World of Warcraft: Forever Survival Hunter - Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

In Forever, the Hunter rotation is still more or less the same as it was in Classic where you will be focusing your gameplay around Auto Shots, which still retains the 0.5 second cast time. As a Survival hunter though, you have several gameplay choices and now even a full melee playstyle, should you choose to go that route thanks to talents such as Predator's Edge and Expose Prey, and abilities such as Strider Kick.

These lists assume you are using the recommended builds in the Survival Hunter Talents page, and are at maximum level. If you are still leveling, refer to the Survival Hunter Leveling page for leveling rotations.

As a Survival Hunter your ranged rotation is incredibly simple and straight forward. The most important thing to remember is to keep your Improved Tracking up at all times for the respective target type, so you can take advantage of the 5% damage bonus. If you are the designated Trueshot Aura Hunter, ensure it is active as well before the fight starts.

• Cast Hunter's Mark on your target before combat.
• Cast Serpent Sting. Do not reapply until the duration has fully ended.
• Cast Aimed Shot on cooldown.
• Cast Arcane Shot on cooldown.

In Forever, Hunters still lack an effective multi-target aoe rotation.

• Cast Hunter's Mark up on your primary target before combat.
• Cast Multi-Shot on cooldown.
• Cast Explosive Trap on cooldown.
• Cast Volley.

With the addition of several new talents and abilities, Survival Hunter can now also play a full melee rotation. You will still want to keep Improved Tracking up at all times for the respective target type to take advantage of the 5% damage bonus.

• Cast Hunter's Mark on your target before combat.
• Pre-cast Aimed Shot before running into melee.
• Cast Serpent Sting while running towards your target.
• Cast Immolation Trap as soon as you are within melee range and keep the debuff active on cooldown.
• Cast Summon Hawk on cooldown and maintain 2 hawks at all times.
• Cast Raptor Strike on cooldown.
• Cast Mongoose Bite on cooldown.
• Cast Strider Kick on cooldown.

One of the big changes in Forever is that Rapid Fire now also increases your melee attack speed by 40% making it your biggest cooldown available. As always, you will want to stack Rapid Fire with all other cooldowns such as your class racial if you have one, and trinkets.

While Survival hunters have no unique utility compared to Beast Mastery and Marksmanship, the class in general still has some useful utility such as traps which come in handy in all aspects of gameplay. Frost Trap and Freezing Trap can make a situation much more manageable by disabling enemies, and in Forever you can also place a Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap at the same time so you do not need to sacrifice dps uptime for utility.

Hunters have several traps available that are broken down into two individual classes, Fire and Ice. You can have one type of each trap active at the same time, and each will last for 1 minute or until triggered by a target. Ice traps are used to CC your target by either freezing them in place with Frost Trap, or slowing them down in a large area with Freezing Trap, while fire traps are your single-target, or multi-target damaging traps with Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap.

An important note and trick regarding traps is that you can actually place your trap slightly further ahead if you strafe sideways or jump while placing your trap, compared to just standing still.

Hunters can always have one of their aspects active at any given time. The biggest change for Survival in Forever is that you will want to keep Aspect of the Beast active if you are a melee hunter, as it will increase your melee attack speed by 30%, similar to how Aspect of the Hawk increases ranged attack speed by 30%. While traveling on foot, before you obtain a mount, you will also have access to Aspect of the Cheetah at Level 20, which will increase your movement speed by 30%.

More WoW Forever Hunter Guides

Marksmanship Hunter Ranged DPS Talents Beast Mastery Hunter Ranged DPS Guide Marksmanship Hunter Ranged DPS Stats Survival Hunter Melee DPS Leveling Beast Mastery Hunter Ranged DPS Talents Beast Mastery Hunter Ranged DPS Rotation

More WoW Forever Guides from Other Classes

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