Survival Hunter PvP Guide

Survival Talents

Improved Tracking vs Deflection

• • Both of these talents are great you can't really go wrong with either. Improved tracking makes you do 5% more damage to players since characters in the game are classified as Humanoid type mobs, Feral Druids in ALL forms are classified as beasts as are Shamans in ghost wolf. Deflection is only useful vs melee and pet classes, bringing your parry change up to 10% which is the only way you're able to proc Counterattack for a guaranteed root.

Entrapment Savage Strikes Survivalist Improved Wing Clip

• • Entrapment is arguably nerfed in forever WoW. Those of us who remember Vanilla and TBC entrapment will know that it was similar to Improved Wing Clip, providing an RNG proc while people were affected by the aura of your trap. In forever, they changed it to be the functionality of Wrath of the Lich King while still good, is significantly worse than how it functioned in vanilla--Much of the strength of Wrath of the Lich King is tied to Snake Trap proccing the root as well. There is an argument to be made where IF you freezing trap someone first, and while your freezing trap is on cooldown you can use your immolation trap as a guaranteed 5 second root if someone gets you to, you would often times rather freezing trap them again and space which is why I think this talent is not as valuable as it was in original classic.
  • The best talent in this row is definitely Survivalist. 8% HP is in insane amount of health that scales with buffs and gear over time and is not something that should be looked over.
  • Savage Strikes is in my opinion, a bit underwhelming. While it's 2% critical chance per talent point which is a bit overstatted, it reads "melee abilities." This means Mongoose Bites and Strider Kick basically since I don't think the capstone of Lacerating Strikes is worth speccing into in a PvP setting. Even if the talent gave you an extra 4% crit on melee auto attacks, since your primary goal is to ranged people down and then stat check them in melee sometimes I feel as if your talent points are better spent elsewhere.
  • Improved Wing Clip is a very good talent when people are on top of you and you are trying to build distance. Since Counterattack is only available to you when you parry an attack, pressing wing clip every global fishing for a proc for a 5 second root is a great way to guarantee either a trap that people can't move out of or simply root someone, Strider Kick for movement speed and get into range and start blasting them from range. The reason I choose 3/3 Improved Wing Clip and 4/5 Survivalist is simple. If you read the talents, the first talent point gives you 7% the second talent point gives you 6% and the third gives you another 7%. Alternatively, if you read Survivalist it's completely linear, it's 2% per talent point. This means that 2/3 points of Improved Wing Clip is the least efficient point distribution of the three points you are able to put into it.

Clever Traps Surefooted Deterrence

• • Clever Traps Unlike retail WoW there isn't a maximum crowd control time on players. For example. At level 30 Freezing trap lasts for 10 seconds, this talent extends that time by another 3 seconds for a total of 13. With higher ranks, this goes up and allows you more time to reset in 1v1's to either gain health and mana by eating and drinking or repositioning to do maximum damage or both. Also, It makes Frost Trap last for 39 seconds instead of 30 seconds which is incredibly useful in lots of scenarios
  • Surefooted This talent is one of the best talents that has ever existed in World of Warcraft for two reasons.
  • 1: Hit rating is king in World of Warcraft up to 5%. This talent gives you 3% physical hit and 3% spell hit. Since you are a physical DPS class, you need 5% hit to never miss against a target your level--other players--for offensive melee and ranged abilities. For spells--traps and scare beast--you need 4% hit to never miss. This talent gives you 60% of the hit rating you need for that which is the biggest single DPS increase and utility increase you are able to get in the game for PHYSICAL spells--Aimed Shot, Scatter Shot,Wing Clip for example--and 75% of the hit rating you need for MAGIC spells--Freezing Trap, Scare Beast. At very low gear levels this portion of the talent alone makes this talent incredibly valuable.
  • 2: This talent reduces the duration of all slows and roots on you by 30% This means things like Hamstring Frost Nova and Crippling Poison II don't last as long on you and give you more opportunity to play your character when crucial things like Free Action Potion aren't available to you.
  • Deterrence This talent is your biggest source of mitigating damage against melee classes when they are stuck on top of you. Typically you use deterrence as a way to preserve HP when something like a Warrior, Rogue, or Enhancement is on you and things like Freezing Trap are on cooldown which means you have no way to kite them. Since this talent gives you 25% increased chance to parry, this greatly increased your chance to proc a Counterattack and transition into ranged so you can resume shooting people.
  • All of these talents are insanely good, just spec into all of them HAHAHAHA

Survival Tactics Predator's Edge Counterattack

• • Survival Tactics May seem not that useful at first glance but it gives you two benefits. As mentioned earlier, if you're under the 4% spell hit cap threshold it guarantees your traps land on targets of your level and increases your chances against levels HIGHER than you if you choose to spec survival while leveling. Furthermore, IF this client functions as it does in classic spell hit cap above the base of 4% functions as a pseudo spell penetration; this means that if people have things like frost resistance, you're able to effectively penetrate that with 1 singular talent point.
  • Predator's Edge From everything I understand about hunter, this talent is horrible and not worth speccing into. There's a chance that in the future tuning for dual wielding ends up being better but as it currently stands, and has always stood, all your melee abilities scale better with a two hander and since survival functions as a ranged melee hybrid you would much prefer using a two handed weapon as opposed to 2 one handed weapons.
  • Counterattack This is one of the best talents in the game, it's a 5 second root which doesn't have a diminishing return so you are able to chain it given good parry procs and make melee classes completely miserable. As mentioned earlier you're also able to use this on people to guarantee land a Freezing Trap and run away if need be.

Resourcefulness Expose Prey Survivalist's Discipline Strider Kick

• • Resourcefulness is an incredibly useful talent though I don't spec into it. In my opinion, this functions more as a PvE talent than a PvP one. Typically when you're fighting someone, whether it be a duel or in the open world your goal is to have total control of the tempo of the duel. You dictate when you want to kill someone and when you want to slow it down. Since a big portion of this talent is tied to the mana regeneration while casting I feel like it's better suited to a PvE environment since you are able to just drink most of the time when you need mana in most player engagements.
  • Expose Prey There's not much to say about this talent, it's "free' damage if the target your hitting is hunter's marked and it procs and they are in melee range. There's an argument to be made that you would rather have the points elsewhere, such as Resourcefulness. I think it just comes down to preference at that point and it won't ultimately make TOO much of a difference though I think an expose prey proc if playing fully optimally would be quite good damage.
  • Survivalist's Discipline This talent is incredibly useful for two reasons.
  • 1: Since Deterrence is your main form of damage reduction when people are on top of you, reducing the cooldown of it is an incredibly potent way to ensure you are able to maintain distance.
  • 2:This talent functions a bit as a double edged sword. While reducing the cooldown of your Freezing Trap by 40% might seem incredibly good, there's something that exists in World of Warcraft called a diminishing return. A diminishing return reduces the duration of your next crowd control of the same school by 50%, 25%, 0% in that order. In layman terms, if you freezing trap someone and it lasts for 20 seconds, as soon as they exit that trap a timer is triggered for 18-24 seconds and if another freezing trap triggers on them during that window the next trap that hits them will be halved. This means that if you want to back to back freezing trap you will need to wait out your diminishing return, OR you will have you weave a frost trap between your two freezing traps to ensure that both traps are maximum duration.
  • Strider Kick This is a new ability to WoW forever and I think it's incredibly fun. It's essentially a second auto attack since it hits for 100% weapon damage but the fun part about it is the 30% movement speed for 3 seconds. By design this ability has two functionalities. The first is when someone is on top of you and you are trying to get back into range--I assume Blizzard's intention was to use this as a PvE spell to run back into range and start shooting your bow or gun without any penalty. The second option is a bit more creative; say there's another hunter who is kiting you but they are not survival, you would have a significant advantage in melee range because of your talents. You would be able to use Strider Kick on their pet to close the distance on them, get into melee and use your melee talent abilities to your advantage.

Lightning Reflexes

• • There's not much to say about this talent. Agility is BY FAR your best stat as a hunter so a 10% flat stat increase is incredibly good, spec into it if you spec this far into the survival tree

Marksman Talents

Hawk Eye Improved Concussive Shot Lethal Attacks

• • Hawk Eye are the best three talent point you can put in any tree. Most casters only have a 35 yard casting range so you will have a 6 yard advantage on them. Melee often are locked at 25 yard range for things like Intercept so you are easily able to kite them and maximize the damage you deal to them at the same time.
  • Improved Concussive Shot While it may seem strange to only put 1 talent point into something for proc talents the first talent point is by far the most value you can get. Mathematically, you go from a 0% chance of something happening to a 4% which is an "infinite" increase. While it's unlikely that the talent procs with only 1 point, it gives you more than alternative talents in the tree and you need 1 extra talent point somewhere to descend deeper in the tree.
  • Lethal Attacks This talent got reworked in WoW Forever. It gives you a flat 5% crit chance on both your melee and ranged attacks. Since hunters are a crit based class and it gives you crit on everything you press this talent is a no brainer.

Improved Stings Efficiency Careful Aim

• • Both Improved Stings and Efficiency don't really provide much utility in PvP relative to their counterpart in Careful Aim. Given that you need to spec into Careful Aim to progress into one of the best talents for hunters in general in Mortal Shots, you can't really afford to allocate points into either Improved Stings or Efficiency.
  • Careful Aim Provides you more attack power, which makes you do more damage from both your melee and ranged abilities as well as your Auto Shot and normal melee swings. Combine this with needing 5 points into it in order to get Mortal Shots it makes Careful Aim the clear winner in this tree for where to spend your points.

Rapid Killing Improved Arcane Shot Lone Wolf

• • Rapid Killing only really provides some value in BG's and is more of a meme than anything else. The talent is meant to unlock Rapid Recuperation for Marksmanship hunters but since the spec is primarily survival it makes Rapid Killing a relatively lackluster talent.
  • Improved Arcane Shot is is not very good unless you put lots of points into it, and since you have limited points in the marksmanship tree your talent points are better allocated elsewhere.
  • Lone Wolf is a very interesting talent. You have the option of running around with no pet, activating Lone Wolf and being able to have big burst windows with your Aimed Shot Arcane Shot Auto Shot and then pulling your pet out after if you feel you need your pet to help you in the fight you're in. Keep in mind, pets typically offer a lot of utility which means there's a decent amount of opportunity cost to not having a pet out. This makes the decision of when to call your pet out vs when not to have it out a very high skill ceiling, but for one talent point 20% increased damage is quite good and I recommend taking it.

Trueshot Aura Mortal Shots Improved Serpent Sting

• • Trueshot Aura is a bit of a no brainer here. For one talent point it gives you a relatively big stat increase for when you are shooting your ranged weapon, and since your pets scale off your Ranged Attack Power it provides a good damage boost for when they are out and helping you in fights.
  • Mortal Shots is a crucial talent for all hunter specs. Hunters revolve around critting people and bursting them down. Because of this, increasing your crit damage is an absolute no brainer. The only reason you don't take 5/5 here is because for one point Lone Wolf offers a bigger damage increase than Mortal Shots. If you feel like you'll never utilize Lone Wolf then putting that point into 5/5 Mortal Shots is completely fine.
  • Improved Serpent Sting This talent isn't very good, it only affects your serpent sting and often times you don't want to be pressing this in PvP. It has a place, it's not bad to press but a target with serpent sting up is a target you can't trap. If you want to trap them you need to swap your sting to Scorpid Sting in order to remove the dot on them.

Scatter Shot

• • This is the only talent worth talking about in this tier. Scatter Shot is a staple hunter ability, especially for both Marksman and Survival Hunters as it gives ways to guarantee traps or interrupt casts when casters are in your deadzone. The entire point of putting your secondary points into the marksman tree is to unlock scatter shot.