Survival Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.2)

• Maximizing Focus and Tip of the Spear stacks generated by casting Kill Command on cooldown without ever letting it cap you on either resource.
• Maximizing Focus spent on Mongoose Bite by never Focus capping.
• Ensuring that Tip of the Spear stacks are spent on high-impact abilities and not fillers.

• All the same goals as the single-target Rotation.
• Maximizing our Wildfire Bomb charge generation and reducing wastage with Butchery, and occasionally Fury of the Eagle.

1. Ensure Hunter's Mark is active on the target from you or another Hunter in the group!
2. Use Raptor Strike/ Mongoose Bite to apply Serpent Sting.
3. Use all of your Wildfire Bombs.
4. Use Coordinated Assault. This gives us back all of our Bombs! You should also use your Potion, and any stat-granting Trinket effects here.
5. Use Kill Command to get yourself up to 3 stacks of Tip of the Spear.
6. Use Kill Command.
7. Activate Spearhead.
8. Use Flanking Strike.
9. Use Wildfire Bomb.
10. Use Fury of the Eagle.
11. Proceed with your normal rotation.

This priority list describes the optimal single-target Rotation for Survival Hunters. In short, you should press the highest-priority ability for which the conditions are met, every single cast.

A lot of the rotation revolves around Tip of the Spear, a buff generated by Kill Command that buffs the damage of other abilities. I will refer to this as "Tip", or "Tip stacks" throughout the rotation.

1. During ranged globals, like Kill Command and Wildfire Bomb, you should try to break melee range just a little in order to cast Harpoon. The Focus regen conferred by the Terms of Engagement Talent is a significant DPS increase, upwards of 1. 5%.
2. Cast Wildfire Bomb with Tip of the Spear if Lunar Storm is able to be triggered. Track it using this WeakAura.
3. Cast Kill Command during Coordinated Assault if you have no Tip of the Spear stacks. Thanks to Relentless Primal Ferocity, it will generate 3 Tip stacks to be used on other abilities.
4. Cast Spearhead on cooldown if Coordinated Assault is on cooldown. Try to generate some Tip of the Spear stacks in reserve when it is about to come off cooldown — we want to really make the most out of our 10-second Spearhead window.
5. Cast Flanking Strike with Tip of the Spear.
6. When you have a Strike it Rich proc from your 4PC Bonus' Winning Streak! ending, use Kill Command if you do not have any Tip of the Spear. It is important to Tip the 400%-buffed Raptor/Bite it grants us!
7. During Coordinated Assault, and if you have a Strike it Rich proc, use Mongoose Bite to spend it.
8. Cast Wildfire Bomb if it is about to hit 2 charges, regardless of Tip.
9. Cast Butchery on cooldown.
10. Use Coordinated Assault on cooldown. Make sure to dump your Bombs down to 1 charge first to not waste the ones you get via Bombardier.
11. Cast Fury of the Eagle on cooldown with Tip of the Spear.
12. If Flanking Strike is coming off cooldown within 1 GCD and you have no Tip stacks, throw out a Kill Command to prepare a Tip of the Spear so that we can use Flanking Strike straight off cooldown.
13. Cast Kill Command if you have less than 77 Focus. During Coordinated Assault, use it aggressively whenever you have fewer than 2 Tip stacks, regardless of Focus, and if you have less than 30 Focus, regardless of Tip stacks.
14. Use Mongoose Bite if Mongoose Fury is about to expire, making sure we milk each Fury window for as many Bites as we can.
15. Cast Wildfire Bomb with Tip of the Spear.
16. Cast Explosive Shot on cooldown. If Tip of the Spear is up, great, but we do not go out of our way to Tip these.
17. Use Mongoose Bite during Mongoose Fury. This is a higher-priority filler than the ones below!
18. Cast Kill Shot whenever possible. We also do not go out of our way to Tip these.
19. Cast Mongoose Bite if there is nothing else to do, as a filler.
20. Cast Raptor Strike if there is nothing else to do, as a filler.

Note that I will refer to Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite interchangeably in the rotation, as Mongoose replaces Raptor in many talent builds.

1. During ranged globals, like Kill Command and Wildfire Bomb, you should try to break melee range just a little in order to cast Harpoon. The Focus regen conferred by the Terms of Engagement Talent is a significant DPS increase, upwards of 1. 5%.
2. Cast Kill Command if it would activate a Howl of the Pack Leader Beast. You should also treat it as a high priority during Coordinated Assault, if you have no Tip of the Spear stacks. Thanks to Relentless Primal Ferocity, it will generate 3!
3. Use Spearhead whenever available. Try to cast it following a Coordinated Assault, and not right before.
4. Cast Flanking Strike with Tip of the Spear. Hold it for up 5 seconds for Spearhead.
5. Use Mongoose Bite to apply and maintain the Serpent Sting DoT. Your normal rotation mostly takes care of this by itself, but it is worth tracking.
6. Cast Fury of the Eagle on cooldown with Tip of the Spear.
7. Use Coordinated Assault whenever possible. However, if Howl of the Pack Leader's remaining cooldown is above ~15 seconds, you should hold Coordinated Assault until the cooldown is below 15 seconds. The logic behind this is explained in detail here. Make sure to use your Bombs first, so as to not overcap on them due to Bombardier.
8. Use Wildfire Bomb with Tip of the Spear.
9. Cast Kill Command if you have less than 77 Focus. During Coordinated Assault, use it aggressively whenever you have no Tip stacks, regardless of Focus, or if you have less than 30 Focus, regardless of Tip stacks.
10. Use Kill Shot whenever possible.
11. Use Mongoose Bite as a filler if you have nothing else to do. Costs 30 Focus.
12. Use Mongoose Bite as a filler if you have nothing else to do. Costs 30 Focus.
13. Use Kill Shot/ Explosive Shot as fillers if you can cast absolutely nothing else. They cost 10 and 20 Focus, respectively.

The AoE Opener for Survival Hunter is extremely context and Talent-dependent, and it is simply not possible to take every permutation of scenarios into account for a generic opener. The goal is to maximize our Bomb usage and generation and to get into Coordinated Assault quickly. Then, using Tip stacks, we want to use heavy-hitting AoE cooldowns like Fury of the Eagle before continuing with our normal rotation flow.

1. Ensure Hunter's Mark is active on the target from you or another Hunter in the group!
2. While the pull is being gathered and you are not comfortable doing a lot of damage yet, you should pick a target and spam Kill Command to build a few Tip of the Spear stacks ahead of time. You can also use Explosive Shot at this point — Since it explodes at a 3-second delay, you can fire it rather early and get some extra damage while you are unable to do much else.
3. Cast all your Wildfire Bombs.
4. Cast Butchery. You may wish to skip this until all mobs are stacked up.
5. Use any remaining Wildfire Bombs.
6. Cast Coordinated Assault, along with your Potion and on-use Trinkets.
7. Cast Spearhead.
8. Cast Kill Command if you have no Tip of the Spear stacks.
9. Cast Wildfire Bomb.
10. Cast Fury of the Eagle if you have a Tip stack at this point. Otherwise, hold onto it until you do.
11. Cast Flanking Strike.
12. Proceed with the normal rotation, according to the priority list below.

This priority list describes the optimal AoE Rotation for Survival Hunters. In short, you should press the highest-priority ability for which the conditions are met, every single cast.

A lot of the rotation revolves around Tip of the Spear, a buff generated by Kill Command that buffs the damage of other abilities. I will refer to this as "Tip", or "Tip stacks" throughout the rotation.

1. During ranged globals, like Kill Command and Wildfire Bomb, you should try to break melee range just a little in order to cast Harpoon. The Focus regen conferred by the Terms of Engagement Talent is a significant DPS increase, upwards of 1. 5%.
2. Cast Wildfire Bomb if Lunar Storm is able to be triggered. Track it using this WeakAura.
3. Cast Kill Command during Coordinated Assault if you have no Tip of the Spear stacks. Thanks to Relentless Primal Ferocity, it will generate 3 Tip stacks to be used on other abilities.
4. Cast Wildfire Bomb with Tip of the Spear active. You only ignore Tip for Bombs under the following circumstances:
   • If Bomb is already on 2 charges;
   • If Lunar Storm is able to be activated;
   • If Coordinated Assault is off cooldown, you should dump all of your Bombs regardless of Tip stacks due to Bombardier.
   • If Butchery is coming off cooldown, dump all your Bombs so that you can Butchery on cooldown without overcapping your Bomb charges.
5. Cast Fury of the Eagle on cooldown with Tip of the Spear.
6. Use Raptor Strike/ Mongoose Bite if you have a Strike it Rich proc that is about to expire.
7. Cast Butchery on cooldown.
8. Cast Explosive Shot with Tip of the Spear.
9. Cast Spearhead on cooldown if Coordinated Assault is on cooldown. Try to generate some Tip of the Spear stacks in reserve when it is about to come off cooldown — we want to really make the most out of our 10-second Spearhead window.
10. Use Coordinated Assault on cooldown. Make sure to dump all of your Bombs first to not waste the ones you get via Bombardier.
11. Cast Flanking Strike with 1-2 stacks of Tip of the Spear, but not 0 or 3, to ensure that we both buff it with Tip, and generate a charge of Tip without overcapping.
12. Cast Kill Command if you have less than 77 Focus.
13. Cast Kill Shot whenever you have a Deathblow proc. It will cleave thanks to Sic 'Em.
14. Cast Explosive Shot on cooldown, with or without Tip, as a lower priority.
15. Cast Mongoose Bite if there is nothing else to do, as a filler.
16. Cast Raptor Strike if there is nothing else to do, as a filler.

1. During ranged globals, like Kill Command and Wildfire Bomb, you should try to break melee range just a little in order to cast Harpoon. The Focus regen conferred by the Terms of Engagement Talent is a significant DPS increase, upwards of 1. 5%.
2. Cast Spearhead on cooldown, if Coordinated Assault is on cooldown.
3. Cast Kill Command during Coordinated Assault if you have no Tip of the Spear stacks. Thanks to Relentless Primal Ferocity, it will generate 3 Tip stacks to be used on other abilities.
4. Cast Fury of the Eagle with Tip of the Spear on cooldown.
5. Cast Wildfire Bomb if it is about to reach 2 charges, regardless of Tip of the Spear.
6. Cast Explosive Shot as a higher priority if Tip of the Spear is up.
7. Use Raptor Strike/ Mongoose Bite if you have Hogstrider active and it is about to expire. You should also cast it at this priority if you have a Strike it Rich proc.
8. Cast Wildfire Bomb with Tip of the Spear.
9. Cast Kill Command if you have a Howl of the Pack Leader proc/Beast to activate.
10. Cast Flanking Strike with Tip of the Spear.
11. Cast Butchery on cooldown, provided that Wildfire Bomb is not nearing 2 charges.
12. Use Coordinated Assault whenever possible. However, if Howl of the Pack Leader's remaining cooldown is above ~15 seconds, you should hold Coordinated Assault until the cooldown is below 15 seconds. The logic behind this is explained in detail here. Make sure to use your Bombs first, so as to not overcap on them due to Bombardier.
13. Cast Kill Command to generate Focus if you have less than 77, or if it is close to reaching 2 charges.
14. Cast Explosive Shot on cooldown. If Tip of the Spear is up, great, but we do not go out of our way to Tip these.
15. Cast Kill Shot if you have a Deathblow proc.
16. Cast Mongoose Bite as a filler.
17. Cast Raptor Strike as a filler.