Survival Hunter Guide (Updated for 5.4)

[Jabin]

I have found from personal experience that macroing /petattack into all your shots or even just a few, is actually a huge loss in overall damage. This is because everytime you hit that macro, it is resetting the pets autoattack swing timer, this is evident if you use an addon such as quartz to monitor such things.

/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack

Is sufficient enough so it's not being spamming and constantly resetting the timer with each shot.

On the point about survival not having a stun for adds on ragnaros, this is true, which is why I use a modified pet build with charge and have that as a macro just as a fallback, because doing 25 mans there is sometime some confusion on who is stunning what add.

http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#0md00ccz0hoko is the spec I use on a cat just for that fight

[Illana]

If you were referring to the part where I was talking about alysrazor and macroing /petattack to the hatchlings it is only in that situation where you can pull a bit more dps where it is useful

[Jabin]

I was, I just was clarifying in case people just did that all the time, instead of just for that fight.

[Recursion]

So for AoE pulls, you recommend marching /petattack to Hunter's Mark still, and not Multi-Shot? If things are dying quickly, I feel like I'm just wasting all my GCD's reapplying hunter's mark to keep my pet on things rather than just spamming Multi-Shot. For single-target pulls, I've just got it macro'd to Serpent Sting, since that pretty much just needs to be applied once.

Secondly, how many mobs need to be present to make it worth switching to the AoE rotation, versus the standard single target one? As I've been doing now, I'm doing single target rotation on one or two mobs, and three or more I'm using AoE. Should I be doing this differently?

Thanks!

[Truantxoxo]

So for AoE pulls, you recommend marching /petattack to Hunter's Mark still, and not Multi-Shot? If things are dying quickly, I feel like I'm just wasting all my GCD's reapplying hunter's mark to keep my pet on things rather than just spamming Multi-Shot. For single-target pulls, I've just got it macro'd to Serpent Sting, since that pretty much just needs to be applied once.

Secondly, how many mobs need to be present to make it worth switching to the AoE rotation, versus the standard single target one? As I've been doing now, I'm doing single target rotation on one or two mobs, and three or more I'm using AoE. Should I be doing this differently?

Thanks!

As far as I know multi-shot is a better focus dump than arcane shot if there are three grouped up targets.

[Illana]

So for AoE pulls, you recommend marching /petattack to Hunter's Mark still, and not Multi-Shot? If things are dying quickly, I feel like I'm just wasting all my GCD's reapplying hunter's mark to keep my pet on things rather than just spamming Multi-Shot. For single-target pulls, I've just got it macro'd to Serpent Sting, since that pretty much just needs to be applied once.

Secondly, how many mobs need to be present to make it worth switching to the AoE rotation, versus the standard single target one? As I've been doing now, I'm doing single target rotation on one or two mobs, and three or more I'm using AoE. Should I be doing this differently?

Thanks!

aoe pulls, assist pet stance is more than enough, no need to mark multiple times. Mark the thing that you think will live the longest.

For survival, it's usually considered better to use multishot when there are 3 or more targets

[Vespian]

I have found from personal experience that macroing /petattack into all your shots or even just a few, is actually a huge loss in overall damage. This is because everytime you hit that macro, it is resetting the pets autoattack swing timer, this is evident if you use an addon such as quartz to monitor such things.

/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack

Is sufficient enough so it's not being spamming and constantly resetting the timer with each shot.

On the point about survival not having a stun for adds on ragnaros, this is true, which is why I use a modified pet build with charge and have that as a macro just as a fallback, because doing 25 mans there is sometime some confusion on who is stunning what add.

http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#0md00ccz0hoko is the spec I use on a cat just for that fight

Why put it on Mark? That way you can never mark anything without ever attacking it? Sounds silly to me. I would indeed attach it to Multishot and Serpent Sting.

[Jabin]

The reason for mark, is since survival doesn't have automatic applications from a talent, I don't mark on aoe pulls, but single boss pulls I put it on mark cause having mark up before any other shot will enhance the attack power of those shots. It's just personal preference, cause whatever I have marked is what I want my pet to attack, if it's an aoe pull, pet assist stance is more than beneficial. But say a fight with multiple adds/bosses I do that on Hunters mark so it's always on the target I want it to be on.\


And it's not being spammed from being on other attacks, thus resetting the swing timer. Hunters mark lasts for 5 minutes.

[Vespian]

The reason for mark, is since survival doesn't have automatic applications from a talent, I don't mark on aoe pulls, but single boss pulls I put it on mark cause having mark up before any other shot will enhance the attack power of those shots. It's just personal preference, cause whatever I have marked is what I want my pet to attack, if it's an aoe pull, pet assist stance is more than beneficial. But say a fight with multiple adds/bosses I do that on Hunters mark so it's always on the target I want it to be on.\


And it's not being spammed from being on other attacks, thus resetting the swing timer. Hunters mark lasts for 5 minutes.

Sting lasts the entire fight. You only cast it once and you cast it after mark. Marking when the fight has already started is a dps loss.

[Illana]

t12 4set bonus for survival analysis coming soon, pray to the gods for hands/legs to drop for me in BH this week!

[Shiera]

Just to clear things up since I've seen it discussed(Not particulary here but by Surv hunters generally)

http://filesmelt.com/dl/Unavngivet42.png

(Can't hotlink the image for some reason, BB tags don't work and according to the image button in the post editor the URL is invalid).

TL;DR Mastery only increases damage for every whole point.

[Illana]

Just to clear things up since I've seen it discussed(Not particulary here but by Surv hunters generally)

http://filesmelt.com/dl/Unavngivet42.png

(Can't hotlink the image for some reason, BB tags don't work and according to the image button in the post editor the URL is invalid).

TL;DR Mastery only increases damage for every whole point.

1. That's a GM

2. He did not say that you won't gain damage for fractions of a point of mastery.

---------- Post added 2011-08-17 at 11:58 PM ----------

well another BH been and gone, sadly no loot for me once again.

Guys will have to wait at least another week before my 4set analysis >.>

[Judai]

Guys will have to wait at least another week before my 4set analysis >.>

Should run 1940~ Haste (Varied depending on raid comp - if you get DI) for 1.33 Cobra's so you can get 3 and save a GCD for a 4p Proc or bleed some focus with an Arcane.

[Illana]

Should run 1940~ Haste (Varied depending on raid comp - if you get DI) for 1.33 Cobra's so you can get 3 and save a GCD for a 4p Proc or bleed some focus with an Arcane.

1940 haste would not give me 1.33 cobras, that's steady shot cast time with ISS up.

at the moment for the forseeable future, survival hunters will be working on a 1.66 cast time for cobra shot since haste after a certain point just needs too much to get close to any other breakpoint.

I have acquired 4 set and detailed analysis of how to use it as survival will be coming soon (tm)

[Judai]

1940 haste would not give me 1.33 cobras, that's steady shot cast time with ISS up.

at the moment for the forseeable future, survival hunters will be working on a 1.66 cast time for cobra shot since haste after a certain point just needs too much to get close to any other breakpoint.

I have acquired 4 set and detailed analysis of how to use it as survival will be coming soon (tm)

Yea I realized while moving the other day that I had Imp SS on the haste Calc. think 1.4 with DI was reachable but that doesn't quite leave a GCD for any procs/focus dumps

[Dracodraco]

1940 haste would not give me 1.33 cobras, that's steady shot cast time with ISS up.

at the moment for the forseeable future, survival hunters will be working on a 1.66 cast time for cobra shot since haste after a certain point just needs too much to get close to any other breakpoint.

I have acquired 4 set and detailed analysis of how to use it as survival will be coming soon (tm)

Thats quite easy. I've been using surv for the past 2 weeks (playing it for heroic rag due to the wickedly OP aoe, and the decent singletarget dmg - gg boomkins, I've got your shroompower, while beating your nukepower - HA!), with the 4 set. It makes Survivial alot smoother than it already is to play, really.
Basicly, you can make almost every single proc (excluding the odd back to back ones) into a explo-dump, because theres such a short CD on explo shot. Avoiding focus capping is alot harder, and usually, if you proc LnL+free shot proc at the same time, you WILL focus cap, if you were keeping a decent buffer of focus to hit explo/BA off cd. Due to the extra focus, you can easily get into a explo-AS-AS(BA can be substituted for either)-CS-CS-explo cycle, rather than explo-CS-CS-CS on about 75% of the cycles, depending on proc RNG and Thrill procs.
The thing is though, Survivial is very "fluid". If you want to do good dmg, you have to react to the situation, which is not something thats easy to put down on paper.
You have to be able to factor in how much focus you have, what you will do if you get a free shot proc, what you will do if you don't, if you can cast this cobra shot and not delay ES too much, you get the idea - it's all something that comes with more experience. This makes it even more-so, because surv is already a very focus positive spec, and with the majority of the procs going out on +40focus shots, this makes it unbeliveably positive.


On another note, they need to buff surv already. It seems that the max dps for singletarget encounters are capping out at around 33K for surv ATM, which is sad.

[Lucyinthesky]

Oh snap on bethilac, hehe

[taheen74]

Ok it's probably been asked (I didn't read all 5 or so pages), but why no Careful Aim? Wouldn't that be useful for the initial phase of a fight (meaning once we go through our initial rotation, since a lot of it is CoS spam...)?

I mainly ask because- though I've retired my hunter this xpac- I still give out advice for folks that ask it. Also, I try to explain the rotation as "Twil's SV dps rotation for dummies" (since people can't seem to understand a priority thing).

The way I explain it (this is how I've always done my rotation btw and it's never failed):

Explosive shot, Serpent Sting, Black Arrow
Cobra X2 (I used to have this X3 but noticed on the initial ramp up stage ES was always off cooldown before the 3'd cobra)
Explosive again
Cobra shotX3
From there on out it's what off cooldown (I always stress making sure to always keep black arrow up)

I also tell people arcane is a filler shot (meaning over 75% focus).

For LnL procs (once again this is how I do it because it makes the timing perfect in my opinion):

ES, CoS,ES, Arcane Shot, ES, Arcane, Cobrax3...then you play the cooldown game again

If glyphed Kill Shot, you always make sure to make that your first priority when it's up.

Like I said, it's my guide for dummies since people tend to get confused if I give them the shot priority list.

[Illana]

You should always serpent sting before anything, the 10% damage to everything it gives from noxious stings is too valuable.

There has been a new tried and tested method of dealing with LnL procs that have I gone over in detail and have even made a short video illustrating how ES>ES>CoS/AS>ES is superior than ES>filler>ES>filler>ES

[taheen74]

You should always serpent sting before anything, the 10% damage to everything it gives from noxious stings is too valuable.

There has been a new tried and tested method of dealing with LnL procs that have I gone over in detail and have even made a short video illustrating how ES>ES>CoS/AS>ES is superior than ES>filler>ES>filler>ES

Um, the way I've always read it- as far as the opener goes: you want the initial burst damage up first. The serpent comes next because even with MD, you can still get threat after the initial tick. Whereas ES, does have tick damage, it doesn't cause a lot of threat.

And I have tried it with Serpent first- just to test this and there was no difference what so ever. The only difference I saw was in the timing between ES and cobra's. As far as the LnL procs go, the added cobras are there to help people time the proc correctly (since people tend to overlap the ES's on occassion-especially people not used to SV). The extra arcane is added before the final ES as a dps boost and the final arcane would be your focus dump, therefore bring you back to the 3 cobras/ES/BA rotation. Telling people to ES>ES>ES when they aren't used to the spec isn't exactly helpful (see comment on newer hunters/not used to SV), because- once again- some people like to be spam happy (you don't want to know how many people I have had to correct this behavior from- even myself when I first started using SV). EJ uses the same LnL situation that I use in fact.

Not trying to argue, but just saying.