Does anyone miss old survival?

[SnowTang]

I loved old survival, wish they'd bring it back

[Eapoe]

It is voicing concern because we are saying that there is no real audience for a melee hunter; not at any significant level, at least. So removing a popular ranged spec and spending a whole bunch of time and effort implementing a melee spec in its place, when you know that there isn't much of an audience for such a thing to begin with, invokes the image of a game designer snorting coke at the office yelling delusions about fantasy and innovation. The class would absolutely be in a better place if Survival were still ranged. The class had more people playing it and far less dissent when Survival was a viable ranged spec. So arguing that the ranged spec should return is ABSOLUTELY constructive criticism for the class because we KNOW that it will make the class better.

Oh, and then there's the whole part where they screwed over a significant contingent of hunters by removing their spec and doing jack shit to make up for it, which is a "dick move" to say the least.

So how about you "adapt" to the fact that people are not happy with the state of things and are not obliged to just accept them and move on as you so desperately want them to.



What other reason could there be?

It can't be low damage, because Survival now outperforms the other two specs in both PvE and PvP.

It can't be playstyle, because Survival is so often hailed by its fanatics as the most fun spec in the game. I realise they exercise some cognitive dissonance and simultaneously argue that it's overcomplicated and cumbersome, but so are feral druids and way more people play that spec.

Maybe people just don't have the right artifacts/legendaries? Well, plenty of people have switched to BM from MM since 7.1.5 just fine, and BM's population is catching up rapidly to MM. Why has Survival been so stagnant?

I'll tell you what it could be: when the reaction of almost everyone online to Survival going melee was "good idea, but it's just not for me"... maybe the spec ended up being not "for" many people at all? Maybe there really weren't that many people interested in a melee hunter spec? Gee, who saw this coming? (everyone who wasn't delusional: that's who).



There was never any significant demand for melee hunters. It has always been primarily a meme, with a tiny niche of players thinking it would be a "neat idea".



... that's not a stigma, that's what people want from the class. "Stigma" is purely reputation. While Survival has a bad reputation, people legitimately don't want to play it because most hunters do not want to play melee. You act like that's some unfounded claim, but it's a common-sense conclusion from the fact that people picked a class with 3 ranged specs and they certainly didn't do it expecting to be able to play a melee spec. If they wanted to play melee, they would have picked a class with melee.



It's been given time and it's NOT catching on. We are now more than 6 months into the expansion and there is no evidence to suggest that Survival is any more popular than when it started. Proportionally it just hasn't moved.

No other spec revamp has taken this long to "catch on". Paladins didn't require time to "catch on" after their numerous revamps (2.0, 3.0, and 4.0). Hell, SURVIVAL HUNTERS didn't need time to "catch on" in 3.0 when they were revamped then: that revamp actually made it more popular. Why does current Survival apparently need a whole damn expansion before people actually play it?



This doesn't mean shit. It's been weeks since that kill and, like I said, there's still no evidence that any more people are shifting to Survival. It is VERY telling of how desperate the Survival "community" is (if you could call a contingent of players that small a "community") when they are jumping for joy because they got ONE PERSON from their spec on an end boss kill; a spec that is the best performing of its class, mind you. Are MM hunters jumping for joy over the fact that there have been several MM hunters that have killed Gul'Dan? The mere fact that this is a major achievement for Survival is a red flag.



All that time and effort to develop a spec that MAY OR MAY NOT end up being played? At the cost of a spec that would GUARANTEE popularity as it has in the past? And you call that a good decision? Pathetic and delusional.

People have adapted to the fact players aren't happy about it or they wouldn't waste their time replying to you about it.
Not everyone saw this coming or there would be absolutely no one playing it. None. Zilch. Nada. There are people playing it, there are people doing well with it, and it's very possible that as time goes on, this xpac even, that more and more will come to play it as the publicity around the spec is shifting from "lol meme spec..." "SV melee is retarded and useless..." to becoming "holy shit people are using this. People are taking this spec into mythic raids and not only is it not bad, it's doing better than some others." You think a shift will happen overnight, or the equivalent in this xpac at a few weeks. Most people right now have 0 points and very little gear for the spec. Add on that most people have given no time to the spec because it's been a laugh fest by almost every internet persoanlity, and you think people are in a rush to try something out. A few went against the mold, and they are helping bring to light the positives of the spec. I still go into pugs with people surprised that I am SV, starting off as a joke and not expect much from me, to changing their tone and actually asking me seriously about how to play it better. Give it a month or 2 and you will more than likely see the specs popularity grow.
It's not a major achievement SV killed the boss. It's a major achievement that it can now be used against naysayers like you who throw around "popularity" as proof that something is a failure (spoiler alert: it's not).
Why wouldn't it need time to catch on? Again, it was a melee spec released the same xpac as a melee class that people have pined for since BC (everyone wants to play Illidan) and has had people make fun of it non stop since PTR (and this is before many people knew anything about. Hell, most people still know little about it other than it's melee). Add on that so few people have invested time into gearing for it, many people are reluctant to even give it a try as they don't want to play catch up.
As for your last post, WELL SHIT, WHY PUT TIME INTO ANY SPEC? Obviously very few people are playing Unholy opposed to Frost, why bother spending time trying to help it out, might as well scrap it and focus 100% on Frost and Blood right? Why should they spend anymore time on Outlaw, it played decent, got bad, now slightly less so, so why spend time on those? Come on, you're saying because something's. it popular you should just say fuck it? That's a helluva design idea, wonder how much stuff we wouldn't have today if they made something people found unpopular and just scrapped it instead of working to make it better.
I've previously stated that I wish they would have made it a 4th spec, and left SV alone, that doesn't be mean I'm going to cast off the new one, especially after Ive personally tried it after playing RDPS for years and found it quite enjoyable and a good raid spec.

[JaoStar]

It's still there really, it's just mixed in with MM. The new survival spec has a lot of potential just like any new spec it's going to take several iterations to get it where it supposed to be.

[Bepples]

People have adapted to the fact players aren't happy about it or they wouldn't waste their time replying to you about it.

I cannot even make sense of what you are trying to say here.

Not everyone saw this coming or there would be absolutely no one playing it.

What the hell are you even trying to argue here? Another point that makes zero sense. It was clear to anyone who wasn't caught up in blind hype that this spec would not popular. Most of the people voicing support for the spec on the forums did not actually intend on playing it themselves, at least at any capacity beyond a casual alt. You have plenty of people saying "it's a neat idea, I guess" but not a whole lot of people saying "it's a great idea, definitely better than what we had before, and I will be maining it". It is basic common sense: you had a class with 3 ranged specs. People did not pick that class expecting a melee at any point. In fact, most of the class picked it specifically for ranged DPS. So the intersection between the two sets was small: the set of people who mained a hunter and the set of people willing to main a melee spec. So then they rely on a 3rd set: the set of people willing to come from other classes to play the new spec. However, that set was itself small because a) there was no selling point for SV over other melee classes and b) a new and exciting melee class was introduced in the same expansion.

So their primary demographic for Survival was that original group: people who were both willing to main a hunter and willing to main a melee spec.

Take a fucking guess how many of those people there were.

Hell, you can take a quick glance at the sheer multitude of that demographic by doing a search for "WoW melee hunter" with an upper limit of July 2015 (melee SV was revealed with Legion in early August). Count the number of forum posts that talk about melee hunters in a positive light v.s. the amount that actively laugh at the idea or are even hostile towards it.

None. Zilch. Nada.

I'm not sure why this is popular in arguments: "zero in every language". For fuck's sake, I understand the concept of zero. This sort of shit makes you look like a blubbering idiot.

I'm guessing you are arguing that because there are at least SOME players in the Survival spec, then arguments about the spec being unpopular are invalid? Do you not understand the concept of "unpopularity"?

You will never, EVER, find an issue that is entirely one-sided. They could flat out delete the Hunter class from the game and Hazzikostas could make some wall of text that says nothing other than some convoluted PR speak about how hunters diluted the design vision and fantasy archetype of the game as a whole and their absence would improve the game, even for hunters themselves. Despite how obviously fucking awful a decision that would be, you would STILL have people in favour of it. Even hunters! That's just the nature of everyone having their own unique set of opinions and standards.

Survival is an unpopular spec. That doesn't mean no one is playing it. It does mean that not a lot of people are playing it.

What makes that a BAD thing is that it used to be popular. That is the crux of ALL of my arguments on this subject: Survival is in a massively downgraded state compared to its older iterations.

There are people playing it, there are people doing well with it, and it's very possible that as time goes on, this xpac even, that more and more will come to play it as the publicity around the spec is shifting from "lol meme spec..." "SV melee is retarded and useless..." to becoming "holy shit people are using this.

This sounds like Hazzikostas' delusions about Brewmaster. The idea that the community at large does not play a spec because of a widespread "misconception" as to its viability is nonsense. Hazzikostas argued that this was the case with Brewmaster: that the monk community is just not aware that it's a viable spec. But that's not in agreement with the views of monks themselves. If you actually listen to them, unlike Hazzikostas, it's clear that people are perfectly aware that Brewmaster holds up fine against other tanks. They just fucking hate the playstyle. This is the same for Survival. The Youtube stars and the hunter guides have said from the beginning of Legion that Survival is a perfectly viable spec with excellent single target. Even moreso since 7.1.5. It's not that people think SV is overpowered; people just don't want to play it. It's just a pretty average-at-best melee spec theme/playstyle wise and it's actively repulsive to most of the playerbase of its class.

This is why a Survival hunter being present on a mythic Gul'dan kill means nothing. No one was under the impression that Survival was unable to pull it off. There were Survival hunters present on all the other fights this expansion. It does more throughput than the other two specs (barring BM with good legendary luck). Why shouldn't it be able to? Viability is not the problem with Survival. It hasn't been the problem since 7.0 released.

People are taking this spec into mythic raids and not only is it not bad, it's doing better than some others." You think a shift will happen overnight, or the equivalent in this xpac at a few weeks. Most people right now have 0 points and very little gear for the spec.

This excuse is wearing thin. This was mildly valid in September/October 2016. This is not valid any more after 6 months, when most people are maxing out their artifacts at this point and Survival is far less legendary-dependent than the other specs. People also had 0 preparation for BM, but you ARE seeing a big shift towards that spec. Why not Survival? The only real unique problem is its complexity, but there are other complex specs in the game (e.g. Feral Druid) which are nowhere near as unpopular as Survival.

Add on that most people have given no time to the spec because it's been a laugh fest by almost every internet persoanlity, and you think people are in a rush to try something out. A few went against the mold, and they are helping bring to light the positives of the spec.

Chicken and the egg.

I'd wager that it was laughed at for being unpopular, not unpopular because it was laughed at. People don't take the idea seriously because they don't like the idea. People don't just take the piss out of the melee spec for the hell of it.

And as far as I have seen the internet personalities have bent over backwards trying to accommodate Survival. I've seen BellularGaming and SignsOfKelani giving out guides for it without denigrating the spec. Mikepreachwow gave it a try and voiced his opinions on the spec (no, he did not like it, but he was not denigrating it for being melee; he just flat out didn't like the playstyle). Azortharion maintains the page on it on Icy Veins and is pretty generous in his description of the spec. Hell, if you ask me, people are purposefully avoiding the elephant in the room and trying their hardest to make Survival an accepted spec.

I still go into pugs with people surprised that I am SV, starting off as a joke and not expect much from me, to changing their tone and actually asking me seriously about how to play it better. Give it a month or 2 and you will more than likely see the specs popularity grow.

Anecdote, therefore worthless. If we are bringing up anecdotes now, I'll give mine: I rarely see Survival hunters ANYWHERE. I flat out have never seen them in a 5 man group. I've only seen Survival players who are clearly alts (blue gear, or perhaps not level 110) at the Lodge and some SV hunters in LFR, all of which have performed awfully. I don't use that in arguments, though, because personal experiences are not positive arguments for anything.

Give it a month or 2? We've given it 6 months! How long can you people keep this excuse up? I guess you mean a month or 2 since the Gul'dan Kill? Wanna bet? It's been 2 weeks and the parse counts for Survival have hardly budged, even in Heroic. Meanwhile, BM is rapidly gaining on Marksmanship and might actually pull ahead in the near future.

It's not a major achievement SV killed the boss. It's a major achievement that it can now be used against naysayers like you who throw around "popularity" as proof that something is a failure (spoiler alert: it's not).

Big fucking whoop! They made a spec and tuned its abilities such that it can kill raid bosses like literally every other spec in the game. That's the easy part. What makes or breaks the spec is whether or not people actually play it. At that part, Survival is faceplanting. So, actually, popularity is a good measure of the success of a spec. In fact, the mere fact that it is now more powerful than the other specs and yet is still so vastly less popular makes it even more of a failure. Womp womp.

Why wouldn't it need time to catch on? Again, it was a melee spec released the same xpac as a melee class that people have pined for since BC (everyone wants to play Illidan) and has had people make fun of it non stop since PTR (and this is before many people knew anything about. Hell, most people still know little about it other than it's melee). Add on that so few people have invested time into gearing for it, many people are reluctant to even give it a try as they don't want to play catch up.

See, you're almost getting it here but your mistake is not identifying that the mere fact that it is so derided and so despised right out of the gate makes it a bad idea to begin with. The old Survival was very popular and, had they kept it as a viable ranged spec, it would have undoubtedly remained popular. The only reason it stopped being popular in 6.2 is because it stopped being viable. Hell, look how badly they botched BM and MM yet they are still two of the most played specs in the game.

Instead of doing that, however, they spent a whole lot of time and effort completely rebuilding the spec from the ground up as a model that we ALL KNEW would be unpopular right out of the gate. Even you admit this here: you say people didn't like it and it needs time to build a playerbase. Why bother? Why spend all that effort making a spec that at best MIGHT become popular in the distant future and will CERTAINLY be unpopular in the near future? I realise keeping it ranged probably strikes you as a lazy approach and that there is value to innovation and trying new things, but there is also value in efficient application of effort and making customers happy. New Survival is innovative, but it took a LOT of effort to put together and so far it's at best made only a small amount of people happy while the old Survival provided enjoyment for a much, much larger group of players. So I ask again: at that point, why bother?

As for your last post, WELL SHIT, WHY PUT TIME INTO ANY SPEC? Obviously very few people are playing Unholy opposed to Frost, why bother spending time trying to help it out, might as well scrap it and focus 100% on Frost and Blood right? Why should they spend anymore time on Outlaw, it played decent, got bad, now slightly less so, so why spend time on those? Come on, you're saying because something's. it popular you should just say fuck it? That's a helluva design idea, wonder how much stuff we wouldn't have today if they made something people found unpopular and just scrapped it instead of working to make it better.

Once again you are failing to understand the unique situation of Survival. Survival wasn't just a new idea: it was a replacement for an old idea. You say here that it's wasteful to can an idea just because it's unpopular. How about the fact that they canned a POPULAR idea? THAT'S the key issue here. A melee hunter spec probably would have been unpopular regardless but if it were a 4th spec for hunters I can guarantee you there would be no contention. Those of us who hate playing melee or simply had no interest would easily just ignore the spec. However, that's not the case: they actively removed an existing spec, which was previously very popular, to make the unpopular spec happen. This is what you and other 7.0 Survival hunters need to understand when you come to these threads asking for a "live and let live" attitude: how can we possibly accept that when the same respect wasn't afforded to us and we were not permitted to simply keep enjoying the spec we liked to play?

- - - Updated - - -

It's still there really, it's just mixed in with MM. The new survival spec has a lot of potential just like any new spec it's going to take several iterations to get it where it supposed to be.

Over-used shitpost argument. No, it's not still there. MM plays nothing like old SV.

Why remove a proven, functional, and popular spec just to add an unproven and unpopular spec that at best has an EVENTUAL CHANCE of being successful?

Old Survival had a lot of potential too... far moreso considering people actually played it. Why remove that one?

[Draugnakh]

The thing that is old is haters' vision of melee SV. You're talking about Legion's launch SV.

Today the main secondary stat isn't the same (haste instead of vers), AoE (and not ST) is the main strength, traps are an important part of the gameplay now, it's very flexible for raids, mm+ and pvp...

Over specs also do that ? So what ? My choice for SV at Vanilla was because it was the less 'ranged only' spec but I will not debate about melee or ranged, my choice would be both in the same spec. I think that hunter deserved at least one complex, flexible and rewarding spec. Two easy and boring specs are enough.

The more I see threads against Legion's SV, the more it appears that the main issue isn't melee but the (outwardly) complexity.

A question for people whose main spec is being against melee spec :

What should be a fair complex ranged-only hunter spec ? I never saw one on WoW.

[Bepples]

Over specs also do that ? So what ? My choice for SV at Vanilla was because it was the less 'ranged only' spec but I will not debate about melee or ranged, my choice would be both in the same spec. I think that hunter deserved at least one complex, flexible and rewarding spec. Two easy and boring specs are enough.

SV could have been complex and rewarding as a ranged spec too.

The more I see threads against Legion's SV, the more it appears that the main issue isn't melee but the (outwardly) complexity.

Maybe you should get better reading comprehension then because people's primary issue with the spec is that they didn't pick a hunter to play a melee spec.

[Draugnakh]

Maybe you should get better reading comprehension then because people's primary issue with the spec is that they didn't pick a hunter to play a melee spec.

Maybe you should get better reading comprehension because I did.

[Volitar]

Yep, MOP Survival was the best incarnation of the spec. Now we have this melee spec hardly anyone even plays. Its a shame .

[Devilyaki]

I missed how it played, would love it's return but blizzard is stuck with their totally stupid sv now and doesn't look like the range one will return

[Bepples]

Maybe you should get better reading comprehension because I did.

You picked it to spam Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite?

Did you also pick a Rogue to spam Shoot?

[Niroshi]

MoP Survival was the superior spec in every single way for me. Hunter as a whole has basically been trashed this entire xpac.

[Deleted]

Yeah I kind of miss the old survival, it was a fun and kind of complicated spec to play, and definitely my favorite. They really ruined survival when they added explosive shot, and later made it into a strange dot spec that didn't feel like a hunter spec at all. I like how they tried to fix that now in Legion but the spec still has a long way to go. Overall though, survival right now is more enjoyable and fun to play than it has been in many many years. It's actually back to being my favorite of all the hunter specs, and it's refreshing after all those years of playing MM (MM is awful to play right now too).

[idunnowatdo]

i would of liked them to have an additional spec sv melee and sv ranged and have it like druids. I miss ranged sv. watch them bring it back like that

[Bepples]

Yeah I kind of miss the old survival, it was a fun and kind of complicated spec to play, and definitely my favorite. They really ruined survival when they added explosive shot, and later made it into a strange dot spec that didn't feel like a hunter spec at all.

Survival's rotation in 2.4.3:



So you think Survival was better, more enjoyable, more complex, and felt more like a true hunter spec when it was highly immobile, had a rotation that could probably be wrapped up in a good castsequence macro*, had mana instead of focus, and was missing Lock and Load, Black Arrow, Explosive Shot, and any sort of viability to Serpent Sting?

The spec literally had no active abilities that were unique (i.e. not also belonging to other specs) other than Readiness (well, it also had Wyvern Sting and Counterattack if you woke up one day and felt like picking a shit build for some reason). The only reason the spec existed was for Expose Weakness; a passive for buffing the raid's damage.

Explosive Shot made Survival a real spec with its own identity.

*Oh, I actually found the macro. Yes, the one-button "play Survival" macro.

/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Lightning Breath

So today I learned that Survival was a real, complex hunter spec when you bound your entire rotation to 1 macro, stood still and spammed that button for the whole fight. And having a unique resource and a new, unique ability set with a priority system rather than a static rotation made it a fake shitty spec. Good to know.

[Caaethil]

No, hunters don't like melee. That's because people don't like change to things they're comfortable with.

Pretty sure the idea was to make a change that would create new hunter mains too. The class isn't a super secret club that only old school hunters are allowed to join. The idea is to make the class not have three specs which are conceptually almost identical. Compared to the other classes, hunters' specs have always been very samey in that regard.

[Bheleu]

No, hunters don't like melee. That's because people don't like change to things they're comfortable with.

Pretty sure the idea was to make a change that would create new hunter mains too. The class isn't a super secret club that only old school hunters are allowed to join. The idea is to make the class not have three specs which are conceptually almost identical. Compared to the other classes, hunters' specs have always been very samey in that regard.

Fine to try to bring new people to the class. I'd love to see the numbers though. I can tell you that I had 6 max level SV hunters in WoD, now I am unsubbed (time ends on 3/2). Did they bring new subs and new players to the class with these changes? Or did more people leave?

Also - I'd make the argument that currently the 3 specs are all very samey - they all suck.

[Bepples]

No, hunters don't like melee. That's because people don't like change to things they're comfortable with.

Pretty sure the idea was to make a change that would create new hunter mains too. The class isn't a super secret club that only old school hunters are allowed to join. The idea is to make the class not have three specs which are conceptually almost identical. Compared to the other classes, hunters' specs have always been very samey in that regard.

Well they failed spectacularly in that regard too (The Hunter class as a whole has FEWER people playing it now, not more).

Also, again with the "all 3 hunter specs were the same" bullshit. No, they wren't. I doubt you ever put much time into a hunter if you think that was the case. To people who mained hunters there most certainly were differences between the specs that were critical.

Are all 3 mage specs the same too? What about all 3 rogue specs? Warlocks? Can we just say the same about all the pures?

- - - Updated - - -

Fine to try to bring new people to the class. I'd love to see the numbers though. I can tell you that I had 6 max level SV hunters in WoD, now I am unsubbed (time ends on 3/2). Did they bring new subs and new players to the class with these changes? Or did more people leave?

Also - I'd make the argument that currently the 3 specs are all very samey - they all suck.

Here are the numbers:



This is getting slightly outdated now but not much has changed since I took that picture other than another small rise/fall (I wonder why you actually get lots of those since around the time Tier 19 launched), but it just doesn't look like Survival's going anywhere despite the now superior performance and SV hunters claiming a large "influx" since Method had a SV hunter on their Gul'Dan kill.

http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/pve-...classes/hunter

And yeah yeah "that's only in mythic, legendaries/AP stop people from respeccing, etc etc" but neither of those things are stopping BM's representation from rapidly improving and I doubt there are many people who would describe BM right now as a fun, well-designed spec.

[Eapoe]

Well they failed spectacularly in that regard too (The Hunter class as a whole has FEWER people playing it now, not more).

Also, again with the "all 3 hunter specs were the same" bullshit. No, they wren't. I doubt you ever put much time into a hunter if you think that was the case. To people who mained hunters there most certainly were differences between the specs that were critical.

Are all 3 mage specs the same too? What about all 3 rogue specs? Warlocks? Can we just say the same about all the pures?

- - - Updated - - -



Here are the numbers:



This is getting slightly outdated now but not much has changed since I took that picture other than another small rise/fall (I wonder why you actually get lots of those since around the time Tier 19 launched), but it just doesn't look like Survival's going anywhere despite the now superior performance and SV hunters claiming a large "influx" since Method had a SV hunter on their Gul'Dan kill.

http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/pve-...classes/hunter

And yeah yeah "that's only in mythic, legendaries/AP stop people from respeccing, etc etc" but neither of those things are stopping BM's representation from rapidly improving and I doubt there are many people who would describe BM right now as a fun, well-designed spec.

About the 2nd part of your post, there's been an increase in the number of parses. Now, the increase was very small, but there has been 40 more parses for mythic since your last post, roughly 1k more for heroic, and about 1500-2000 more for normal. It's also beating Sub rogues at this time for normal parses. All this shows is that there are more people trying it out across the board, even though it is slowly changing. The slow change is not unacceptable either as it's been discussed that most people probably aren't geared or have the traits in the artifact to be some major change overnight (also previously pointed out).
As to the first part of your post, there were enough similarities between all the specs that when people say they played the same, they are not too far off. All had their primary ability: KC/ES/AiS, all had their focus dump/spam ability in AS. During Wrath, SV had Black Arrow while MM had Counter Shot (at the time it did damage off the GCD). When mana was gone we switched to Aspect of the Viper to get it back. All specs played as "ability off CD, use it."
Even when we went to focus, the specs played the same. Use main ability on CD, spam AS, switch to Cobra/Steady Shot to build focus again. This theme has continued until Legion. Sure, there are minor descrepencies (BA vs BW, ES vs KC vs AiS), but the playstyle was damn near identical, so much so that anyone swapping specs knew how to play it almost immediately. There are other class/spec combos that had this issue (Combat/Assass), but many had completely different playstyles.
Are all 3 specs identical? No. They are very similar and played with the same priority rotation style that they are almost exactly the same playstyle.

[InfernalDark]

Just how long these incompetent mods will let this 1 lowlife ruin every surv thread? Wake the fuck up.

[Guran]

Survival's rotation in 2.4.3:

The spec literally had no active abilities that were unique (i.e. not also belonging to other specs) other than Readiness (well, it also had Wyvern Sting and Counterattack if you woke up one day and felt like picking a shit build for some reason). The only reason the spec existed was for Expose Weakness; a passive for buffing the raid's damage.

Just to point this out again:
In 2.4.3 (actually ALL builds with the old talent tree) every spec had the same baseline abilities of the class.
You could only get unique abilities through actually picking them in the talent trees. With the requirement of having to spend 5 points per row and MANY talents being situational, utility or defensive only, it was not uncommon to pick a talent such as Counterattack to get to more powerful ones such as Expose Weakness further down.
As for Wyvern Sting, I distinctly recall having arguments about it back then as well, namely that it was a rather useless for raiding ... yet there was rarely a viable alternative, considering you still did 5mans that required CC back in those days.

I think my spec as something along the lines of this, with the last 4 points being more solo/utility than DPS (Mana was not an issue at that time) And if geared correctly, you could actually get close enough to Marksman, who brought far less raid damage with Trueshot than EW did. But you did need to gear for it, which was a complexity in and of itself at those times.