Thanks for the replies. The massive hit rating really wasn't done on purpose. I just stacked AP gear and it came along with it. Would it be wise to just put 8 agil gems into every socket I can?

I also have a Crystalforged War Axe with 35 agility on it already, so I suppose that will have to become my new PVE wep. (+2.1% crit vs +.88 on spear)

There's a decent list of melee weapons on : http://www.wowwiki.com/Hunter_weapon

Our raid has decided we want a Survival specialized Hunter. Currently the best DPS spec for raiding is generally accepted to be BM. I'd like to restart this thread and ask a couple of questions that don't seem to have been answered yet.

Where is the point, I guess in terms of Agi for EW buff, that Surv spec becomes a better DPS spec than BM for that Hunter? That is, naturally the Surv Hunter will have lower DPS than the BM one, but there should be a cutoff point where the EW buff provided gives the Surv Hunter better total DPS contributions. Also, is my assumption even correct: that Surv with raid buff counted a better DPS spec than BM? Remembering that BM is high DPS and gives a 3% total/all type party damage buff.

Also, what kind of ranged weapon would be good to use? If I was to be that Hunter, could I effectively use the season two arena crossbow? I play at distance from servers such that I have an average constant latency of 400-500ms.

Another question is, while the Surv Hunter should be getting as many Agi gems as possible, what metagem would be best? I'm thinking either the Haste one or the Agi/crit dmg bonus.

Lastly, how good are hastes for this spec? Currently hastes do more bad than good for the most part due to our broken mechanics. But I wonder if perhaps some haste, for example IAotH, might be useful for such a Surv Hunter.

Hope to read some good replies

is there any way to really theorcraft MT vs IAoTH?

I have seen it done here, but im to lazy to dig it up atm...

The only reason to get MT is to open up for readiness, but its the same sorta deal with IAotH and Focused Fire.

If I where going the surv route I would go something like 7/20/34.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cxZVVbRVZIh0GzfMhVhh

theres really no way i can to get FF without sacraficing 3/3 TOTH and at least 2/3 or 3/3 EW


though i usually kept a 0/20/41, would the IAoTH without FF be worth it over readiness?

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cxbZVVbRVZIh0GzfMhVbb



I would take survivalist instead of clever traps and imp wing clip.

I'm playing around with http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=VZVVdRVzhhZIho0pcrhV0h, or a 0/28/33, and it seems pretty solid to me. Works pretty well in arenas too, and i can't really tell any difference in DPS, might be just that IAotH was messing up a bit on my rotations.
So basically, how much difference in terms of DPS you think is there between 5 points in IAotH and 12% extra damage on multishots, if mana is not an issue?

if you're BM haste is good, for mm/survival its a throwup, usually cheeky is better at answering questions like this

i prefer the TOTH for raiding purposes pvp BM is obviously the answer :P i prefer having 3/3 TOTH because it seems more guarnteed

I think readiness is a matter of how you use it, and especially if you often find a (significant) use of it. Im fairly sure MT panned out to be around 3% crit compared to IAotH a avg 6% haste increase or something like that.
I personally think readiness is a great talent, but having it hidden behind the utterly lackluster MT just ruins it for my purposes.

i don't think its possible to be honest if both people are equally geared. long as the BM can use his pet.

What does it give you other then an extra 15 seconds of rapid fire and maybe an extra multi-shot every 5 minutes. Seems expensive for 7 points.

Expose Weakness scales (very, very slightly, as crit and hit get added) with the gear of everyone in the raid who benefits from it. The RDPS contribution of a survival hunter is difficult to waive aside!

yes the survival contributes more to the raid, but in terms of personal DPS, i dont think surv will ever beat BM in a pet friendly fight

or unfriendly... i havent seen a fight yet where i cant use my fight atleast partially... leo probebly beeing the least friendly currently.

I agree with Sapa in that given the right circumstances a SV hunter's personal DPS can challenge that of a BM hunter, the biggest problem is with consistency. If you are looking at personal DPS a SV hunter's will vary greatly depending on crit-streaks, both in burst and endurance. However, I also think it's a moot issue because the RDPS of a SV hunter can be through the roof compared to other specs if your raid is heavy on the physical damage (which mine is ). 2500 AP added across the raid is pretty hard to surmount

Don't forget that BM has FI. Depending on your raid composition, 3% FI damage may be more than the AP added from EW (in your case, with 2500 AP, the dps per person in the FI group would have to be very very high to surpass it - I figure around ~1785 dps per person). Just remember, EW is not universally better than FI and FI is not universally better than EW; it depends on raid and group composition.

Oh, of course, that's why I said "if your raid is heavy on the physical damage". Also, note, that the SV hunter could be in the BM hunter's group, so his personal DPS would go up thanks to FI then (which is just to say that the whole RDPS vs. Personal DPS comparison to weigh raid contribution is extremely complicated and fuzzy )

I don't have a good collection of screenshots to show, but I've played around with every spec and they all seem to do about the same damage on pet friendly, standstill fights. For instance on the Teron Gorefiend encounter:

With LoTP
MM: roughly 1k DPS myself , pet putting out 200 DPS
SURV: roughly 1.1k DPS myself, pet putting out a lil bit more than 200 DPS, due to the expose bonus

With BS + SoE (No LoTP)
BM: roughly 800 DPS myself, pet putting out 450dps

I'll get some screens up of surv's performance in the near future, but my claims are pretty accurate.

I've pretty much decided I'm going to stay with survival. I keep up just fine with the other two hunters in the raid, who are MM and BM. And as far as master tact goes, I like it. It certainly seems to go off more than 6% of the time. I'm not really a fan of improved aoth unless I am BM spec. There just aren't any bows fast enough to where the 15% haste lowers your autoshot speed to near universal (+ latency of course). I don't even use rapid fire either, unless I am bloodlusted, but I am using a pretty slow bow! It doesn't lower my autoshot speed to the point where waiting for the autoshot nets more dps.

0 start steady-->1.5 steady/GCD finishes + special starts --> 2.70 auto finishes-->3.0 GCD from special finishes, start new steady

Last night Solarian (first night, great kill)
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...xu&s=4195-4479

Got beaten by BM Hunter in presence
But..
SV (0/20/41) DPS: 1310
BM (41/20/0) DPS: 1281

Both in same group. Lotp+GoA+SoE

SV is ok I guess.
"Tried" to use max special rotation, was to hyped and was watching more on warnings who got wrath (in case pet gets it) than on Quartz bars.

How is 5/21/35 vs 0/20/41 for dps It seems like Mt and readinees arn't really that worth it?