Survival Hunter Guide (Updated for 5.4)

[Nikkaszal]

The primary bonus of dynamic haste effects is that of increased focus generation - both through the passive regeneration, as well as faster Cobra casts. Both RF and Blust allow you to GCD cap your Cobra casts if you have T11 4pc, and come close to it anyway without the 4pc. The faster your cobras cast, the more you can fit in between Explosive Shots. More cobras every 6 sec = more damage, as well as more focus for instants, meaning more AS as well. Bumping your autoshot faster by stacking both is not worth negating additional time with faster Cobra casts.

[Vurrin]

Prepotting on fights such as Alysrazor ...is just a waste.

I disagree with this. You should easily be able to get 15 seconds of near stationary potted DPS time on Alysrazor on the pull if you pre-pot appropriately. Yes you lose a significant portion of its uptime and your pet can't attack... but there's nothing else to DPS during this time, nor anything else worth blowing CDs on until the first burn phase, during which you'll likely have hero and thus it won't matter much that RF is on CD. Then during the second burn phase RF + Call of the wild will be up again so you can pot during the bonus dmg to bring the boss critically low. All in all while its perhaps less of a DPS gain than prepotting on say baelroc, it is still a DPS gain at the cost of some gold. And a dps gain at the cost of gold is pretty much the whole point of prepotting after all.

You could make the argument that "casual raiders" or the non completely serious raiders don't need to prepot since the fight is so long and the difference is relatively marginal... but those raiders probably don't pot in general anyway.

[Syatek92]

No offense but you're writing a Hunter guide and you've only gone 1/13 Heroic for T11 content...
Thats not even close to impressive and I have a hard time taking advice from a Hunter that has less experience than my Alt.

[Calest]

About the AoE spec with 2/2 Serpent Spread: Isn't that second point a waste? In an AoE situation you're gonna get another multishot off before the stings from the last one have faded off (even with just 1/2 Serpent Spread). The Improved Serpent Sting talent uses the damage from a full Serpent Sting, regardless of how long the actual sting lasts.

I can see it being useful if you're AoEing seperate groups, but when everything's clumped up the second talent point makes little sense. Or is there something I'm missing?

You beat me to it. I'd say your correct there that 2/2 Serpend Spead is wasted. 1/2 is enough when you think it through. The extra time 2/2 provides isn't as useful as that extra point would be someplace else. Mainly because when AoEing you'll be rotating Multi into your rotation often enough that it will keep Serp. Sting up nearly 100% of the time.

Over all nice work compling everything in one place. Easy to read and referance, thanks for putting this together.

[Vargarii]

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 ?

Is this really all it's cracked up to be? it sims as a 128 dps difference on my character, and I can't sim a cobra shot spam for that 10% which is higher dps than bothering with arcane for that phase. I ask because I have enough haste to arcane fairly often if I like, but I don't during careful aim.

[Fhi]

Pretty much an accurate compilation of all the theorycrafting knowledge on other sites. I vote for sticky too.

[Asrialol]

No offense but you're writing a Hunter guide and you've only gone 1/13 Heroic for T11 content...
Thats not even close to impressive and I have a hard time taking advice from a Hunter that has less experience than my Alt.

Woah, elitist much? What heroic progress he has doesn't matter what so ever. Solid math and calculations are easy to do without having to do the content. Think about what you write, before you post maybe?

[Kalti]

Rapid Fire was never used with BL/Hero, even during wrath. You will always get more benifit out of getting more time with lower cast time on your most used and close to top damage shot being Cobra Shot. You want to keep that baby as close to 1 second for as long as possible.

Good guide overall which will certainly help alot of hunters who post here. +1 vote for sticky.

[Illana]

No offense but you're writing a Hunter guide and you've only gone 1/13 Heroic for T11 content...
Thats not even close to impressive and I have a hard time taking advice from a Hunter that has less experience than my Alt.

well according to your armoury we have the same experience of the firelands bar one heroic boss (lol shannox) any other experience is irrelevant to this patch as we are not raiding t11 content are we?

And nobody is making you read the guide. If you have a problem with it, point it out and be constructive instead of being a horrible troll (in every sense of the word) or just don't post.

I disagree with this. You should easily be able to get 15 seconds of near stationary potted DPS time on Alysrazor on the pull if you pre-pot appropriately. Yes you lose a significant portion of its uptime and your pet can't attack... but there's nothing else to DPS during this time, nor anything else worth blowing CDs on until the first burn phase, during which you'll likely have hero and thus it won't matter much that RF is on CD. Then during the second burn phase RF + Call of the wild will be up again so you can pot during the bonus dmg to bring the boss critically low. All in all while its perhaps less of a DPS gain than prepotting on say baelroc, it is still a DPS gain at the cost of some gold. And a dps gain at the cost of gold is pretty much the whole point of prepotting after all.

You could make the argument that "casual raiders" or the non completely serious raiders don't need to prepot since the fight is so long and the difference is relatively marginal... but those raiders probably don't pot in general anyway.

It's a good point, never really thought about it since we down her before 2nd air phase ends (mage+me do about 100k dps combined up there) but its definitely valid for the guilds who can't push that much DPS.

About the AoE spec with 2/2 Serpent Spread: Isn't that second point a waste? In an AoE situation you're gonna get another multishot off before the stings from the last one have faded off (even with just 1/2 Serpent Spread). The Improved Serpent Sting talent uses the damage from a full Serpent Sting, regardless of how long the actual sting lasts.

I can see it being useful if you're AoEing seperate groups, but when everything's clumped up the second talent point makes little sense. Or is there something I'm missing?

imp SrS deals damage equal to 30% of its total periodic effect right? So if the SrS lasts 3 seconds longer then the initial imp SrS tick will be bigger

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)

I just tested the ES back to back thing, it works! Great find and i think it will edge our DPS more towards MM. It's a bit awkward to get used to cause I usually am pressing something every GCD but this will indeed be a slight DPS upgrade since we are only delaying 0.1 seconds in firing.

One thing though: i don't think this will work on fights where you have to stack near the boss, for example majordomo in scorpion phase since the travel time will be less than 0.2 seconds.

But for the majority of the fights, it will help bump our DPS even more.

The primary bonus of dynamic haste effects is that of increased focus generation - both through the passive regeneration, as well as faster Cobra casts. Both RF and Blust allow you to GCD cap your Cobra casts if you have T11 4pc, and come close to it anyway without the 4pc. The faster your cobras cast, the more you can fit in between Explosive Shots. More cobras every 6 sec = more damage, as well as more focus for instants, meaning more AS as well. Bumping your autoshot faster by stacking both is not worth negating additional time with faster Cobra casts.

Ok I'll do a bit of theorycrafting on this one:

My base stats:

4.67 FPS
2.34 autoshot speed
28.46% haste
1.4sec base CoS cast time

Stacking RF with BL/TW:

82% haste for 15 seconds then 30% haste for 25 seconds and then nothing for 15 seconds.

4.67*1.82= 8.5 FPS
4.67*1.3= 6 FPS

that means over 55 seconds we will get 127+150+70= 347 focus over 55 seconds or average of 6.31 FPS

Femaledwarf says my average autoshot will hit 8892 damage.

for 15 seconds I will get autoshots every 1.29 seconds so assuming my first autoshot starts at 0 seconds I will get 12 autoshots with that haste
for 25 seconds i will get autoshots every 1.80 seconds so assuming my first autoshot starts at 15.48 seconds i will get 14 auto shots with that haste
for 15 seconds I will get autoshots every 2.34 seconds so assuming my first autoshot starts at 40.68 seconds i will get 6 autoshots before 55 seconds are up.

total of 32 autoshots in 55 seconds or average 1.71 second autoshots. Overall average damage done in this time would be 284544.

OK so if we assume we shoot ES every cd and also that we get 0 LnL procs we will get a max of 10 explosive shots in this timer period which will cost 440 focus.

to be continued....

[Vurrin]

imp SrS deals damage equal to 30% of its total periodic effect right? So if the SrS lasts 3 seconds longer then the initial imp SrS tick will be bigger

While this may seem logical. It is not actually the case. Serpent spread 1 of 2 and 2/2 ( with Imp SS of course) deals 30% of the dmg of a 15 seconds serpent sting when applied with multishot. Thus as stated previously the only DPS gain from 2/2 over 1/2 serpent spread is only if you go > 6 seconds between multishots. So long as you cast multishot more frequently than that you get full benefit from Imp SS, and the talent that gives you 10% more dmg on targets afflicted with Serpent sting with 1/2 serpent spread.

[Illana]

ah well, it seemed nice in my head.

Never personally used 2/2 Serp spread myself anyway, editing >.>

but have you actually tried it?

[Judai]

Where's my Acknowledgement??

/emo

[Illana]

Where's my Acknowledgement??

/emo

havent gotten through your whole guide yet want to make sure you're accredited to everything right?

[Delaios]

ah well, it seemed nice in my head.

Never personally used 2/2 Serp spread myself anyway, editing >.>

but have you actually tried it?

I tried it out on a dummy and the ISS hits were the same wether I used a regular Serpent Sting or used Multishot.

[jekka]

my question is this: after breaking the 4 piece bonus from our t12 is it still worth to prioritize haste over mastery? (assuming you got 8% hit cap and 758 haste for 1.66 cobra), the first soft haste plateau (1.5 cobra cast time) is essentially the haste amount where 4 cobras and pushing an explosive is exactly the same damage as 3 cobras without pushing the explosive(from WHU). I mean you need 2265 haste rating to reach this plateau which cannot be done by gear alone and require gemming and reforging, even when u get there the dps is allmost the same so evry haste between that point is kinda usless. Other than making our cobra/auto cast faster + slight focus regan haste is only benifical if you reach certain plateaus and if you cant reach them or the dps gain is minimal maybe mastery can be more usfull at current tier?(I assume the 2 hard plateau is not reachble atm 5279 haste-1.25 cobra).

[Bjoepie]

my question is this: after breaking the 4 piece bonus from our t12 is it still worth to prioritize haste over mastery? (assuming you got 8% hit cap and 758 haste for 1.66 cobra), the first soft haste plateau (1.5 cobra cast time) is essentially the haste amount where 4 cobras and pushing an explosive is exactly the same damage as 3 cobras without pushing the explosive(from WHU). I mean you need 2265 haste rating to reach this plateau which cannot be done by gear alone and require gemming and reforging, even when u get there the dps is allmost the same so evry haste between that point is kinda usless. Other than making our cobra/auto cast faster + slight focus regan haste is only benifical if you reach certain plateaus and if you cant reach them or the dps gain is minimal maybe mastery can be more usfull at current tier?(I assume the 2 hard plateau is not reachble atm 5279 haste-1.25 cobra).

You pretty much answered your own question. Having 2265 haste, and subsequently pushing the extra CoS, will provide you with the same dps as having 758 haste and not pushing it, minus the (very) minor gain in auto attack dmg.

Or in other words, stack crit > haste (758 + some for latency) > mastery > haste.

[jekka]

You pretty much answered your own question. Having 2265 haste, and subsequently pushing the extra CoS, will provide you with the same dps as having 758 haste and not pushing it, minus the (very) minor gain in auto attack dmg.

Or in other words, stack crit > haste (758 + some for latency) > mastery > haste.

Ok thanks for the reply, maybe the guide needs to be updated since it says: hit to cap>haste to first plateau>crit>haste/mastery ?

[Illana]

do you understand what a plateau is?

[Deleted]

i heard you gotta balance mastery+crit ~.~ 2/3 crit 1/3 mastery... or 35,5% crit buffed - then mastery

[Illana]

i heard you gotta balance mastery+crit ~.~ 2/3 crit 1/3 mastery... or 35,5% crit buffed - then mastery

from where, and why?