Survival Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / Patch 9.0.2)
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
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
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.
- Use and maintain
Hunter's Mark on your primary target.
- 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.
- Use
Wing Clip to slow your main target.
- 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.
- 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.
- Use
- Use
Carve if the enemy team is stacked.
- Use
Mongoose Bite for single-target damage and start gaining stacks of
Mongoose Fury.
- Use your burst rotation.
- After your burst, perform your sustained damage rotation until your burst cooldowns are available.
Offensive Rotation
Burst Damage
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.
- Use
Kill Command.
- Use
Serpent Sting.
- Use
Resonating Arrow if you are Kyrian to increase your damage against targets inside the area.
- Use
Flayed Shot if you are Venthyr.
- Use
A Murder of Crows if you are talented into it.
- Use
Coordinated Assault.
- 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.
- Important Note: These bombs can break crowd control if the enemy healer is
close by. You can skip using your
- 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.
- Use
- Use
Mongoose Bite.
- Use
Carve if the enemy team is stacked.
- Use your second charge of
Wildfire Infusion, if you have it.
Aspect of the Eagle is not required for your burst rotation unless the enemy team is doing a great job at kiting your damage.
- Use
Mongoose Bite.
- Use
Kill Command as soon as it is off cooldown.
- Keep using
Mongoose Bite for stacks of
Mongoose Fury.
- Use
Kill Command.
- Refresh
Serpent Sting.
- Use
Mongoose Bite.
- Use
Kill Command.
- Use
Mongoose Bite.
- Use
Kill Command.
- Use
Mongoose Bite.
- Use
Kill Shot if your enemy is below 20% health.
Sustained damage
Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.
- Use and maintain
Hunter's Mark on your primary target.
- Use
Wing Clip to keep your main target slowed.
- 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.
- You can also use
- 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.
- Use and maintain
Serpent Sting on your primary target.
- Use
Carve if the enemy team is stacked.
- 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.
- Use
- Use
Resonating Arrow if you are Kyrian to increase your damage against targets inside the area.
- Use
Flayed Shot if you are Venthyr.
- Use
Mongoose Bite and start gaining stacks of
Mongoose Fury.
- Use
Kill Shot if your enemy is below 20% health.
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
- 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 Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2500 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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