I would find that a wasted talent and honestly hope there was never a reason to take it. Other classes fill that role - rogue if you like feeling more sneaky or warrior if you want brute force.
Ideally yes. Why should Hunter class design continue to chase such a niche audience full of people who don't even main the class?
At best there should be a talented melee option within BM. Otherwise we've already catered this class to melee players far beyond a reasonable amount and evidently you guys are getting spoiled.
Honestly I'd rather MM stick with lone wolf. At least visually to me it is nice to fight side by side with the pet. I think a lone wolf SV hunter would look to much like a discount warrior.
If you don't think the current version of Survival is unique and fun, I don't know what to tell you. In its current form the spec totally has a place in the game.
If borrowed power is gone, well, thats another story entirely.
i dont think most people are bothered that hunters have a meele specc, i believe the big issue lies in that a former specc was taken away completly and remade into meele. Blizzard could atleast give a talent option to choose between ranged/meele in the survival tree atleast.
As for OP: I dont think giving Surv LW is a good idea, not only beacuse current focus generation is tied to the pet but also beacuse you litterly turn into a bootleg warrior with lonewolf. could aswell reroll arms warrior and mog a spear on it.
Yeah Surv without the pet might actually make it remotely interesting.
Mighty one, never forget.
with no pet you cannot kill command. a key part or your rotation is when you throw the red bomb you get no CD kill command. spamming that gives you a chance to reset your charges of wildfire bomb.
Demon Hunters and now Evokers don't even have the traditional 3 specs. Blizzard's class design has been slacking for awhile now, they seem averse to anything that creates unnecessary balance work for them.
I dont understand why people keep saying they changed a ranged spec to melee without reason.
All the skills in survival now were part of the hunter class back in classic. Raptor strike, mongoose etc. It used to be a hybrid spec even back then.
The issue with the hunter class is that its called Hunter, but is associated with various other "classes" from other games/lore. BM spec as an example is a ranged spec with pets. BMs in other games, and even warcraft, are usually shown as melee with pets (Rexxar). Marksman is the spec associated with archers/ranged physical and survival is similar to a ranger.
With the new talents i would have liked the flexibility the hunter concept creates.
What i would like to see in dragon:
1. All melee and ranged skills given to all specs.
2. The common hunter tree separated in beast, weapons and utility lines. Weapons allows you specilization in mellee or ranged.
3. Hunters can one again equip both a ranged and melee weapon.
4. BM tree focuses more on your pet and dealing dmg both yourself and the pet. You may either be in melee or ranged.
5. Surv tree focuses more an being a ranger type. You are a hybrid of melee and ranged focusing on buffing your attacks with animal afinities and the pet if active acts as a companion providing utility and a secondary role to your dps.
6. Marksman tree is the tree focusing on ranged attacks.
With the above change most people enjoying the theme will find a playstsyle. BM melle or ranged, archer or ranger
This concept can be further expanded with ranged including axe throwing not only bows/guns but it might be too much work.