Survival Hunter DPS Gear and Best in Slot — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.2.5

At this stage in the game, there are so many variables and so many layers of optimization that you can apply to your character, that there is no way for a guide or anything else to tell you exactly what gear you should wear. This is why we always recommend simulating your own character using Raidbots. The website can help you choose Azerite traits, trinkets and combinations thereof in a way that is tailored completely to your specific character. Learning to use this tool is essential to maximizing your potential, as there is simply no other way to take all the variables into account.

Benthic gear is a unique type of gear introduced in Patch 8.2. It comes in the form of gear tokens for each item slot that has a chance to become one of several unique items per slot. Some of them have special effects that provide extra damage, which makes them relevant for raiding and Mythic+ content. When you buy a Benthic Token, you can right-click the token in your inventory to identify the item. Benthic items can have sockets on them. Below we list the Benthic items that are unique or provide damage bonuses.

Using Prismatic Manapearls, which are found in Nazjatar from doing various content, you can upgrade Benthic Pieces from their baseline item level of 385, up to 425.

Slot	Item	Note
Helm	Azsh'ari Stormsurger Helm	Unique Trait: Arcane Heart
Shoulder	Azsh'ari Stormsurger Shoulderguards	Unique Trait: Loyal to the End
Chest	Azsh'ari Stormsurger Vest	Unique Trait: Undulating Tides
Wrists	Neri's Chain Manacles	Gives your spells a chance to deal AoE Physical Damage. Only works in Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace. ~2 Procs per Minute.
Wrists	Ori's Tidal Bracers	Gives your spells a chance to deal single-target Frost damage. Only works in Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace. ~1.5 Procs per Minute.
Gloves	Poen's Deepsea Handgrips	Gives your spells a chance to deal single-target Frost damage. Only works in Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace. ~3 Procs per Minute.
Waist	Azsh'ari Stormsurger Links	Increases your damage done to Aberrations by 2%. Several bosses in the Eternal Palace are Aberrations, or have Aberration adds.
Waist	Vim's Scalecrusher Chain	Gives your spells a chance to deal single-target Physical damage. Only works in Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace. ~1.5 Procs per Minute.
Boots	Akana's Reefstrider Treads	Increases your critical strike damage done by 3%, up to 203%. Only works in Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace.
Boots	Azsh'ari Stormsurger Boots	Gives you a Mastery buff after you kill an Aberration in Nazjatar or the Eternal Palace.

Most of the damage-dealing Benthic items are competitive with iLvl 445 Mythic The Eternal Palace gear, especially with sockets. It costs 240 Prismatic Manapearls to upgrade an item from 385 to 425.

The Azerite Traits vary in their power and usually have some penalties to them anyway. Since Azerite Benthic only goes to iLevel 430, it is not generally recommended or competitive against iLvl 445 Azerite from the Eternal Palace.

Finally, we do not recommend upgrading Benthic pieces that do not have sockets, with the exception of Azerite gear (which cannot have sockets).

When identifying what gear you should be aiming after, we recommend using RaidBots' Droptimizer feature. It requires the SimulationCraft Addon. Once you have the addon installed, write "/simc" into the chat in-game, and copy-pasting the contents into the RaidBots Droptimizer.

Simply select the raid and difficulty you are interested in, and RaidBots will take a while to figure out where you should spend your bonus rolls, and more.

Mechagon offers two unique types of gear. The first is the Pocket-Sized Computation Device Trinket, which has 3 sockets that can be filled with punchcards. Yellow Punchcards offer stats, Red Punchcards offer damaging effects, and Blue Punchcards offer unique utility.

The whole Trinket's item level scales with the item level of the punchcards in it, as an average of the Red and Yellow punchcards. The item level of the trinket affects the power of the punchcards in it.

Yellow Punchcards can be looted from Rares in Mechagon, or from bosses inside the Operation: Mechagon dungeon. They offer a large amount of one secondary stat, and a small amount of another. The best Yellow Punchcard for Survival Hunters is any high Haste punchcard, with a high item level.

There are two interesting Red Punchcards: Cyclotronic Blast and Subroutine: Recalibration. Cyclotronic Blast is a 2-minute on-use that deals extremely heavy damage over a short period of time. Subroutine: Recalibration is a Haste buff that is tied to your ability usage - giving you a Haste buff for every 12 attacks you do. Since Survival has so much Haste and has a lot of attacks per minute, this Punchcard - combined with the fact that it provides even more Haste - is extremely powerful.

The other type of gear are the set rings from Operation: Mechagon. By combining a "Logic Loop" ring like Logic Loop of Division with a "Bit Band" ring like Shorting Bit Band, you can combine the two effects to create a unique effect with a unique trigger. The Division and Shorting combo is the most potent for Hunters. These rings are only item level 415, but they are competitive for quite a while into Heroic The Eternal Palace, and sometimes beyond.

Along these same lines, you should be completing at least one keystone at a high item level each week to make use of the weekly chest. Each week you will receive one piece of loot, and a fixed amount of Titan Residuum. The highest keystone you complete (up to a maximum of 10) will determine the final reward:

Keystone Level	Weekly Chest Loot	Residuum Awarded
Mythic 2	410	800~
Mythic 3	415	800~
Mythic 4	420	1700~
Mythic 5	420	1700~
Mythic 6	425	1700~
Mythic 7	430	5500~
Mythic 8	430	5500~
Mythic 9	435	5500~
Mythic 10	440	17000~

Trinkets, Weapons, and Azerite Armor are the three largest DPS increases to any class in the game. Getting good pieces to fill these slots early allows you to perform incredibly well. They are also the hardest pieces to get.

There are a number of strong weapons for Survival Hunters. Ideally, you should be looking for weapons with a lot of Haste, and ideally no Mastery:

• * Shiver Venom Lance from Abyssal Commander Sivara in The Eternal Palace;

The Shiver Venom Lance has an extremely powerful single-target proc. This proc is so powerful that it would take unrealistic amounts of AoE to make other weapons better (which may have more secondary stats).

Thanks to Bloodmallet.com, a comprehensive list of available trinkets for Survival are listed against each other below. Keep in mind that this is only a guideline.

Many people have a tendency to overthink the distribution of their secondary stats. An important thing to remember is that a higher quantity of stats is nearly always better than a better quality of stats. Because of this, wearing higher item level gear with worse stats tends to be better than lower item level gear with great stats. Keep this in mind when considering gear.

You can check through the Survival Azerite page to look through the values of different traits and target different items. A quick recommendation of ideal pieces to aim for in Patch 8.2 and which traits to select can be seen below:

Slot	Item	Traits
Helm	Hood of Lightless Depths	Blur of Talons Primeval Intuition Overwhelming Power
Shoulder	Shoulderguards of Crushing Depths	Blur of Talons Dire Consequences Unstable Flames
Chest	Corrupted Hexxer's Vestments	Serrated Jaws Blur of Talons Overwhelming Power

You can check through the Survival Azerite page to look through the values of different traits and target different items. A quick recommendation of ideal pieces to aim for in Patch 8.2 and which traits to select can be seen below:

Slot	Item	Traits
Helm	Hood of Lightless Depths	Latent Poison Primeval Intuition Overwhelming Power
Shoulder	Amalgamated Abomination Spaulders	Latent Poison Wilderness Survival Overwhelming Power
Chest	Scalemail of Unnatural Selection	Primeval Intuition Latent Poison Overwhelming Power

This does not include trinkets as they are covered in the above chart.

This list is based on Birds of Prey, as it is more popular for raiding.

Note that this is not a guide on which bosses to bonus roll. Refer to the Droptimizer guide above to plan out your bonus rolls!

Slot	Item	Source
Helm	Hood of Lightless Depths	Blackwater Behemoth in The Eternal Palace
Shoulder	Shoulderguards of Crushing Depths	Lady Ashvane in The Eternal Palace
Cloak	Drape of the Hatcher	Orgozoa in The Eternal Palace
Chest	Corrupted Hexxer's Vestments	Purchased from Azerite vendor for Titan Residuum
Wrists	Ori's Tidal Bracers	Benthic Gear Tokens for Prismatic Manapearls
Gloves	Poen's Deepsea Handgrips	Benthic Gear Tokens for Prismatic Manapearls
Belt	Vim's Scalecrusher Chain	Benthic Gear Tokens for Prismatic Manapearls
Legs	Banded Cragscale Greaves	Crafted. Requires Leatherworking. 215 Haste and 86 Versatility is ideal.
Boots	Akana's Reefstrider Treads	Benthic Gear Tokens for Prismatic Manapearls
Ring #1	Ascended Leviathan's Eye Loop	Crafted. Requires Jewelcrafting. 378 Haste and 151 Versatility is ideal.
Ring #2	Cursed Lover's Ring	Queen Azshara in The Eternal Palace
Weapon	Shiver Venom Lance	Abyssal Commander Sivara in The Eternal Palace