The Butchery of Survival in BFA

[threads]

they hope if they just reskin BM braindead playstyle that people will suddenly play the spec but i doubt it

[Nythiz]

However up to Cata the survival tree was largely focused on Traps/melee.

That's not entirely wrong, but it's also not entirely correct.

I think it's better to say that Survival focused on not making you horrible in melee. Going for a survival build did not make you a melee hunter; you simply didn't have enough damage and abilities to sustain that gameplay. The only difference is that someone who didn't spend much/anything in SV tree was extremely weak in melee range.

Survival's Kill Command generates focus with chance for cd reset
Dire Frenzy/Beast generates focus and the cd can reset
Wildfire Bomb asap
BM's Kill Command asap (but it costs focus)
Survival maintains DoT
BM has to pool for BW
otherwise, do nothing

So, despite BM's controversy in Legion, they gave the same playstyle (or lack there of) to Survival? i dont even

Serpent Sting already replaced Lacerate and Wildfire Bomb's duration is less than half of the cooldown (so you'll only track that if you spec two charges).

SV is still missing something to give the spec depth. I hope blizzard realizes that it can't pass in it's current state.

they hope if they just reskin BM braindead playstyle that people will suddenly play the spec but i doubt it

With enough stats and the right build BM isn't as braindead as most people seem to suggest. I mean it's still a bit of a glorified whack-a-mole press what comes off cooldown, but at higher gear levels it's more enjoyable as the pace is higher.
There are other specs that have similar playstyle or really don't require that much more brain power. If you look at what MM really entails than the spec really isn't that complex either, you're practically repeating the same rotation over and over.

That said, the new SV currently seems about half finished; lets hope they add some more interesting stuff.

[Bepples]

Complains blizz can't make 3 different playstyles.
Wants Survival to be a third ranged spec on Hunters.

Survival is a different playstyle than BM and Marks; that's why you're complaining about it, retard.

His point is that Blizzard is creatively bankrupt when it comes to ranged specs and the ranged-preferring players suffer as a result due to nonsense like Survival going melee (purely done because Blizzard could not figure out how to make a 3rd ranged spec unique enough for their liking while refusing to listen to any player suggestion for ranged Survival).