Survival Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / Patch 9.0.5)

The main role for a Survival Hunter is simple: use your mobility to land Freezing Traps on the enemy healer and use your strong single-target cooldowns to burst an enemy down. Unlike other melee classes, Survival Hunters have strong crowd control and kiting abilities. This makes them very hard to kill and extremely deadly.

Before going into how to deal damage as a Survival Hunter, it is important to know how to crowd control the enemy team. Hunter comps rely heavily on landing Freezing Trap on the enemy healer and requires some setup. Normally, you will have a Rogue or Paladin on your team that can stun before you Freezing Trap, but here are some ways you can crowd control an enemy without help from teammates:

1. Using Intimidation:
   • Use Intimidation on the enemy healer.
   • Use Freezing Trap.
2. Using Harpoon:
   • Use Harpoon on the enemy healer.
   • Use Freezing Trap once the enemy healer is rooted.
3. Using Tracker's Net:
   • Use Tracker's Net on the enemy healer.
   • Use Freezing Trap once the enemy healer is rooted.

Make sure to use Camouflage before the gates open if you are using this regular talent. This will guarantee an opener from you. If you are playing against a team with stealth, make sure to use Flare to try to reveal them.

The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns. If the enemy healer uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. Survival Hunters have Freezing Trap, Intimidation and Spider Sting, which can help to this end.

This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.

1. Use and maintain Hunter's Mark on your primary target.
2. Use Kill Command as often as you can to generate Focus.
   • Kill Command has a 25% chance to immediately reset its cooldown. Make sure to pay attention and use Kill Command again, unless you are about to fill up your Focus bar.
3. Use Wing Clip to slow your main target.
4. Use and maintain Serpent Sting on your primary target.
   • Note that the range on Serpent Sting is 40 yards. This means that if you are kiting away from enemies, you can still deal damage from ranged.
5. Use one charge of Wildfire Infusion.
   • Use Volatile Bomb to refresh your Serpent Stings.
   • Use Pheromone Bomb when you are low on Focus because Kill Command will have a 100% chance to reset when used on enemies with this debuff.
   • Use Shrapnel Bomb to make your Mongoose Bite and Carve apply a bleed to enemies.
6. Use Carve if the enemy team is stacked.
7. Use Mongoose Bite for single-target damage and start gaining stacks of Mongoose Fury.
8. Use your burst rotation.
9. After your burst, perform your sustained damage rotation until your burst cooldowns are available.

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.

The great part about Survival Hunters is that most of your burst comes from on-demand cooldowns and does not require Mongoose Fury stacks when you start.

1. Use Kill Command.
2. Use Serpent Sting.
3. Use Resonating Arrow if you are Kyrian to increase your damage against targets inside the area.
4. Use Flayed Shot if you are Venthyr.
5. Use A Murder of Crows if you are talented into it.
6. Use Coordinated Assault.
7. Use a charge of any bomb from your Wildfire Infusion talent.
   • Important Note: These bombs can break crowd control if the enemy healer is close by. You can skip using your Wildfire Infusion bombs if it can potentially break crowd control. Use it later in your burst rotation.
8. If your Wildfire Bomb gives you Pheromone Bomb, use it and do the following:
   • Use Pheromone Bomb.
   • Use Kill Command.
   • Use Mongoose Bite.
   • Use Kill Command.
   • Use Mongoose Bite.
   • Continue doing this rotation until the Pheromone Bomb debuff expires from your target.
9. Use Mongoose Bite.
10. Use Carve if the enemy team is stacked.
11. Use your second charge of Wildfire Infusion, if you have it.
12. Aspect of the Eagle is not required for your burst rotation unless the enemy team is doing a great job at kiting your damage.
13. Use Mongoose Bite.
14. Use Kill Command as soon as it is off cooldown.
15. Keep using Mongoose Bite for stacks of Mongoose Fury.
16. Use Kill Command.
17. Refresh Serpent Sting.
18. Use Mongoose Bite.
19. Use Kill Command.
20. Use Mongoose Bite.
21. Use Kill Command.
22. Use Mongoose Bite.
23. Use Kill Shot if your enemy is below 20% health.

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.

1. Use and maintain Hunter's Mark on your primary target.
2. Use Wing Clip to keep your main target slowed.
3. Use Tar Trap to slow entire teams and to help you land a Freezing Trap easier.
   • You can also use Harpoon to help you land the trap.
4. Use Kill Command as often as you can to generate Focus.
   • Kill Command has a 25% chance to immediately reset its cooldown. Make sure to pay attention and use Kill Command again, unless you are about to fill up your Focus bar.
5. Use and maintain Serpent Sting on your primary target.
6. Use Carve if the enemy team is stacked.
7. Depending on the situation, use Wildfire Infusion.
   • Use Volatile Bomb to refresh your Serpent Stings.
   • Use Pheromone Bomb when you are low on Focus because Kill Command will have a 100% chance to reset when used on enemies with this debuff.
   • Use Shrapnel Bomb to make your Mongoose Bite and Carve apply a bleed to enemies.
8. Use Resonating Arrow if you are Kyrian to increase your damage against targets inside the area.
9. Use Flayed Shot if you are Venthyr.
10. Use Mongoose Bite and start gaining stacks of Mongoose Fury.
11. Use Kill Shot if your enemy is below 20% health.

Aspect of the Turtle is our main defensive cooldown. Use this when the enemy team is focusing you down and your healer can not heal you through the damage or is stuck in crowd control. Although you can not attack with this cooldown active, you still have the ability to trap. Using this to ignore incoming attacks and use Freezing Trap on an enemy healer could be crucial.

Exhilaration is a very strong instant heal. Try to stagger Aspect of the Turtle and Exhilaration and you will be very hard to kill.

Roar of Sacrifice is a great utility ability for you or your teammates. This makes the teammate you use this on immune to Critical Strikes by spells and transfers 20% of the damage they are taking to your pet. Use this when the enemy team is using their cooldowns on a teammate or yourself and when not many defensive cooldowns are available.

Master's Call removed all roots and snares on your target and makes them immune to these for 4 seconds. This can be used on you or your teammates and is best used when your team needs to kite away from enemies.

Tracker's Net will mostly be used for landing a trap on an enemy, but it can be used to kite enemy players when you are in trouble.

Mending Bandage instantly clears all bleeds, poisons and diseases from your target, and heals for 30% damage over 6 sec. Being attacked will stop you from using Mending Bandage. You should take this PvP talent when playing against specializations like Feral Druid or Assassination Rogues.

Survival Tactics causes Feign Death to remove all harmful magical effects, and reduces damage taken by 99% for 1.5 seconds. This is a mandatory talent when playing against classes with multiple DoTs (Affliction Warlock, Shadow Priest, Balance Druid). This reduces the enemies' overall damage and helps your healer with dispelling harmful effects. You can also use this to stop incoming spells that are being cast on you.

Scare Beast is a unique ability that allows you to fear beasts. This can be used on Hunter pets and also on Druids that are in their forms. Keep this in mind when you are playing against a Feral Druid who is primarily in Cat Form.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.