Hope they leave Survival alone all expansion

[gd8]

mods really need to start issuing infractions to these clowns who derail every single thread that even mentions survival by going on and on about how it should be ranged. literally no one gives a shit everyone who's actually playing survival right now loves it people who are against it are just an absurdly vocal minority. also it's been melee for over 2 years jesus christ get over it already

[Xaviaton]

I've played Surv since BfA lanch and I'm loving it as well! Tried moving our to MM for a minute due to lack of ranged in my guild but went back to Surv almost immediately, it's just more fun. I agree with a mastery tuning being needed though but that's it. As for ranged surv, I miss it as well as it was my go-to spec through most of Wrath->WoD but only because I found ranged surv to be more enjoyable than current MM. Couldn't put my finger on why but it's still the case. I hope they never change surv back to ranged but I do hope they spice up MM sometime soon.

[Kauko]

Total rewamp incoming... never ever praise a spec... people never learn.

[Regalosh]

Total rewamp incoming... never ever praise a spec... people never learn.

Actually yesterday went back to BM, and played around with different talent sets. It was quite fun. Leave BM alone!

[NutellaCrepe]

The corpse of Legion Survival says otherwise.



Ranged Survival wasn't left alone, so no I will not leave melee Survival alone.

The corpse of Legion Survival gave rise to BFA Survival into a more permanent spec. Hiding behind elusive comments and falsely elaborate posts won't save you from the reality that survival is not only popular, but it has been fine tuned, unique and extremely popular in PvP and PvE.

Live in your world of denial all you want. Melee focused survival hunter is here to stay.

[Deleted]

As a former Survival mythic raider in Legion, I don't hold any fond memory of this iteration whatsoever, although I enjoyed playing it. I find the BfA version better in almost every way so I really don't get his point at all actually.

[Bepples]

You said earlier that you don't care. You do care, so so much.

You should try it out. Survival is so fun, probably the best version of Survival since it was the buffer-specc in TBC.

I don't believe I did. Looking back at my earlier posts, I certainly didn't. I did say that I don't care about invented ad-hoc "lore"reasons to justify melee Hunter, which is obviously totally different to what you imply I meant here so maybe you're just confused. That is pretty common for people who support melee SV so I'll go with that.

And no, I won't try it. Well, I did test it on beta. But I'm never playing it. Melee makes it automatically not fun for me. I do not like melee specs. That's why I picked a Hunter.

Lol at "best version since TBC". Vanilla and BC Survival was meh at best. Survival really got started when it got Explosive Shot in WotLK. It takes peak delusion, revisionism, and ignorance to pretend that the iterations following BC were inferior. For crying out loud, Wrath SV was almost literally the same talents as BC with new ones and Explosive Shot/Black Arrow on top. What kind of mental gymnastics can you perform to pretend that was worse than the BC version?

mods really need to start issuing infractions to these clowns who derail every single thread that even mentions survival by going on and on about how it should be ranged. literally no one gives a shit everyone who's actually playing survival right now loves it people who are against it are just an absurdly vocal minority. also it's been melee for over 2 years jesus christ get over it already

"I don't like people attacking my favourite spec so mods please ban them".

That's pathetic, and I'm not breaking any rules. I'm allowed to post here as long as it pertains to the thread topic. In case you haven't noticed; I didn't start this train of conversation and all my posts have been responding to arguments made by other people. So you're not going to be able to accuse me of derailing the thread either.

Don't pretend you people don't care. You clearly do when you spend all day flooding the forums with blind praise threads for Survival and bemoaning people for avoiding it and not trying it out.

Also "vocal minority" is conjecture. Clearly there were enough people calling for SV to be more in line with other Hunter specs for them to drop Legion SV after one expansion and remake it from the ground up again... to have more ranged mechanics. Before you ask: yes, I will bring that up every time you people act like the melee SV movement is on a winning streak.

I hope they never change surv back to ranged

Why? Melee is literally a tacked-on weakness that actively conflicts with the spec's identity, completely defies the class identity, and keeps more people from playing the spec. Explain to me how if they replaced the few remaining melee mechanics with ranged ones but otherwise kept the same general theme and gameplay the spec would automatically be worse.

The corpse of Legion Survival gave rise to BFA Survival into a more permanent spec. Hiding behind elusive comments and falsely elaborate posts won't save you from the reality that survival is not only popular, but it has been fine tuned, unique and extremely popular in PvP and PvE.

Live in your world of denial all you want. Melee focused survival hunter is here to stay.

Didn't you conjure up this "extremely popular" nonsense in another thread?

Someone did. All the nonsense arguments from your side sort of blur together after a while.

Anyway, no. It's not particularly unique (many SV Hunters on the official forums are actively pleading for mechanics to set it apart from BM) nor is it popular. It's still one of the least popular specs in PvE. It fares better than PvP but that's largely coasting off the back of MM being utterly unviable and BM being continually nerfed towards unviability. It was more played than both in PvP in 7.0 and that didn't save it.

When ignoring all context and viewing it from afar, one would actually find it pretty shocking that a spec with the numerical performance and gameplay fluidity of Survival would be so rare. In the past, when SV had a similar relative numerical position, it would easily be the most popular Hunter spec and one of the most popular specs in the game. It's overwhelmingly, undeniably clear now that melee is holding Survival back.

On that note, you should understand that 8.0 has proven exactly that; melee is a hindrance, not a strength. When they dropped the purely melee Survival, a spec that was literally the least popular in the whole game for its entire existence, then recover some fraction of Survival's former popularity by removing most of the melee mechanics and advertising it as a semi-ranged spec, that is not a ringing endorsement of the melee Hunter archetype. If anything, it's a denouncement. It's a clear signal that it didn't work out and the less melee Survival is the more people enjoy it.

I don't pretend to know what's going to happen in 9.0. I'm a pessimist so I'm still going with "ranged SV highly unlikely", just as I did in Legion. However, I also think SV becoming any more melee-oriented is unlikely. All the momentum belongs to ranged mechanics at this time. Where melee failed, ranged mechanics came in to save SV once again. I don't think that's unnoticed by Blizzard. The only real obstacle for a full ranged comeback at this point, other than Blizzard melee favouritism, is the matter of the Legion artifact and its appearances. I'm sure they can come to a solution if they feel a more pressing need.

EDIT: Since I love the look of my own posts, there's more. Unlike NutellaCrepe (or most melee Survival fans, for that matter), I don't bullshit and I can back up the things I say.

Here is the data for a time where Survival was in a similar numerical position to where it is today (beating out both other specs on single target but not overwhelmingly), but still ranged.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...&spec=Survival

When viewing individual spec data, you can see the number of parses for all 14-day periods for that instance in the tier. Highmaul is tricky because Blackrock Foundry released early February and made it obsolete. But look at the post-December hotfix numbers.

Survival peaked right at the end of Highmaul's relevance: in the period between Jan 20 2015 to Feb 3 2015, scoring 66,993 parses. For reference, the 2nd highest in the game for that same period was Frost Mage at 40,123 parses. Yes, Survival was the most popular spec in raiding at over 50% higher than the 2nd place. Good luck seeing melee Survival ever reaching such a position.

[Xaviaton]

Why? Melee is literally a tacked-on weakness that actively conflicts with the spec's identity, completely defies the class identity, and keeps more people from playing the spec. Explain to me how if they replaced the few remaining melee mechanics with ranged ones but otherwise kept the same general theme and gameplay the spec would automatically be worse.

I can't explain to you why replacing the melee mechanics with ranged ones would make it 'automatically worse' because of course it wouldn't, it would just be different. I really enjoy playing survival as a melee spec and I therefore hope they keep it as a melee spec. Actually, better than 'pure melee' - it is a somewhat flexible spec where weaving in and out of melee is a central part of gameplay (at least for open world). Changing it to 100% ranged wouldn't make it worse, it would make it ranged which is currently opposed to what I enjoy about it. It being a ranged spec seems to have been central to what you enjoyed about the old survival, and I assume that is the reason you want it to change back. It just so happens that my purely subjective opinion differs from yours.

[Alessandro]

I agree. It's very good. All I'd like to see is they erase the lvl 15 Harpoon talent. That's all, really.

[Doffen]

I don't believe I did. Looking back at my earlier posts, I certainly didn't. I did say that I don't care about invented ad-hoc "lore"reasons to justify melee Hunter, which is obviously totally different to what you imply I meant here so maybe you're just confused. That is pretty common for people who support melee SV so I'll go with that.

Hunters used to have melee abilities in the beginning of the game, which were also emphasized by not letting them casting range spells, if the enemy was in close range. Even "deadzone" was a thing - - a certain range, where you could neither rangeattack, nor melee.

I know. I played then. I do not need some 3-post forum freshman lecturing me about Vanilla WoW.

And I don't care.

Not sure whos confused here, you forgot your own posts it seems.

And no, I won't try it. Well, I did test it on beta. But I'm never playing it. Melee makes it automatically not fun for me. I do not like melee specs. That's why I picked a Hunter.

You can play BM or MM, just pick one.

Lol at "best version since TBC". Vanilla and BC Survival was meh at best. Survival really got started when it got Explosive Shot in WotLK. It takes peak delusion, revisionism, and ignorance to pretend that the iterations following BC were inferior. For crying out loud, Wrath SV was almost literally the same talents as BC with new ones and Explosive Shot/Black Arrow on top. What kind of mental gymnastics can you perform to pretend that was worse than the BC version?

Yeah, that's your opinion. Wrath Survival was boring, and a lot of people played it for a little while since it was the best damage for a portion of Wrath. Explosive shot was dead boring. "Let's shoot, then wait. And let's shoot, then wait".

Mental gymnastic is when you think your opinion counts as truth. No point in coming here and try to put that in peoples head. You have tried for 2 years now, time to take the loss.

[NutellaCrepe]

I
Didn't you conjure up this "extremely popular" nonsense in another thread?

Someone did. All the nonsense arguments from your side sort of blur together after a while.

Anyway, no. It's not particularly unique (many SV Hunters on the official forums are actively pleading for mechanics to set it apart from BM) nor is it popular. It's still one of the least popular specs in PvE. It fares better than PvP but that's largely coasting off the back of MM being utterly unviable and BM being continually nerfed towards unviability. It was more played than both in PvP in 7.0 and that didn't save it.

When ignoring all context and viewing it from afar, one would actually find it pretty shocking that a spec with the numerical performance and gameplay fluidity of Survival would be so rare. In the past, when SV had a similar relative numerical position, it would easily be the most popular Hunter spec and one of the most popular specs in the game. It's overwhelmingly, undeniably clear now that melee is holding Survival back.

On that note, you should understand that 8.0 has proven exactly that; melee is a hindrance, not a strength. When they dropped the purely melee Survival, a spec that was literally the least popular in the whole game for its entire existence, then recover some fraction of Survival's former popularity by removing most of the melee mechanics and advertising it as a semi-ranged spec, that is not a ringing endorsement of the melee Hunter archetype. If anything, it's a denouncement. It's a clear signal that it didn't work out and the less melee Survival is the more people enjoy it.

I don't pretend to know what's going to happen in 9.0. I'm a pessimist so I'm still going with "ranged SV highly unlikely", just as I did in Legion. However, I also think SV becoming any more melee-oriented is unlikely. All the momentum belongs to ranged mechanics at this time. Where melee failed, ranged mechanics came in to save SV once again. I don't think that's unnoticed by Blizzard. The only real obstacle for a full ranged comeback at this point, other than Blizzard melee favouritism, is the matter of the Legion artifact and its appearances. I'm sure they can come to a solution if they feel a more pressing need.

EDIT: Since I love the look of my own posts, there's more. Unlike NutellaCrepe (or most melee Survival fans, for that matter), I don't bullshit and I can back up the things I say.

Here is the data for a time where Survival was in a similar numerical position to where it is today (beating out both other specs on single target but not overwhelmingly), but still ranged.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...&spec=Survival

When viewing individual spec data, you can see the number of parses for all 14-day periods for that instance in the tier. Highmaul is tricky because Blackrock Foundry released early February and made it obsolete. But look at the post-December hotfix numbers.

Survival peaked right at the end of Highmaul's relevance: in the period between Jan 20 2015 to Feb 3 2015, scoring 66,993 parses. For reference, the 2nd highest in the game for that same period was Frost Mage at 40,123 parses. Yes, Survival was the most popular spec in raiding at over 50% higher than the 2nd place. Good luck seeing melee Survival ever reaching such a position.

Wait do you think that the popularity of the spec is how much it is used in 1 teir of Highmaul?

Oh dear the stupidity is severe in this one.

[Bepples]

I can't explain to you why replacing the melee mechanics with ranged ones would make it 'automatically worse' because of course it wouldn't, it would just be different. I really enjoy playing survival as a melee spec and I therefore hope they keep it as a melee spec. Actually, better than 'pure melee' - it is a somewhat flexible spec where weaving in and out of melee is a central part of gameplay (at least for open world). Changing it to 100% ranged wouldn't make it worse, it would make it ranged which is currently opposed to what I enjoy about it. It being a ranged spec seems to have been central to what you enjoyed about the old survival, and I assume that is the reason you want it to change back. It just so happens that my purely subjective opinion differs from yours.

So let's clarify: going 100% ranged would be the contrary to what you want, but being ~75% ranged is what makes the spec great.

Yeah. Nonsense. You can hide behind "personal preference" but that's just schizophrenic; ranged is good until it reaches 100%, then it's bad.

Melee specs are good because they are generally tankier, which Survival isn't because it has the same utility as the other specs in the class. Ranged specs are good because of their freedom of... well.. range, which Survival doesn't have. So it's not the best of oth worlds, it's the worst.

And, for crying out loud, weaving in and out of melee is not a central part of the gameplay. That's a dishonest buzzphrase.

Not sure whos confused here, you forgot your own posts it seems.

...uhh...what you quoted is pretty much exactly what I addressed; just swap out "lore" with "initial design". I do not care about the Vanilla state of Survival. Not only does it still not justify a melee Hunter design because it still wasn't melee, I think that bringing a spec's direction to a screeching halt and rebuilding it from the ground up to chase a 12-year-old failed iteration is complete lunacy. What I care about is Survival's state as of WoD, how it got there, and where it should have gone after.

You're confused about the statement "I don't care" (that is; if you're actually posting in good faith here, which I suspect you're not). You think I'm saying I don't care about this whole melee Survival debacle. Not only have I never made such a claim, I say the exact opposite. It's the single most important issue in the game to me. So either you have a breathtaking lack of reading comprehension or you're dishonest and lying. Pick one, and don't reply with anything other than an apology.

You can play BM or MM, just pick one.

And if you want melee weapons, you could have played Frost, Unholy, Havoc, Feral, Windwalker, Retribution, Assassination, Outlaw, Subtlety, Enhancement, Arms, or Fury. For people who want ranged weapons, we only had the three Hunter specs. Now we are down to two choices, neither of which are remotely as satisfying to former Survival players, just so you could cram in another generic melee weapon fighter.

Nope. Not settling for that. I'll continue pushing for ranged Survival. We are already most of the way there so I don't see any reason to stop now.

Yeah, that's your opinion. Wrath Survival was boring, and a lot of people played it for a little while since it was the best damage for a portion of Wrath. Explosive shot was dead boring. "Let's shoot, then wait. And let's shoot, then wait".

Mental gymnastic is when you think your opinion counts as truth. No point in coming here and try to put that in peoples head. You have tried for 2 years now, time to take the loss.

So let's grant you the idea that Explosive Shot is boring. It wasn't, and it was actually a huge source of excitement back then when going into WotLK, but let's take a step into your revisionist fantasy headspace for a second and accept it as true. Burning Crusade was the same spec without Explosive Shot. You literally had the exact same toolkit, barring Explosive Shot and Black Arrow. Survival in BC was literally weaving Steady Shot, Auto Shot, Multi-Shot, and Arcane Shot in a 1-button macro. Your entire purpose as a spec was buffing other people's DPS with Expose Weakness. Which also still existed, by the way, although it was changed to be personal (befote you claim that's a bad thing: a) this meant it actually still had DPS value for you if there were other SV Hunters in the raid, and b) you got the raid mana buff as well).

There is one significant loss going into 3.0: Readiness was moved to the Marksman tree. So cling to that, if you will, but a) you'll have a hard time convincing anyone that one 5-minute CD is less boring than two active rotational abilities, and b) Readiness was later made baseline anyway.

So please explain to me the reasoning for SV gaining unique rotational abilities in WotLK but becoming more boring in the process. Try to remember that your original point was not only saying WotLK Survival was boring; you said 8.0 SV is the best version since 2.0 SV, implying everything in between is worse than 2.0 SV. You're only right about one of those versions (guess which one!).

And no, this isn't a matter of opinion. In 3.0 SV gained mechanics over all. It is not possible for it to be less boring after gaining more mechanics. Should I also mention the GCD went down to 1.0 seconds in that patch too (a change undone by Legion)?

Wait do you think that the popularity of the spec is how much it is used in 1 teir of Highmaul?

Oh dear the stupidity is severe in this one.

A) 1 tier as the most played spec is still better than melee SV's 0 tiers of being a popular spec at all
B) It was a lot more than one tier. I chose Highmaul because a) that was Survival's last hurrah (to this day and beyond) and b) it's the only one we have Warcraftlogs data for because WCL was opened shortly before that. Luckily the old Warlock blogger Cynwise still has his old content up which includes worldofwargraphs data from MoP.

https://cynwise.files.wordpress.com/...nged-specs.png

Oh what do you know, SV was one of the most popular ranged specs for a whole expansion. Most popular over-all in Dragon Soul, by the way.

It's kind of sad, when you think about it: a spec once so great and capable of reaching such heights is now relegated to niche obscurity.

Anyway, that last line of yours is evidently projection. It's clear you've given up, and I don't blame you.

[Furious Spoon]

Not really a fan of BfA survival over Legion survival. Legion survival had some issues, but overall the concept and mechanics were cool. Being almost ranged seems odd for a spec that's supposed to be melee. BfA survival feels like it was cobbled together with bits from legion survival and beast mastery hunter and they don't quite fit together. Like they just took parts of each and attached them, so we now have some frankenstein's monster of a spec.

My biggest problems with Legion survival were disengage not being baseline (and not having post-haste with it), and the mastery. I guess BfA handled those issues, but also cut the things I like with the flanking strike/mongoose bite interaction. I also dislike that survival no longer has decreased trap cooldowns, no longer has caltrops, rangers net, nor the snake hunter talent.

I think the BfA version of survival could seriously use some refinements in the ability department. I think some things should have been baseline like mongoose bite and wildfire infusion. Serpent sting should also be applied the way it was in Legion, with either raptor strike or carve, instead of pulling a hand crossbow out my pants. Seems they hit the mark closer with BfA survival than Legion survival with the amount of people I see praising it, it's slightly more than I recall liking the spec in Legion. For me it feels more like one step forward, two steps back.

[NutellaCrepe]

Anyway, that last line of yours is evidently projection. It's clear you've given up, and I don't blame you.

Arguing with an overly obsessive person making increasingly deficient arguments is simply no longer worth the time of day. Wearing people down with an increasing amount of stupidity is taken as victory for you, evidently.

And in the end, most raids that I partake in include at least 1 SV hunter. Some BM hunters in my own personal experience have said that they would switch to SV if it topped DPS. High level pvp hunters play survival, a few play BM.

No one will stop you from crying on the forums over a spec that once was and grasping at straws to prove that a well-regarded spec is not as well regarded as some may think.

[threads]

This spec is damn near perfect. I love how fun it is to play.

i thought the same in cata/mop

then it was gone

[Happyducky]

Not every single survival Hunter thread needs to turn into this type of discussion with the same damn people every time.

[Doffen]

...uhh...what you quoted is pretty much exactly what I addressed; just swap out "lore" with "initial design". I do not care about the Vanilla state of Survival. Not only does it still not justify a melee Hunter design because it still wasn't melee, I think that bringing a spec's direction to a screeching halt and rebuilding it from the ground up to chase a 12-year-old failed iteration is complete lunacy. What I care about is Survival's state as of WoD, how it got there, and where it should have gone after.

You're confused about the statement "I don't care" (that is; if you're actually posting in good faith here, which I suspect you're not). You think I'm saying I don't care about this whole melee Survival debacle. Not only have I never made such a claim, I say the exact opposite. It's the single most important issue in the game to me. So either you have a breathtaking lack of reading comprehension or you're dishonest and lying. Pick one, and don't reply with anything other than an apology.

...uh... so you wrote wrong? My bad I guess. When you say you don't care about other people's opinion on why Survival can be a melee both lorewise and by design, and write "I don't care" you are implying that you don't really care about why Survival can be melee, or be ranged for that matter. You are just arguing for arguing sake. You do really care, so stop brushing other people's opinions and statements with "I don't care". Because that would be a lie. And it's not nice to lie.

And if you want melee weapons, you could have played Frost, Unholy, Havoc, Feral, Windwalker, Retribution, Assassination, Outlaw, Subtlety, Enhancement, Arms, or Fury. For people who want ranged weapons, we only had the three Hunter specs. Now we are down to two choices, neither of which are remotely as satisfying to former Survival players, just so you could cram in another generic melee weapon fighter.

Well mage got a wand if you want, warlocks too. I mean, what you just wrote is no reason for not having survival as melee. Survival Hunter is one of the melee-specs as of now.

Nope. Not settling for that. I'll continue pushing for ranged Survival. We are already most of the way there so I don't see any reason to stop now.

That's fine, what I see as waste of time, you do not, it's ok.

So let's grant you the idea that Explosive Shot is boring. It wasn't, and it was actually a huge source of excitement back then when going into WotLK, but let's take a step into your revisionist fantasy headspace for a second and accept it as true. Burning Crusade was the same spec without Explosive Shot. You literally had the exact same toolkit, barring Explosive Shot and Black Arrow. Survival in BC was literally weaving Steady Shot, Auto Shot, Multi-Shot, and Arcane Shot in a 1-button macro. Your entire purpose as a spec was buffing other people's DPS with Expose Weakness. Which also still existed, by the way, although it was changed to be personal (befote you claim that's a bad thing: a) this meant it actually still had DPS value for you if there were other SV Hunters in the raid, and b) you got the raid mana buff as well).

There is one significant loss going into 3.0: Readiness was moved to the Marksman tree. So cling to that, if you will, but a) you'll have a hard time convincing anyone that one 5-minute CD is less boring than two active rotational abilities, and b) Readiness was later made baseline anyway.

So please explain to me the reasoning for SV gaining unique rotational abilities in WotLK but becoming more boring in the process. Try to remember that your original point was not only saying WotLK Survival was boring; you said 8.0 SV is the best version since 2.0 SV, implying everything in between is worse than 2.0 SV. You're only right about one of those versions (guess which one!).

And no, this isn't a matter of opinion. In 3.0 SV gained mechanics over all. It is not possible for it to be less boring after gaining more mechanics. Should I also mention the GCD went down to 1.0 seconds in that patch too (a change undone by Legion)?

And again, that's just your personal view. I played both Surv and BM in BT and SWP, and it wasn't the Waiting Shot we had in WotLK, so there is a great difference just there. And thanks for mentioning Expose Weakness, that was a lot of the enjoyment of playing Survival because of that. I didn't play in MoP, maybe Survival was awesome then, but I can't really say if it was more fun. But my personal experience is what counts. Not yours, not anyone else.

You just have another opinion than me, that's allowed. It got nothing to do with gaining more or less abilities, it's all about how the pace is and how the gameplay is. So you think a spec is fun if it has 20 buttons to push then right? Yeah, no, does not work like that. All you are saying is your view on how the Survival Hunter should be. It's actually ridiculous to say that a spec must be boring if it got less abilities.

And, Survival in BfA is superfun, for me. Let's not forget that.

[Ariktu]

I just wish they would give Hunters back the old Ranged Survival and make the melee spec a fourth spec. I miss playing survival, but will never play melee hunter spec.

[Xaviaton]

So let's clarify: going 100% ranged would be the contrary to what you want, but being ~75% ranged is what makes the spec great.

Yeah. Nonsense. You can hide behind "personal preference" but that's just schizophrenic; ranged is good until it reaches 100%, then it's bad.

Melee specs are good because they are generally tankier, which Survival isn't because it has the same utility as the other specs in the class. Ranged specs are good because of their freedom of... well.. range, which Survival doesn't have. So it's not the best of oth worlds, it's the worst.

And, for crying out loud, weaving in and out of melee is not a central part of the gameplay. That's a dishonest buzzphrase.

Yes, your clarification is exactly what I meant. You can say what "is good about" ranged and melee all you want but it won't stop me from enjoying survival for the exact things you seem to claim are objectively bad.

[Bepples]

Arguing with an overly obsessive person making increasingly deficient arguments is simply no longer worth the time of day. Wearing people down with an increasing amount of stupidity is taken as victory for you, evidently.

Sounds like you're mad because I'm right and you're wrong.

And in the end, most raids that I partake in include at least 1 SV hunter. Some BM hunters in my own personal experience have said that they would switch to SV if it topped DPS. High level pvp hunters play survival, a few play BM.

Cool useless story bro. I usually see 0. Does my anecdote count for more or less than yours?

SV does currently perform better than BM so have they started switching yet?

High level PvPers play whatever is most powerful, moreso than high level raiders. They are repeatedly nerfing BM in PvP and MM is already useless so the PvP Hunters are funnelled into Survival. It's a blatant attempt at artificially inflating SV's standing and they already tried this in 7.0. Survival was also the only relevant PvP Hunter spec then. It didn't save the spec.

Go look at how many people were PvPing as Survival in WoD then come back to me.

No one will stop you from crying on the forums over a spec that once was and grasping at straws to prove that a well-regarded spec is not as well regarded as some may think.

I mean it's still showing as a pretty unpopular spec and the only reason it's not as catastrophically unpopular as Legion is because they made it more simple, tuned it higher, and replaced most of the melee mechanics with ranged mechanics. I like that last part of the strategy which is why I advocate for them to go those couple melee mechanics further

...uh... so you wrote wrong? My bad I guess. When you say you don't care about other people's opinion on why Survival can be a melee both lorewise and by design, and write "I don't care" you are implying that you don't really care about why Survival can be melee, or be ranged for that matter. You are just arguing for arguing sake. You do really care, so stop brushing other people's opinions and statements with "I don't care". Because that would be a lie. And it's not nice to lie.

Are you posting while drunk or something? It sure seems like it.

Let me lay it out in short, simple bullet points because it seems like anything more than that causes you to get confused and lost:

- I do not care about the Vanilla Survival design
- I do not care about Rexxar/other token lore story points
- The above are the things I said in my original post
- I do care about whether Survival is melee/ranged

Understand? Probably not, but that's your problem. I'm arguing on these forums because I see that melee Survival was a mistake and I want to counter the fervent apologia people on the forums express for the spec. There was simply no valid reason for making Survival melee; the fake reasons brought up by Blizzard and their keyboard warrior defenders are easily shot down. They include the things I mentioned above: Survival's vanilla design and characters in lore. And yes, I don't care about those two. Why should I?

Rexxar was a totally unimportant lore character that basically gave a few quests in Vanilla/BC before disappearing from relevance all the way up until WoD. Why should I care about Rexxar? What made him so important all of a sudden that we needed to shitcan a spec along with its 10+ years of iterative development to make a new version that doesn't even thematiclaly match up with him anyway?

As for Vanilla SV design: again, why should I care? It was a long time ago, it was a failed design (hence why it was thrown out as soon as Hunters got their first major class review) and it wasn't even fully melee; it still used a ranged weapon. You're telling me we should throw out a spec over a revisionist fantasy based on a failed early design?

That's what I said in those posts. I didn't write anything incorrectly and I certainly didn't lie. You're projecting so damn hard right now they could put you in a conference room to deliver a PowerPoint presentation.

Well mage got a wand if you want, warlocks too. I mean, what you just wrote is no reason for not having survival as melee. Survival Hunter is one of the melee-specs as of now.

Wands have literally never been a relevant mode of dealing damage so this is just you forgetting the "smart" part of smart-ass. Hunters and their ranged weapons have always been the most unique combat style in WoW. Everything else is caster or melee weapons. Now we are one fewer on those when we already have a wealth of melee weapon specs.

On that note, having such a huge amount of melee weapon specs in the game is absolutely a reason to not make Survival melee. I could go into how it limits the ability to explore ranged weapon archetypes or how it now has to stand out among a larger pool of specs, but since you opted to not back up your statement at all I'll just leave it at that for now.

That's fine, what I see as waste of time, you do not, it's ok.

And here we come full circle because I have to repeat what I said earlier:

The corpse of Legion Survival says otherwise.

And again, that's just your personal view. I played both Surv and BM in BT and SWP, and it wasn't the Waiting Shot we had in WotLK, so there is a great difference just there. And thanks for mentioning Expose Weakness, that was a lot of the enjoyment of playing Survival because of that. I didn't play in MoP, maybe Survival was awesome then, but I can't really say if it was more fun. But my personal experience is what counts. Not yours, not anyone else.

You cannot keep hiding behind the "personal opinion" shield. What you said is flat-out wrong. It is not possible to take a spec, add mechanics to it, and have the result be less involved/more boring than what it was before. Yes, boring is a mostly subjective term. Mostly. But there comes a point where the subjective interpretation irreconcilably clashes with reality and you've gone far beyond that point. You might as well be telling me that your personal view is that Mythic Uldir is easier than Heroic Uldir.

And yeah, you didn't have Explosive Shot and Lock and Load and thus the requirement to wait for the Explosive Shot DoT to finish (took like, a second). What you instead did was cast Steady Shot, then wait for your shot timer for an Auto Shot, then Steady Shot again... because in BC your Auto Shot didn't activate during the Steady Shot cast. AMAZING! FUN GAMEPLAY! Not that you'd be aware of any of it happening because you literally got a macro to do it for you.

That's not an exaggeration. I have the macro right here.

/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

There it is, ladies and gentlemen. Survival's entire 2.4.3 gameplay wrapped into one button. This is the "pace and gameplay" Doffen is touting as superior to the version which came after it (and, no, you couldn't play that one with a one-button macro). Take a moment to absorb that.

Lol at "Expose Weakness was fun". Expose Weakness was a passive that buffed other people's DPS. You had absolutely no invovlement in it; it made no difference to your gameplay. You still had it in 3.0, a fact you glossed over, only it became personal so a) you weren't punished for target swapping and b) you could actually bring more than one SV Hunter to the raid without gimping them (BC EW did not stack LOL). That sucks for you because you lost raid utility? Oh well, you gained a mana battery raid buff in 3.0 as well as a bunch of new pet utility + a Deterrence that was actually worth a damn, so you still can't pretend it's a loss and not a gain.

You just have another opinion than me, that's allowed. It got nothing to do with gaining more or less abilities, it's all about how the pace is and how the gameplay is. So you think a spec is fun if it has 20 buttons to push then right? Yeah, no, does not work like that. All you are saying is your view on how the Survival Hunter should be. It's actually ridiculous to say that a spec must be boring if it got less abilities.

Again with the "MY OPINION" shield.

You want to talk about pace and gameplay? I already demonstrated above that you couldn't play 3.0 Survival with a 1 button macro like you could in 2.0. You had a proc that required reactive gameplay; something totally absent from 2.0 SV outside of PvP. Speaking of PvP, you kept all the same great control passives plus some new ones like T.N.T along with Disengage now being a backwards leap and Deterrence being a pseudo-immunity. So basically, when it comes to pace and gameplay, 3.0 SV was better in every single way. But we already knew that.

Yes, your clarification is exactly what I meant. You can say what "is good about" ranged and melee all you want but it won't stop me from enjoying survival for the exact things you seem to claim are objectively bad.

Ok.

So your personal preference looks like this:

https://i.imgur.com/vFDoER8.png

I'm going to go ahead and presume that most Survival Hunters don't have this "ranged is good but then it's suddenly bad" view and it's not reasonable to keep token melee specs around that otherwise keep other Hunters from enjoying the spec because some niche contingent thinks it's a bad thing if it loses its last few remaining melee-only restrictions.