Survival Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (11.1.5)

The main role for a Survival Hunter is simple: maintain pressure on the enemy team and use your mobility and stuns/slows/roots to land Freezing Traps on the enemy healer when you're in a position to finish a kill.

You have many damage rotation sequences available, and you can combine your abilities in a number of ways to deal damage to an enemy quickly.

You should try to line up your crowd control combinations with the high points in your rotation ( Coordinated Assault and Spearhead) for maximum effectiveness and coordinate with your teammates so there is always a stun available for the kill target during those windows.

Important: On your minimap, there will be an icon for hunter tracking spells. You should always have Track Hidden enabled. The game does not communicate it, but having this enabled will vastly increase the range of your stealth detection.

Choose your talents. Talents and PvP Talents are expanded on separately in this guide, but as a baseline, these PvP talents are good in everything:

• Survival Tactics
• Chimaeral Sting

And then the third PvP talent is based on what you're facing, e.g.

• Sticky Tar Bomb (facing melee or Marksman Hunters)
• Diamond Ice (facing a Demon Hunter or Warlock playing Imp for dispel)
• Mending Bandage (facing Feral Druid or Assassination Rogue)

Choose your pet. Pets are expanded on separately in this guide, but generally, you want a Cunning pet unless you expect the enemy team to burst you in a stun, in which case you are likely better off with a Tenacity pet.

Cunning pets make you mobile and help you to support your partner if they are the kill target. Tenacity pets make you more difficult to kill when you are the kill target.

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, you will have an advantage over them for the next 90 seconds.

As Survival, you want to be setting the pace of the game as soon as possible with the strongest opener possible.

• Use Camouflage, then summon your pet

Being in stealth will allow you to reliably get strong openers because you are able to build Tip of the Spear stacks using Kill Command before the fight starts. While in stealth, you want to position in line of sight of the enemy healer to make it easier to land your Freezing Trap or cast Chimearal Sting.

It is important to use Camouflage before summoning your pet because then you are able to attack enemies with your pet while in stealth before you open (and you can even use Kill Command, Mend Pet, or Revive Pet during Camouflage). Make sure you either attack something with your pet or move it away from yourself so it does not give away your position.

When facing a Rogue, you should get yourself into combat using your Pet as soon as possible whilst in Camouflage to help your team avoid Sap. You should use an Undead Pet rather than regular Beast Pet when doing this, because they are immune to Sap.

Note: Kill Command has a chance to reset its cooldown when used. In The War Within there is a bug that will break your Camouflage when Kill Command resets from this mechanic. As a result, sometimes your Camouflage will break early whilst doing this opener and if it does, you should proceed with the opening rotation skipping the first step (building three stacks of Tip of the Spear).

• Cast Flare if any member of the enemy team is in stealth

If somebody is in stealth, it is also a good idea to Disengage towards the area you are expecting them to be in before firing the Flare to catch them off guard and be able to throw the Flare further than they would expect.

• Cast Hunter's Mark on your kill target

This will give you a damage bonus on your opener, although it will also make it obvious the player you are going to open on, and they might move to a pillar. If they do move to a pillar, it is fine to open on their partner without the Hunter's Mark.

If the team that you are facing is waiting for you to open, rather than running at your team, and their Healer dispels your Hunter's Mark, you can delay your opener and reapply it.

The below rotations are examples of what you can do in an opener, which you should modify based on positioning, what you're facing, and how your opponent reacts.

You should also be aware of what's going on in the game. If it's not safe for you to be in melee range, or if you've already forced defensive cooldowns, or if it's not safe for you to chase a healer for crowd control, it's fine to stay at range until you have a good opportunity.

Chimearal opening rotation (recommended)

• Cast Kill Command three times on any target while in Camouflage to build Tip of the Spear stacks if you have time because the other team did not immediately open (skip this step if Camouflage breaks)
• Cast Chimaeral Sting on the enemy healer
• Cast Wildfire Bomb (to put the second charge on cooldown)
• Cast Explosive Shot
• Cast Harpoon on healer
• Cast Freezing Trap on Healer (at this point, the Healer should be silenced by Chimaeral Sting)
• Cast Wildfire Bomb
• Cast Spearhead
• Use Coordinated Assault (to get back to the kill target, reset your Bomb cooldowns, buff your damage, and generate three stacks of Tip of the Spear)
• Cast Wildfire Bomb (to put the second charge on cooldown)
• Cast Flanking Strike to apply Merciless Blows and generate another two stacks of Tip of the Spear
• Cast Wildfire Bomb
• Cast Raptor Strike (to apply Serpent Sting)
• Cast Kill Command whenever you run out of Tip of the Spear stacks
• Use Wildfire Bomb, Explosive Shot or Kill Shot whenever they become available in that priority order
• Use Raptor Strike when you have Tip of the Spear stacks and no damaging spells with a cooldown available

Getting your First Trap with Chimearal Sting instead of with Intimidation is convenient because then you will be able to use Intimidation to set up your next Trap when the game is generally more chaotic. Binding Shot can then be used to peel or stun DPS players.

The below priority list shows the ideal ability to use at any moment for maximum damage.

• Use Kill Command to generate a Tip of the Spear stack (if you don't have any stacks but do have any damaging ability with a cooldown available).
• Cast Flanking Strike (if you have two or less stacks of Tip of the Spear)
• Cast Wildfire Bomb (if you have close to or are at two charges available)
• Cast Explosive Shot
• Cast Wildfire Bomb
• Cast Kill Shot if available
• Cast Mongoose Bite/ Raptor Strike to dump focus or consume Furious Assault stacks, if it's safe to be in melee range
• Cast Kill Command if you need focus or have the Frenzied Tear buff

Remember that Wildfire Bomb does a large portion of your overall damage but will break crowd control (e.g., Freezing Trap) if used on a nearby target. You should keep Wildfire Bomb on cooldown even if the enemy healer is not in crowd control because you never want to be in a situation where the Healer is in crowd control but you can't do damage because pressing Wildfire Bomb would break that crowd control.

Most of your rotation can be done at range, but if you are more than 25 yards from your pet for more than ten seconds, you will lose half of the benefit from Mastery: Spirit Bond. When you are bursting, you should ensure that you have the Mastery bonus active by moving towards your pet if your Mastery: Spirit Bond buff is about to expire or using Aspect of the Eagle to extend the limit of your Mastery to 40 yards.

You can also use Aspect of the Eagle when you are at range and need to dump focus, as it will allow you to use Raptor Strike from up to a 40 yard range.

The above priority list is based on how to do the most damage, although you should be aware of how powerful Tranquilizing Shot is and weave this into your rotation whenever you can if the target has any magic buffs. When your Tranquilizing Shot can hit two players through Kodo Tranquilizer, you should be using it on cooldown.

Coordinated Assault is your big cooldown and has a lot of interactions with other Survival talents that you should be aware of.

Coordinated Assault does the following when used:

• Charge to your target (40-yard range)
• Reset both charges of your Wildfire Bomb (through Bombardier)
• Do a reasonable amount of instant damage
• Generate 3 stacks of Tip of the Spear (if Symbiotic Adrenaline)

Then, for 20 seconds, it will:

• Increase your damage done by 20%
• Increase the chance for Kill Command to reset
• Double the chance for Kill Command to give you a charge of Kill Shot (if Sic 'Em)
• Cause your Kill Command to hit a second time (through Frenzied Tear and Pack Assault)
• Cause your Raptor Strike to cost no focus and deal additional damage (through Furious Assault and Pack Assault)
• Cause Kill Command to generate 2 stacks of Tip of the Spear (if Relentless Primal Ferocity)
• Give you 10% Haste (if Relentless Primal Ferocity)
• Increase the damage bonus from Tip of the Spear from 15% to 22.5% (if Relentless Primal Ferocity)
• When Coordinated Assault fades, make your next two Explosive Shots free and incur no cooldown (if Bombardier)

Both Relentless Primal Ferocity and Symbiotic Adrenaline are viable choices, but generally, because of all the effects that you're already getting from Coordinated Assault, it will usually be preferred to take Symbiotic Adrenaline for higher uptime on the other Coordinated Assault effects.

If you are playing Symbiotic Adrenaline, you should try to use all stacks of Tip of the Spear before activating Coordinated Assault to avoid wasting stacks.

When playing with Bombardier, you should always consume all Wildfire Bomb charges before using Coordinated Assault to avoid wasting charges.

When Coordinated Assault ends, you should prioritise Explosive Shot above all other damage spells. Be aware that when you fire an Explosive Shot into a target that already has the Explosive Shot debuff, it will immediately "proc" the First Explosive Shot and the damage will not be wasted.

Spearhead is a short duration increase to your Critical Strike chance and Critical Strike damage (through Deadly Duo) that also applies a decent damage over time effect and causes your pet to charge to the target.

Because Spearhead only lasts 10 seconds, it is ideal to make sure you have three stacks of Tip of the Spear active before using it, crowd control on the enemy healer, Flanking Strike and either Wildfire Bomb/ Explosive Shot ready. You want to use Flanking Strike early during the Spearhead so the Merciless Blows damage over time effect benefits from the Critical Strike bonuses as much as possible.

Hunter comps rely heavily on landing Freezing Trap on the enemy healer, and this requires some setup (and a lot of practice).

I would recommend using the @player version of the Freezing Trap macro if you are not confident aiming traps yet. You can find this in the Macros section of this guide.

• Intimidation
• Binding Shot (this is a little less reliable/predictable than Intimidation because your target can stand still or do things like use Phase Shift to leave the Bind or Grounding Totem, or Blessing of Sacrifice before leaving the Bind to counter your Trap)
• Harpoon
• Concussive Shot
• Tar Trap + Entrapment
• Disengage (If you are struggling to trap, I highly recommend that you Concussive Shot and then Harpoon or Disengage into the Healer and use the @player Freezing Trap macro instead of aiming your Trap)
• Tranquilizing Shot (eg for Holy Ward or Nullifying Shroud)
• Flanking Strike
• Coordinated Assault
• High Explosive Trap and Bursting Shot (if you miss a trap, you can always knock them into it!)

Every healing class has multiple ways to dodge or deny your Trap; below is a non-exhaustive list of what each healing specialization has to avoid traps and some tips specific to that Healer. Having an addon like Omnibar to track important enemy cooldowns and Gladiatorlossa2 to tell you when they are used will make your life a lot easier.

Remember that in all cases, healers can use mobility and erratic movement to make it difficult for you to trap them. Also, remember that when they are spending global cooldowns trying to outplay your Trap and moving instead of casting, you are still applying pressure even though the Healer is not caught in a trap because the Healer is not casting healing spells.

A healer can counter your Binding Shot by standing still to avoid the stun. You should try to use Binding Shot when the healer is already running, and aim so that the reticle is on the healer so the stun procs immediately. Also remember that if a healer does stand still during Binding Shot, you can use High Explosive Trap to knock them into the stun.

When trapping Discipline Priest s you must be aware of:

• Shadow Word: Death
• Phase Shift
• Psychic Scream
• Mind Control (cast as you throw the Trap)
• Shadowmeld
• Ultimate Penitence

You may notice that almost all of the Discipline Priest abilities that can be used to avoid your traps are on the Shadow spell school. When you are standing near the Priest in the middle of the game by kicking them on the shadow spell school, they will not be able to use Shadow Word: Death or Fade to avoid your Trap.

You must always be aware of Psychic Scream, too. If you get too close to a Priest, when it is off cooldown, your plans will backfire, and you will be feared.

Other than that, trapping Discipline Priests is about tracking the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death and Fade and throwing the Trap when they are not able to use either.

During Ultimate Penitence, a Discipline Priest is immune to interrupts and crowd control. You can trap the initial cast if you are quick, but if the channel begins, they will be immune to your Trap.

As Survival, as long as the Priest doesn't pre-use Fade for Phase Shift, you can rotate between Intimidation to set up your Trap and then Chimearal Sting into Harpoon Trap for every second Trap (use Harpoon and Freezing Trap when the silence activates).

When trapping Holy Priests you must be aware of:

• Shadow Word: Death
• Phase Shift
• Holy Ward
• Spirit of the Redeemer
• Divine Ascension
• Mind Control (cast as you throw the Trap)
• Shadowmeld

Holy Priest is similar to Discipline with a few changes.

They have Holy Ward, which must be purged with Tranquilizing Shot (if you are unlucky and do not get the dispel, you will need to wait 15 seconds for it to expire unless your partner can take it off).

When a Holy Priest uses Spirit of the Redeemer, you can place a trap underneath the angel to trap them instantly when it ends. Be careful, though - if you do this too soon, their partners may try to eat the Trap, or the Priest may see you throw it and cancel the Spirit of the Redeemer into a Fade to immune the Trap.

As Survival, as long as the Priest doesn't pre-use Fade for Phase Shift, you can rotate between Intimidation to set up your Trap and then Chimearal Sting into Harpoon Trap for every second Trap (use Harpoon and Freezing Trap when the silence activates).

Ideally, you would hold Chimaeral Sting into a Priest until they have used Spirit of the Redeemer, because otherwise, they can use this to be immune to your silence.

When trapping Holy Paladins you must be aware of:

• Blessing of Sacrifice
• Blessing of Protection (on the stun before trap)
• Hand of Reckoning
• Blessing of Freedom + Divine Steed
• Hammer of Justice
• Blinding Light
• Searing Glare

The main thing here is to be very aware of versus a Holy Paladin is Blessing of Sacrifice. When this is active you should not trap the Paladin as the trap will break instantly unless you are playing with Diamond Ice. A thing to be aware of is that during a Diamond Ice Freezing Trap, the damage reduction from Blessing of Sacrifice has no effect.

Remember that Holy Paladins are relatively squishy, so swapping to the Holy Paladin when they use Blessing of Sacrifice is always an option. If you are able to force their Divine Shield doing this, they will gain Forbearance and will not be able to use Blessing of Protection to escape the next stun into Freezing Trap combo.

When you are trapping out of Intimidation into a Holy Paladin, make sure you throw the Trap immediately, as otherwise, they can escape the Trap by removing the stun with Blessing of Protection.

Like with Priests and Psychic Scream, you need to be careful when standing next to a Holy Paladin to avoid Blinding Light.

As Survival, you should be able to be able to reliably trap a Paladin with just Grapple into Freezing Trap as long as Blessing of Sacrifice is on cooldown. If Blessing of Sacrifice is ready, you should either Intimidation into Freezing Trap or Chimearal Sting into Freezing Trap when they get silenced. If you are playing with Diamond Ice, you do not need to change your playstyle based on Blessing of Sacrifice.

An interesting quirk in this matchup is that if a Paladin gets Searing Glare of on you, you are still able to root them with the Entrapment effect from Tar Trap, which you should take advantage of to keep the Paladin standing still until the debuff fades.

When trapping Mistweaver Monks you must be aware of:

• Eminence
• Revival with Peaceweaver
• Paralysis
• Leg Sweep
• Ring of Peace
• Roll/ Chi Torpedo

Mistweaver Monks are difficult to trap when they know it is coming because of their high mobility. As another complication, they are able to teleport away when stunned using Eminence.

Fortunately, to be able to do high-output healing, Mistweaver Monks need to stand still. Either throw the Trap when you see them casting and do not think they will move, or follow them until they have no movement abilities left, and then throw your Trap.

Avoid trapping out of stuns and roots into Mistweaver Monks unless you know they are out of range of their Transcendence: Transfer (40 yards) and have already used Revival (which can be used while stunned to immune your Trap).

A good strategy into Mistweaver Monks as Survival is to Harpoon to them, which will make them instantly use their teleport, and then 10 seconds later, when it is on cooldown, either Intimidation into Freezing Trap or just throw it at their feet.

If you are facing a "Fistweaver" (melee) Mistweaver Monk, it is easy to trap them when they chase you using the @player Freezing Trap macro and between your traps, it is a good idea to swap onto the Fistweaver, as they are often the easiest kill target on their team.

It is also good to slow or use High Explosive Trap on Fistweaver monks wherever possible, as they are unable to heal without being able to attack something in melee range.

When trapping Preservation Evokers you must be aware of:

• Nullifying Shroud
• Hover
• Deep Breath
• Dream Flight
• Stasis to dispel themself
• Dream Projection by hitting themself with it as trap lands

Nullifying Shroud is a big counter to Hunters. Unless somebody on your team is able to remove the Shroud, a lot of the time, it is easier to do your opener without using crowd control on the Healer just to build momentum. Remember, you can still kick the Evoker during Nullifying Shroud.

Avoid using Intimidation on an Evoker the moment that Nullifying Shroud ends because they will see the buff wearing off and use either Deep Breath or Dream Flight at that moment to immune your stun.

If an Evoker is casting Dream Projection, use Muzzle before throwing your Freezing Trap if available, as they can otherwise use the Projection to dispel themself.

As Survival, you should usually be able to trap Evokers with Harpoon or Intimidation without issues.

When trapping Restoration Druid you must be aware of:

• Wild Charge
• Dash
• Mighty Bash/ Rake/ Maim into Cyclone
• Tranquility with Preserve Nature
• Grove Guardians (spawning tree NPCs that may "eat" your traps)
• Growl on your pet
• Shadowmeld

Restoration Druids are one of the hardest targets to trap. They do not cast as much as other healers and, therefore, have no reason to stand still when you chase them.

With practice, you get used to their movement, and it gets easier to trap them, but do not allow the Druid to bait you into bad positions when chasing them.

Be careful of Grove Guardians. Restoration Druids will deliberately spawn these non player characters when you push for a trap to make it more difficult for you to aim. Take your time and be precise when you can see the trees spawn next to the Druid.

When facing Druids, remember to take Kodo Tranquilizer. This will greatly reduce the Druid's healing efficiency, and you can then win by maintaining pressure and surviving rather than relying on big crowd control setups.

If you are fast, you should be able to reliably Harpoon into Freezing Trap Restoration Druids as long as they do not use Shadowmeld. If there are treants nearby, it is best to take your time and make sure you aim it correctly at the Druid.

When trapping Restoration Shamans you must be aware of:

• Grounding Totem
• Thunderstorm
• Lightning Lasso
• Earthen Wall Totem (does not stop the Trap but will stop you from being able to kill their teammates)
• Spirit Link Totem

The main thing to watch for here is Grounding Totem. Good Shamans will be very quick with using it, stand near them, apply slows and roots, and wait it out. When the Shaman uses Grounding Totem, quickly kill it and throw your Trap. Mouseover macros will help with this a lot.

Earthen Wall Totem is mentioned above because even though it does not deny your Trap, it will stop you from being able to kill somebody with your burst. Whenever you see a Shaman drop Earthen Wall Totem, you should be looking to knock their partner out of it using High Explosive Trap. If you cannot get their partner out of the Earthen Wall Totem (or cannot kite them out of the totem), do not trap them until they are outside of it.

As Survival, you should be careful using a Harpoon into a Trap versus Restoration Shamans because they will use Thunderstorm or Lightning Lasso as soon as you get close. Either trap out of Intimidation/Chimearal Sting or be patient until you know that they can't stop you.

Even if there is a stun on the Healer before you aim your Trap, there are other complications. For example, you could be facing a shaman who will press Grounding Totem to deny your Trap, a warrior using War Banner, or a Retribution Paladin using Blessing of Sanctuary to cancel your Intimidation.

You always want to cross crowd control on the off-target when you are trapping (usually Scatter Shot into Psychic Scream if you are playing with a Priest). Whether you Scatter Shot before or after the Trap depends on the matchup.

Survival of the Fittest is an extremely powerful defensive ability. Use this when you expect to be stunned (for example, instantly use this if a rogue uses Blind on your Healer) or when you are taking heavy damage during your own offensive cooldowns and want to stay aggressive.

Fortitude of the Bear is available to you when you have a tenacity pet summoned. This not only increases your maximum health, as it says, but it also heals you for this same amount so that you are left with increased current HP after using it. Be aware that you can use this while you are in crowd control and stuns, but not when your pet is crowd-controlled. If an area of effect crowd control is coming ( Ring of Frost, Leg Sweep, Blinding Sleet) you will want to move your pet away beforehand so that you can still use this self-heal.

Feign Death is your main defensive tool due to its short cooldown and the Survival Tactics PvP Talent. Use it whenever you are about to take damage to reduce the burst damage you take and to force the enemy to re-target you.

Against Assassination Rogues, you should take Emergency Salve every time. This will turn Feign Death into an excellent defensive and mobility tool as it removes Crippling Poison as well as other damaging poisons. Emergency Salve can also be good into Shadow Priests to dispel Devouring Plague and is decent into other Rogue specs to dispel the slow.

Aspect of the Turtle is our immunity 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 use Traps, Flare, and other non-offensive spells. You will usually want to combine Aspect of the Turtle with your 2-minute cooldown PvP trinket when stunned for maximum value.

It is worth communicating with your Healer and deciding what enemy cooldown you will use your trinket and Aspect of the Turtle to counter.

Exhilaration is a strong instant heal. Try to use this early as the cooldown resets quickly via Natural Mending.

Roar of Sacrifice is a vital utility ability for you or your teammates. This makes the teammate you use this on immune to being Critical Strikes by spells but causes your pet to take 10% of the damage that your teammate takes. Use this immediately when the enemy team uses their cooldowns on a teammate or yourself.

Do not rely on Roar of Sacrifice alone to save you from cooldowns. It will make the damage predictable because there are no critical strikes, but it is not a damage reduction cooldown, and most classes will be able to kill you with their cooldowns if you use Roar of Sacrifice and nothing else.

Master's Call is a utility cooldown to help you or your teammate kite or push for damage. Versus Balance Druids, it becomes an absolutely essential defensive cooldown. You must cast Master's Call on your Healer immediately when your Healer is rooted in a Solar Beam.

Interlope is a defensive cooldown that you may choose to use. It will allow you to either redirect damage off yourself or teammates or redirect crowd control off your Healer. An easy way to get value from this talent is to play it into Hunter teams and Interlope your Healer when they are stunned to redirect the Freezing Trap.