I noticed a lot of back and forth going on in the comments following Garxz’s interview the other week, concerning the value of 2/2 Survival Tactics in a Hunter PvP build. I was in fact curious myself, considering I felt the talent had become less of a value after 4.2. Given that Garxz is a god in arena, I figured he must know something we don’t.
I used to spec the talent for both the reduced trap resists, as well as the shorter cooldown for Disengage, but when Blizz finally made it so that Spell Penetration started affecting our traps in 4.2, I figured the talent wasn’t really worth it as long as you were itemizing for Spell Penetration. I was of the belief that if you negated the enemy’s resists with your level of Spell Pen, then your traps would never be resisted…I was wrong on this, but why..?
As is the case with an ever-evolving game like World of Warcraft, it’s often that we bloggers have to go back and revisit or adjust articles and guides that we’d just written…
As some of you may have heard, Blizzard fixed a bug which was affecting (i.e., enhancing) the way pets regenerate focus. Hunter pets were mysteriously returning to full focus whenever the hunter’s stats would change, e.g., trinket procs. This has been corrected, leaving hunter pets more focus starved these days. 🙁
In a recent BM PvP Guide, I showcased my BM PvP build which did not feature any talents from the MM tree. I had pointed out the fact that I felt Go for the Throat and Sic ’em were not needed since I hadn’t noticed my pet ever becoming focus starved.
Well that has since changed.
Since the fix, I noticed my pet’s focus nearing empty many times. To counter this, I’ve pulled two points from Survival Tactics and placed them into Go for the Throat. It’s not an answer to this recent fix (i.e., problem), but it has helped a bit with keeping my pet’s focus pool replenished.
The good news is… as of Patch 4.2, Spell Penetration is now affecting trap resistances! Because of this, Survival Tactics has become a slightly less attractive talent for PvP. The more serious PvP hunters will be running with at least 100 Spell Penetration, offsetting the need for the 4% trap resistance. The shorter Disengage cooldown is tough to give up, but at least it’s the only sacrifice.
