The Survival Hunter in WotLK - Page 10

centrius · 12/18/08, 8:03 AM

Great thread. But im a bit stupid with numbers and all the ES*2=22

What i would like to know is this:

What spec is the best raid spec? I have this atm The World of Warcraft Armory

I put in 1p in scatter to have some chanse in pvp and also since i didnt think that Wyurm sting was viable in pve.
The points in Focus aim will be moved to imo stings soon, when i get a bit more hit.

Atm my rotation is something like: ES, AS, Sting, Shot, ES, Shot, AS and so on and so forth.
Last night we did 10 man naxx and i actually did some really good numbers and i was nr 1 on alot of fights, whitch supriced me a bit

But im not complaining!

But: What is the best rotation(+spec ofc)? I think i saw somewhere that WS was weaved in every CD (1 min?) and was giving more then the sting rotation? True/false? Since i have seen alot of specs with WS > NS > TM.
Also, is trapdancing something that we need to do, to sustain a high nr?

Any tips/help would help alot

Cheers

Xcite · 12/18/08, 9:36 AM

First of all nice Survival talking going on.

But why ppl take NS is not because of WS, but for the extra damage done to the target with all attacks, when serpent sting is up.

WS is useless against bosses because when they are immune for the sleep effect, the dot does not tick aswell.

centrius · 12/18/08, 9:49 AM

ahhh then i get it. but, when i lose the 3p i FA, should i put them in Imp. S.Sting or somewhere else? since NS makes SS pretty much a must

edit: hmm then it comes down to the question of glyphs. today i have

Glyph of hunter mark
Glyph of steady shot
Glyph of rapid fire

im guessing i should swop the rapid fire once to the Glyph of serpent sting? 6s longer sting = 6s x X% dmg/sec (Xp in NS) or?

and a spec maybe something like this?
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?hunt...h=000000000000

Xcite · 12/18/08, 10:19 AM

I use Serpent Sting, Steady and iAoTH.

About the points I am also searching where to place them, as I am 3 points of hit cap so i dont use FA, and i am trying with the for me new way of iAoTH (to get your steady to 1.5 instead of putting it 5/5).
That ment 5 points I had to spent only no idea where.

CrowneVict · 12/18/08, 11:10 AM

Has anyone seen any official discussion on allowing ES dots to stack for LnL procs? Seems a no-brainer to help bump SV damage up some, but I haven't seen a blue post on that topic.

Zwaineroth · 12/18/08, 11:10 AM

I tried this spec out last night in Naxx 10 to get a feel for the damage output. Although I spec'd like I would be trap dancing, I decided not to do it and see how the DPS stacked up; my rotation was the typical SSting->EShot->SSx3->EShot, with EShot->SS weaving on LnL procs.

I didn't keep a WWS, but here are some observations:
- 3800 DPS on Patchwerk with Major/Minor Armor, 10% AP, Battle Shout, and Kings. So, I was almost fully buffed.
- Based on that number, I would say that a decent BM kit (2 piece T7 plus the hit/crit off pieces) would also be decent for Survival, minus the AP gems versus AGI gems issue. My haste is relatively low, but my other stats are well-balanced to work with Surv's crit/AP procs.
- Lock and Load is really lackluster for single-target DPS if you're not trap dancing because of how infrequently it procs. I didn't get Sniper Training but I can also imagine that being a wash given that you will almost surely have to be out of range of some raid buffs provided by melee.
- Conversely, Lock and Load is great for AOE (I tried not to use Volley at all); drop an Explosive Trap and tab-target Explosive Shot the mobs. It's unfortunate they are removing the AOE component of EShot.
- I didn't "feel" the reported mana efficiency of this spec. Even with a Replenishment source (myself) I found myself going OOM somewhat often, and unable to get back up while in Viper as quickly as when I am BM. I think this is where Haste really shines for Survival.

Overall, I had fun playing around with it, and I wouldn't mind going full-time Surv if BM really takes it in the knees. I tend to agree that trap dancing isn't how this spec was meant to be played in a raid, and I probably won't try it unless I get more comfortable with all of the timing issues; that said, I can see how, if you trap dance well, your DPS will be very competitive and even on par with current MM hunters. The buffs next patch will only make this better.

Rivkah · 12/18/08, 1:03 PM

Centrius, in your original spec, just an FYI, there is not a single viable hunter spec that does not include 5 points in lethal shots. It's a critical dps talent and one of the best bangs for your talent buck you can get. Mortal shots is much weaker than it used to be due to it not affecting autoshot, so it's more popular to take points out of although it depends what you're speccing as to where the points are best to go.

The new spec you listed is missing a 5th point in MT, which is probably still a pretty decent dps gain, and has 3 pts in EW where 2 is probably sufficient (1 if you have enough crit) and 2 pts is probably fine for hunting party as well. Your gear is pretty solid (except why are you still wearing that BC badge ring? there are blue rings from quests that are better) so you can also probably get away with only putting 1 pt in GftT, since your crit rate should be high enough that the 2nd pt wouldn't give you a substantial dps gain.

This is the spec I've been running with of late after futzing with the spreadsheet some. It seems to put out pretty good numbers (current best on Patchwerk is 4464 in 25 man and 4002 in 10 man). I experiemented a little with trap dancing last night, and on some fights it seems like it might be worthwhile, but I'm not yet convinced it gives me enough gain to make it worth adjusting my spec specifically to take advantage of it. I haven't tried it on Patchwerk yet.

jaxxson · 12/18/08, 1:23 PM

I have been reading about "Trap Dancing" alot lately and I kind of understand what its suppose to do, but I don't get how it's done. Can anyone fill me in on a post where I can read about this? I have searched the forms but can't find much about exactly what I'm suppose to do and how I'm supposed to spec for it.

Thanks,

Cilithan · 12/18/08, 1:32 PM

How to specc? Serpents Choice has posted an example a few posts above this one, I liked it. You can also take one of the speccs from the first page that you like most and remove Sniper Training and take Resourcefullness for instance.

What to do? Use an Immolation Trap at every cooldown and when L&L procs weave Explosive Shots and shots like Serpent/Aimed and Steady to prevent the overwriting of the last DoT of the Explosive Shot by the new shot. The dancing part refers to the moving between trapactivationrange (setting the trap under the Boss) and the minimum range for raged attacks. You have to follow the Boss if it moves and use instants when forced to or use disengage to good effect.

On Bosses that move too much, the use of traps in your rotation is useless, you'd lose more dps than you'd gain. When DualSpecc is here we may actually want to respecc between Traps and Sniper Training for different Bosses...

Rivkah · 12/18/08, 2:03 PM

I did a quick review of the raid bosses currently out and their trap dancing viability, this is what I came up with:

Anub- probably not a good idea, but slow traps on the corpses will proc when corpse explosion hits
Faerlina- stand on an add and lay traps on them
Maexxna- explosive traps for the spider spawns probably best
Noth- explosive traps on the adds
Heigan- not viable, but lay a trap during phase 2 (and maybe on the pull) to be tripped
Loatheb- works (will have to move for spores anyhow)
Razuvious- works
Gothik- phase 1 slow traps as the adds come out, phase 2 lay traps in his port spot inbetween ports
4 Horsemen- should work, just careful of the cleaving mob
Patchwerk- works, careful at the start of the fight
Grobbulus- not viable (although you can prelay one trap at the start)
Gluth- slow traps on the adds
Thaddius- works
Sapphiron- could work but probably not worth the risk between blizzard and cleave
KT- not viable (could use it a little in phase 1 but doesn't provide much benefit)
Sartharion- works but careful of position
Malygos- works in phase 1 (but might be dangerous to do it outside of dropping from vortex due to breath chains), phase 2 explosive traps on ground mobs
Archavon- could work but he moves a lot and there is often dangerous stuff in melee range so probably not worth it

Laif · 12/18/08, 5:37 PM

I, and I'm sure many others, would prefer if the 41pt talent was changed to "ranged traps" and let you throw all traps from range. It would give SV a distinctly different playstyle than the other 2 specs and alleviate all of this range dancing nonsense that's (theoretically) necessary for maximum DPS. I'd also lobby for Point of No Escape to work with all traps; added at the same time and giving SV an extra little DPS boost that it needs. I've posted about this on SA and I'm surely not the first person to think of it, either.

We could potentially get a much more useful/interesting level 80 skill out of it, too.

TrevvyTrev · 12/18/08, 7:54 PM

Originally Posted by Laif

I, and I'm sure many others, would prefer if the 41pt talent was changed to "ranged traps" and let you throw all traps from range. It would give SV a distinctly different playstyle than the other 2 specs and alleviate all of this range dancing nonsense that's (theoretically) necessary for maximum DPS. I'd also lobby for Point of No Escape to work with all traps; added at the same time and giving SV an extra little DPS boost that it needs. I've posted about this on SA and I'm surely not the first person to think of it, either.

We could potentially get a much more useful/interesting level 80 skill out of it, too.

The risk here is that it might effectively turn survival into exactly what they said they didn't want it to be -- the "trap spec". Being able to use any trap at range is so much better than the default that BM and MM hunters might as well not have them. Ranged frost traps with entrapment would be too enticing to pass up for PvP, for example.

And the "more interesting" level 80 skill would have to be mighty interesting to fly for non-SV hunters that have been bothering to use Freezing Arrow. I know it's fashionable to dump on FA, but I like using it better than a regular freezing trap in a large number of situations, and I'm BM.

Etchy · 12/18/08, 11:44 PM

In the latest PTR build, ES has been buffed to:

Rank 4: You fire an explosive charge into the enemy target, dealing [ 18% of RAP + 476 ] Fire damage. The charge will blast the target every second for an additional 2 sec.

This is up from the current [RAP * 0.08 + 201]

Harmann · 12/19/08, 2:19 AM

Unreal... I figure we'd be looking at a boost from like 8% per tick to 10% or maybe 12%. 18% makes Survival look very interesting indeed.

It's hard to evaluate and compare the scaling from Marks to Survival with Marks having attacks that are based on weapon damage as well as attacks based on attack power, but as someone who used to very much enjoy the Survival tree (leveled my Hunter SV) it will be nice to try it out again. Though I have grown to love Marksmanship quite a lot lately. Could never bring myself to enjoy BM though.

Dantastic · 12/19/08, 3:47 AM

Just been doing some testing on heroic dummy in PTR. Wearing identical gear (4885 AP constant for both) and with all talents increasing explosive shot dmg from top of MM tree and survival, I got these (100 shots fired):

Live:
Avg Hit 613 (x3)
Avg Crit 1472 (x3)
Avg Explosive Dmg 3064

PTR
Avg Hit 1300
Avg Crit 3128
Avg Dmg 6093

So it looks like the damage really has been doubled, should have huge implications for survival DPS if it goes live, aswell as a major effect on arena viability.

Also checked out arcane shot, not done a proper test yet but it costs the same mana as steady and appears to do significantly more damage, thats with glyph+serpent on target (clearly not as issue for surv as shared CD with explosive but significant for other specs no doubt

.