Its not getting TOO the boss that is a pain, its dropping the trap where its sure to go off. Many bosses have an enlarged hit box, yet for some reason the trap will not go off unless it gets extremely close to the boss itself. This has all been covered before in this thread.

Even though there are some bosses were trapping isn't viable, many people forget that these bosses have adds which can be trapped. For example, Phase 2? i think of KT with the adds. I'm sure this has been discussed, just wanted to throw it out there.

Im hoping SV is viable for the next patch and was wondering what some opinions are on this spec.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Reasoning behind some things:

-Focused Fire: who doesn't want a flat 2% more damage

-Rapid Killing: -2min on 40% haste cooldown as SV seems too good to pass up and dropping some points out of MS isn't that big of a deal considering it only effects autos.

-Wyvern Sting: how does this increase dps in a raid? Seems like the GCD and mana would not be worth it

-Resourcefulness: trapdancing with this would make the traps cost almost no mana and you could do more also, yielding more damage with Ex. Shot.

-No sniper training: I never find myself in that sort of situation...not to mention missing out on buffs that have a certain range on them (totems for example)

Auto-Shot affects Explosive Shot if I recall correctly?

Wyvern Sting? People take it in order to take Noxious Stings. You'll always want Serpent Sting on the target anyway and a 3% increase on all damage if your target is affected by Serpent Sting? Why wouldn't that be worth it?

The only thing wrong with this argument is that you've used two points that could have gone into T.N.T., which would, in turn, have buffed your ES crit by 6% (9% Maxed). The stun effect may be more relative to PvP, although it certainly comes in handy on bosses such as Gluth where group stuns take some of the running out of the fight.

Also, you've maxed EW and HP--two talents which do just fine with 2 points (3 on Hunting Party) each unless you've somehow neglected your crit rating (something no SV hunter should be without). And if you're never in a situation to use Sniper Training, why put a point into it (or Hawk Eye) at all?

This spec should have included Trap Mastery if you were going to focus mainly upon your Trap Dance, as well as either Savage Strikes for a quick RS/MB with the trap, or Entanglement for the ability to "grip" mobs. I personally haven't tried the Savage Strikes method, but it seems to keep coming up.

Not taking mortal shots isn't really an option as surv since the majority of your damage should be affected by the talent. It's only autos and pets that shouldn't be affected and stings of course. I would take 2 points out of rapid killing and 1 point out of focused fire to feed mortal shots because I believe those points are all weaker not in MS. Wyvern sting gives access to Noxious Stings which is a very powerful talent since our targets should always be stung. Sniper Training is very situational to the point where I would never take it or advise another hunter to take it. And Resourcefulness is a decent one for trapdancing, but I'd prefer the straight 1% dmg of Focused Fire in Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft that build. I think this is the leanest dps build I have seen (I'm not original I stole it from another poster) and it optimizes DPS over everything else. The other difference is that I do not take imp FD because I never ever ever ever ever have threat issues.

I'm not sure i would go so far as to drop 1 point from mortal shots, have you evaluated as to whether this is worth the 1% from focused fire?

I think your correct though as survival hunters get more and more crit, it starts to devalue master tactician.

Well on a purely theoretical level, it doesn't take much crit before Mortal Shots is better, but it will remain only slightly better, unless it is a fight lithe Loatheb of course. It all comes down to the combined value of Steady and Explosive compared to stings, Auto and traps. Post patch we have too little information so far.

Personally I don't know. But I guess the more we trap the more Mortal Shots actually play in... Since each trap increase the value of traps, but at the same time increase Explosive Shot that much more. So that build might need some revision.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft I think that this spec would work pretty well, note i took sniper training because trap dancing jut does not seem viable to me. i also put the two points into improved stings because serpent sting is always going to be up why not add more damage to it. Oh what do you guys think a decent unbuffed agility should look like for survival?

Just keep in mind that by putting points into sniper training you will Have to be circa 40 yards to gain benefit. At that range you may very well loose out on the benefits of Strength of Earth totem. Loosing 155 agi as survival doesn't seem that great an option. I do agree with you about trap dancing though, it isn't a viable option either.

This is my concern as well, and I'd like to hear more comments from SV hunters that have tested on more than just dummies. But along these same lines - if sniper training is not practical neither is Hawk Eye. Even if trap dancing isn't explicitly our goal, if we're just going to stay mid range, maybe savage strikes or resourcefulness will have a greater chance of having at least some value.

If you plan to trap dance I would think that glyph is pretty much mandatory along with trap mastery at least and that puts us looking at like 6k dmg from 1 attack.

I'm tempted to try This

Basically... without the imp pet rez, I don't want to put too much stock in having +% damage based on it's survival. With the amount of crit SV has, Mortal Shots seems like a more consistent choice to max out (over putting 2 points in focused fire without Imp Rez Pet anyhow).

Also... not sure if Glyphing Immo Trap is best for trap dancing, or if glyphing the sting will help line it up better with trap CD's. If you don't glyph for sting, you end up with an awkward sting refresh just before trap CD is up... might not be worth taking Immo.

EDIT : Heck, maybe dump Steady glyph... It's not that high a % of your damage compared to keeping the sting up between trap CD's for Explosive Shot.

Steady Shot glyph should still outperform Immo Glyph for a Surv hunter. The Immo glyph increases immo dmg by a net 20% which isn't impressive considering you can only cast it once every 24-30 secs. Not to mention Immo isn't always practical. Steady Shot and Imp Hawk glyphs will be definite in my book, for the third I will probably take Serpent, but not sure.

The biggest boon to Surv hunters would be to rework the lvl 80 skill or the 41 pt talent as a spell which causes the next trap to be castable from range. Ie, you can make freezing arrow cast any trap.

I've considered using This Build.

Left 1 point out of EW and 2 out of HP. I think my gear's good enough to justify this.

I had considered skipping IAotH so I could get to improved stings in the Marks tree, but eventually decided against it.

The 1 point in Trap Master could go into Sniper Training, but as a lot of people here have said, it might put me out of range of totems to use it properly. I could also trade it for Scatter, since I do like to pvp now and then, but since my focus is raiding, I'm guessing it would be better used elsewhere.

Any opinions? I'm currently a BM Hunter. Dabbled with SV when EW worked for all the melee, but not since the patch. Any other general info and tips for someone thinking of returning to the tree?

With the buff coming in the patch to glyph of serpent sting, I find it hard to believe that glyph of immolation trap could outperform it. The amount of damage you gain on glyph of immolation trap just isn't that much and I doubt it can outperform what you'd use that GCD for.

Keeping in mind that the number shown on the combat log for how much resisted does not account for actual damage that would have been done due to debuffs, it looks like most of your resists were a 10% or a 20% resist.

I also did a bit of testing with immolation trap on the level 83 dummy myself and saw resists for 10% and 20% (and some complete misses which may make survival tactics mandatory if you plan on trap dancing).

I haven't been able to find any new research on partial resists on these forums, but I remember one old assumption being that resists occurred in multiples of 25%. Is it possible they only occur in multiples of 10%, or perhaps only 10% and 20% exclusively (but perhaps at higher rates)?

I did notice that partial and full resists actually are accounted for in the spreadsheet for explosive shot, but I don't see any calculations on immolation trap. If we can assume a partial resist reduction of ((8*3)/(80*5))*.75 = 4.50% I suppose that's good enough to know.

I think this spec will perform quite well.
Since points in resourcefulness gains you only one extra trap every 2 minutes (and some mana and ammo), I think those points might be better in other places (may be take one point out, and max imp stings).
I'd use Serpent, Steady, Imp Hawk glyphs.

I´m not hitcaped atm but i think i´ll try something link this with the patch 1/19/51 without trapdancing. 30y+ range should be possible even with the buffs like horn of winter and battleshout. Glyphs iaoth, serp sting and steadyshot. crit shouldn´t be a prob so 2p in master tactican should be enough.

Are you macroing in your pet's focus dump?

I've been trying different SV builds and I noticed with 2/2 GftT my pet was always full on focus. I also tried 1/2 GftT in exchange for 1/2 Focus Fire. I didn't notice as much of an abundance of focus.

So, would something like:

/cast Rabid
/cast Rake
/cast Claw
/cast Steady Shot

work to better use the pet's extra focus?

No, as long as these abilities are on autocast they will fire when they can. Since the pet has a GCD there is a limit to how much focus it can spend. At most it can spend 16.66667 focus per second. Anything more and it will 'just' stock up. But that isn't bad per se as at times you need to move (not a lot of shots to proc GftT then) or you run into a critdrought (though this is of course less of a risk for Surv).

This comment was made over in the 3.0.8 thread and it touches on something I've been thinking about regarding 2H weapon enchants and I felt it was more appropriate for the SV discussion thread (I apologise if this is against the forum rules).

I was SV for the entirity of TBC so I understand Agility, EW and how it affects other stats etc. However, when I have my gear plugged into the current spreadsheet the 110 AP (Massacre) enchant comes out at a slight advantage over the 35 Agility. I know that gaining as much agility as possible is the most benefical for us but with EW no longer being the huge raid contribution it once was would it not be advantageous for us to use Massacre over Agility with regards 2H weapons? Isn't there some instances where the gains you get from the AP outweigh the small loss of Agility (and associated stats) from particular items/enchants?