Survival Hunter PvP Guide — The War Within (11.1.5)

Survival Hunter is a powerful Hunter specialization with high burst and overall damage, strong mobility and crowd control potential.

The Survival Hunter damage rotation leaves a lot of space for skill expression and outplay potential. Survival is a hybrid between ranged and melee DPS, where much of the rotation can be done from range, and getting into melee range is only required when dumping focus with Raptor Strike/ Mongoose Bite and for using Muzzle.

The Survival Hunter rotation in The War Within does not require you to apply dots before being able to do meaningful burst damage, meaning that you are free to swap targets at short notice with low opportunity cost. Coordinated Assault has been entirely reworked and functions as a one-minute offensive cooldown with Symbiotic Adrenaline that grants you Wildfire Bomb and Explosive Shot cooldown resets.

Survival cleaves a lot in its rotation, and in The War Within Explosive Shot becomes more central to the rotation with new talents Grenade Juggler and the newly designed Bombardier. Wildfire Bomb damage over time effect now rolls over, meaning Survival Hunters do not need to wait for the effect to end before throwing their next bomb. Survival also currently plays Fury of the Eagle, giving an additional area of effect burst cooldown.

Doing maximum damage as Survival in The War Within now revolves around consuming a Tip of the Spear whenever using your heavy hitters.

There is flexibility in the PvP talents available, with niche utility options that aren't available to Beast Mastery or Survival Hunters ( Sticky Tar Bomb, Mending Bandage and Tracker's Net).

Once you are comfortable weaving in and out of melee range during your burst windows, kiting in-between, timing your crowd control windows, and maximizing your consistent damage outside of cooldowns, Survival is an incredibly fun and rewarding specialization.

Survival rewards opportunistic and aggressive play as well as knowing when and how to kite between damage windows. You win by setups, burst, and punishing enemies that misuse defensives or position poorly. Survival is not a spec that wins by one-shotting, and playing to maximize damage done (and reduce damage taken) is how it competes with other specializations that may be more forgiving when it comes to burst or crowd control.

Strengths

• High burst cleave damage with Wildfire Bomb, Butchery and Explosive Shot
• High sustained damage
• High mobility and kiting tools
• Mortal strike from pets
• Support for team with Roar of Sacrifice, Master's Call, Mending Bandage or Interlope
• Multiple crowd options in Intimidation, Binding Shot, Freezing Trap, High Explosive Trap, Scatter Shot/ Bursting Shot, Entrapment, Tracker's Net and Sticky Tar Bomb

Weaknesses

• High number of keybinds and a hit-and-run playstyle that isn't as intuitive as other melee specs
• Heavily relies on landing Freezing Trap at the right moment
• Can easily break crowd control while bursting with Wildfire Bomb and Explosive Shot
• Needs to go into melee range when activating Coordinated Assault or landing Butchery, and low survivability when stuck toe-to-toe with melee specializations

• All damage dealt increased by 4%.
• Pack Leader: Dire Summons Kill Command cooldown reduction increased to 2 seconds (was 1 second).
• Pack Leader: Bear damage increased by 40%.
• Pack Leader Boar damage increased by 40%.
• Pack Leader: Howl of the Pack Leader duration reduced to 25 seconds (was 30 seconds).
• Pack Leader: Fixed a bug preventing Lead From the Front from increasing the Pack Leader Boar's damage.

These changes make Pack Leader overtake Sentinel in Arena scenarios. It simply does more overall damage.

The overall damage buff is a welcome change following the previous hotfix that heavily nerfed the kill potential of Spearhead.

• Flanking Strike damage reduced by 30% in PvP combat.
• All spell and ability damage increased by 4% in PvP combat.
• Spearhead increases critical strike chance by 15% in PvP combat (was 30%).
• Deadly Duo increases your critical strike damage by 15% in PvP combat (was 30%).

The nerfs to Spearhead and Deadly Duo will mean that Spearhead will not be taken in PvP builds anymore. Survival Hunters will now use the Fury of the Eagle build.

Even with the nerf to Flanking Strike, you will still play it over Butchery because the Merciless Blows damage over time effect is much lower when activated by Butchery than Flanking Strike.

• On the Survival Hunter PvP Talents page, you will find an analysis of the talents available to Survival Hunters, as well as an overview of the PvP talents, with advice on which ones to take and under which conditions.
• On the Survival Hunter PvP Pets page, you will find an overview of the advantages of each pet type with advice on which ones to take and under which conditions.
• On the Survival Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle page, you will learn how to use your spells, depending on the situation (dealing damage, surviving, controlling enemy players, etc.), and what is generally expected of your class and spec in PvP.
• On the Survival Hunter PvP Stat Priority and Gear page, you will find the stat priority to follow in PvP, as well as advice for choosing your gear, which may vary depending on your playstyle and composition.
• On the Survival Hunter PvP Best Races page, you will find lists of the Alliance and Horde races, ranked by how good they are for Survival Hunters in PvP, as well as explanations regarding why and how their racials benefit you.
• On the Survival Hunter PvP Useful Macros page, you will find a collection of useful PvP macros for Survival Hunters.
• On the Survival Hunter Arena Composition page, you will find the list of the most powerful Arena compositions featuring Survival Hunters in both 2v2 and 3v3 modes.
• On the Survival Hunter in Battleground Blitz page, you will find a summary of how to play Survival in Battleground Blitz specifically, including the playstyle, role in specific battlegrounds, talent builds, and macros.