Survival Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / Patch 9.2)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilizes your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as a Survival Hunter, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Survival Hunter PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Survival Hunters
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.
How to Crowd Control
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:
- Using
Intimidation:
- Use
Intimidation on the enemy healer.
- Use
Freezing Trap.
- Use
- Using
Harpoon:
- Use
Harpoon on the enemy healer.
- Use
Freezing Trap once the enemy healer is rooted.
- Use
- Using
Tracker's Net:
- Use
Tracker's Net on the enemy healer.
- Use
Freezing Trap once the enemy healer is rooted.
- Use
- Using
Steel Trap:
- Use
Steel Trap on the enemy healer.
- Use
Freezing Trap once the enemy healer is rooted.
- Use
Steel Trap
Survival has another unique CC in the form of Steel Trap. It is a
20-second root that cannot be dispelled, though it does break on damage. It also
does a bit of damage, but we primarily use it as a CC tool. Use this to save
your teammates from melee by rooting them during their burst, or to root healers
in a place where they cannot heal their own teammates.
Before Gates Open
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/Burst Rotation
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.
- Apply
Hunter's Mark to the target you expect to be dealing the most damage to you.
- Make sure to activate
Camouflage, and to
Flare out the enemy if one of them is stealthed.
- Apply
Serpent Sting and
Flayed Shot to your main target and
Harpoon.
- Use
Wing Clip to slow your main target.
- Activate
Coordinated Assault.
- Use one charge of
Wildfire Infusion.
- Use
Chakrams.
- Use 1x
Raptor Strike.
- Use
Flanking Strike.
- Use 2x
Raptor Strikes.
- Use your second charge of
Wildfire Bomb.
- Use
Kill Command to generate Focus again.
- Above all, whenever you get
Kill Shot procs, use them, even if it disturbs the rotation above.
- You should also spend
Serpent Sting procs when you get them at all times.
- Proceed with your normal rotation below.
Sustained Damage/General Rotation
Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.
- Apply and maintain
Serpent Sting constantly.
- Maintain
Wing Clip on mobile targets.
- Cast
Flayed Shot on cooldown.
- Cast
Kill Shot as often as you can.
- Cast
Serpent Sting when it procs.
- Cast
Wildfire Bomb on cooldown. Try not to overlap the 6-second DoT it applies, and space them out as much as possible, unless you are going for a quick, bursty kill.
- Cast
Flanking Strike on cooldown.
- Cast
Chakrams on cooldown.
- Use
Kill Command to generate Focus. Try not to overcap on Focus.
- Use
Raptor Strike to spend Focus.
Defensive Techniques
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.
Macros
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.
Changelog
- 28 Feb. 2022: Updated the burst and general rotation.
- 10 Nov. 2021: Updated all Damage rotations.
- 03 Jul. 2021: Updated Burst and Sustained damage rotations.
- 30 Mar. 2021: No updates needed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Rotations to include Covenant Abilities.
- 29 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
- 16 Oct. 2020: Added How to Crowd Control section.
- Updated all Damage Rotation section.
- Updated Defensive section.
This guide has been written by Azortharion, a theorycrafter of all things Hunter-related 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. He even has his own personal Discord channel where you can get notifications about when the guides get updated and have direct communications with him.
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