It's like reverse legion hunter treatment.
I'm sure people are either going to either love this or absolutely hate this suggestion and I'm sure it's been made before but I really would love to see this for a few reasons I think are fairly sound.
Gameplay wise, sub has had an identity crisis for countless expansions now. Most recently, with the removal of the tunneled single target dps from using aoe to fuel combo points, there's nothing this spec does that's unique or special. It has no niche at all. Historically in somewhere like cata, sub was the insane burst spec rivaled only by an arcane mage for those precious burn phases like on spine of deathwing. Nowadays, I really just don't understand what sub is good for or what it brings to the table.
Competitively speaking, having a ranged spec would be really great for rogues, even though we are kind of sought after in raids, it'd be really cool for those inevitable fights that need like 3 melee max such as Blackhand, Mythrax or Fetid. Not all guilds can just pick up quality ranged for a boss or two in a tier so being able to swap into ranged would help out our guilds.
Thematically, sin/sub feel so similar anyway. The idea of a shadowy assassin utilising poisons and shadow magic to take down their target, for me personally I don't understand why this has to be 2 separate specs.
Again on theme, dark ranger is a concept loved by the community for years now. I can't see them bringing it to hunter or even as a whole other class, at least not for another 3 years obviously. Sub seems to have this shadow magic theme going for it which works well with sin but doesn't seem to truly stand on its own. I think making it into a ranged spec could be a good way to give it distinction and uniqueness.
Thoughts?