PreTXT

First of all, just wanted to say hi to everyone and thanks, since the amount of information I found in this thread really helped me a lot so far. Now, I would like to ask for your support in helping me identify the optimal talent build according to my current gear level.

A little bit of background information: I was BM hunter since forever, however, after the guild has reached T6 content I was asked to spec SV to give an extra boost to our melee classes. Obviously, since my gear was BM focused, I was really at the edge in terms of minimal amount of agi required before respec. Right now, raid buffed I get to about 900 agi (without GoA) so for me it was most important to provide a decent amount of buff via EW while maintaining solid DPS.
Before respec I was constantly in top2, together with another BM hunter, and now I see myself usually in top 3-5 in terms of DPS.

I have tried 2 builds so far:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Good personal DPS, but obviously EW uptime is not optimal. I usually get a less than ideal group during raid, which means a spot in the tanking group where the only benefit I have is LotP from a druid.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Seems to produce less DPS (about 100 DPS lower) although I don't have some solid numbers to verify that since group compositions changes between the raids I tested. However, a solid increase in EW uptime with this build.

In terms of shot rotation I'm using 2 macros, depending on the hasted / non-hasted state I'm in:

/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/cast Steady Shot

and

/castsequence reset=2 !Auto Shot, Steady Shot
/castrandom Arcane Shot, Multi-shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command

During fights I normally try to keep myself hasted as much as possible (RF, drums, haste pots).

This WWS log is from last evening Azgalor kill, however is actually lower than my regular DPS output due to 2 factors: pet died at the beginning (my mistake, I usually manage to keep him up) and lacking of any group buffs (I was in tanking group but didn't even had the druid to support me with LotP).

Gear is also not very helpfull since I still have a mixture of Kara/T4/T5 due to the fact that I usually skip raiding farming content (not much time available) so it takes me a longer time to get myself at the same gear level as rest of raid.

Since armory seems to be down, bellow is my current gear:
70 Night Elf Hunter

Appreciate any advice !

 

Whitefyst

Suggest doing the comparison yourself in Cheeky's for your character since results may vary depending on spec, typical raid buffs, other gear, etc.

Between the two for me, [Bristleblitz Striker] is better than [Black Bow of the Betrayer] from a DPS standpoint (about 4 DPS better) and from an EW proc standpoint (about 0.33 better). They both have same attack speed and weapon DPS. The difference is that 25 crit (1.13%) is better than 26 AP, especially considering how many of a survival hunter's abilities proc from crit.

Now the mana effects from [Black Bow of the Betrayer] are interesting. 8 mana per shot is roughly 40 mp5, which is nice but not necessary unless having mana problems. However, against bosses, the -40 mp5 really does very little. So if you need the mana more than a little more DPS than [Black Bow of the Betrayer] may be better for you.

 

Whitefyst

One optimal group for a survival hunter would be:
1) Feral druid for LotP - that 5% crit is very beneficial directly for personal DPS but also for all of our skills that proc from crit, such as TotH, EW, and some trinkets
2) shaman (preferrable enhancement with improved totems) - GoA has tremendous impacts on a survival hunter. With BoK, that's and extra 111+ agi fully ranked for a survival hunter. That is +111 AP, +2.78 crit, +222 armor, +4.45 dodge, and +27.75 EW proc. These are signficant gains, with some of them having indirect impacts on the pet as well as the direct impacts of the pet getting the buff too. For me this is a personal gain of 65 DPS and 28.5 EW proc for total raid DPS of 133.5 DPS assuming 0.3 AP to DPS conversion and 8 other physical DPS in the raid. SoE also helps the pets DPS. My pet's has +17 DPS with SoE. Finally, mana spring provides 30 mp5. Combined this is +150 raid DPS and 30 mp5 to help maintain DPS
3) BM hunters with FI for +6% dmg procs.

A SP is nice for mana regen, but a shaman provides mana regen and better benefits.

The problem though is that what might be the ideal group for the survival hunter may not be the ideal allocation of raid resources for maximum raid DPS. It's often better to put the enhancement shaman, if only 1, in the group with the rogues to buff them and with a warrior shout to improve their melee AP.

A survial hunter fully geared should be getting around roughly 1500-2000 DPS depending on gear choices, buffs, rotation, and the nature of the given fight. In addition, such a hunter should have around 1200 agi fully buffed with an EW proc around 300, which is equivalent to about +720 raid DPS (with same assumptions as precious). This is total raid contribution of 2220-2720 DPS.

I disagree with the comment that a reason for a survival hunter is IHM. Any hunter can have that talent. And to be honest, it is often better for a BM Hunter to have it so that the survival hunter can have efficiency instead since BMs tend to have less mana problems since just using steady shot and auto shot. I have IHM though since I am the most consistently available hunter for our raids and since it is more convenient with me doing most of the pulls.

I disagree with Kabuto's statement that:" The best gear is almost identical for all hunter specs as nothing is specifically itemised for Survival anyway." Although there is a lot of overlap in gear between the specs, survival hunters need to generally go for gear with agi while other specs can use more gear without any agility on it. They are many pieces of gear out there that is better for survival than the other specs because of our 15% agi bonus and vice versa.

 

Zurgat

I just made a big post on the blog regarding survival gear : Random Ravings of Warcraft: Survival hunter gear
The post is pretty much finished, though i suspect there are a few holes in it which might need addressing at a later time.
It lists a resulting comparison of a BM and a Survival hunter and a gear list for Tier 4,5,6 and sunwell.

With ~12 melee in the raid i came up with an estimate of 775 DPS from the EW buff alone, so it's pretty close to yours.

Sunwell in specific has a lot of very powerful survival items with high numbers of Agility. I can come up with a fairly balanced 660 Agility bonus from gear alone.

-= Random Ravings - RSS Feed =- Rogue and Hunter stuff here. As well as guides to get you trough your spare time.

 

Whitefyst

Okay, I admit I was stating probably more preference and what's best for my situation over 100% fact, and you bring up some valid points that I did not address in my opinion. But here's the information for my decision.

I have 2 T5 pieces, the gloves and legs. I personally do not wear them for raiding and wear [Gauntlets of Sniping] and [Void Reaver Greaves] instead. The easily measureable difference of not wearing the T5 is +3 personal DPS and +5.15 average EW proc, which is 12.4 DPS, assuming 0.3 AP to DPS conversion and 8 other physical DPS in the raid, for +15.4 raid DPS.

It is true that I could easily lose this amount by healing my pet or pulling him out of melee. However, I usually do not have to worry about healing my pet that often. Our melee is generally healed by chain healing shamans, which heals my pet as well. In addition, our healers also do spot healing of the melee DPS if necessary, which includes pets.

If I do need to heal my pet, there are a few gaps in my rotation over time in which I can slide it in with minimal to little impact besides the mana usage.

Do I pull my pet out of combat from time to time? Yes, I do. I pull my pet out of combat when a AoE effect is on the melee and my pet would more than likely die if not withdrawn. Even if I was wearing my 2 T5 pieces, I would still need to withdraw my pet in these situations.

Does my pet die sometimes? Yes. But this is generally due to either me not getting it out of the AoE effect fast enough (or not at all) or some large burst damage that kills it. It is true that in some of these instances, the healing from the T5 2 set bonus may have saved it, but it is my opinion that in the vast majority of those cases my pet was going to die regardless.

Thus, for my situation, I prefer to contribute more easily measureable raid DPS, rely on our healers to heal my pet, and provide the remaining management of my pet's health by mending it at appropriate times in my rotation when needed and/or withdrawing it from combat if necessary.

 

RDarkfire

Hi guys...

First off kudos to all who drive these forums, this has been a great source for my guild & I. We are currently on Illidan, 48% last night, and I bet we will have him down by Monday . At this point, having downed loot-council, I now have access to all the trinkets in the game (currently) that a hunter could potentially want.

From a Survival-raiding point of view, and assuming a 1:1.5 shot rotation, what are the trinkets that suits my spec
(0/20/41) the best?

I apologize if this has been covered elsewhere but sadly I do not have the six hours required to go through every post .

It seems there are five options:
- Berserker's Call
- the Ashtongue trinket
- Madness of the Betrayer
- Tsunami Talisman
- Talon of A'lar

I left out Bloodlust Brooch, as the 'Call is obviously superior in all ways. I am wary of the Ashtongue trinket, as with 1:1.5 I will not be ridiculously spamming Steady Shot. And I have seen many theorycrafting posts on how bad Talon of A'lar is, but I still left it in there just in case. I am also wary of Madness, mostly because of the fact that I don't need that extra 20 hit rating, but also because I remain unconvinced of the benefits of armor-ignore over an equivalent amount of AP. It seems like Tsunami Talisman is the best, just because of the crit and the proc, even though it is the lowest ilvl.

If there is another option somehow I am missing, please let me know.

Thanks all for reading!
-End.

 

RDarkfire

sorry, double-posted, please delete

 

Jerem

These trinkets are modelled in Cheeky's spreadsheet.
Running simulations with each of them with your own stats is what will give you the most accurate answer.

Besides Madness of the Betrayer (ArmorPen) and Tsunami Talisman (passive crit), trinkets you mentioned only benefit your AP. So, you might also want to consider Darkmoon Card : Crusade, which turns out to be a pretty good AP boost, in some specific cases.

 

Vasilii

I have Berserker's Call & Madness of the Betrayer (MOB) as clearly the best 2 trinkets in the game. If you think that the 20 hit rating from MOB is waste, you have to realize that it will allow you to drop the hit from other slots for upgrades. For instance you are using the [Violet Signet of the Master Assassin] which is a horrible survival ring. Ideally you will want both ring spots open with no hit rating so that you can use [Signet of Primal Wrath] and the new 2.4 badges ring, which together will be the best possible ring combo in the game.

Also do not underestimate the effects of stacking armor penetration. On a raid boss with FF and 5x Sunder Armor, COR, there is significant armor penetration already and I believe it scales exponentially... yielding very good results.

edit: fixed item links

 

Tiberium

Vasilii

On these forums we are not supposed to posting random unsubstantiated opinions.

I agree [Madness of the Betrayer] is indeed a godly choice once you are farming Illidan as it frees either belt or boot slots to use the rogue items [Shadowmaster's Boots] or [Don Alejandro's Money Belt] for personal DPS

The other slot is by no means cut and dried.

As SV hunters we should quite simply all be using a /cast macro 2:1 rotation IF we don't chain Steadys. The [Ashtongue Talisman of Swiftness] then becomes the trinket of choice, yielding 184 AP, for ref

Furthermore using a /cast macro makes the [Dragonspine Trophy] a very nice piece as you automatically drop to 1:1 when using the macro and the trinket procs.

As for the ring choices...

[Signet of Primal Wrath] and the 2.4 are ideal choices for 1 ring slot however for the other I would argue that [Band of the Eternal Champion] is the ring of choice.

Simply because you believe something to be true for you doesn't mean it is true for all hunters using different approaches.

By the way if you don't believe using a /cast macro is the way to go check Thoranir's DPS here

 

Wunlastri

Wait wait...is a /cast macro different or the same from a cast sequence macro? The terminology for macros always gets me lost here.

As Cheeky's sheet won't correctly detail it (as far as I know, it may have changed) would the loss of 10 hit from switching ashtongue in for TT be worth it? As far as the spreadsheet goes DST/TT work out best for me atm.

 

SomeRandomIdiot

The /cast macro I use is:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/castrandom Steady Shot, Arcane Shot
/castrandom [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Basically, relying on /castsequence means that you're requiring more communication with the server, and the macro takes longer to do the same thing.

Tiberium: I've seen the math done (and if you need to do it again, just enter it in cheeky's spreadsheet) but a 1:1.5 rotation in an unhasted or only slightly hasted environment is far superior to a 3:2 rotation. I use the 3:2 rotation for when I'm hasted (heroism, haste potions, etc) and a 1:1.5 macro as listed above for the other times.

 

Vasilii

Great DPS Thoranir, well done sir.

You did this with 0/20/41 Imp Arcane correct?

One question looking at your WWS is why the relatively high number of steadies per auto shot? 36 steadies to 28 autos?
I guess its not that high, but could you explain? Looking at buffs you received 2 lusts, 2 battle drums, 1 rapid fire, and were using DST?

 

beetlejuice

Survival in 25man Raids is very usefull, i think more usefull than Marksmanship.

If you use Expose Weakness and Improved Mark the overal gain in dps from all melee will outdps the loss of your personal dps from MM spec to Survival Spec.

The boost is insane and obvious. Your raid leaders should consider getting one hunter as survival to boost raid overall dps.

 

SomeRandomIdiot

I raid as 0/28/33- you can check it out on armory, that's my current spec. The large number of steadies is due to using a 3:2 macro during hasted periods (i.e. the bloodlust). Since bloodlust alone isn't enough to reach a 1:1 ratio, I end up doing something in between a 3:2 and a 1:1. I don't have a DST, that was a haste potion, but other than that yeah. The entire point of the group was to see the max dps of our ret paladin (Ghaff), and I think he ended up posting 4th overall WWS for gorefiend from that fight (and for an alliance paladin who doesn't have access to seal of blood, that's INCREDIBLE). I managed to maneuver myself into the group, and this was the result.

As of tonight, I'm officially done picking up survival gear until sunwell (Madness of the Betrayer FINALLY dropped), and while my gear isn't fully gemmed as I'd like it, it's pretty close.

 

RDarkfire

Thanks for the input. Regarding my current armory which you obviously looked up, I am currently BM spec because for a long time I just didn't have the good survival gear needed to be competitive (SSC was NOT kind to me), however since Kael I have gotten a great string of survival gear, and as soon as either the T6 helm drops or I get exalted with scale o' the sands, I'm going to go back again .

So yes, I realize the violet signet sucks, I just needed it to max. out my hit rating for BM. As for the rest of your comments, I see Berserker's Call really as a BM-trinket that stacks on top of TBW when I pop it (as I do with BLB right now), it does nothing to really help with the theme of what survival is all about : critting as often as possible. Although I agree the DPS of Madness cannot be ignored, as well as freeing up that +20 hit for other things.

@Tiberium: Thanks for your comments as well. Although there's no way I'm getting my hands on those rogue items anytime soon... the rogues need to get them first! :-P.

Also, what's wrong with [Boneweave Girdle] and [Softstep Boots of Tracking]? My mana pool has already been suffering lately with INT totals on the higher-ilvl items continuing to drop. We do still need SOME INT.

Also... being a hunter, you know we always get the shaft for group composition, and as such we don't always get that shadow-priest (maybe 40-50% of the time), that would be the only thing making a 2:1 rotation viable (and thus making our talisman viable). I still see [Tsunami Talisman] as being the survival hunter's holy grail, despite it dropping three instances ago, just as [Hourglass of the Unraveller] being the holy grail dropping 5-6 instances before that.

Thanks again for all comments, looking forward to more...
-End.

 

SomeRandomIdiot

I'll try to clear some stuff up for ya, if I can. A survival hunter, while being useful for the expose weakness raid buff, can and should also do great dps. In raids, I currently have ~50% crit fully buffed- I certainly don't need to stack more crit. The most valuable stat for a survival to stack (DPSwise) is agility. This is because we gain 25% additional agility in a raid setting, while for a stat like crit or attack power that multiplier does not exist. Add to this the fact that the entire raid benefits from our agility through expose weakness, and it's obvious that barring unusual circumstances, with 2 similar pieces of gear the one with more agility will be preferable.

The best way to get agility is through sockets, because the item budget doesn't pay for them like it would for straight agility. If you look at my gear, in every slot I'm using gear with the most possible sockets, so as to get the most agility. This doesn't mean you should ignore other stats, it just means they are weighted differently. I love stamina- I'm currently sitting at 10.5k hp unbuffed, which is more than our raiding mages and shadow priests have buffed. This means that for random raid damage, I have a higher buffer and will survive longer. After having tested sunwell, I'm finding stamina is even more important- the raid damage there is insane.

Intellect on the other hand, does nothing for me. I don't use AotV in raids (at least not progression raids), and max mana is meaningless compared to mana/5.

Regarding Tsunami Talisman vs Berserker's Call vs Madness of the Betrayer. According to cheeky's spreadsheet, Madness of the Betrayer is the obvious winner, with Tsunami Talisman and Berserker's Call coming in close. I've seen 2 Tsunami Talismans drop, and wasn't able to win it either time, whereas I could run ZA twice a week until my group had seen so many Berserker's Calls that one was destined to go to me. We don't do SSC any more, so I'm just going to stick with what I have. As well, I slightly prefer a use trinket over a proc trinket because I can time the use with Rapid Fire or Heroism, and thus get more out of it.

In a usual fight, I'll start with a misdirect, spend about 10 or 15 seconds in a 1:1.5 rotation, then feign death. After this, I'll pop Rapid Fire and Berserker's Call, which coincides with heroism. I drop down to a 3:2 rotation for the duration of the haste. At the end of heroism, I'll make a choice regarding the fight: is mana going to be an issue or not? If it is, I'll drink a Fel Mana Potion and go back to 1:1.5. If not, I'll drink a Haste Potion and continue 3:2 for another 15 seconds. I then settle back into a 1:1.5 rotation, using my Berserker's Call the moment it comes up, as well as another potion. At a little over 4 minutes into the fight, my Rapid Fire and Berserker's call will both be up again (I'm 1/2 on the rapid fire reduction), and I'll use both them and another pot. This continues until the fight is over.

 

Whitefyst

Concerning your specs, IMO, you have made very solid choices in both options, and either can work well depending on your gearing, buffs, rotation, and play style. However, from analysis that I have performed on my character, I find that the 0/20/41 build is superior to the 7/20/34 one, especially when using a 1:1.5 rotation as your primary. I have used both (or very similar) in raiding, so I have practical knowledge of them as well as theoretical. I do not have the numbers from my analysis at hand, but they were posted on a previous post in this thread. Some of the reasons for 0/20/41 being better include:
- Survival is crit spec and having MT helps a lot with not only increasing damage by have more crits but also in procing our abilities that proc by crit, such as TotH, EW, some trinkets, etc.
- Readiness is very useful. Not only for more RF for higher DPS but also for more MDs and FDs to help manage personal and raid threat and increase your survivability.
- Reduces the amount of dynamic, temporary, and uncontrolled haste periods since no IatH. IatH can be a very useful and benefitial talent when used properly. But I find that with a 1:1.5 rotation that not switching to a 1:1 fast enough when the ability procs, which can easily be missed, can reduce the benefits.
- That third point in EW greatly increases your personal DPS and the raid DPS from EW, especially in non-ideal fights where you have to move around a lot or perform other actions that keeps you from executing your ideal rotation.

If you do go 0/20/41, I have one minor suggestion, that is preferential. There are benefits to having a point in IFD; however, the situations where that 2% comes into play are rare. Even rarer are when those situations are a life or death situation instead of just managing threat. Plus, with this spec, you often have the fallback (when no on CD) of Readiness and FDing again. Thus, suggest weighing the benefits of that point and other possibilities. My preference is Clever Traps so that my traps, when used, are a little more effective.
=====================

Concerning your gear, most of your gear is good survival gear, albeit some of it needs upgrading. Consider badge of justice and arena gear to possibly improve some slots over what you currentkly have.

The pieces that are not really ideal for survival are your neck (suggest having [Necklace of the Deep] made - for me its only +0.5 personal DPS but is +11.6 AP on EW proc for about +27.8 raid DPS using 0.3 conversion and 8 other physical DPS - its even better with +10 agi gems) and your melee weapon (many possibilities with agi on them that increase both DPS and EW proc) since they have no agility and am not only missing out on the agility from those pieces but also the bonus agility from LR and BoK. You also have 18 HR over the cap, so losing the arena axe will not hurt your to hit.

Another item to think about is different use of gems, if you are not already aware of the better survival hunter choices. Not suggesting you go out and regem what you currently have since that can be expensive, but I would definitely think about different choices when you get new items. Obviously, use +agi gems in all places, except for those to meet your meta gem requirements (with another possible exception of meeting +agi socket bonuses if provides a net benefit). For yellow sockets, I prefer +agi and +hit (glinting) gems to both get the agility benefits and help make the hit cap, although +AP and +crit (wicked) gems are good options too if have the hit rating although you lose agility. For blue sockets, I usually use +agi and +sta (shifting) unless I have some other non-standard blue gem available that works out better. For the blue and yellow socket requirements, some folks prefer green (jagged) gems with +crit and +sta so they can have more red agility gems. That's preference, but I find I usually have enough places to use the 2 yellow and 2 blue sockets to get +agi socket bonuses to make it worth while to use 4 non-red agility gems.

=====================
Concerning your switching to a 1:1 rotation under all haste effects, there is nothing wrong with that, but I want to bring something to your attention. I had done some analysis in a previous post of when switching to a 1:1 rotation under haste affects is actually benefitial for a 2.9 speed weapon like yours for a hunter using a 1:1.5 rotation without IAS. Switching for low haste effects (< about 300 total haste rating - this includes drums) can actually reduce your DPS instead of increasing it. This is partially because at the lower haste ratings, the 1:1 rotation is not a better DPS option than your unhasted 1:1.5 rotation. It is also due to the fact that a little bit of haste actually tightens up the 1:1.5 rotation with increasing its DPS.

Hence, you really do not get a benefit, besides conserving mana, to switch to the 1:1 rotation unless under high haste effects, such as RF or multiple smaller haste effects active simo. Another thing to consider is that if you are manually weaving your shots, even under standard high haste effects, there are still holes where additional specials can be cast to increase your DPS over the 1:1 rotation alone. Here is some data, using my character and modeling RF in Cheeky's:

1:1.5 with no RF: 1345.88 DPS and 294.42 EW AP
1:1 during RF: 1458.47 DPS and 295.59 EW AP
Arcane after every 5th steady during RF: 1497.87 DPS and 295.65 EW AP
1:1 with castrandom of multi, arcane, or steady during RF: 1516.03 DPS and 295.59 EW AP
Multishot after every 6th steady during RF: 1521.19 DPS and 295.80 EW AP

Just wanted to point this out. I realize that it is not practical to manually switch to the ideal rotation per whatever haste effects are present and that it just may be easier to always switch to 1:1 under haste, but I wanted to at least make you aware of the situation so that you can make whatever choices are best for you. Personally, I do not go to a 1:1 steady auto rotation under haste. Under low haste, I stick with my 1:1.5 rotation. Under high haste, I switch to a 1:1 with casting a single special, preferrably multishot, after an appropriate amount of steady shots. Now I realize that for RFs short duration, that this allows me to only get in one extra shot, but that is 1 extra shot. But with Readiness, we can chain back to back RFs, allowing 2 to 3 extra shots. Plus, there are other longer haste effects that can be going on simo for a net long duration haste effect.

 

Exbox

I was doing some searching, and was wondering what /cast macro you may be refering to.

I'm guessing a
/cast !autoshot
/cast Steadyshot
/castrandom arcane shot


or something of the like - but I cant find the information in the thread to back up these beliefs.

 

Evil-Homer!

PreTXT - I agree with a lot of what Whitefyst has said. From another hunters pov I would spend the money and regem your gear to meet your meta, and get as many points of agi you can. Like he said find some weps that have agi, Stellaris x2, Sonic Spear (too much hit though), Emerald Ripper, Netherbane X2, Trollbane (AWESOME axe), ect.

This is the spec I normally roll with, Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Also again I really agree with Whitefyst, and haste effects and survival don't mix much. Ive done some dr boom testing (i dont have the cool reports like he does) and a 1:1.5 rotation is amazing. I use rapid fire and 1:1 rotation when im between pot cd's and getting low on mana.
This is my bread and butter macro,

/castsequence reset=3 Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Multi-Shot, Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Auto Shot, Steady Shot
/castrandom [target=pettarget,exists] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

gotta jet hope it helps

 

SomeRandomIdiot

I just checked, turns out I lied- the macro I was using was:

/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/castrandom Arcane Shot

and for hasted periods I used

/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Steady Shot

 

Exbox

Ah it's just the 1:1.5 straight up. and by hasted you mean > 2.0-2.2 correct? because anything above it isn't worth it.

I want your DST sir.

 

SomeRandomIdiot

I don't have a DST... >.>

 

Exbox

THen this implied haste...

Just Heroism and Rapid?

 

SomeRandomIdiot

Heroism, Rapid Fire, and Haste Potions. Between those 3, you're talking 45 seconds, which is a meaningful amount of time.