How To Improve As Survival Hunter — The War Within (11.1.5)
On this page, you will find out how you can improve at playing Survival Hunter in World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.1.5). We list the common mistakes that you should try to avoid and the small details that can greatly improve your performance.
Common Survival Hunter Mistakes
Overcapping on Focus
With Kill Command generating a healthy amount of Focus,
and
Raptor Strike being relatively cheap, it is easy to reach
maximum Focus too often. On one hand, you want to never delay Kill Command too
much. On the other hand, you do not want to waste the Focus that it generates.
You should always use Raptor Strike enough to prevent you from ever capping
on Focus, without letting Kill Command be off cooldown for too long. The goal
is always to maximize Focus generation and spending.
(Not) Knowing How To Sim Yourself
It is impossible to correctly play and optimize a Survival Hunter without using Raidbots to sim your own character, there are simply too many variables involved to intuitively figure out what gear to wear and so on without simming it first. Generally speaking, a simulation should be the first and final say in the gear you end up wearing for any given situation.
Simming is now very easy with no need to understand SimulationCraft syntax or installation yourself. All you will need is the in-game SimulationCraft AddOn, and the Raidbots website. We have a dedicated guide on using Raidbots here on Icy-Veins:
If you are not familiar with Raidbots, you can use our Raidbots Guide to get started.
How To Analyze Your Mistakes as a Survival Hunter
When it comes to identifying and improving your mistakes, we strongly recommend the website WoWAnalyzer — it will analyze your logs and give you a report detailing how you did on the problems above and more.
Changelog
- 21 Apr. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.1.5.
- 25 Mar. 2025: Updated for March 25 Updates.
- 24 Feb. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.0.
- 15 Dec. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.7.
- 30 Oct. 2024: Updated for October 29 Hotfixes.
- 22 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Preliminary update for The War Within Season 1.
- 22 Aug. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Hunter Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Azortharion, a Hunter Guidewriter, Theorycrafter, and top player since 2014, who is widely considered one of the best PvE Hunters in the world. He is an accomplished player with hundreds of top parses across all Hunter specs. He is the Head Admin of Trueshot Lodge, the official Hunter Class Discord. You can find him on his stream on Twitch and his channel on YouTube. He also has his own, personal Discord server where you can freely ask him any Hunter questions you may have!
- 38 Stories Planned for New Lorewalking Feature—First 3 Playable in Patch 11.1.7
- Big Patch 11.1.5 Class Tuning Pass: May 27th
- War Within 11.1.5 and Season of Discovery Hotfixes: May 22nd
- You Can Now Send Champion Gear to Alts Using Valorstones in War Within Season 2
- How to Always Identify the Bad Potion in Horrific Visions in Patch 11.1.5
- Best Route for the Horrific Vision of Stormwind in Patch 11.1.5: No Backtracking!
- The Combat Addon Purge: Game Director Talks Details and Timing
- How to Unlock All Faceless Masks in Horrific Visions in Patch 11.1.5