I have been a BM Hunter ever since WoW 2.0 (The Beast Within). I have occasionally tried out Survival or Marksmanship here or there, but have always come home to Beast Mastery. After 3.0.8 is released, I might not be a BM Hunter anymore.
Explosive Shot is back in power. Which means, my primary damage will no longer be physical. My primary damage will be mainly fire damage, especially in PvP where Auto Shots are limited and Steady Shots go unused.
I plan to respec to Survival this Tuesday, even if 3.0.8 is not released, just so I can start practicing as a Survival Hunter (the practice is mainly for PvP).
I have studied which talents are decent as a Survival Hunter and have come up with three different builds:
Survival PvE
Survival PvP/PvE Hybrid
Notes:
- 2/3 in Expose Weakness because it should have 98% up time with just 2 talent points.
- Counterattack is in the Hybrid and PvP build because the 50% disarm talents are very nice vs. Rogues, and attaining Counterattack for only one talent point seems like an okay deal (after testing I might revisit it)
The basic rotation for Survival Hunters in PvE should be this:
Explosive Shot - Steady Shot x3 Repeat
While keeping Serpent Sting on the target.
If you have enough haste to bring Steady Shot down to 1.5 sec, than it is possible to fit 4 Steady Shots in between Explosive Shot, but that is with 0ms. And with the nerf to Steady Shot and the huge buff to Explosive Shot, I would not, even minutely, delay Explosive Shot from firing, as its just too much damage.
I plan to have a Survival Talent Guide up in the coming weeks after some experience with the tree.
21 comments:
imp wingclip ftw. i find the stun procs quicker than it takes to get the parry or dodge for counter attack.
i think the extra range is good because if u were smart u would use disingage and then concussive shot or a trap to slow them down i think the talent tree u have made is great =D
Wyvern sting is useless in pve come on now. U even said your self keep serpant sting up. The points are better spent in improved aspect of the hawk!
The point of getting Wyvern Sting in PvE is that it allows you to pick up Noxious Stings, which is good DPS per talent point.
I'm confused as to why you chose to get aimed shot when it's not in your PvE rotation...
Many boss fights you have to move at some point in the fight, and it is then that I use Aimed Shot.
Theyve also buffed aimed shot so it is a good alternative to use instead of arcane shot since arcane shot shares a cd with explosive shot. My aim shot crits for btw 3k avg.
The spec is nearly perfect, my spec is has a few different points here and there, but your rotation should be explosive shot, aimed shot and steady shotx2. Aimed is instant cast so you will still have the extra 2 sec to react and aimed shot has always, and especially now, hits alot harder than steady. That would maximize your dps output. Also Shaedon is right, noxious sting is more than worth the extra point into wyvern, the 3% damage bonus is passive not active only when wyvern sting is dispelled. Personally I find noxious sting to bring alot more damage output than imp asp hawk.
I find that Aimed Shot replacing a Steady Shot in a standard non-moving rotation is only a 0.7% increase in damage (theoretically). I find in practice it makes the shot rotation a bit more complicated and decreases my damage.
For me, Aimed Shot is a must have for when movement is necessary in boss fights. Or if I have some bad lag, and therefor have to spam Aimed Shot and Explosive Shot.
All of your builds leave out Improved Aspect of the Hawk. As a survival hunter let me tell you that that's a HUGE mistake unless you are haste capped. Haste cap at this moment for a survival is around 543 and trust me when I say....It's not easy to accomplish. Far from it. Haste is one of the major stats for a survival hunter at the moment and by taking IAotH you can drop the cap to a soft 290-325; a much more obtainable goal. Just my two cents
According to Shandara's Spreadsheet IAotH is only about 12 DPS per talent point. That is fairly low.
Before 3.0.8 haste was very important for Marksmanship and Survival Hunters. This was because Steady Shot was half of our damage.
After 3.0.8 haste is not very important due to Steady Shot being a much lower portion of a Hunters damage.
Haste is currently itemized as equal to Agility or 2 AP. So 1 Haste takes the place of 1 Agility in gear. But Haste has only a value of .373 DPS per point, while Agility has a value of .789 DPS per point (as a Survival Hunter). And this is before the soft haste cap.
Basically, haste seems pretty worthless now. Do not go out of your way to attain it.
Interesting reading. I have always played as BM, but after trying it a couple of days after the patch i must say its not possible continue as BM.
I need a good macro for the shotrotation you are describing. Can ypu please post it??
Regards. Eon /Outland (eu)
Unfortunately there are no good macros for Survival shot rotations. With Lock and Load proccing even if there were a good macro, you would need a different one for Lock & Load procs.
Basically Survival requires much more shot rotation management and does not seem to have an easy macro to spam to help it out as of yet.
I would recommend macro'ing all of your main shots (aimed, steady, explosive, serpent sting) with Kill Shot since that should be a first priority once available. This is done easily enough with a macro that looks something like:
#showtooltip Aimed Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Kill Shot
/cast Aimed Shot
as for a spam macro, like the ye olde BM one button hunter spam, those days are gone. You will actually have to stop watching movies to pay attention to CD's and procs...My room mates are going to be so disappointed I can't make dinner and play wow at the same time anymore..
how in the world can you say you have a pve spec with improved Feign Death? that is worthless for everyone and there are so many more useful talents to pick up with those 2 points. all 3 are terrible builds.
LOL are u retarted?... feign death gets resisted on one of those fights where u out threat the tank by a ton like malygos neways feign is resisted and ur dead then ur doin 0 dps. im not even survival
For an updated analysis of Survival Specs, Shot Rotations, etc. visit my survival page:
http://thehuntersrefuge.blogspot.com/2009/01/survival-hunter.html
I also see nothing reguarding focused aim, and unless you are going to get your hit rating up to something like 560 or whatever it is, that is a must need b/c it brings the hit cap down to 197 or so
Actually it is very easy to get to 8% hit with gear you find in heroics, reputation or 10 man raids. If not you can always gem a couple 16 hit rating gems (.49% hit).
Focused Aim is not good because it does not transfer hit to your pet. While hit on gear is transferred to your pet.
You took scatter shot in your pve spec? Seriously? That's a terrible decision.
Yeah, that is not the updated Survival PvE spec, go to the Survival page for that. This post is very old.
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