Survivalist DPS suggestions | Builds, Talents and Class Mechanics | Hunter Forums

Anj said:

Awesome guys. Thanks for the tips! I'll try these out as soon as I can.

A few more questions. Coming from BM, I'm quite ovewhelmed with shot rotations. How do you efficiently do it? Do you keybind or click? What addons/UI's do you use?

TIA

Basically I keybind whatever I can and just leave the rest alone, .  By that I mean traps and shots.

As far as doing it efficiently goes … I will let Garwulf answer that one as what works for me might not work for you and when it comes to Hunter training there's just things he is better at that I am.

That being said, here's a few tips I've picked up in the years (well off and on) that I have played a hunter.  First off, Explosive Shot takes priority over all other shots except Kill Shot.  In other words if you notice that Serpent Sting is fixing to drop off your target but Ex Shot just came off CD fire that Explosive Shot first then reapply your Serpent. 

Lock and Load is pure goodness on a stick, that said it can also gunk up your rotation.  If you don't know what L-n-L is well here it is.  L-n-L procs off your Black Arrow ticks (that is not all it can proc off of of course but for the purposes of this discussion and to keep things simple BA ticks is what I am going to talk about), when it goes off this is what it does – Your next two Explosive Shots will trigger no CD (except the global cd of 1.5 seconds which I'll talk about in a second) cost no mana and no ammo.  Pure awesomesauce.  Now, here's the problem:  When L-n-L procs your first instinct might be to just spam that shot right?  Wrong.  Explosive Shot is a DoT that ticks for 2 seconds so you want that shot to tick for it's full duration.  Course then the question becomes what do I do for that 2 seconds?  Some will say fire off another shot such as Aimed then hit Explosive again.  Sounds good, the only problem I have with it is that any other shot will trigger the global cooldown of 1.5 secs.  So what I do is just wait, plink an autoshot then fire that Explosive Shot, wait again plink an Autoshot then fire Explosive again. Wait, plink an Autoshot then fire Explosive. (Yeah you technically get three Explosive Shots but the third one costs mana and ammo and starts the CD on Ex Shot)  You just have to kind of count it off, but after awhile it becomes second nature and you will just know when to fire Explosive again.

As far addons, these are a must for pretty much all Hunters:

Omen – Threat Meter

Power Auras Classic – Lets you know when a goodie has proc'd.

Deadly Boss Mods – It tells you what is going on in a fight.

Recount – Damage Meter

I have a few other add-ons as well, but I wouldn't call them a "must" for anyone.

As far as my UI?  It's one I modified myself from back when I was a hard core PvP'er (Ahh the days of warriors being king in PvP).  I was so used to it I just changed a few things around for raiding and it works like a charm.  One of these days I may have to post a screenie of it, but eh … I'm real lazy

Postscript:  I just looked at your Armory and not only are you now Hitcapped, but you have achieved the rare distinction of … Wait for it … Hit Cap Perfection.  Hearty congratulations are warranted. 

Honestly I am not being sarcastic, getting right at the Hard Cap of 263 is an achievement in and of itself.  I'm rolling at 266 hit which sounds good, only 3 pts over the cap, right?  One problem I'm a Draenei …. .

Ceyle, reading yours and Garwulf's tips made me get that Hit Cap Perfection achievement. ;) Thanks so much!

Now let me get used to this keybinding thing… 

Ceyle, bullseye. I *was* discouraged earlier because my dps was the same as before. At one point, I just wanted to go back to my old two-key-spam-BM-and-KingKrush spec. I slept it off and I feel much better now — even more so after reading your post. It will definitely take a lot of practice and now I understand that I should not take the easy way out. :)

Back to the boss dummy!

Anj said:

Just reporting that I've steadily increased my DPS to 3K average, thanks to keybindings and Faceshooter. When I'm more confident, I'll drop that addon and will see what happens. One thing's for sure, I'm beginning to understand, and love, shot priority!

And guess what? Spiked Toestompers and Orca Hunter's Harpoon dropped at HoR. Earlier, I also got the Hoarfrost Gauntlets (which I'm not equipping because I'd lose the T9 set bonus).

Should I enchant and equip these? Will a Shifting Dreadstone do for the polearm?

Awesome news, congrats!  Just keep practicing and those numbers will do nothing but go up.

And grats on the new loots, I speak for every hunter when I say we love getting new lootz!

The Polearm is a tough one, yes it will put you over the hitcap by 84 but you'll be able to lose the 39 hit on your boots not to mention another 30 hit that your getting from gems and be just a tad over the hitcap by approximately 15.  Not hit cap perfection, but close enough.  And speaking just for myself I like having a little hitrating to play with just in case of emergencies.  And I notice that you have two 232 Axes already, that said I'd equip the polearm just because you can re-gem your gear because of the extra hitrating it gives you and the gem slot in the polearm itself is awesomesauce.  (I really think I am spending too much time reading Frostheim.)  Put the Massacre enchant on it (+110 AP), hunter's love the Massacre enchant for their 2 handers.  The boots?  No brainer.  Wear them and put the +16 Agi enchant on those puppies.

Gem for the polearm?  Drop a +20 Agi gem in there (Delicate Cardinal Ruby) as the socket bonus of +4 Agi really isn't worth it in my opinion.

When you regem be really sure you actually need the socket bonus that putting the correct gem in there will give you.  My own personal cut-off is a socket bonus of +6 Agi  (I never worry and I do mean never worry if the socket bonus will give me crit or AP as hunter's get crit and ranged attack power from Agility anyway), and even then I really have to talk myself into it, as dropping a +20 Agi gem in there will usually generate more net damage for yours truly and as I see the world through Frostheim Goggles…  (okay, now I know I am spending waaay too much time reading Frostheim.)

Anj said:

Thanks! Awesome suggestions. The polearm with the enchant looks great! I also found out that my keystrokes are matching what the addon is suggesting.

Now I have to figure out who/what Frostheim is. lol.

Frostheim is one of the better hunter theorycrafters out there.  I've been reading him and Garwulf for pretty much the past year since I pulled my hunter out of cold storage, and found the advice from both of them invaluable. 

The term "Frostheim Googles" is something of a running joke on his blog as he always views the world through how he can improve his DPS.  He does ridiculous numbers, 8.2k on some fights, yet he's never happy with them.  Which is a source of constant amusement for his readers and sometimes just ticks him off to no end.  Although him being ticked off is, for the most part, pretend hence the running joke part.

For the record he's a MM hunter, as am I.  I just recently made the switch back to the Marks tree for raiding and while my numbers in 25's  aren't Frost numbers they come decently close and I do more damage as MM than I ever did as SV.  Hence why I've taken to wearing "Frostheim Googles".

Anj said:

Ceyle, once upon a time, I was content with being BM. I was "geared" to hunt all the Spirit Beasts *and* almost passed out when I finally trained King Krush. I have to thank Garwulf for that. Now I have to thank you for making me curious about what SV and now MM has to offer.

Btw, I hit 4.4K when we went after Omen earlier. It went down to 2.8K at HoL but the funny thing was, I was #1 at Recount and it made our tank shut up, who went in all cocky and overconfident. Love it!

4.4k on Omen is great.  As for the heroic HoL?  Heroics are not a good metric to measure dps when you're a raid geared hunter (which you are) going in with other raid geared and skilled toons, the stuff just dies too quickly.  In other words the better your heroic group is the less damage and dps you will do, in a raid the better your raid group is the better your damage and dps will be.  Just as long as you are at your rightful place atop the meters then it's all good .

As for the MM spec, I love it.  That said I'd recommend you stick to SV for the time being, yeah MM has a simpler rotation but (you had to have known there was a 'but' coming) it's a little more complicated to play.  Why?  CD Management, making sure you pop that Rapid Fire right at the opportune moment to maximize it's effectiveness.  Not to mention Marks is hellaciously more mana intensive.  SV is far more mana effiecient and there is really one "Button o' Wiin" you have to concern yourself with, Rapid Fire.  True all hunter's have it, but MM hunter's get to use that little button o' win more often because of the Readiness and Rapid Killing talents (Hug's the Readiness and Rapid Killing talents), therefore they have to chose the moment when Rapid Fire (and Readiness) will do the most good through out an entire boss fight.  For a SV hunter it's a tad more easy when they should pop Rapid Fire.  Either at the beginning or right towards the end when the boss is bleeding really bad and he needs just a little bit more to push him into death.  Or if the boss fight is long enough (over 5 minutes) you may get to pop the Button o' Win twice (at the beginning and towards the end), which is well … awesomesauce (Yeah still reading too much Frostheim).

Which is another reason why Heroics are not a good metric to measure your overall dps, chances are you are only going to get the opportunity to blow your CD's once (maybe twice depending on the length of the Heroic), and CD's boost your damage and dps significantly.

And yes, you should keybind Rapid Fire and macro it with your pet's Call of the Wild since they both share the same CD of 5 minutes.  If you really want to get creative you can wait for a trinket proc before you pop Rapid Fire but since this is more of a SV Hunter 101 basics course I won't get into that.  That's a level  200 course and that will come later .

greyfoxx2002 said:I read thru the thread and deff took some of the suggestions to heart yet need some guidance on my build as well since i was running BM then switched to SV for raids. http://www.wowarmory.com/chara…..;cn=Foxian finally got my Harppon and 2 pieces of T-10 yet can't get down the shot rotation for SV. Any suggestions would be greatly apreaciated and always love the site keep it up!!!

Heya Foxian,

I think I can give you a hand here.  This is all meant as constructive criticism and in no way should it be taken as a slam towards you.  It is just in the interests of time I shall be blunt.  Good?  Excellent. .

First off, you're over the hitcap by 84.  263 is the magic number, being over it to such a massive extent (for the record I view being massively overly the hitcap as being greater than 2% over it others may disagree, but I like having a little extra hit to play with).  Hit rating has a hard cap meaning once you get to the cap you will always hit your target, since you can't hit your target more than always anything above it will gimp your dps as you could be using different gear with different more desirable stats on it that will benefit your damage and dps more.

We, meaning hunters, love polearms.  There's just something about them that yells, "Hey, that's a hunter weapon!" to us.  That said, your polearm is what has put you over the hit cap by 84 (there's something else that is contributing to your overcapped hit which I will get to in a little bit).  Be on the look out for some other melee weapons in the Heroic ICC 5 mans or ICC 10/25 (since I see you have the Ashen Verdict ring) that have +Agi and +Stam on them (either two Frost Giant's Cleaver's (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50787) or two Scourgeborne Waraxe's (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50411) would do nicely.  They drop in the ICC Gunship Battle 10 and 25 respectively), but not hit or expertise and you're golden.

Now, I can understand that you may not want to get rid of your polearm, I can certainly understand that.  It's big, it looks so damn good with the Massacre enchant on it, and did I mention it yells, "Hey!  I'm a hunter weapon!"?  Seriously, if it hadn't put me so far over the hitcap I would probably still be using it, it is that good.  Given that I am more than a little sympathetic towards that problem let's look at some other places where we might be able to lose some hit shall we? 

You have one point in Focused Aim that is contributing to you being over the cap, to put it bluntly that 1 point is wasted and could be better spend elsewhere (I'll link a SV build here in a second), if you move that point into something else you would then have a 9% chance to hit and then there is the T10 Shoulders (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50117) which have no hit on them at all, just by doing that you would bring your hit rating more in line.  You would still be overcapped, but not massively overcapped.  Not to mention you would have a more optimized build and some shiny new shoulders.

And now, ze SV build…

This is pretty much the Raiding SV Hunter's Standard build (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent…..hsd:NAfM0z) along with the attendant Major Glyphs to maximize the build's full potential.  I threw Minor Glyphs in there as well, but feel free to change those you if wish.

Ze Shot Priority…

Kill Shot (When available)

Explosive Shot

Black Arrow

Serpent Sting

Aimed Shot

Steady Shot

Rinse and Repeat

Since you have the T9 Bonus Serpent Sting is higher up the priority list.  If you didn't have it then Serpent Sting would be fired after Aimed Shot.

Notice I did not use "shot rotation", as that term is a bit dated.  This is the priority you want your shots to go off in.  Meaning, before Kill Shot is available Explosive Shot always get priority.  Do not delay Explosive Shot for anything as doing so will result in a net dps loss for you, the hunter.

I noticed you said you are having problems with the SV rotation, I can guess that the problem is due to getting a Lock and Load to proc, as getting one of those will screw up the shot priority list more than a little.  I talk about L and L a little further up in the thread, and since I tend to get a bit wordy and ramble more than a tad , I'll just link it here (http://huntsmanslodge.com/foru…..stions#385).

Hope this helps .

Banterloft said:

What about simple macros?

I'm an old BM/MM hunter that recently dusted the ole hunter off for ICC raiding. Kill command should be macroed to everything you do. I also have my attack set to target my focus' target so I'm always on the tank's target starting out. (We all know how hard our first burst is)

Another suggestion is to macro your rapid fire and trinks into a one button "pew pew" for your boss encounters. This gives you good management of your CDs while saving barspace.

I also use Forte and with alittle tweaking its great. I changed the size of my CD bars, changed the colors so that I can sight the CD instead of reading the text. I first started using Forte on my tank in ICC25 on Festergut. The 3rd phase is all about CDs and I needed to monitor them better.

Just a simple change in macros and better CD management can put your dps thru the roof.

Yeah, simple macros help your dps significantly.  I have my Kill Command macro'd into all my shots, the one good thing about patch 3.0.8 was taking all hunter abilities with more than a 30 second CD off the GCD.

I wish I could macro my trinkets but unfortunately they're all procs with no on use one :(.  Thank god for Power Aura's is all I have to say.

Slightly OT. I was using my BM build earlier and was surprised to see I'm pulling 3.3K on a dummy. So I've decided to use BM for 5-man "quick" randoms and SV for raids. It should be nice to use KingKrush again — would be nice to see some players go in a fit upon seeing a BM in the group. ;)