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Survival Hunter Basics

When you begin raiding in Classic Wrath of the Lich King, you're going to start with the Survival spec as a Hunter. A solid DPS spec that ranks highly on your WotLK Classic DPS tier list, the spec's talents are able to take advantage of the available itemization at the start of the expansion. The spec may fall off compared to Marskmanship when armor penetration becomes more available, but until then, this is the preferred raiding spec for phase one of Wrath of the Lich KingClassic; the spec doesn't need armor penetration to dish out serious damage.

This guide will focus specifically on level 80 content and abilities. It will be updated throughout the Wrath of the Lich King expansion as more content rolls out.

If you haven't seen our basic Hunter PvE Guide for Wrath Classic yet, check this out as well. It will have additional information that may not be covered in this specialization-specific guide.

Important New and Reworked Talents and Abilities

Auto Shot - A huge change for hunters in Wrath of the Lich King is how Auto Shot works with Hunters. Previously, Hunters would have to ensure they don't "clip" their auto shots. Essentially, players would have to ensure they're not using any other abilities on your attack timer to always auto shot on time. If you interrupted the automatic attacks, this was known as "clipping," and it was a DPS loss. That's all a thing of the past now; your Auto Shot will attack even when using abilities such as Steady Shot that have a cast timer. This is a very welcome update for the class.

Kill Shot - One of the most important additions for Hunters in Classic Wrath. This serves as a much needed execute for the class, allowing players to ramp up their damage when enemies are below 20%.

Volley - This now scales with your ranged attack power. This formerly useless ability now allows Hunters to deal respectable AOE damage when appropriate.

Expose Weakness - This is no longer a party or raid wide debuff. It's just a personal debuff that you and only you can take advantage of.

Lock and Load - The hallmark talent for Survival hunters. The ideal class rotation will feature "trap weaving," and the ability to dish out bonus damage with traps is crucial to your performance.

Explosive Shot - Your main shot used as a Survival hunter.

Black Arrow - In the event you're not trap weaving, this is another beneficial shot that's exclusive to Survival Hunters.

T.N.T. - A bulk of your damage will come from the abilities this talent buffs.

Talent Build for Survival Hunters in WotLK

This is the default talent build for Survival Hunters as they begin endgame content Wrath of the Lich King Classic, complete with the ideal glyphs as well.

It's important not to neglect your pets. They, too, have an ideal talent build.

You'll want to use a Wolf as your pet due to the benefit of Furious Howl.

WotLK Survival Hunter Rotation and Cooldowns

The rotations for Survival Hunters are fairly easy in Classic Wrath of the Lich King, even if there are some intricacies involved. One of which involves trap weaving, which offers a high-risk high-reward rotation. If you can pull it off, your DPS will increase. Fail to do so, however, and you'll notice a DPS drop off compared to other Survival Hunters just performing their normal rotation.

Essentially, trap weaving works by dropping a trap on a boss in the downtime between your attacks. On some fights where the boss is stationary, this is much easier to pull off. Ultimately, the choice to trap weave will come down to both personal preferences and your ability to pull it off. If you're failing to successfully trap weave and losing out on DPS, it's just not worth it.

With that being said, let's go over the WotLK Survival Hunter rotations.

Single Target Rotation

1. Kill Shot - your highest priority ability. Only usable when the target is below 20%.
2. Explosive Shot - If the boss is above 20% health, this is your highest priority.
3. Serpent Sting - Open with this and always make sure the debuff is on your target. You will not be able to reapply the debuff with Chimera Shot so keep that in mind
4. Black Arrow or Explosive Trap - If you can successfully drop a trap, then do so. Otherwise, especially if there's a lot of movement in the encounter, fire off Black Arrow.
5. Aimed Shot - Take full advantage of its instant cast time, especially when you have to reposition yourself.
6. Steady Shot - Your filler ability while you wait for everything to come off of cooldown.

What happens if I get a Lock and Load proc?

As we mentioned above, a key Survival talent for Classic Wrath of the Lich King is Lock and Load. When it procs, you're able to cast two Explosive Shots with no cooldown. Ideally, you want to fire off the first Explosive shot immediately and then fire the second one as the last tick of damage from your initial Explosive Shot is dealt. If you're struggling with the timing, an alternative option is to go Explosive Shot > Black Arrow or Aimed Shot > Explosive Shot.

AOE Rotation

1. Explosive Trap - Try your best to place the trap in the middle of the pack to ensure hitting the maximum amount of enemies.
2. Volley - Cast this on repeat until you're out of mana.

Cooldowns

Hunters have a wide variety of options available for their cooldowns in terms of both utility and damage output. Their toolkit continues to be impressive, even when their DPS output starts to decline.

• Misdirection has been reworked to now transfer threat for a full four seconds, rather than the next three attacks.
• Rapid Fire is as beneficial as it has ever been.
• Orcs and Trolls have the racial abilities Blood Fury and Berserking respectively.
• Call of the Wild is a 5 minute cooldown available from the Ferocity tree for pet talents.
• Potion of Wild Magic is the preferred potion cooldown. Keep in mind that Wrath of the Lich King reworks how potions work; you can no longer use them every two minutes in a fight, so be sure to use them before combat to get double use out of them.

WotLK Survival Hunter Stat Priority

The most important stats for Survival Hunters in Wrath of the Lich King Classic are as follows, in order:

• Hit Rating
• Agility
• Critical Strike
• Attack Power
• Armor Penetration
• Haste

You will always need to make sure you're at hit cap to ensure you'll never miss any of your attacks. The hit cap is an overall 8% rating. With the Focused Aim talent, you only need 5% hit from gear. With Draenei in your party or raid, you'll only need 4% hit from gear.

Best In Slot Gear for Survival Hunter

With the release of Phase 2 and Ulduar new gear can be obtained, check out both the Pre-Raid and Phase 1 Hunter BIS guide as well as the Phase 2 Survival Hunter Best In Slot Guide.