Survival Hunter Guide (Updated for 5.4)

[Illana]

just keep practising against dummies.

We really don't have any rotation anymore, just a set of rules to follow depending on our focus levels and a variety of other things

[Agilent]

Im sorry but im just coming back to survival since 4.0.. Anyways when i used to play survival, for LnL procs it was always ES Cobra ES AS ES. I read on elitist jerks and it still says the same thing, but in your guide you say to wait 0.1 seconds after the first ES? I was trying this on the dummies and i dont know if it was latency or what but 0.1 seconds is not even close to being long enough, i had to wait about 1 second in order not to clip my ES. Just wanted to know if i was missing something here

thanks

[Illana]

0.1 seconds wait should be after your Global cooldown has finished not after you fire the first shot.

[Deleted]

It would be awesome to add more information to the DS-encounters. For example, are there talent points, that are obsolete for this specific boss and can/should be swapped? We don't need Serpent Spread on Ultraxion, for example. Are there bosses where Careful Aim is viable, instead of Sic'em? Does it make sense to put three points in One with Nature on a fight like Hagara, where you'll be running around in fox a lot?
And on top of that, what pet is the best for the DPS? If you're working on heroic Zon'ozz, with every raidbuff covered, which pet do you use, if you're on tentacle-duty? I used my Dragonhawk for +8% magical damage. Is there a better one for this kind of mob?

Just looking for ways to maximize DPS.

By the way: Since many people complain about hunters having bad damage mitigation, I ran DS with my bear last week. DPS loss is about 800 dps, but you get Intervene on a 30 sec. cooldown. Combined with Hunter vs. Nature, Glyph of Raptor Strike and Engineer-Shield, I felt pretty safe. I think extreme soloers like Durendil can teach you how to use every single ability you have, instead of whining about how much hunters suck.

Great guide, Illana. And thanks for being optimistic and working out solutions.

[Dracodraco]

It would be awesome to add more information to the DS-encounters. For example, are there talent points, that are obsolete for this specific boss and can/should be swapped? We don't need Serpent Spread on Ultraxion, for example. Are there bosses where Careful Aim is viable, instead of Sic'em? Does it make sense to put three points in One with Nature on a fight like Hagara, where you'll be running around in fox a lot?
And on top of that, what pet is the best for the DPS? If you're working on heroic Zon'ozz, with every raidbuff covered, which pet do you use, if you're on tentacle-duty? I used my Dragonhawk for +8% magical damage. Is there a better one for this kind of mob?

Just looking for ways to maximize DPS.

By the way: Since many people complain about hunters having bad damage mitigation, I ran DS with my bear last week. DPS loss is about 800 dps, but you get Intervene on a 30 sec. cooldown. Combined with Hunter vs. Nature, Glyph of Raptor Strike and Engineer-Shield, I felt pretty safe. I think extreme soloers like Durendil can teach you how to use every single ability you have, instead of whining about how much hunters suck.

Great guide, Illana. And thanks for being optimistic and working out solutions.

As for first part of your post:
You need to pick something to get down the tree for Ultraxion anyway, and there is no singletarget DPS increase aviable.
Careful Aim only becomes weaker than Sic'Em in very strong gear (think +380 Ilvl with everything having crit). The only fight, however, I'd recommend it on is possibly Madness (4x corruption and 4x tentacles with "high" health pools you will need to kill there).
Why would you be in fox alot for Hagara? It's only the ice phase, and if you're working on Heroic, most guilds chose to stack their ranged and healers in the middle and heal through the moderate damage, to make the phase quicker in order to beat the enrage timer, meaning you'll still be standing still.
A ferocity pet is always best for dps. A dragonhawk is cunning, although 8% magic dmg is very nice for a surv hunter. I'd try to team up with a boomkin and stick to a wolf or cat, though, on the tentacles.

And for the second part:
Hunter have bad damage mitigation. They suck. I'm playing resto druid right now, which is probably the weakest of the four healers, but they're still more wanted than hunters are.
Running DS with your bear is as you said, around 1k dps loss if youre in good gear progressing heroics. Hunters are already in the lower tier of damage, and we have to gimp ourself even more for added survival? Nothanks.
Spending points in Hunter vs Nature compared to dps increase talents are also a no-go. The only class that would ever consider this is Unholy DK's getting AMZ for the RAID rather than themself.
Glyph of Raptor strike will, STILL, require melee range (and thus a heavy dps loss on most bosses that does not have a "fixed" hitbox).
Engineer shield can backfire and make you take critical dmg instead of normal, rather than protecting you. It should never make you feel "safe".

[Deleted]

As you said, there is no DPS increase in the Survival-Tree. You might as well get 15% stamina, instead of wasting points for Serpent Spread or Survival Tactics. It might not increase my DPS, but atleast my survivability.

I'm aware of the fact that a ferocity pet is superior to a cunning pet, I was just wondering if 8% increased magical damage on my target will outweigh the dps loss that comes with using a cunning pet. Or if there is any debuff, that would be superior. We wiped on Heroic Zon'ozz yesterday, couldn't beat the enrage timer. I'm trying to squeeze that last bit of DPS out.
It's hard for me to theorycraft bosses, because I suck at math. I'm just trying my best to contribute as much as I can to my group, eventhough hunters are in a bad place right now. I have no alts, so I need to work something out.

[LimitedEdition]

If i spec for careful aim, what will be my rotation from 100 > 90

Before the CA nerf i remember it was ES and BA on CD, and CS the rest of the time even if focus capped

[Illana]

pretty much, but no fight in DS really warrants using CA except maybe madness, but I wouldn't think it would make a huge difference. Possibly for single targeting blistering tentacles it would be good.

[Spottswoode]

I went into a LFR last night to test out my dps with new weapon and newly acquired 4pc. Got some incredible rng on spellweave and did 68K dps, top survival parse for now.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/k...e=3136#Yolandi

[Illana]

how ?

My spellweave usually never does more than 15% of my DPS. Usually end up at around 58k or so depending on RNG with kill shot crits.

[Spottswoode]

I don't really know tbh. I have struggled to do better dps on that fight in our 10 man, so this parse kinda came from nowhere. The only thing I did different was to roll serp on both tentacles and the bloods regenned once on the last platform so I got a few more multi's off on them.

[Illana]

hmm multidotting ftw I guess. Did you just have a focus serp macro or did u turn around and cobra every now and then?

[Nuadu]

10.7mil dmg from spellweaving? That's unbelievably good. I get between 2-3 mil and I'm a happy camper.

[Spottswoode]

hmm multidotting ftw I guess. Did you just have a focus serp macro or did u turn around and cobra every now and then?

I was just manually targetting and hope I cobra'd before it fell off. I stood so i was sorta facing both mobs so I didn't have to turn around to cobra.

[timoseewho]

Do we do anything different when under RF/lust/warp effects as survival?

[Deleted]

Nope, just dont try and focus cap and use your buttons.

[thunderdragon2]

i need some advice i got the RF t13 head chest and gloves

should i get both the teir shoulder and legs or just the teir shoulders and get the crafted legs?

if neither what is the worst peice for us in this teir?

[Illana]

there isn't really any "bad" tier for us in DS.

but I would say the gloves are the ones to miss out since you can get decent crit/haste offset ones from morchok.

[thunderdragon2]

there isn't really any "bad" tier for us in DS.

but I would say the gloves are the ones to miss out since you can get decent crit/haste offset ones from morchok.

hmm ok gota win them as well as the other 2 tokens then

but arent the crit and master on the vp ones better than the mochok ones wirh crit and haste mabye an amrory link will help


http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...idleson/simple

[Illana]

shoulders have hit/haste legs have crit/mastery

I guess it doesn't really matter in normal modes but I was referring to heroic modes where the gloves are our only offset piece that can replace tier.