually, I think the failure was to undertune(*) Surv at the start, which together with the AP system meant not a whole lot of people were willing to swap to Surv and try it out. As it had no historical players sticking to it, that meant for a long time there was little info or analyses being done on Surv. The fact people now come to forums and are asking for opinions about e.g. Surv vs MM means it IS appealing to players rolling a Hunter. (alt or new, doesn't really matter) If Surv was a bad design, people would come asking for advice on BM vs MM and I've seen very little of those threads popping up.
(*) On the other hand, if they tuned Surv numbers like they would have any newly introduced hero class, I'm certain most Hunters would feel 'forced' to play Surv for the damage, then complain afterwards when it got nerfed. It is the trickiest balance to find from a out-of-the-box tuning PoV and I think they did realise this soon after release, but it was still too late.

Yes, every change will have both positive and negative feedback. It's up to Blizzard to maximise the positivity. It's hard to argue that Survival had more positive feedback than negative because while it has a small, dedicated following, most players out there avoid it like the plague.

What is best is not always popular, what is popular is not always best. - I think it's Blizzard's job to look at long term, rather than feedback. That comment was thus made to show that if short term feedback was the only metric, any decision must thus sound popular, regardless of what it does for the future. (Something the current politics have started to do imho, but that's a topic for another forum)
You're also (incorrectly) correlating lack of feedback with negative feedback, while a large portion may (or may not, neither of us can really tell) just be indifference.
As said, a common argument against rerolls and respecs is the "failed design of Artifact Power." This could be a potential issue that reduces the amount of Hunters rerolling to Survival now in 7.1.5, even though the current percentage of Hunters playing Survival has been gone up since 6.2 (A lot of MM rerolled/quit in 7.0 it seems)

All specs undergo revisions every other expansion. I play a paladin as well, and they got changed in 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0. Ret is still a melee DPS. Prot is still a tank. Holy is still a healer. So no, sticking to one role (i.e. working to satisfy the current population of a spec) does not lead to "no change at all".

Correction, Ret was not always a melee DPS, it used to be a joke. Then it was a buffbot and THEN is was a melee DPS. And again, the argument of entitlement that the current players should be favoured over others.

Survival underwent major revisions in 1.7, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, and 7.0. All those revisions were largely successful and increased the appeal of the spec, with the exception of 7.0 which threw away everything they had built up.

First of all, 1.7 did nothing for Surv appeal. It went from "lol, Lacerate" to "lol, Wyvern Sting" (that 2 minute, CC once 31pointer talent, in case you forgot) and polished the other specs more than Surv got. You know what DID increase the appeal for Surv in my MC group back then? Me as Surv beating the 4 MM Hunters on damage, while also raid leading, marking & pet pulling. (after I literally got asked if Surv wasn't the melee spec for Hunters ... twice) Oh, and they also threw out talent trees in 4.0. And ability pruning in 6.0. And Draenor perks in 7.0. And the Shaman/Paladin divide. And hit/expertise, and Armor Pen, and magic resistance. Sometimes, removing something is a good thing, such as removing magic-MM Surv giving actualy MM more room to improve without becoming a carbon copy, and replacing it with a melee spec to add variety and bring it back to the roots of a wild Hunter and not a Ranger that can spec into a pet.

It's the ONLY spec in the game that has changed roles (i.e. ranged DPS to melee DPS). Therefore you can't just treat it like any other spec revamp, because now it is something entirely different to the core and not at all what the former Survival players wanted from the spec. It's not at all what most hunters in general wanted from the spec. Your personal preferences and opinions mean nothing here because what matters is the general opinions and trends, and they're all largely against Survival.

So my personal opinion means nothing, but yours does, because you say it's the general one?
Come back to me on this once you have PROOF that Hunters or players in general dislike 7.0 Survival over 6.0. Not just who plays it (because we know people will often play a less fun spec to maintain their raid spot or not feel as if they hold back their friends/guildies) but ACTUAL preference/liking numbers.

You have a bad habit of totally missing the point. I would not play a rogue no matter what they did to it. It's not for me. I don't like melee DPS. It's not my place to demand a rogue spec stops being a melee DPS even if I personally don't like melee because that works against the interests of the people who DO play rogues.

And how do you know that those people playing Outlaw Rogue wouldn't mind being a gunwielding ranged spec? I never told you to DEMAND a change, only that if you have such an opinion, voicing it in a constructive manner may contribute to the spec and thus the game in general.

Just as how it's not the place of people coming from the billion melee specs in the game to demand that a hunter spec goes melee pretty much purely because they wan't an easier time telling MM and SV hunters apart and not due to any actual time investment in the class.

But I guess that point isn't very accurate because it implies that there was significant external demand for a melee hunter spec when in reality there was almost no demand at all, external or internal.

Really, what "billions" of melee players would want ... sorry, DEMAND Hunters have a melee spec? If they are pure melee-only players or stick to a single class, would an extra melee not impede on their raid spot? Would they not be AGAINST melee Hunters? And if they believe that a melee Hunter is something they would be willing to reroll to, is it not their right to make their wishes known to Blizzard.

Besides, you're implying as if Blizzard only makes such decisions on demand (or for the lulz or something), nobody asked for the egandary galore, nobody asked for garrisons & class halls, nobody asked for no-flying in Draenor, yet that does not mean that Blizzard wasn't pro-actively making these decisions for the longterm survival(heh) of this game, even if it is initially unpopular.

No, that isn't how it works. You don't get to run off with the spec and say "It's mine now and you have no say in it!". We are not even half an expansion into the era of melee Survival so the previous 8 years of Survival are still relevant, as are the people who playd it.

a) But it IS mine now!
b) the previous 13 years of Survival are relevant, including the vanilla melee-heavier stint, but that does not mean that all design decisions must follow the path taken throughout its history
c) The people who played Survival, and are now giving constructive criticism on the melee Hunter spec are relevant. You, who only complains that melee Surv is the "worst decision EU" and have stated you'll never play it anyway, are NOT relevant to the Survival spec, because you have no interest in seeing it succeed. The only suggestion I can distill from your arguments is that Blizzard will just revert Survival back to 2 years ago. But really, do YOU even think that'll ever happen?


So come back once you've realised that Blizzard is not going to revert Survival back to its 6.2 version and have something else to say besides "Melee Survival hurts my feelings and is a bad decision. SAD!"

Oh, and don't forget to bring that proof that most/all Hunters feel as strongly about 6.2 Surv as you do before you speak in their name again.

[Donald Hellscream]

If you want to play survival then by all means do so, just be warned that it is the busiest and likely the most complex melee spec out there with very little margin for error. So don't be alarmed if you aren't super amazing from the get go.

[Bepples]

Actually, I claimed you couldn't say those MM Hunters were 'forced' to swap specs and did not enjoy being MM. My old GM used to be an MM/Surv Hunter, because he disliked trusting pet AI doing a large part of his DPS, although he would spec BM if that was the best damage. While he quit permanently at that time, I know he would not care about Surv being shit DPS, as long as atleast 1 spec was viable. Similarly, atleast 2 specs are still Ranged.

You've clearly misunderstood the progression of this argument. What you originally said on this point was this:

Outside of world race guilds, most players will play a class they enjoy better than whatever FotM sims higher or what they're being told is better damage.

That clearly didn't apply in 6.2: just about all hunters were MM whether they liked it or not. How do I know several of them didn't? Besides my own personal experience, the mere fact that up until that point MM was a very unpopular spec but once 6.2 drops suddenly EVERYONE has switched to it. By necessity several of those players would have much preferred to play BM or SV.

If low numbers are not an indication of a design failure, then higher numbers in 6.0 & 6.1 can't be an indication of success either. As said before, there is an unknown portion of the Hunters that swapped from Surv to MM simply because they only care about the highest damage spec. These people will have played Surv in 6.0 & 6.1 if MM was crap at that time and is in no way an indication of how popular the Survival spec as a design really was. And the data in your graph does show that. Again, I agree that these people swapped, but you can not attest as to WHY all those people swapped without asking each and everyone about their reasoning.

YET AGAIN you miss the point! The low numbers in 6.2 were not a result of the same reason as the low numbers in 7.0. Obviously no one is going to play a DPS spec that only competes with tanks on the meters. Even if you found a group willing to take you (if you guys think SV was unwanted NOW.... imagine playing it when you did no significant contribution to your group even at the best of times), you would be severely holding you back. Even outside of raiding, imagine doing solo content like that. If we could have played SV, we would have. Blizzard forced us out of the spec. Like, it's fucking nuts that you're even trying to deny this because this is something pretty well documented.

http://www.thrillofthewild.com/2015/...-nerf-bat.html

So let's recap:

- Survival was popular in 6.1
- 6.2 PTR has a change which nerfs Survival's single target by up to 20% and pretty much negates its AoE capability entirely
- These changes go live
- Survival population immediately drops to nothing

Hmmm....I WONDER WHY everyone switched??? No, no way we can tell!

Also, why the hypothetical here? We know where the specs stood in 6.0 and 6.1. MM handily outperformed SV on single target, which makes it all the more remarkable how SV was so much more popular. Consider that: it was lower-performance but more popular. Now it's the other way around: it's higher-performance but much less popular. That's a pretty big indicator that 7.0 SV a failure.

Conspiracy theory aside

They did the same thing to Demonology, why not for Survival?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOJ_4Tn1YbA&t=38m13s

the WoD spec might actually not have been able to be viable in Legion. If a lot of Hunters felt about the MM spec as you did, then Blizzard was right to try and change it in 7.0. Considering how the spec ended up, it definitely feels similar to old Surv to me (damage comes from bursts gained through procs, also has an AoE/Cleave component) and that would just make the 2 specs too much alike in my opinion.

Jesus fucking christ, this again? No, no it doesn't and your opinion is dumb. Survival was actually more oriented towards sustained damage rather than burst and you certainly didn't have to either stand still to cast anything or manage a damage window mechanic. It also has DoTs, unlike MM. Survival of 6.0 played NOTHING like 6.0 MM and certainly not anything like 7.0 MM.

And again, it's not because people played it, that it was a popular design. The Enh Sham community right now is full of people stating "I don't like this build, but it sims better than my favourite with tier/legendary/random things, so that's what I'm playing". And yes, that's only talents, but aren't they both just a trip to town and a shift in stat prio?

Flawed logic because SV hadn't been the best-performing out of the 3 specs since 4.3. It hadn't performed better than MM since 5.4. It most certainly was a popular design because it was routinely a more played spec despite also routinely performing worse.

I dislike your use of "first and foremost", as to me, that sort of feels as if you're trying to say all other opinions are irrelevant.

It's not that other opinions are irrelevant: it's just that they (should) matter less. It's pretty simple logic. If you have a spec that has a large following, you should make changes that better the spec for that following. Not changes that piss off that following and may or may not appeal to other people. And CERTAINLY don't nerf the spec to hell and force everyone out of it and pretend it was unpopular the whole time (whether or not they actually did this because they never afforded hunters the decency of explaining themselves over 6.2).

Also, it's not because they have an opinion and it matters, that Blizzard is required to listen to them. 2H Enh Shams, Frost DK tanks, Glad Warriors, Fistweave Monks, Smite-spam Disc Priests were all severely changed or cut in some form of another as well, and I don't recall the people that wanted it to stay the same getting their way either.

None of those are comparable to a spec being removed entirely.

Also, some of those were legitimate design/balance issues. Fistweaving and Atonement were fun, but having a healer doing very competitive healing while also doing competitive damage is massively unbalanced because it means it's far more beneficial to take those to the raids v.s. other healers who can only do the healing and not the damage. Having all 3 DK specs being able to tank and also DPS was also hard to balance, because tuning could lead to unpredictable results. Having a spec being both 1H and 2H capable will also usually lead to one being massively better than the other. As for Glad warriors: I didn't know too much about them but if I understand correctly it was a similar issue to the DK specs when they could all do both.

Not to mention, it might not be that not a lot of Hunters ASKED for a melee spec, but that is not the same as a lot of them NOT wanting one. All the Hunters I know personally felt either indifferent at the time (prefer BM anyway) or thought it was interesting and might give them the option to swap between ranged & melee specs in the future. (Fight design, just have an 'alt' on the same toon) They also all knew that it would most likely end up with MM merging parts of Surv in, but none of the cared, as the spec was due some change anyway. (They had expected/hoped that the things they liked in Surv would replace the things they didn't like in MM)

Well we know most hunters didn't want it because most hunters will not play it. Also, we CERTAINLY didn't ask for one of our specs to be removed. And whether or not they INTENDED for MM to play like old Surv doesn't matter now because it DOESN'T play like old Surv.

See, I don't get where you're getting this conspiracy theory from. Where did Blizzard ever say "hey, sucks if you're Surv now, but we care more about new players trying out Hunter than you!" Heck, it almost reads as an attack on those that DO play Surv now as some sort of "you made Blizzard kill my fun!" accusation.

I mean, you said as much here:

And good design does not focus on current players above others, it focuses on an entire playerbase, including new players who have no knowledge of the class history.

This implies that SV was at least partly designed with players who were not hunters in mind. It appears the people least willing to play Surval hunters are hunters themselves...

Actually, I think the failure was to undertune(*) Surv at the start, which together with the AP system meant not a whole lot of people were willing to swap to Surv and try it out. As it had no historical players sticking to it, that meant for a long time there was little info or analyses being done on Surv.

BM was also undertuned at the start yet people are swapping to it in droves now. Bad argument.

Also, the theorycrafters have been including Survival in their work since the very beginning so who knows what the hell you're talking about here.

The fact people now come to forums and are asking for opinions about e.g. Surv vs MM means it IS appealing to players rolling a Hunter. (alt or new, doesn't really matter) If Surv was a bad design, people would come asking for advice on BM vs MM and I've seen very little of those threads popping up.

Anecdotal. Personally I see those threads for BM and MM too.

Current threads asking for help on this subforum:

- Legendary Choice? 3 bad ones [BM]
- Spirit Beast Macro [BM]
- BM Opening Sequence with Shoulders [BM]
- Pot usage as MM [MM]
- BM: Legendary Shoulders are giving me a headache, please help. [BM]
- Thinking to main survival.... [SV]
- BM trinket need help [BM]

I also had a look at the official forums and there is laughably only 1 thread on the front page right now asking for help regarding Survival: the rest are BM/MM.

(*) On the other hand, if they tuned Surv numbers like they would have any newly introduced hero class, I'm certain most Hunters would feel 'forced' to play Surv for the damage, then complain afterwards when it got nerfed. It is the trickiest balance to find from a out-of-the-box tuning PoV and I think they did realise this soon after release, but it was still too late.

Ok, the fact that you (and supposedly Blizzard) know very well that Hunters would have complained if Survival were top confirms what we already knew: the design is not popular among hunters.

What is best is not always popular, what is popular is not always best. - I think it's Blizzard's job to look at long term, rather than feedback. That comment was thus made to show that if short term feedback was the only metric, any decision must thus sound popular, regardless of what it does for the future. (Something the current politics have started to do imho, but that's a topic for another forum)

So we are back to "it might eventually become popular"? Weak defense. We wouldn't have to wait this long if SV were still ranged and played like it did previously.

You're also (incorrectly) correlating lack of feedback with negative feedback, while a large portion may (or may not, neither of us can really tell) just be indifference.

Well admittedly for most people the situation looks pretty hopeless: Blizzard has a habit of doubling down on failed design (lol legendary/AP/RNG-mania) so it's unlikely SV ranged will ever return so most people have given up trying. However if you want to hear what people are saying about Survival you can go to one of the multi-page threads concerning it such as that 30-something page thread on this subforum. The feedback is decisively negative.

As said, a common argument against rerolls and respecs is the "failed design of Artifact Power." This could be a potential issue that reduces the amount of Hunters rerolling to Survival now in 7.1.5, even though the current percentage of Hunters playing Survival has been gone up since 6.2 (A lot of MM rerolled/quit in 7.0 it seems)

And as said, it didn't stop other specs like BM from recovering after 7.1.5. Survival is unique in its level of unpopularity and things do NOT look to be improving.

Correction, Ret was not always a melee DPS, it used to be a joke. Then it was a buffbot and THEN is was a melee DPS. And again, the argument of entitlement that the current players should be favoured over others.

Lol? Plenty of specs were "jokes" in Vanilla and BC, that doesn't mean they had no role. Ret's role was ALWAYS melee DPS regardless of whether or not it was actually viable. Survival wasn't viable in 6.2 but it was still ranged DPS.

First of all, 1.7 did nothing for Surv appeal. It went from "lol, Lacerate" to "lol, Wyvern Sting" (that 2 minute, CC once 31pointer talent, in case you forgot) and polished the other specs more than Surv got. You know what DID increase the appeal for Surv in my MC group back then? Me as Surv beating the 4 MM Hunters on damage, while also raid leading, marking & pet pulling. (after I literally got asked if Surv wasn't the melee spec for Hunters ... twice)

Wyvern sting at least had use, especially considering how important CC was back then. Lacerate was utter useless trash.

It also sounds like you had bad MM hunters because MM was just in a better spot back then until higher gear levels + Lightning Reflexes made SV pull ahead (post-1.7).

Oh, and they also threw out talent trees in 4.0. And ability pruning in 6.0. And Draenor perks in 7.0. And the Shaman/Paladin divide. And hit/expertise, and Armor Pen, and magic resistance. Sometimes, removing something is a good thing, such as removing magic-MM Surv giving actualy MM more room to improve without becoming a carbon copy, and replacing it with a melee spec to add variety and bring it back to the roots of a wild Hunter and not a Ranger that can spec into a pet.

Lol, clearly that "variety" meant jack shit because they just spent a bunch of effort making a new spec that no one plays or likes. I'm pretty sure that after 7.0 "variety" is the least of hunter concerns at this point. I'm pretty sure former SV players who got screwed by 6.2 and 7.0 aren't exactly jumping for joy about all this fucking "variety".

So my personal opinion means nothing, but yours does, because you say it's the general one?
Come back to me on this once you have PROOF that Hunters or players in general dislike 7.0 Survival over 6.0. Not just who plays it (because we know people will often play a less fun spec to maintain their raid spot or not feel as if they hold back their friends/guildies) but ACTUAL preference/liking numbers.

Survival performs better and STILL people aren't playing it. Fucking hell, look how bad BM and MM are now and people would still rather deal with that shit than play SV.

And how do you know that those people playing Outlaw Rogue wouldn't mind being a gunwielding ranged spec? I never told you to DEMAND a change, only that if you have such an opinion, voicing it in a constructive manner may contribute to the spec and thus the game in general.

Maybe, maybe not. The point is it's up to them, not people like me.

Really, what "billions" of melee players would want ... sorry, DEMAND Hunters have a melee spec? If they are pure melee-only players or stick to a single class, would an extra melee not impede on their raid spot? Would they not be AGAINST melee Hunters? And if they believe that a melee Hunter is something they would be willing to reroll to, is it not their right to make their wishes known to Blizzard.

Something more familiar for them to get into? I've seen posts to that effect ("As an unholy DK, Survival is a great fit for my preferred playstyle!" that sort of thing). Doesn't really matter because in reality next to NO ONE was asking for it, not even other classes. That doesn't mean the decision wasn't in their interest. It's providing an option for melee. That's not necessarily the bad thing here (it's not really a bad thing at all). The bad thing is the removal of the old spec. If Blizzard wanted to go "hold my beer" and make a weird melee hunter spec that would probably go nowhere, go ahead: make a 4th spec and do that. Don't fucking remove the spec I like to play to do it, though, please.

Besides, you're implying as if Blizzard only makes such decisions on demand (or for the lulz or something), nobody asked for the egandary galore, nobody asked for garrisons & class halls, nobody asked for no-flying in Draenor, yet that does not mean that Blizzard wasn't pro-actively making these decisions for the longterm survival(heh) of this game, even if it is initially unpopular.

I mean, all of those things (other than class halls maybe) are widely regarded as failures so I'm not sure why you are talking about those now. No-flying in Draenor was so unpopular the forums spontaneously combusted the moment Hazzikostas confirmed that they were intending on never bringing flying back.

a) But it IS mine now!
b) the previous 13 years of Survival are relevant, including the vanilla melee-heavier stint, but that does not mean that all design decisions must follow the path taken throughout its history
c) The people who played Survival, and are now giving constructive criticism on the melee Hunter spec are relevant. You, who only complains that melee Surv is the "worst decision EU" and have stated you'll never play it anyway, are NOT relevant to the Survival spec, because you have no interest in seeing it succeed. The only suggestion I can distill from your arguments is that Blizzard will just revert Survival back to 2 years ago. But really, do YOU even think that'll ever happen?

Survival's primary issue right now is it's popularity. It's HIGHLY cost-ineffective to spend massive amounts of development time building a spec that appeals to nearly no one, and it's downright wasteful to do it at the expense of a spec that is known to be popular. For that reason the people who used to play Survival but will no longer do it are HIGHLY relevant in considering Survival's future.

Oh, and don't forget to bring that proof that most/all Hunters feel as strongly about 6.2 Surv as you do before you speak in their name again.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ival-a-failure

[Ilir]

lol

SV is fine. it's fun to play, it looks cool and it makes sense

Stop crying because your braindead old survival spec got deleted.

Survival was always that random spec that served no purpose and was always braindead when it was on top.

YOu're just sad you now have a spec that requires to think a little unlike the two other specs.

Gimme a break.

"utility" stfu, 99% of you don't even do VHL raiding so don't even start with this BS talk.

[Bepples]

SV is fine

Pictured: spec that is FINE. Nothing to see here, move along.

YOu're just sad you now have a spec that requires to think a little unlike the two other specs.

Or... OR... people rolled a class with 3 ranged specs to do ranged DPS and want nothing to do with melee.

Also, Survival is trash compared to what it used to be. "Looks cool"? Looks like any other generic melee spec. Makes sense? I hope you don't go around throwing fucking explosives at your feet in real life. Fun to play? Sure, you say that here, but I guarantee you would do what every other Legion SV hunter ever does and elsewhere argue that the reason no one plays it is because it has a convoluted and counter-intuitive rotation.

Stop crying because people are calling out your shitty dead-on-arrival rip-off meme spec.

[Nnogga]

Rotation is too hard for you, we get it.

[Bepples]

Rotation is too hard for you, we get it.

Never played it, never will.

[Khrux]

I'm sorry but I couldn't take anymore of this guy.



Every Survival thread is just FpicEail against the world. The popularity of the spec is rising, its fun as hell to play and its here to stay. Already prepping for 7.2 Survival now that I'm capped out for BM on traits/leggos.

[Krokofant]

Isn't there a point in having a SV hunter in your rooster for loot distribution purposes?
IT makes good use of mail gear nobody else wants perhaps?