Hunter Hero Talents — The War Within (Season 1)
This guide will walk you through the best Hero Talents for Survival Hunter for Raiding and Mythic+, how they impact your gameplay, and more.
Best Hero Talents for Survival Hunter in The War Within
This page is specifically about Hero Talents in The War Within. If you want to learn more about the best regular talents for Survival Hunter, check out our Talents page:
Sentinel
Sentinel is our strongest Hero Talent for every conceivable scenario, providing the best damage and defenses.
Pack Leader
Pack Leader lags behind on damage in all scenarios, especially AoE, while providing no defenses or utility to make up for its deficits.
Best Hero Talent Builds for Survival Hunter
Sentinel Single-Target Build
Sentinel Multi-Target Build
Pack Leader Universal Build
Best Sentinel Build for Survival Hunter
Sentinel is very straightforward to build. The only thing we swap for AoE is 
Overwatch/
Crescent Steel, with the latter providing more Sentinel hits overall on a single target, because you will generally only get the Overwatch trigger once in such scenarios.
We also have a choice between 
Sentinel Watch and 
Eyes Closed. The former offers a shorter cooldown, and the latter offers a stronger cooldown. Generally speaking, we pick Sentinel Watch whenever we would also pick the Spec Talent 
Symbiotic Adrenaline, such as most Mythic+ scenarios, and we pick Eyes Closed when we do not.
Best Sentinel Build for Survival Hunter
Sentinel is very straightforward to build. The only thing we swap for AoE is Overwatch/ Crescent Steel, with the former providing a lot more Sentinel hits in AoE scenarios. Get a single target below 20% HP, and watch mobs melt from 20-0% HP.
We also have a choice between Sentinel Watch and Eyes Closed. The former offers a shorter cooldown, and the latter offers a stronger cooldown. Generally speaking, we pick Sentinel Watch whenever we would also pick the Spec Talent Symbiotic Adrenaline, such as most Mythic+ scenarios, and we pick Eyes Closed when we do not.
Best Pack Leader Build for Survival Hunter
Pack Leader is very straightforward to build, with the same setup being optimal for all scenarios.
Hero Talents Rotation for Survival Hunter
Sentinel
Sentinel will regularly change the way we think about using our second 
Wildfire Bomb charge. In essence, if the
remaining "internal cooldown" of 
Lunar Storm is up in a couple of seconds, you will want to hold your second/final
Wildfire Bomb charge for that moment, ensuring we squeeze out as much uptime as possible. Our Rotation page covers this.
But, other than that minmax, Sentinel is completely passive.
Pack Leader
Pack Leader will significantly raise the priority of 
Kill Command, making it a more valuable button than most
of your standard fillers. It also introduces 
Furious Assault procs that we want to lean into by using 
Tip of the Spear into 5-
stack, Furious Assault-buffed 
Raptor Strike/
Mongoose Bites.
Changelog
- 09 Sep. 2024: Preliminary update for The War Within Season 1.
- 22 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
- 02 Aug. 2024: Page added.
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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!
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