Survival Hunter Guide (4.3)

**Illana** · 2011-07-10, 05:42 PM

Changelog:-
21/04/2011 - Version 1.0 release, updated for patch 4.06
25/04/2011- Version 1.01, fixed part on haste plateaus.
03/05/2011- Added links to loot lists in gear section.
27/05/2011- Added new link to wowreforge, corrected reforging flow chart and added useful addons. Updated status on wild hunt bug and pet talents. Added heroic encounter guide.
14/07/2011- Complete overhaul updated for 4.2
-pet focus bug now fixed
-updated for new gear
-updated encounter guides
-added AoE raiding spec
-updated orc racial ability
-added comments on engineering
-updated shot priority.
28/08/2011- Fixed some tooltips plus added in-depth analysis for 4part t12 bonus management.
07/12/2011- Updated for 4.3
-Dragon Soul encounter guides added
-Notes on buffs to survival spec
25/12/2011 (christmas day update!)
-Dragon soul normal encounter guide finished
-Dragon soul heroic encounter guides started
-Updated notes on haste plateaus
-Updated notes on shot priority with new set bonus.
03/02/2012
-Updated for patch 4.3.2
01/03/2012
-Updated notes regarding LnL changes
-Updated some stuff on encounter guides
18/03/2012
-Corrected parts of rotation and priority section

Contents

1.0 Foreword

2.0 Your hunter

2.1- Race
2.2- Talents
2.3- Glyphs
2.4- Professions

3.0 Gear

3.1- Stats
3.2- Reforging
3.3- Gems
3.4- Enchants
3.5- Consumables

4.0 Your pet

4.1- What pet?
4.2- Pet Talents
4.3- Handy Pet Tips
4.4- Pet Stances

5.0 Raiding Tips

5.1- Rotation
5.2- Encounter Guide
5.2a- Morchok
5.2b- Warlord Zon'ozz
5.2c- Yor'sahj the Unsleeping
5.2d- Hagara the Strombinder
5.2e- Ultraxion
5.2f- Warmaster Blackhorn
5.2g- Spine of Deathwing
5.2h- Madness of Deathwing
5.3- Macros

6.0 Afterword, Acknowledgements and Addons

1.0 Foreword

Well our forums is stuffed full of MM guides I thought I would hand out my experience raiding as survival.

A little about me: I've currently participated in 6/7 normal boss downs in a 10man raiding guild. 10 man raiding is much more difficult and different than 25 so please keep that in mind if you see anything odd or out of place compared to what you are used to.

So first and foremost:

Why Survival?

Because we currently have the most versatile AoE damage ability in the game which also has the additional benefit of hitting like a truck. We can move while doing it and also our AoE is not ground targeted.

We have competitive single target DPS in addition to the extra utility plus our dps on the move is actually superior to MM and BM so in a lot of encounters we come out on top.

2set t13 benefits survival the MOST as we are able to utilise all the focus.

What this guide will tell you

From pre-raid gear to detailed stat breakdowns, this guide will provide you all you need to know about raiding as a survival Hunter. As I progress I will also be updating and adding tips and tricks about every encounter.

Doesn't matter if you've just hit 85 or you've been wanting to try out survival for a while, this guide will have all you need to know.

Any information which is not my own I will list the links to in the last post so you can check it out yourselves.

Please feel free to leave comments about how to improve or additions to my encounter tips which I have not experienced yet! So if there are any survival hunters raiding heroics I would love to hear your input.

2. Your Hunter

The most important thing when you dps, you have to get your hunter right in every way if you want to squeeze out every last drop of dps and this part will cover the bare bones of your hunter, the things that every hunter has.

2.1 Race

Horde:

Orc:- Command gives 5% pet damage plus their blood fury adds 1170 attack power at level 85 on a 2minute cooldown. Hardiness can also be useful for damage avoidance by being stunned for less time and therefore being able to move out of incoming boss mechanics, no such encounter exists yet however.

Troll:- Trolls gain 1% additional ranged crit chance when wielding bows and also have Berserking which is a 20% attack speed buff for 10 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown. Survivability is mildly improved by allowing 10% of your natural health regeneration to continue while in combat and also improves your total health regeneration by 10%. Da voodoo shuffle can also be useful in pre-empting damage by having movement reduction abilities reduced by 15%.

Goblin:- Goblins have a 1% bonus to all attack and casting speed combined with the ability to fire a rocket which deals fire damage based on your level, this triggers GCD so not entirely that useful. Currently I do not know what it scales on as various sources have conflicting opinions, anybody who knows a conclusive formula please don't hesitate to post it! The rocket jump also shares CD with the barrage and arguably is more useful as it can save you from death if disengage is on CD.

Blood Elf:- The only racial trait that grants additional DPS is Arcane Torrent which restores 15 focus instantly on a 2 minute CD. Other significant racials include Arcane resistance which means you get 85 arcane resistance at level 85. No encounter in the firelands has significant arcane damage. Note that this stacks with Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild so buffed you will have 182 arcane resistance.

Undead:- Innate shadow resistance at max level which stacks with other resistance buffs. Will of the forsaken seems handy at first, but there are not many charm/fear/sleep effects.

Tauren:- Innate nature resistance and 5% increased base health (2267 at level 85) which can be useful on fights where you do not have multiple shamans to give nature resistance. War stomp can be good to stun spiderlings in the Beth'tilac encounter if you are having trouble slowing them down.

Alliance:

Worgen:- Undoubtedly the race with the highest potential DPS. 1% additional crit plus a 40% movement speed buff (for 10 seconds!). They also come with innate nature and shadow resistance, having 85 of each at level 85.

Dwarf:- Second in terms of DPS. Gains an additional 1% ranged critical strike chance when wielding guns. THERE IS FINALLY AN AGILITY GUN IN DRAGON SOUL HURRAY. Dwarves can still make do with the ilevel 397 pvp weapon and that would be superior to an ilevel 397 bow or crossbow the crit will most likely outweigh the other secondary stat that has been lost to resilience. Stoneform can be useful to remove harmful effects, but the majority of the damage is direct so only midly useful. Other racials do not benefit Hunters.

Draenei:- Comes just after Dwarves in terms of DPS. The only thing that adds directly to DPS is their 1% bonus to hit chance. This means you can spend your stat budget on other DPS enhancing stats such as crit/haste/mastery. Innate shadow resistance and they also have a small heal for 20% of their max hp over 15 seconds on a 3minute CD.

Human:- No traits that benefit DPS directly, but every man for himself could potentially break movement and action impairing effects allowing your to either avoid damage or to continue DPS.

Night Elf:- Again no traits that benefit DPS directly, they have innate nature resistance like Taurens and also have a 2% chance for melee and ranged attacks directed at them to miss. More useful for tanks but could save you if you are lucky.

2.2 Talents

This makes or breaks your hunter, wrong talents means a huge DPS loss. Certain talents may make the encounter much easier and some other are just personal preference.

The standard talent distribution for survival is 3/7/31 here is the best talent distribution for this tier atm: Single Target Spec

2.3 Glyphs

Prime Glyphs

Glyph of Kill Shot
Glyph of Explosive Shot
Glyph of Arcane Shot

These are the only prime glyphs you should be using. However for fights with large AoE phases such as yor'sahj and madness SrS glyph is a DPS increase over the AS glyph.

Major Glyphs:

Glyph of Disengage

Glyph of Trap Launcher

Glyph of Ice Trap

Glyph of Raptor Strike

These are the only ones I consider useful for raiding and I currently run with trap launcher/raptor/disengage. Trap launcher is not as needed now since 2set t13 and we are swimming in focus. Raptor is freaking fantastic on most of the fights in this raid tier as a lot of phases you need to stack up for healing while DPSing either the boss or adds. Prime example comes to mind is yor'sahj where you can raptor and shoot at the same time relieving a huge amount of stress from your healers. Disengage isn't so needed but it's nice to have.

Minor Glyphs:

Glyph of Feign Death is the only one with any noticable benefit. Pet happiness was removed in 4.1 so Glyph of Lesser Proportion is being changed to increase pet size. Get whichever ones you feel like, but I use Glyph of Revive Pet just in case I ever need to revive and scare beast for the occasional chance I get caught with my surv spec in a pvp situation.

2.4 Professions

Currently the best professions for DPS are blacksmithing with 100 Agi gain with 2 epic gems and engineering with the synapse strings for coordinated burst.

For convenience I would suggest going Alchemy, Leatherworking or Inscription. This gives you a great advantage when using guild cauldrons for raids, cheap and easy upgrades for your leg and wrist armour and hours of Therazane rep saved.

For absolute min/maxing, you will want engineering. 480 agility for 10 seconds every 60 seconds does average out to 80 agility but the burst and the potential stacking with other cooldowns makes engineering the profession with the highest potential DPS gain. You will want to use it on cd most of the time, but if you know that certain adds spawn and they coincide with your synapse strings cd, save it for them or save them for when you know your trinkets are off cd or for when your woodchucker procs.
3.0 Gear

Remember: HUNTER'S WEAR MAIL.

There is absolutely no excuse to be wearing leather at level 85, none at all.

3.1 Stats

Our number one stat is agility. No exceptions. Don't take anything with strength or intellect on it, it's just a waste of a slot if it doesn't have agility on it.

Survival stat priority after agility is as follows:

hit to cap>haste to first plateau>crit>haste/mastery

Hunter hit cap is exactly 961 hit rating, you want to be as close to this as you can but try not to go under but a little bit higher. I currently have reforged and gemmed to a point where I have 962 hit rating so I have very little wastage in stats. You should aim to do the same but it can get fustrating calculating the different reforges to try and obtain the perfect hit rating. There is a fantastic site that does this for you call wowreforge.com, just load your character and it will tell you exactly what to reforge to obtain the stats you want.

Now what do I mean by the first plateau?

Our main focus regeneration shot is CoS and has a base 2 second cast time. Our aim is to make CoS a 1.66s cast time so we can fit in 3 CoS for every ES we fire. Ideally you want your CoS to be a bit lower than 1.66s to deal with errors and your personal latency.

Now how much haste rating do we need then?

We have a base haste rating of 13.3% with hunting party and pathing. To get CoS from a 2s cast to a 1.66s we need exactly 20% haste. Since haste bonuses stack multiplicatively this means we only need 5.92% haste or 758 haste rating to hit 1.66s cast time.

Work out what is comfortable for you by practising on a dummy and then adding about 50 haste rating to what you have. I used to run with almost 900 haste rating because I was playing from China and my latency was around the 400 mark. People who have very low and stable latency may choose to go for exactly 758 haste.

The gear in Dragon Soul has a lot of native haste on it so it will actually be impossible to drop to 758 haste, most likely if you take all the gear possible that doesn't have haste you can get as low as around 1k so don't worry about not getting to it.

I heard that haste is better than crit blahblahblahblah

It isn't, crit is our no.1 secondary stat this early in the expansion. I have an average ilevel of 389 at the moment and im sitting at just about 44% crit fully buffed in a raid, with wrath of unchaining stacks up it goes to about 46% but there's still lots of room for improvement there. I expect fully geared ilevel 410 hunters will be sitting at just over over 50% crit fully buffed and to be honest that's still not enough crit to be near any thresholds like at the end of wotlk.

What is this second and third plateau I've heard of?

T11 is no longer viable since the loss in stats compared to the set bonus is just far too much. However the t13 2 set bonus allows us to shoot for the second haste plateau at 1.5 second cobra shot cast time. This happens at 2264 Haste rating.

The "rotation" changes to 2 CoS (3seconds) 2 AS(2 seconds) between every ES. Now you won't have enough focus to do this every ES cooldown so there will be times where you will have to just 3 CoS and small deadtime before ES but overall you are gaining an AS every other ES cycle and actually a bit more due to TotH procs.

Now the big problem is that at this tier's BiS weapons have no haste rating on them as they are proc weapons meaning that if you want to wear deathwing's weapons you will have to sacrifice crit for this plateau. I'ts not entirely clear whether this will be a DPS upgrade yet. I will test this when I obtain better gear.

Just as a reference, full BiS gear has 1892 haste rating reforging to crit. This means if we were to go for 2264 haste while in BiS gear we would be losing roughly 3% crit.

So what about mastery?

It's ok as a stat but doesn't affect all of our DPS like crit. Majority of our damage is elemental but still it is not as good as crit. I would say any mastery is ok, but crit and haste will always be better since they affect the entirety of our damage rather than just a portion. In comparison to haste however, mastery will be the stat you go for after you hit the first plateau due to our 2set t13 bonus doubling our focus regen from cobra shot.

Attack power???

Removed from all items in Cataclysm content, just forget about it.

3.2 Reforging

Following our stat priorities listed above here are the rules to reforging:

(start at the "are you hitcapped" box)

That's all there is to it, simple huh?

Disclaimer: Does not apply to those who have 4set t11 bonus.

For those who do have the 4set you want to reforge as much haste as possible without reforging from crit and only sacrificing mastery.

3.3 Gems

Hunters can use a variety of gems, but the ones most commonly used are:

Delicate Inferno Ruby

Deadly Ember Topaz

Glinting Demonseye

Again, following stat priorities in section 3.1, you should gem to reach caps if you cannot reforge to meet them.

Replace gems with epic versions if you are rich/lucky enough

If you are capped then gem agility only except in slots where one hybrid (purple/orange) will activate a +20 agility bonus, but only if you are sacrificing one Delicate inferno ruby (+40 agi) to meet it.

For example in

Lightning-Charged Legguards there is a 20 agility bonus but you must use two orange gems to obtain this bonus.

This means you are putting 60 agility and 40 crit rating against 80 agility. According to most simulations, 20 agility is better than 40 crit rating and therefore ignoring this socket bonus would be beneficial for your DPS.

The ONLY meta-gem that is acceptable is

Agile Shadowspirit Diamond

3.4 Enchants

Head:-

Arcanum of the Ramkahen

Shoulders:-

Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal
or

Swiftsteel Inscription if you are a Scribe.

Chest:-

Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats

Back:-

Enchant Cloak - Greater Critical Strike

Gloves:-

Scroll of Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery

Bracers:-

Enchant Bracer - Agility
or

Draconic Embossment - Agility if you are a Leatherworker.

Belt:-

Ebonsteel Belt Buckle

Legs:-

Dragonscale Leg Armor

Feet:-

Enchant Boots - Assassin's Step
or

Enchant Boots - Major Agility

Now this is a complete personal choice, some people think that 8% movement speed isn't all that needed especially as we have access to Aspect of the Cheetah and disengage and some people believe that 10 agility will not be noticeable and 8% movement speed can be far more beneficial. Go with what you feel like, try both and see which one works out better for you.

Personally I use Assassin's step.

Melee Weapon:-

Enchant 2H Weapon - Mighty Agility

Ranged Weapon:-

Flintlocke's Woodchucker

3.5 Consumables

For food you will want to eat:

Skewered Eel

Fortune Cookie

Seafood Magnifique Feast

Flask of the Winds Should be your flask of choice, you can also of course use

Flask of Battle if your guild provides Cauldrons.

Potion that should be used is

Potion of the Tol'vir

4.0 Your Pet

No matter what anyone says, your furry/scaly/slimy companion is more than a significant component of your DPS (and your best friend!) and should be looked after properly.

4.1 What Pet?

I am not going to bother to tell you which pet gives which buff as we have a fantastic stickied topic on the official forums which explains it perfectly already.

Link here for the lazy: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/824972647

My only advice with pets is to bring what your raid lacks: your personal DPS increase with a ferocity/cunning pet is nothing compared to providing a missing raid buff/debuff. This does depend a little on raid composition, gear discrepancies and skill differences but in general you should be providing what the raid lacks unless you FULLY understand that bringing another pet would be to the overall benefit of your raid.

4.2 Pet Talents

The generally accepted ferocity pet talents are these: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#0md00ccz0hoob

The generally accepted cunning pet talents are these: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#cMd00ofh0Mo0b

The generally accepted tenacity pet talents are these: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#0wd0u0h0bokM

If you are in the current raid tier (either part heroic firelands or t13) you will now have enough crit to sustain WH2/2 for it to be a significant DPS increase.

4.3 Handy Pet Tips.

Make sure your CotW and RoR are not on autocast, you want to manually activate these along with your other cooldowns.

If you have a pet who can prowl (cat) turn the autocast on it off. Prowling reduces pet movement speed by 50% and can delay your pet getting to the target for a significant amount of time between mobs. This isn't so important for raiding as you will never leave combat for the duration of the encounter but it is very annoying sometimes.

4.4 Pet Stances

In 4.2 they removed aggressive stance and changed defensive stance. I will give a quick overview to our pet's behaviour now:

Assist Stance: Pet will attack the target you are attacking and if you change targets your pet will also change targets after around 2 seconds. Your pet also seems to create an aggro table in this stance so when your current target is dead or not attackable it will run off to attack the next target on it's aggro table regardless of whether you're attacking something or not. Make a petpassive macro to avoid awkward situations.

Defensive stance: Pet will attack any target who is attacking you or your pet, but does not do anything if you attack a target and they are not attacking you. Basically this stance has become completely useless and assist/passive stance will always be better options.

Passive stance: Pet will not automatically perform any attacks unless manually ordered to. Autocast friendly skills such as roar of courage and furious howl will still be used.

5.0 Raid tips

5.1 Rotation

So you got your gear, spec and pet sorted out. Now which buttons do you press and when?

Start of with what any Hunter would do: mark your target then it's time to get into the flow.

Hunter DPS of all specs rely on the fact you use something EVERY GCD. If you are sitting around waiting for shots to come off CD or regaining focus, YOU ARE LOSING DPS.

It isn't uncommon for Hunter's in PvE to be doing 40+ APM (Actions per minute) and only then will you see decent DPS.

So the SV rotation works on a loose priority with a few rules when certain events happen like LnL.

Assuming marked:

Serpent sting if not on target (should only need to use once for single target encounter)
Black Arrow
Explosive shot
Kill shot if below 95 focus
Arcane shot
Kill shot when above 95 focus
Cobra shot

Now here are the rules to follow:

1. BA and ES have to be shot every CD, not doing so is a DPS loss. The only situation where you would delay ES is if SrS is about to fall off which should only happen if you're target switching a lot.

2. BA has a higher priority than ES since 4.3.2 since it now reliably procs LnL and having the most amount of LnL procs in the fight is going to make or break your dps

3. Arcane shot should only be used if you will have enough focus for ES when it comes off cd and preferably BA too.

4. When LnL procs you should use it like this when you are below 55 focus: ES>ES>CoS>ES

5. If you have above 55 focus when LnL procs it should look like this: ES>ES>AS>ES. NOTE: if you have very low latency (below at or below 50ms) you may want to not spam the second ES and wait for the GCD to finish before pressing the button. Research has shown that you CAN clip ticks at low latency if you spam the first 2.

6. If you are above 94 focus when LnL procs then it should look like this: ES>AS>ES>ES (happens very rarely during bloodlust and rapid fire). NOTE: again do not spam the second ES in the pair of ES at low latency if you do not wish to clip ticks (you shouldn't want to clip

).

7. Deal with TotH procs accordingly to the rules above, so for example you get a proc after first ES and that takes you over 90 focus, use AS instead of CoS.

8. Focus capping is bad! Don't do it! Best focus level for survival hunter is between 44-77 focus, you should always aim to be in this range!

9. Kill shot range: ES does more damage per global than KS but KS is better than AS. You will focus cap a lot during this stage but it's best to get ES on cooldown than worry about it. When LnL procs during execute range you will want to just replace AS with KS when possible and follow normal priority e.g.

ES>ES>KS>ES>KS

(Thanks to draco for pointing out this to me)

10. Change to fox when appropriate, if you are good at changing aspects you can change to fox for moving CoS only and back to hawk for instants to minimise DPS loss during heavy movement phases. DO NOT macro aspects into shots! You will lose a huge chunk of DPS if you only cobra shot in fox.

11. Practise is key! Dummies are not there to look pretty, go there and practise until you can master every situation your focus throws at you with your eyes closed.

Here is a fantastic video explaining all you need to know about Lock and Load: clicky Credit to TJ

What do I do with Rapid Fire?

Personally this is how I handle RF and it's the way I see i get most benefit out of it:

Rapid fire is a huge haste buff and our only casted shot is CoS, so to benefit as much as we can from RF we want to fire as many CoS in the duration without focus capping. So what i do is I bleed away all my focus by using a ES>AS and then pop RF and spam CoSs, bleeding focus with AS until ES is back up and then fire ES and then back to CoS. With the 4set t13, you'll want to wait until that has procced before using RF since you will most likely go under GCD if you have both up at same time.

I have 2set t13, HELP!

First of all: congratulations!

Now as to how to handle this set bonus: You really can't

The best way you can use this set bonus is by practising your rotation over and over until you can do it with your eyes closed and react to every situation your focus throws at you. You still want to follow the priority guide given above but you just have one extra factor to worry about.

So basically just follow normal priority and use AS to bleed off excess focus in place of CoS.

I see a lot of hunter's using cobra shot in pairs, now you SHOULDN'T do this unless you're below 55 focus. Best to just not do it in pairs unless you're literally at 0 focus and need it for the next ES.

5.2 Encounter Guides

5.2a Morchok

As far as tactics go, this boss is a complete walkover on normal (I can foresee nasty problems in heroic however) and all you have to do is stand near the crystals when they spawn and then find a nice gap in the rocks without black stuff underneath you when that happens. Your basic tank and spank fight in this raid tier.

Heroic: Actually not so different at all. We tried with me soaking stomps but it was just easier to let a healer do it. Just make sure you're within 25 yards, it's a lot closer than you think you have to be. You can quite easily run in and raptor strike for damage reduction before the stomp also if your healers are having trouble.

5.2b Warlord Zon'ozz

Not much to say here, pre-emptively switch to fox when you get debuff so your cobra casts are not interrupted when you are dispelled. The hitbox is fairly forgiving, but not as good as yor'sahj so you can stack fairly well for black blood.

I tend to save RF for the second black blood since we kill it fairly fast.

Heroic: Had a few tries on this. All I can say is that the add phase is quite hard and we didn't get much past that because our healers couldn't handle it. Otherwise apart from killing the adds that spawn during black blood it's pretty much the same except you have to move from the raid when you get dispelled.

5.2c Yor' sahj the Unsleeping

Apart from general colour combination tactics here are a few hunter specific tips to maximise your DPS:

If you're required to DPS blobs then try to find a spot between the boss and the blob you are DPSing so you can continue DPSing the boss until it comes into your range and then you can smoothly switch to the blob. This ensures your SrS does not fall from the boss and you save a global and 25 focus reapplying.

try to time your explosive trap with black add spawn. Getting down a trap for that phase can be a good boost to your DPS even if you have to delay using it for a few seconds (obviously do not wait more than 24 seconds).

Heroic: Had a few tries here but seems nothing different for hunters

5.2d Hagara the Stormbreaker

Still nothing really specific for hunters, just make sure you keep DPSing on the move with aspect of the fox when the ice walls appear. It's worth doing one multishot on the
tombs and then alternately cobra shotting them while using ES on cd and AS to burn focus.

In lightning phase your pet gets raped by the chain lightning so dismiss it when it starts and resummon when it ends (don't do it before or risk it being oneshot).

During the transitions (lightning, ice) you can actually switch out multiple copies of the same type of pet to get more cotw during the feedback if you're able to use a ferocity pet in your raid. You can do a massive amount of burst in this time if you manage to proc LnL during feedback with cotw up. This is why I like to fire Sting>BA instead of the normal priority so it give me a higher chance of having a LnL proc during the feedback debuff.

5.2e Ultraxion

You can deterrence Hour of Twilight's so when it's up you should do this and have a cancelaura macro so you can immediately start DPSing again. Otherwise just use Heroic Will to block it. Instead of keybinding it you can just replace something like your old bind for snake trap or pvp trinket with this handy macro:

/click ExtraActionButton1

the capitals are important.

This also works for the dream ability on madness, so it's very useful!

As for DPS tricks: there are none, it's basically a target dummy apart from the Hour of twilight and fading light mechanics. If your healers are having trouble you CAN raptor strike and DPS at the same range, though you'd probably be helping them more if you just used that global for more DPS.

5.2f Warmaster Blackhorn

No special tactics for this really, if you want to get more DPS on this (not like it matters) try multidotting and keeping the SrS up with cobra shot. Also when blackhorn actually jumps onto the ship: it is beneficial for you to stand as close to him as possible without being in minimum range as it means you can get out of the way of shockwave a lot faster.

5.2g Spine of Deathwing

Absolutely nothing really you can do here except dps stuff. If you get bored you can distracting shot the blood to the Amalgamation but really boring fight overall >.>

5.2h Madness of DEATHWING

The REAL final boss of the final raid tier of this expansion and it's actually pretty tough (well my raid team found it tough anyway)

He's got a variety of fun things that he can do with his "tentacles", ew.

The main tentacle add that spawns on each platform is nasty, it hits for 90k damage (roughly) in a very narrow cone very often when it slams itself down on the ground. You want to be not in line with anyone when it's up or you risk taking 90k damage if it targets you or the person in line with you. We found this impossible as we had a melee heavy team, but if you're in the same position just try not to have more than 2 people get hit at the same time.

Once you get the feel of when it slams, you can actually deterrence this attack (but you have to be lucky enough for you to be targeted so only use if you're CERTAIN to die if it chooses you). Best thing to do is use the "dream" cooldown while available for this attack.

There's then the blobs of "blood" that spawn. As survival your number one priority is to aoe the crap out of these as soon as possible. Survival is probably going to be the preferred spec for this encounter purely because we have such high burst AoE.

Then there's the tentacles that spawn on Deathwings bigger tentacles, the way we deal with them in my guild is leave alexstraza til last so they always get killed by her. If your guild kills her platform earlier then you will have to single target them but they don't have much hp (like 163k in 10 man normal).

And finally the elementium bolt, aka the MOAB! This thing flys from deathwing once per platform and will do 390k resistable fire damage to your entire raid and this damage is reduced (not by much) the further away you are to it. Beautiful thing about this is: you can deterrence the explosion. Deterrence will be up for every elementium bolt that appears so remember to use it!

After the platforms, it's just a DPS race while killing the tentacles (srsly blizz whats with the tentacles).

5.3 Macros

I don't care what anyone says, Hunters have way too many keybinds, even in PvE. Macros can make your life a whole lot easier in raids and can allow you to react quicker to boss mechanics without having to micromanage the rest of your Hunter, here are a few I use:

#showtooltip Cobra Shot
/cast Cobra Shot
/use 10

A very simple one I use because I am an engineer, this enables maximum uptime on my glove tinker in a fight.

#showtooltip serpent sting
/cast Serpent Sting
/petattack

Pretty straightforward, if im serpent stinging something I generally want my pet to target it also, I take this macro off for Yor'sahj and leave pet 100% on same target however.

#showtooltip Aspect of the Hawk
/cast [nomod] Aspect of the Hawk
/cast [mod:alt] Aspect of the Fox
/cast [mod:ctrl] Aspect of the Cheetah

All in one common aspect macro. Means I only need one space on my bars for all the aspects I use regularly.

#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [target=focus,noharm,exists][target=pet] Misdirection

This misdirects your current focus, if no focus it will cast on friendly target, if no friendly target it will cast it on your pet.

#showtooltip Call of the Wild
/cast call of the wild
/use 10
/use 13
/use 14

My "nuke" macro. Whenever we enter a phase and we need to pop cooldowns, this is the button I press. It uses all cooldowns available to survival spec and any on-use trinkets you have plus the glove tinker if it's up.

/cancelaura deterrence
/cancelaura Hand of Protection

I macro this to all my important shots like ES/BA/AS/CoS so that if there is a situation where I get immuned and I no longer need it, I don't have to right click the buff or lose DPS by waiting for it to run out.

6.0 Afterword and Acknowledgements and Addons

So there you have it. Everything I know about SV Hunters, it's probably not nearly enough but that's where you guys come in and give me new things to think about and tell me things I don't know

.

I'd like people to check out these great sites and pages where I shamelessly gained my experience from:

Zeherah's Hunter DPS Analyser :-
Indispensable hunter simulation tool.

WHU :-
Great info and constantly updated blogs and posts about the hottest hunter topics.

EJ :-
Up to date theorycraft from a very respected and well-known guild, particularly the MM guide is packed full of detailed info.

Wowhead :-
Where I got all the item links, pictures and great discussions on skills and items on there helped me a lot in writing this guide.

wowreforge :-
Fantastic place to perfect your stats, i got my 8.01% hit from this site!

Nikkaszal, from the mmo-champion forums for a better way to handle LnL procs
Asrialol, from mmo-champion forums for confirming orc racial bonus
Rewn, from mmo-champion forums for correcting the shot priority
Vurrin, from mmo-champion forums for bringing up prepotting and clarifying serpent spread.
Judai, from mmo-champion forums for giving some good pet tips.
Dracodraco, our forum moderator for some corrections on rotation and priority
Maeten, for doing the research and uploading logs confirming tick clipping at low latency.

Addons

Serenity
Grid
Bartender4
Quartz
OmniCC
MSBT (Miks scrolling battle text)

**Syatek92** · 2011-07-14, 12:56 AM

not even complete, and its a copy paste from EJ

**rewn** · 2011-07-14, 01:08 AM

I'll be honest, i'm not liking what I'm seeing so far, but i'm willing to wait to see the end result before I completely judge this guide.

But a tip for the future. If your going to write a guide as advanced and large as this is looking to be, type it up in notepad/wordpad/MS Word or whatever word processing program you wish to use and then post it only once you've fully completed it, error checked it etc. If you need to add links from the MMO-C database, go back and do it after. But dont post half a guide (if even that).

**Illana** · 2011-07-14, 01:12 AM

Patience guys

I tried to lift this from the one I did on the official forums but the formatting and code got completely borked when I just tried to copy+paste so I'm just re-writing the parts that have gone wrong.

Yes the table of abbreviations is taken and edited from EJ (and it will be credited) but I assure you the rest of the guide is completely of my own creation.

**Judai** · 2011-07-14, 01:12 AM

Originally Posted by rewn

I'll be honest, i'm not liking what I'm seeing so far, but i'm willing to wait to see the end result before I completely judge this guide.

But a tip for the future. If your going to write a guide as advanced and large as this is looking to be, type it up in notepad/wordpad/MS Word or whatever word processing program you wish to use and then post it only once you've fully completed it, error checked it etc. If you need to add links from the MMO-C database, go back and do it after. But dont post half a guide (if even that).

This.

I was doing a Survival Guide myself. but it kept sounding like the EJ one and most of the time people jut link Krip's vid on SV Hunters, which he appears to have removed...

I can send/post my stuff if you want, but I'd like some credit for helping.

**rewn** · 2011-07-14, 01:15 AM

Originally Posted by Illana

Patience guys

I tried to lift this from the one I did on the official forums but the formatting and code got completely borked when I just tried to copy+paste so I'm just re-writing the parts that have gone wrong.

Yes the table of abbreviations is taken and edited from EJ (and it will be credited) but I assure you the rest of the guide is completely of my own creation.

Patience was never my strong point

, but people posting half a guide really irks me

However I do look forward to seeing this completed.

---------- Post added 2011-07-14 at 02:21 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Judai

This.

I was doing a Survival Guide myself. but it kept sounding like the EJ one and most of the time people jut link Krip's vid on SV Hunters, which he appears to have removed...

I can send/post my stuff if you want, but I'd like some credit for helping.

To be honest, this is a silly reason to stop you writing a guide. If lots of different people write guides for the same thing, they are always going to sound and read alike, especially if all the guides are full of correct information. The only way your guide could begin to sound different from EJ's or someone else's is if you were trying to publish incorrect info.

**Judai** · 2011-07-14, 01:27 AM

Originally Posted by rewn

To be honest, this is a silly reason to stop you writing a guide. If lots of different people write guides for the same thing, they are always going to sound and read alike, especially if all the guides are full of correct information. The only way your guide could begin to sound different from EJ's or someone else's is if you were trying to publish incorrect info.

I get people whispering me all the time because I look geared and do good in BH and it annoys me having to explain the same thing over and over, so It's easier to shrug them off onto other things so I can spend my time in other ways outside of the game.
I like to sound original and not be like everyone else and it's so hard writing a guide, but I may end up posting it now because it's been finished for a while, but I went back to MM so I would seem like a hypocrite.

**Illana** · 2011-07-14, 01:48 AM

Originally Posted by Judai

This.

I was doing a Survival Guide myself. but it kept sounding like the EJ one and most of the time people jut link Krip's vid on SV Hunters, which he appears to have removed...

I can send/post my stuff if you want, but I'd like some credit for helping.

Would be 100% appreciated and you'll get your name in big fluffy letters in the acknowledgements section :3

**Jurein** · 2011-07-14, 03:31 AM

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that you don't skill Careful Aim anymore as a SV Hunter and skill Sic'em instead ?

**Judai** · 2011-07-14, 03:36 AM

Originally Posted by Jurein

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that you don't skill Careful Aim anymore as a SV Hunter and skill Sic'em instead ?

Correct, as it only affects 1 shot (Cobra Shot) for 10% of the fight. where as Sic 'Em is for the whole fight.

**Illana** · 2011-07-14, 03:56 AM

ah yes need to update that talent spec ^^ thanks for reminding.

**3clipse** · 2011-07-14, 04:10 AM

Alright. This looks pretty good to me, but I haven't really followed SV at all and I haven't raided in a few months due to grad school time constraints. So I leave it up to you SV raiders to discuss how good this guide is!

Right now I'm leaning towards sticky, but I'd like to get the community's opinion!

**Vox** · 2011-07-14, 04:40 AM

Good guide for the raider that doesn't want to go too in depth into theorycrafting.

Thumbs up from me

**Judai** · 2011-07-14, 05:15 AM

Diff Scope now, and +65 Mastery to gloves is a little better if u can get it to another percentile of Mastery

**Asrialol** · 2011-07-14, 06:48 AM

Orc Racial is 1170 AP for 15 sec on a 2 min CD, not 350ish AP :-)

Did I miss something where 65 Crit > 22 Agility on Cloak? With the 10% agi from Survival, and 5% kings, that's a total of 25.4 agility, which to me seems better than 65 crit.

With the 4-set tier 11 bonus your CoS cast time is reduced by a flat 0.2 seconds.

This is wrong, the bonus is applied prior to any haste, thus it means the bonus is divided by your amount of haste. With just raid buffed haste, not counting gear, it's more a 0.158s cast time reduction. I personally have around 11% haste from gear, which results to, after raid buffs, the 4cp reduces my cast time by about 0.142 seconds.

**Nikkaszal** · 2011-07-14, 10:43 AM

Couple things:

Goblin rocket barrage racial is useless in its entirety as a hunter - using a GCD to cast it rather than a Cobra is going to be thousands of lost damage, at the additional cost of being unable to use the jump. The jump is outstandingly amazing, and gets even better if you press the button while actually jumping (more height from the starting point = more distance, and will often give you the clearance to not get blocked by small rocks or other terrain fluctuations).

During LnL, you CAN ES back-to-back as long as your second shot hits after the second damage tick of the first shot. Doing so will refresh the DoT, but add the final tick of the first shot onto it for a 4-tick ES (ie 2 + 4 instead of 3 + 3). This means as long as you're not running towards the target (reducing the second shot's flight time) and wait a fraction of a second after the GCD finishes to ensure that you don't get screwed by latency (there must be only a single tick left on the target for it to get incorporated into a refresh), you ES twice in a row during LnL. To simplify with a scenario with a shot flight time of 0.2sec, pausing for 0.1sec after the GCD:

0.0sec - ES fired
0.2sec - Debuff apears on target. First damage tick occurs immediately (1/3)
1.0sec - GCD ends
1.1sec - Second ES fired
1.2sec - Second tick of original ES occurs (2/3)
1.3sec - Second ES lands on target, deals damage, rolls last tick of previous ES into new debuff (3/6)

Because there will still be two ticks left when your next shot lands (assuming the above situation, with the shot fired 0.1sec before and landing 0.1sec after the 4/6 tick) then using ES a 3rd time will not permit rolling of the DoT, thus losing you ticks.

Hence - ES ES CS ES on low focus, and ES ES AS ES at high focus. Theoretically, ES KC ES AS ES if LnL procs when you're at 100 focus, but why are you at 100 focus?

For professions, engineering is theoretically "the best" as it provides its benefit in terms of a bursty cooldown. The Synapse Springs average to 80agi if used on cooldown, thus appearing to be equal to everything, but if engagements last LESS than a minute then you have technically gotten more bang for your buck (ie if you need to burst down an add, say on Rhyolith, where Sparks of Rhyolith spawn nicely spaced to use Synapse Springs for every single one for example, then the 480agi for 10sec will be worth more than a constant 80agi). In addition, stacking it with other cooldowns - Call of the Wild and RF, for example - increase the overall effect.

Cloak enchant - 22agi is your friend, even though it's a WotLK chant. Beats 65 crit.

Encounter specific - if you're on legs duty for Rhyolith, bonk your RL in the face and get someone else to do it. Surv's frighteningly bursty AoE, as well as Misdirect capability, coupled with his legs' annoyingly enormous hitbox, mean that we will ALWAYS be more efficient at cleaning adds than driving the legs. We CAN do it, sure, but most other classes do it better while being less efficient than us at killing adds.

Your "nuke" macro - add /use Potion of the Tol'vir in there.

In addition, mention pre-potting - we can get away with it quite well due to MD and FD.

Finally, to the poster above - despite what the character sheet says, Mastery is not rounded to whole percentages. If you have 15.23 Mastery, you do 15.23% additional elemental damage.

EDIT: Also, include not using RF during Blust/Hero - doing so reduces Cobra's cast time to under 1sec, thus making it faster than the GCD, thus wasting haste.

**Spl4sh3r** · 2011-07-14, 12:38 PM

I want to point out the part with the Magma Trap on Ragnaros...it says to Deterrence before you hit the ground to take no fall damage, why not just Deterrence before even getting hit by the Magma Trap that way you won't even fly up in to the air. That is what I do atleast and I Disengage on those times I do fly up, but then it's hard to take no fall damage since if you wait to long you probably die so you basicly have to take around 20,000 fall damage when using Disengage on Magma Traps.

**rewn** · 2011-07-14, 12:49 PM

Haven't read it all yet (will do when I get more time), but one little tidbit stood out to me. Your priority queue. You listed KS as number 1 priority and I would strongly disagree with this. I always put KS below ES in priority and it should definately be below SS if your target doesn't have SS on it.

---------- Post added 2011-07-14 at 01:51 PM ----------

This is wrong, the bonus is applied prior to any haste, thus it means the bonus is divided by your amount of haste. With just raid buffed haste, not counting gear, it's more a 0.158s cast time reduction. I personally have around 11% haste from gear, which results to, after raid buffs, the 4cp reduces my cast time by about 0.142 seconds.

Actually the OP would be right and you even said it yourself in your post. The 4set bonus is applied to your CS before any haste whatsoever, which means it does reduce your CS cast time by a flat 2 seconds. However it does mean that any haste you have has a lesser effect on your CS cast time as its now reducing it from 1.8seconds in percentages, rather than 2 seconds.

**Illana** · 2011-07-14, 03:09 PM

Originally Posted by Judai

Diff Scope now, and +65 Mastery to gloves is a little better if u can get it to another percentile of Mastery

Apparently it's just a tooltip bug and between percentages still gives a buff to elemental damage. I haven't tested this myself but anyone with some solid proof either way I would welcome that in this thread

Originally Posted by Asrialol

Orc Racial is 1170 AP for 15 sec on a 2 min CD, not 350ish AP :-)

Thanks, also was dubious of the 350ish number when I got it off wowhead.

Originally Posted by Asrialol

Did I miss something where 65 Crit > 22 Agility on Cloak? With the 10% agi from Survival, and 5% kings, that's a total of 25.4 agility, which to me seems better than 65 crit.

Crit sims for me for about 1.538 EP per point and 3.82 per agility and it comes out to a 1.66DPS loss when i change it to 22 agility. I guess this would be interchangeable between your level of gear and I imagine once I get ielevel 375+ agility will overtake crit, but as this guide isn't for the elite survival raider who won't need it, 65 crit will be better for the vast majority and I don't want to confuse the new players.

Originally Posted by Asrialol

This is wrong, the bonus is applied prior to any haste, thus it means the bonus is divided by your amount of haste. With just raid buffed haste, not counting gear, it's more a 0.158s cast time reduction. I personally have around 11% haste from gear, which results to, after raid buffs, the 4cp reduces my cast time by about 0.142 seconds.

Works out to be the same in the end

you're just multiplying things in a different order.