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Survival Hunter DPS Easy Mode in Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.0.1

Last updated on Aug 12, 2018 at 23:42 by Azortharion 39 comments

Table of Contents

About Our Author

This guide has been written by Azortharion, the main theorycrafter of the spec for many years. He is an accomplished player with dozen of top parses for all specs throughout the game's history. He is also the Admin of Trueshot Lodge, the Hunter Class Discord, and you can watch his stream on Twitch.

1. Foreword

This section is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous priorities and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

2. The Basics of Survival

Survival is a versatile melee spec capable of quite powerful single-target and sometimes very powerful AoE. It also has great crowd control capabilities for a melee.

3. Talent Choice

The talents listed below are selected either for ease of use, or for more a more simple to understand gameplay style. Whilst in a number of cases there are alternatives on the tree that will provide more if played well, they create much more room to play incorrectly and reduce your performance. Due to this, treat this as a starting point and a primer.

4. Stat Choices of Survival Hunter

The general single-target stat priority for a Survival Hunter is:

  1. Haste;
  2. Critical Strike;
  3. Versatility;
  4. Mastery.

Haste is the best stat for Survival by a significant margin, and you should be looking out for it on your pieces of gear. Item level should still be the primary concern, but a Haste piece might be better than a higher item level piece without Haste.

5. Basic Single-Target Rotation

Remember to read and treat this rotation as a priority list. If the top option is not available), move on to the next and so on.

  1. Cast Kill Command Icon Kill Command on cooldown. Try not to be at high Focus when using it.
  2. Cast Wildfire Bomb Icon Wildfire Bomb on cooldown.
  3. Maintain the Serpent Sting Icon Serpent Sting DoT by refreshing it whenever there is less than 3 seconds remaining on it.
  4. Cast Raptor Strike Icon Raptor Strike to spend Focus when there is nothing else to do. Try to never let your Focus reach maximum by using this ability aggressively when you are close to the Focus cap.

6. Multi-Target Rotation

On 3 targets and above, you should use Carve Icon Carve on cooldown. You should still focus on casting Kill Command Icon Kill Command and Wildfire Bomb Icon Wildfire Bomb on cooldown.

6.1. Cooldowns

Use Aspect of the Eagle Icon Aspect of the Eagle when you will be out of range for a sustained period of time, allowing you to DPS from range.

Use Coordinated Assault Icon Coordinated Assault as many times as possible during the fight. Try and stack it with Bloodlust Icon Bloodlust/Heroism Icon Heroism.

7. Azerite Traits

Azerite Traits play an important role for Survival Hunter. This means you need to decide which Azerite items you should choose. The traits are very close to each other in power, though, so we recommend our Azerite trait page for more details.

⋘Introduction
Spell Summary⋙

8. ChangeLog

  • 12 Aug. 2018: Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 18 Jul. 2018: Updated the optimal talent from Mongoose Bite to Tip of the Spear and updated the stat priority.
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