Survival Hunter Guide (Updated for 5.4)

[3clipse]

So people seem to like this!

I'ma sticky it.

[Grizzly Willy]

So people seem to like this!

I'ma sticky it.

/cheer

Plus it seems to be encouraging some theorycrafting.

[feigning]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but are you sure 65 crit outweighs 22 agility to cloak? I simmed it out a few times and while the loss in DPS is negligible, 22 agility is coming out on top, albeit only by 3~ DPS.

[Illana]

it depends on your gear of course, the more agility you have the more it's going to be worth for you cause of our spec 10% agility increase.

In all possibility those people at the end of this raid tier will find 22 agility a little bit better than 65 crit and as we increase raid tiers 65 crit will start going obsolete (which is wrong imo we need something better on cloak+hands tbh).

[Vaelkyri]

Im beggining to think that a lot more research needs to be done into high haste surv, maybe its just my latency, but im seeing very good results and sims. /shrug.

See how it pans out I spose.

[maezTro]

I got a question, after reaching or getting below 1.50 cast time is it still better to go all haste or reforge to mastery?

[Illana]

once you've hit less than 1.5sec cast time (most likely when you get 4part t11) haste starts to be a very valuable stat and you should be looking for it on all pieces of your gear. But don't prrioritise it over crit.

Mastery is very weak for survival.

[Deleted]

Very nice guide Illana! I would just like to point 3 things:
1- I fear that the switch to t12 will not make us reach the 2nd haste plateau anymore.
2- Instead of macroing /cancelaura deterrence to all the shots I would make a /cast deterrence /cancelaura deterrence because it seems safer and all.
3- It is good to see another hunter acknowledging that the new defensive stance is useless and that you even did something that I don't feel like doing yet which is putting /petattack on several shots.

[Illana]

1. well technically the "second" haste plateau is at 1.5 seconds so it is definitely still within reach.

The thing is the real DPS increase is how much haste we can get past that plateau so imo once we get to dropping our t11 we will just stick with the first plateau and go all out crit/mastery.

2. I don't really understand, why would you want cast deterrence if you want to cancel it?

3. Yeah i reall wish they'd at least revert defensive stance back to what it was, just makes being a hunter just that little bit more annoying.

They did fix trap though, for that im pacified for at least another patch.

[Deleted]

Well sacrifying so much crit for the haste needed is something that won't probably be benefical. The macro does the same of what you have bound to all your shots. One click activates deterrence, the second click deactivates it. And there are a lot of reasons to deactivate deterrence, it all depends on the fight.

[Illana]

well the thing is in my survival spec i have around 25% haste anyway while reforging to crit and keeping haste in mind when I've got a choice between that and mastery.

[Courierrawr]

Thanks for the guide, it helped me a lot! I'd be completely lost when it comes to how to play and gear my survival hunter if it wasn't for this.

[seraphien]

Just a question, not even sure if anyone got an answer to it.

Assuming you currently have 4 piece T12 gear, is it worthwhile reforging in this manner, Hit 8% > Crit > Haste. Then you drop explosive shot altogether and only use arcane shot. Or you could stand by explosive shot and only use it when Lock and Load or T12 2nd set bonus proc.

A few reasons for this

1.) You can reforge away any excess mastery into haste which many should agree mastery is of lesser priority
2.) The rotation become simpler to use hence less mistake and more mobile
3.) When the t12 2nd set bonus proc, you will use it right away with arcane shot, again this is just to make the rotation simpler.
4.) More arcane shot to proc Sick tm which should enable an increase in your pet dps by a bit.
5.) Arcane shot scale with weapon damg whereas explosive shot does not so if you got higher end weapon, arcane shot seem better.

The only weakness I can think of is Explosive shot trigger 1 GCD where as 2 arcane shot trigger 2 GCD based on focus cost.

So with higher end gear, does arcane shot > explosive shot?

[Illana]

Won't ever happen, ES scaling on AP is much higher than AS. ES will always be worth using over AS

[Sephira]

Thanks for taking the time to put it all together.
I've just been reading through all the comments too, it's always nice to see a lot of different opinions.
Personally I've not really been focusing much on my dmg performance in cata since irl life took over so
I ended up not caring at all. But I figured it was about time I did something about it xD So yes, thank you woooo!

[maezTro]

So, after losing the 4 piece t11, is it still better to go all haste or get to 1.66 cast time on Cobra Shot and go all mastery?

[Illana]

Since survival has no built in 15% haste like MM and BM the amount of haste needed is just not worth getting it past 1.66 cast.

Once we get into higher gear, like 380+ then there's going to be enough haste on gear to get to 1.5 sec (approx) comfortably and again it will be worth going for haste again.

[Deathpath]

pft, every hunter knows all of this. this is for beginers

[Deleted]

pft, every hunter knows all of this. this is for beginers

why troll seriously? its a great post and i play MM so i dont really know anything about survival as i have never really sat and played it.

thanks for the post Illana it helped me out slightly even thought i already know my hunter pretty well its a good guide for people who may need that extra help

[Illana]

meh just ignore him, was too obvious a troll so I didn't reply.