What's not to get? They removed a spec a lot of people liked.
The past of the class absolutely dictates that Survival should be ranged, actually.
https://i.imgur.com/kBVr5Uc.png
Clearly Survival is not the funnest Hunter spec when it's perpetually unpopular and we get threads like this one all the time.
It was a far better spec than the current SV could ever hope to be.
Most people come to learn that "being different" is not the only part of being good, and melee Survival is the perfect example of that.
Besides, this is like saying that all the Rogue specs are the same because they all dual-wield and have stealth. We can and in fact did have plenty of variety when all 3 Hunter specs were ranged.
https://i.imgur.com/kBVr5Uc.png
Actually, WoW Hunters are explicitly defined as the class that uses ranged weapons and pets. You might think of other possible "hunter" archetypes that could be included, just as there are people that argue for certain melee mage concepts, but WoW classes need a solid foundational identity and for Hunters that included the ranged weapon just as how for Mages it included being ranged casters. Making SV melee weakened the class identity.
No, the Hunter specs were not all the same thing because they all used a ranged weapon, just as Rogues aren't all the same just because they dual-wield. Survival had a different approach to ranged weapon combat than the other two in that it focus on resourcefulness via better utility and use of exotic munitions. For the many people who played it the spec did feel hugely different.
Arguing that WotLK, an expansion with purely additive changes to SV (besides Expose Weakness rework and Readiness becoming an MM talent) that put it on the map for the first time ever, "changed and gutted" SV is one of the most spectacularly awful takes I've ever seen in any Survival discussion and that really is saying something.
If you sincerely believe that SV was a melee spec before WotLK just like it is now you are woefully misinformed and lying about ever having played it.
You heavily implied it by saying that:
- WotLK gutted SV by turning it into a generic ranged spec (I genuinely can't get over the absurdity of this argument)
- You liked how it was beforehand, in Vanilla and TBC
- Since you were here first, the spec should be melee
So his comprehension was spot on, actually. As is mine. You were clearly under the impression that SV was a melee spec before WotLK.
Don't give them ideas. There are melee players already demanding this. Survival becoming melee taught them that taking away ranged specs is a perfectly valid class design direction for Blizzard to take. If you give a mouse a cookie it will ask for a glass of milk.
Even if this were true, and it isn't, it would have been much easier to just work on further distinguishing the ranged Survival gameplay than remaking it into a melee spec. It would also have been much more effective.
The ranged specs are heavily gimped in PvP while all the good CC tility is funneled to SV.
This doesn't make melee SV a good idea. It does well in PvP in spite of being melee, not because of it. It was even better in PvP the last time it was ranged. Besides, rated PvP is a very small part of the game that not many people participate in compared to other areas.