5.4 Survival Hunter DPS Guide - Warcraft Academy

[Music] hello and welcome to the Warcraft academy guide to playing a survival hunter in patch 5.4 this guide is going to cover the basics of the rotation as well as some more advanced tips and late to talk about stats and character customization we're going to be focused primarily on doing as much damage as possible you can use the menu at the top of the screen to skip between sections of the guide as you see fit you can also find a written counterpart to this guide on every Lea comm as well as a forum to ask all the questions about it that you might have first of all let's quickly run over how the rotation works and what each of your spells do as a hunter you have a unique resource called focus this acts in a similar manner to other resources in that some abilities consume it and other abilities generate it it also regenerates automatically over time and this increases with haste managing your focus properly is important in mastering your hunter Cobra shot and arcane shot are both filler spells arcane shot is an instant cast does arcane damage and consumes 30 focus Cobra shot has a two second cast generates 14 focused when used and can be cast whilst moving serpent sting is a damager of a ton mobility once it's been applied it will automatically be refreshed every time you cast Cobra shot it does instant damage when applied and then additional damage over time it also generates focus every time it deals damage explosive shot is your most important than highest priority ability it does high damage over two seconds and applies hunter's mark to the target hunter's mark is the debuff that increases the range damage of attacks against that target by 5% you can apply this manually using the hunter's mark ability or have it automatically applied by explosive shot kill shot is an ability that can only be used on targets that have 20% or less health it does very high damage and if it fails to kill the target the cooldown is reset this can occur every six seconds and it normally has a cool-down of ten seconds black arrow is an ability with a 24 second cooldown which does damage over 20 seconds and every time it deals damage it has a 20% chance to give you a lock load proc this Lock and Load effect is a buffer that causes your next to explosive shots to cost no focus and have no cooldown you'll also get a guaranteed lock and load proc every time you're freezing trap or ice traps activate successfully lock and load can only proc once every 10 seconds further a murder of crows and glaive toss are all talents that are part of your single target rotation further instantly restores 50 focus and regenerates an additional 50 focus over 10 seconds a murder of crows summons a flock of crows to attack the target for 30 seconds it has a 3 minute cooldown by default although this is reduced by 1 minute if used on a target below 20% health glaive toss throws a glaive towards a target dealing damage to each enemy struck along the way towards the target and on the way back to you it slows targets that it hits other than these abilities you have three major cooldowns rapid fire increases your ranged haste by 40% for 15 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown stampede summons your entire stable of pets to attack your target this is a high damage ability and should be used as often as possible throughout the encounter whilst trying to overlap it with external haste buffs and your jersey Persians rabid increases your pets attack speed by 70% for 20 seconds this will be on auto cast by default but you'll want to turn it off auto cast and use it manually for optimal use for multi targets you have a few other abilities multi shot is your main AoE ability this does damage to all targets within 8 yards of your initial target and apply serpent sting to each target hit barrage is a talent that you'll take instead of glaive toss on fights with multiple targets barrage automatically turns you to face your target and fires shots of everything in a 40-yard arc in front of you for 3 seconds doing heavy AoE damage finally you have a group of self buffs called aspects you should always have one of these active aspect of the hawk increases ranged attack power by 25% and also reduces damage taken by 10% if you have it lift generally you should have this buff active on all times unless you specifically need one of the others aspect of the cheetah increases your movement speed by 30% that you become dazed when struck this can be useful when paired with the glyph if you need the increased movements aspect of the pack is similar to aspect of the tutor but it affect everyone within 40 yards of you this should be used with extreme caution unless you want your fellow rails to be very angry at you when they're dazed so now that we've gone over how each of your spell's work let's talk about how to apply them in your rotation your first priority is to ensure that hunter's mark is applied to the target usually you will apply this once to a target before the fight begins and from then on it will be automatically refreshed with your explosive shot you can only have one hunter's mark up at once there are multiple hunters in the raid it can be beneficial to keep hunters mark up on different targets so that you each benefit from increased AoE damage you should be using explosive shot on cooldown every time you get a Lock and Load rocket you should spam cast explosive shot until you can't cast it any more when you have the tier 16 for set bonus occasionally your Lock and Load procs will not be consumed this simply means that you can do extra explosive shots before the buff falls off you can safely explosive shot as many times in a row as you want the damage over time is additive so none of the damage will be wasted when the enemy is below 20% health kill shot is next on your list and should also be used as often as possible remember that kill shots cooldown will reset if it fails to kill its targets so you can effectively use it twice in a row each time before triggering its cooldown next black hour should be used on cooldown now black arrow is a 20 second debuff for the 24 second cooldown however when you get the assurance of consequence trinket the cooldown may be shorter than the debuff when this happens you'll need to wait until just before the final tick of the existing debuff before you cast it again because you want to maximize the number of ticks you get without losing any uptime alternatively you can just cast it on another target as soon as it's available provided that the target will live for its full duration if you're using a murder of crows use it on cooldown next you should only use this talent on enemies that will live for its full duration next make sure serpents tank is applied to the target from here on it will automatically be refreshed by cobra shot when you have the tier 16 for set bonus you may find that you're casting so many explosive shots that your serpent sting falls off before you can curb a shot if this happens you'll need to manually reapply your serpent sting glaive toss should be used on cooldown if you're using it if possible try to position yourself so that glaive toss will hit multiple targets on the way to its final target so that it does extra damage other than that you can use arcane shot and Cobra shot to control the amount of focus you have arcane shot should be used to dump any excess focus you may have in order to prevent yourself from capping you never want to reach maximum focus otherwise you're essentially wasting DPS likewise you can use Cobra shot to generate focus when you need it particularly if you lack focus to execute a more important ability this is where forward planning comes in as a hunter it's extremely important to ensure that you have focused for your higher priority abilities so that you can use them instantly as they become available for example your talent server is very useful for survival because you can use it in conjunction with a murder of crows it's best used by draining your focus just below 30 just before a murder of crows comes off cooldown immediately use further which will give you enough focus to use a murder of crows which will then drain the focus back down so that none of it is wasted when a murder of crows is on cooldown you can use further as soon as it becomes available but taking care that none of the focus it provides will be wasted you'll find that your focus will bounce up and down wildly throughout your standard priority this is particularly true when you obtain the tier 16 for set bonus which gives your Lock and Load procs a chance to not be consumed you should try to learn which abilities consume the most and least focus so that you can anticipate how much you'll need in the next few seconds outside of your primary rotation you also have to factor your cooldowns in rapid-fire is off the global cooldown and should generally be used immediately as it becomes available however the main goal is to use it as often as possible throughout the encounter this means you can delay it slightly such as to line up with a period of AoE or other buffs as long as you use it as many times as possible Rabbid has synergy with your personal agility buffs your potion heroism and other external damage increasing effects due to this you'll want to manually use your pets rabid ability manually throughout the fight but also ensuring that you use it as many times as possible throughout the encounter stampede should also be used on cooldown due to its long cooldown you can usually only use it twice in each fight anyway so best use once in the opener and then again as many times as possible during the encounter you can save it for important periods of burst damage if necessary and it's also good to use it during a late heroism if possible or during trinket procs and your second vermin's buy potion once you have the assurance of consequence trinket its cooldown will be reduced enough so that you can use it more often against two or more enemies maintain your single target rotation but use barrage instead of glaive toss and use thread of the hunt instead of further use multi shot to apply serpent sting on all targets provided that they're close enough to AoE try to do this using a thrill of the hunt proc whenever possible to reduce the cost explosive trap can also be used on cooldown providing this at least two targets will be inside the effect for the full duration of the trap if you're using the assurance of consequence trinket you should alternate your black arrow on different targets this is because the cooldown of black arrow will be lower than the duration of the dot so you'll need to switch to a different target if you want to use it as soon as it becomes available against four or more targets make sure that you're using barrage and thrill of the hunt use multi shot to apply serpent sting to all targets then use barrage on cooldown use kill shot on any target that's below 20% health and after that use multi shot as your main focus dump and use kirbo shot to regenerate focus like above explosive trap can also be used as long as the targets will remain alive for the full duration of the trap you can also pre place the explosive trap before the AoE starts for an increase now in addition to these situations we need to quickly cover ice trap and freezing trap when either of these traps successfully snare their target you get a guaranteed Lock and Load proc it's a game to do this to get the guaranteed procs even for single target but bosses are immune to the traps and so won't give you a proc this means you can only do it when they're a snare able abs in the encounter so whenever there are snare able adds throw down a nice trap to get a guaranteed lock and low proc which will give you a DPS gain however lock and load has a 10-second internal cooldown so if the trap activates whilst it's still on cooldown you won't get the proc therefore you need to use an add-on such as tell me when to track the cooldown of Lock and Load so that you know when you can safely whose I strap to get a proc as quickly as possible so with all that information in mind here's how to open up in an encounter apply hunter's mark before the fight starts and if possible place an explosive trap on the position the boss will be tanked don't place it directly under the boss where he is before the pull or the trap will trigger and ninja pull now precast a Koba shot time to land as soon as the bosses pulled and send in your pet use Stampede and rabbit as soon as the boss is pulled and then explosive shot immediately after apply black arrow and use rapid fire to help your focus regenerate faster use further and then a murder of crows and after that use glaive toss and finally apply serpent sting from here simply follow your standard priority list pets are an extremely important part of playing a hunter each pet provides a separate raid buff and so the raid composition should be taken into account when deciding which would be the best pet to use try to pick a pet that provides a buff your raid with otherwise be without on the screen you can find the best selection of pets to have available in your stable this is not an exhaustive list of pets available simply a selection of the ones that provide the most commonly missing buffs your pet should always be set for ferocity unless an encounter requires your pet to tank a hard-hitting mob so onto your character development choices your first priority is agility and then hit an expertise each up to their respective caps of 7.5% after that you should go for it then mastery and then haste once you obtain the legend during meta gem haste will gain some value for single target and be slightly better than mastery however in any fight that involves multiple targets mastery is a much better choice given the nature of most encounters you'll generally want to follow the listed priority above with that in mind these are the best gems in enchants to choose from this are largely situational choices but there are a couple that will be useful in more situations than others Glyph of animal bond increases all healing done to you and your pet this increases survivability and should always be used glyph of deterrence increases the damage reduction granted by deterrence again this increases survivability and should therefore always be used glyph of disengage is your third go-to glyph this increases the distance you travel when you disengage effectively increasing your mobility glyph of ice trap increases the range of ice trap making it easier to place correctly this is useful for slowing the minds of siege craft a black fuse glyph of solace is useful for para grams of the clacks see if you need to crowd control the parasites to prevent the effects from being broken glyph of aspect of the cheetah is useful to prevent yourself from getting days when using aspect of the cheetah this is not an exhaustive list of glyphs just a selection of the most useful ones for siege of Orgrimmar next your talent choices now each tier may have talents that are more useful in specific situations whereas some they have one mandatory talent in the first tier your default choice should be crouching tiger-hidden chimera this increases your mobility by reducing the cooldown of disengage and increases your survivability by reducing the call van of deterrence post haste is better for fights where you need increased movement speed in short bursts such as the intermission phase on immerseus or the downdraft on Jakob in the second tier binding shot should be your default choice when used correctly it is an on-demand AoE stun which is highly effective and more useful than either of the other talents in this tier in the third tier aspect of the hawk adds 10% damage reduction the aspect of the hawk this will generally outweigh the other two choices in almost all circumstances spirit bond can be useful if you spend long periods out of range of healers such as on the conveyor belt on siege craft or black fuse in the fourth tier you generally want to use further for any encounter that is primarily single target this gives you an instant focus boost an additional focus over the next 10 seconds this works very well alongside a murder of crows as detailed in the rotation section for AoE encounters both thrill of the hunt is very strong and should be used instead per tick for encounters such as Galactus in the fifth tier you'll choose between blink strikes and a murder of crows a murder of crows is the best talent to take for primarily single target encounters or any encounter where your pet will not have to switch target often link strikes is more useful in situations where your pet may have to frequently switch targets or where targets are dying too quickly for a murder of crows to last its full duration in tier 6 you'll choose between glaive toss or barrage glaive toss is best for single target encounters it also slows targets it hits and can be lined up to hit multiple targets in its path barrage is better for any form of multi target or AoE encounter finally your gear decisions you should select gear they start having as much agility as you possibly can whilst pursuing your standard stat priority now the best gear to use depends on whether they encounter is single target or multi target generally most encounters involve more than one target which means you'll be prioritizing crit and mastery over haste hence the gear decisions on-screen however you can find a full best in slot list for both priorities on our website try to obtain the four set tier bonus and use the leggings of unabashed anger as your off piece item if possible for trinkets assurance of consequence and harems talisman are the ones you should be using thanks very much for watching this guide if you have any comments or suggestions post them below or email us and if you're interested in being coached by a top hunter click on-screen for more information [Music]

Channel: evreliagaming

Views: 63,466

Keywords: evrelia, evreliagaming, world of warcraft, survival hunter class guide, survival hunter dps guide, survival hunter rotation, survival hunter glyphs, survival hunter stats, survival hunter reforging, wow, mop, mists of pandaria, warcraftacademy, scrubbusters

Id: csyretHv0wo

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Wed May 07 2014