Beastmaster vs. Survival

I was talking to one of my hunter friends last night, about why we play the class, and what spec we like best.

His story was that he'd tried some of the other classes, and when he rolled on our pvp server, he decided to try a dwarf hunter. He liked the dwarf race, and hunter seemed like a good thing to try. And now, 2+ years later, he's still a dwarf hunter, and loving it.

The conversation turned towards spec. Now, I'm pretty adamant about being a beast master, simply because I feel like, for me, it's the "true" hunter spec. It focuses on the pet, and really speaks to my play style. I don't mind what other hunters do, though I do recommend BM for newbie hunters, since it makes leveling so easy, but I wanted to know what spec my friend really liked, and why. For him, survival is where it's at. While I love the pet aspect of being a hunter, he's all about the traps. Even though survival may not be the highest dps output spec, he said he really enjoys it, and wouldn't want to play any other way.

We were both happy to admit that we spec the way we do because we like the way it plays, regardless of what Blizzard has done *this patch* to change those specs. Not that we won't discuss those changes in detail however, and try to find the best possible way to get the most out of our specs to back up our claims of their greatness! :)