3.3.5 Survival PVE advanced DPS guide

So you want to play a class just to be asked to switch in raid

Youve come to the right place, ingame I am known as Ree, I am just going to quickly share some tips and tricks to improving your Survival PVE dps to a level where you can rival MM in dps, this involves a ton of movement management, aspect switching, gear, and timing.

While it's commonly said around the server "Survival sucks" or "Survival does no dps", it's wrong, entirely. Yes at BIS MM does more single target DPS, yes survival is not easy to play, but by no means is it not viable in raids and that is mostly due to misinformation about survival.

Ive spent way more time than I care to tell on figuring out how to improve survival and how to make it comparable to MM and it's pretty simple actually.

Here are some examples of dps at 6.3k gs with 2p set bonus.

https://i.imgur.com/kd2jAUn.png

This is pretty average solo target Heroic Dummy DPS, ive seen it as high as 11k if given the right procs.

https://i.imgur.com/UFZQX4E.png

Here is average solo target raid damage with full raidbuffs. This photo was taken on a Satharion 25 man 3D Achi. Obviously this scales in ICC, so in ICC its pretty normal to expect a 13k-17k burst.

Yes the burst damage DOES come down to your DBW proc, this is your biggest DPS gain in terms of burst, but the great thing about survival is that it has burst and sustain DPS, much more so than MM which is very burst heavy and can become low damage in long fights, if playing survival expect to never OOM, and to be overtaking others in dps around the 1 minute+ mark.
The benefits to survival are personal and party mana regen, slowing adds, movement is less of an issue than MM, and you can function as a kite or even temporary OT if the OT dies.

Now to the actual tricks.

Rotation and playstyle

Rotation is pretty simple, whenever youre about to start rotation ensure you stand still for a few seconds and get your sniper training up and try to only go in for traps right after it refreshes.

Explosive shot > Serpent Sting > Aimed shot > Steady shot

Notice how I dont put black arrow in there? Because when you have a sting up, explosive shot on cooldown and aimed shot on cooldown youre going to activate aspect of the Cheetah, while staggering your steps towards boss for auto shots book your *** in and then drop an explosive or immolation trap and then a frost trap, (you can raptor strike here but be aware raptor strike causes a combat bug), then I just macro together my Disengage and mongoose bite, if I didnt notice that my disengage is on cooldown then ill at least smack them with that. Traps are a huge part of your dps, not only for damage but for LNL procs, if you need away from the boss quickly opt out of using a frost trap and hope for explosive to proc. Some fights dont entitle you to trapping in which case just throw in black arrow, and this is where most hunters fail at playing survival.

ITS NOT MARKSMAN, STOP PLAYING IT LIKE MARKSMAN.

This spec was intended to be a melee/ranged hybrid and it works if thats how you play it, but if you always stand still and cast black arrow your dps will never be as high because you arent MM and your abilities DO NOT scale off arp.

Another key aspect of DPS you should know by making it this far is to not cut off the end of your explosive shot, you can use an addon like tellmewhen to track the enemy bebuff, or for slightly less dps just throw a shot inbetween each.

I recorded a video so it is easier to understand, to maximize dps just comes down to timing, auto shots and positioning, as you can tell I make a few mistakes in this clip which end up costing me quite a bit of dps. If you practice weaving in and out of the boss melee range for a bit it almost becomes second nature, I find myself stutter stepping bosses on my warrior and shaman.
(SKIP TO 0:30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBMVA9QfmIM&t=31s

Talents

Talents have a core and then a personal preference, I like to put one point into aspect of the hawk so I can use the hawk glyph for an 8% haste bonus proc at the cost of only 1 talent, although you could also use this talent point for rapid killing, point of no escape, careful aim, hunters mark, improved stings or scatter shot for not 1 but TWO hunter stuns! Ever see an enemy casting something and you want to stop it but dont have time? Try survival! Never let the enemy cast or even walk a normal pace, cripples LOVE survival, cc enemies for days with our super cool stun Wyvern sting! Did you know the wyvern sting also does damage when its been dispelled, resisted or fades from an enemy, and this damage also procs your 4p effect!

For the trap playstyle build this is your core, your bread and butter https://wotlkdb.com/?talent#coZ0eVooZx0ci0cIhekAhRu

We put one point into survival tactics on the basis that you are trapping right on cooldown, meaning youd be 2 seconds faster than your disengage CD. I suggest reading your abilities and putting the last point where you see fit, if you dont know what your abilities do then go play BM and let your pet play the game.

Stats

For your gear youre maximizing agility after reaching hit cap, 165 if you spec into focused aim or 263 if you dont.

Your character when finished should end up looking something like mine.
https://i.imgur.com/0whelIK.png
(rip 18 stats)

Agi > Crit > Haste > Arp

One of the key components of survival is agility, all agility you have will convert every 4th point into 1 AP, so 1 agility = 1.25 AP, not only that but agility will scale up with your Kings buff, your lightning reflexes your dbw proc, DC proc, druid buff, and your hunting party skill. Another less known fact is that every 10 stamina becomes 1 AP as well, so stamina is not something to avoid, you can make use of this by using a nightmare tear, enchanted tear and the Frosthide Leg Armor enchant, although this is personal speculation, I have personally seen my AP reach up to 15000.

The next key stat is crit rating, since traps and explosive shot scale so poorly from attack power the easiest way to increase your dps is to increase your crit rating. In a full 25 man raid with all buffs my crit rating will sit around 90-95% in combat, I know that the DBW proc is slightly wasted but sustain is the name of survival damage (literally). Most of your crit will come from your agility but if you need more then opt in for the bow enchant, distant land, shadowvault slayers cloak or whispering fanged skull.

We're at the point where I mention haste and ARP, and I have to tell you, they're both pretty negligible, which is why I believe nobody truly plays survival, playing survival means having two fully enchanted and gemmed PVE sets, which is downright stupid hard to get. I try to run 4p T10 on my gear but that means having arp gems ideally you want your core items to have agility so they work in both spec, it is possible to gem every piece of tier gear and ring and belt/boots with agility and hit all the socket bonuses but you need BIS gear in order to do so, or at the very least you need BIS ring, 4p (obviously), DBW, STS, Oathbinder, Rimefang and Belt, that should put you at enough arp that you can gem the set pieces, belt, ashen ring, and boots with 20 agility or 10agi+crit/hit depending on socket bonus, this is really the only way of running both MM and Survival without gimping either one.

Since both arp and haste are negligible I opt in to hitting the Haste softcap of 523 (not really a hardcap or softcap), hunters reach the cast time of 1.5 on their steady shots at 523, which is also why I use glyph of the hawk, reaching a 1.5 second steady shot means you get more time for other abilities unlike MM which will push back the cast of an aimed or chimera regardless of the cap. Whether intentional or unintentional the haste also reduces your aspect cast and TRAP GCD which doesn't function on the same GCD as your other abilities, meaning you can cast them quicker than 1.5 seconds, this might seem irrelevant but it actually helps my dps quite a bit.

One big boost to your DPS is the 2p set effect, it procs a lot and gives a major amount of AP, for this reason and in this circumstance Zods bow and Haste are a personal recommendation.

Professions

Get Jewelcrafting/BS/Tailoring + Engineering/BS/Tailoring.

I prefer engineering on all characters because I think movement speed is more important in any given fight, but if you like another profession then change it at discretion.

Glyphs

The Glyphs I found most effective for dps increase are Explosive trap, Hawk, explosive shot, the third glyph changes depending on the situation.

After my crit is high to a point where I can hit about 90% crits on explosive shot I drop the explosive shot glyph and use killshot for most DPS, aimed shot for fights where close range is impossible, serpent sting for overall refresh rate ease, or hunters mark for a little dps boost for me and raid.

Gear

As I mentioned above socket bonuses, yes you want to hit them, a good chunk of agility comes from them and personally I hit every single socket bonus aside from legs and my bow (zods HC). I currently use two sets and have a hard time deciding which is better but set 1 uses 4 piece with chest as Caprace of forgotten kings which makes hitting the 8% rating much easier, or use 2p with Head and Legs and then use Dual bladed pauldrons and Nerub Stalkers gloves and the Caprace as chest, although I suspect Legguards of the Twisted Dream or Northern lights are a better option since haste items almost nobody rolls for anyways making them easy to get. Wearing only 2p set items also grants you 2 extra sockets and some extra agility.

Since I avoid donating for gear also means I had a ***** of a time getting survival gear, so I had a lot of time to work on DPS rather than worry about my gear. I am not BIS yet, but getting there, and as far as I am aware there is no BIS list, so if you have any objection feel free to give me updates on this

Head: Sanctified 50 ap 20 crit
Neck: Sindragosas Cruel Claw/Wodins
Cape: Shadowvault Slayer/Sylvannas cunning Parachute/Inscription
Shoulders: Sanctified/Dual Blade 40 ap 15 crit
Chest: CFK/Sanctified +10 stat
Bracers: Scourge Hunters 50 AP
Gloves: Sanctified/Nerub Stalker 340 haste
Legs: Sanc/Northern lights 22 agi 55 stam/75 ap
Boots: Returning footfalls/Treads of the Wasteland Nitro boosts
Ring: Signet of Twilight/Band of the Bone Colossus+Ashen
Trinkets: DBW+DC (STS and WFS great picks if you cant get DC... or even herk)
Weapon: Distant land/Bloodfall/Oathbinder/One handers 110 AP/140 AP vs undead/26 agi
Bow: Falinrush/Zods/Windrunners +30 hit scope (bizniks) is THE BEST scope for maximizing agility/arp, allowing you to free up gems slots.
I might update this I might not, but I hope you enjoyed the read!

https://i.imgur.com/tSbcoDR.png

Oh yeah and for pet take a wolf or wasp.

If anybody has interest in a MM advanced dps guide or an Enhancement Advanced DPS guide id be more than happy to share them, but given how much info is out about MM I dont think it's needed.

This is my DPS as of current, given that this was RS25 and with in and out phase, its pretty close to my "true" dps, meaning with no Hysteria or Hellscreams, dps was pretty even so I didnt need to slow down a whole lot. It is possible to make surv work, you just need to forget arp.

https://i.imgur.com/rC6j5VN.png

Thanks for the raids. Hope corpserun isnt too bad

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

"in ICC its pretty normal to expect a 13k-17k burst."
I don't read after that^^

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ElSoloss

"in ICC its pretty normal to expect a 13k-17k burst."
I don't read after that^^

---

Clearly, because literally the next sentence is

"but the great thing about survival is that it has burst and sustain DPS, much more so than MM which is very burst heavy and can become low damage in long fights, if playing survival expect to never OOM, and to be overtaking others in dps around the 1 minute+ mark."

Disregarding that, my burst in the quoted picture was 21k, I felt that was unnecessary to add and was only giving a rough estimate for the average player.

Hello, I really like your guide, i've given it a try, survival feels nice to play. I'm guessing you go for explosive trap because of the crit glyph. Do you use black arrow instead of it in any situation? Or explo trap all the way?

I have only one question. What happens with your dps on fights like Fester HC and Council HC?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tetriandoch07

Hello, I really like your guide, i've given it a try, survival feels nice to play. I'm guessing you go for explosive trap because of the crit glyph. Do you use black arrow instead of it in any situation? Or explo trap all the way?

---

Black arrow I will use if the boss is below 10% HP because putting down a trap becomes feeble, and most the time you want to stay at range to cast Kill shot.

But otherwise no, I never even look twice at black arrow, I think it may be bugged, but it doesnt seem to give you that overall damage boost it says it does, besides, if you are at 90%+ crit rating then 1 explosive trap when fully buffed will do about 30-40k damage and you dont need to rely on black arrow procs, which on average will take 90 seconds to proc rather than when using traps 24 seconds (ICD).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ossiriss

I have only one question. What happens with your dps on fights like Fester HC and Council HC?

---

On those fights I just use black arrow or switch to MM because if youre standing still then you are playing survival wrong.

Hello :)

I am happy to see someone that likes survival in pve. I used to belong to this species for the majority of me being a hunter in WoW. Sadly in contrast to you I came to the sad conclusion that Survival is under barely any circumstance even close to MM. And it has much to do with what you say brings Survival back into the game: the weaving of auto hits! After adapting to the optimised MM rotation of Chimera - 2x Steady - Aimed - 2x Steady (this way the possibility of using an Improved Steady Shot procc on Aimed Shot stays intact (elsewise always used for Chimera) and the waste of proccs is minimised since you don't cast 4x Steady Shots after another anymore) and maximising my weaving of Auto Hits (2 per rotation) I was convinced Survival is not worth it. It's super hard not to bite your weaving with your Sniper Training (as seen in your video. You lost the procc multiple times). Have you calculated it through that its better to miss out on 1 or even 2 Auto Shots to drop 1 or 2 traps? Not to mention stuff like other gcds that you can't execute due to being in melee range. What about the dot comparison of Black Arrow and Explosive Trap? Guess u get more proccs theoretically with the Explosive Trap since it proccs every 2 seconds, Black Arrow every 3 seconds and lasts 5 seconds less --> half the proccs total. Do the proccs even matter when you drop a slow trap to procc LnL? I don't see that the boss is even affected by Frost Trap as bosses can't be slowed. Thus any points in Point of No Escape are wasted I guess. In the end i can weave in a lot more Auto Hits as MM than I can as SV and hence the difference between me playing SV and MM in ICC was even bigger than expected.

Also some other minor things. Having an addon like Tellmewhen to track the ticking of the Explosive Shot is a suboptimal idea since your distance to the boss often varies greatly so you always have to factor in how long your previous explosive shot was actually flying. Best way to do it is to watch your own gcd since that is always set to 1.5 seconds (and no, Haste doesn't affect the gcd of a hunter!!!). Doesn't matter how far or close you are to the boss, as long as your range doesn't change it's easier to just track your gcd and fire the second explosive shot once half a second has passed once the gcd has finished. I personaly use the easier method as well to just use a Steady or Aimed Shot in the meantime. Additionally stating that your abilities don't scale off Arp is just plain wrong. Aimed, Steady and Auto Shot all still scale off Arp and do so very nicely even as SV. Thus Arp is also the go to stat for SV over agility. The point at which that happens is just a lot later than mm. As MM it's around 1k Arp (including gems). As SV this point is only reached once you actually nearly Arp hard capped. This is especially crucial since not only the mentioned shots benefit from Arp yet also the Auto Hits we are trying to weave in (and of course Mongoose Bite and Raptor Strike)!

And why use a Wasp when saying to pick either Wolf or Wasp? Wasp brings the Armour reduction to the table which doesn't stack with Faerie Fire which is on the boss anyway...

And why would you want tailoring and engineering? Isn't the whole point of tailoring to get that sweet sweet back enchantment? For mere stats it's worse off than Blacksmithing when aiming for max dps since you lose the standard 22 agility enchantment. Only good thing is that it overlaps with one of your trinkets (DBW doesn't fit in the long run) yet the bonus of overlapping stuff like that only applies if the other procc is something else than the atp enchant. Elsewise it's no multiplicatory effect yet only additive. Unless i missunderstood and you meant 1. profession always JC and 2. profession can be chosen between tailoring and engi. Then all the power to you :D although Blacksmithing should be in that list as well from my pov. Tailoring is only really sick for melees in pvp who play with 2 trinkets that both have in internal cd of 45 seconds and you dont care that much for the overall dps yet that raw pressure phase when all proccs align

Have you calculated the glyphs through? Oo What about Steady Shot glyph? Maybe you are right since you often go in weaving instead of shooting a Steady Shot.

HomerJay, Wow, I am blessed to see a comment reply from you, especially one at this length. I learned a lot of what I know using your guides! And this is so much to take in, Ill try to do my best to address everything in my reply, thank you so much for your inspiration and dedication!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

Sadly in contrast to you I came to the sad conclusion that Survival is under barely any circumstance even close to MM

---

Yes unfortunately this seems to be the case, but like everything in life it comes down to perspective and contrast. I have seen survival do way more than MM, or way less. I think it really comes down to solo target vs multitarget, and fight length. Any fight with adds or lasting longer than 2 minutes I see survival overtake marksman. There are a few things I havent mentioned in this guide that also greatly affect my dps that I choose no to share because then I lose my advantage, but ill share one with you right here, raptor strike.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

That its better to miss out on 1 or even 2 Auto Shots to drop 1 or 2 traps?

---

I dont lose out on those autos, I just use raptor strikes when I come into melee range, yellow damage is hardcapped, I cannot miss, they do as much or more as an auto attack as well since I use a bloodfall. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

not to mention stuff like other gcds that you can't execute due to being in melee range

---

I use every GCD possible, thats why I go in while my Sting is up, explosive shot and aimed shot are on cooldown, steady shot hits less per cast than my autos, so nothing of value is lost except 2p procs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

What about the dot comparison of Black Arrow and Explosive Trap?

---

My explosive trap hits for up to 9k, 4k average, and it his 10 times over 20 seconds. This is hardly an issue about procs though because as I mentioned trap GCD is calculated as a spell, so with enough haste you can lower the GCD to 0.5 even, meaning I can usually cast both traps within one cooldown, so I never worry about procs, minimizing randomness is the key to precise results.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

I don't see that the boss is even affected by Frost Trap as bosses can't be slowed. Thus any points in Point of No Escape are wasted I guess

---

No! although its hard to test, after a couple hours I determined that bosses are affected by point of no escape. While they dont gain the debuff the frost trap still does affect them, its just unable to be seen in their debuffs, freezing trap does not affect them though. Since frost trap is technically a spell you can also test this yourself using black magic, frost trap a boss with the black magic buff on a weapon and you can see that it will 100% of the time proc the ability, because theyre being hit by the frost trap multiple times a second.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

Having an addon like Tellmewhen to track the ticking of the Explosive Shot is a suboptimal idea since your distance to the boss often varies greatly so you always have to factor in how long your previous explosive shot was actually flying

---

Youre onto something here but didnt quite get there, this took me a year to realize. When your arrow hits the boss is when it starts ticking down, meaning your current distance from the boss will always change how long you must wait to recast explosive shot, and with 3 points into hawk eye and max range you can rapid fire your explosive shots without cutting off the ticks from the previous. This was such a big variable in my dps and why I decided to track the debuff on the enemy rather than tracking when I last casted explosive shot, because if im close to the boss Ill wait til the debuff is 3/4 complete, but if im really far away I will cast it at halfway. In my demonstration video you can see me disengage with a parachute, why do that when ill be coming into melee range again? Because the farther away you are the faster you can cast explosive shot without wasting ticks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

(and no, Haste doesn't affect the gcd of a hunter!!!).

---

It does affect the cast time of steady shot which is super important in survival AND IT AFFECTS THE GCD OF TRAPS!!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

. I personaly use the easier method as well to just use a Steady or Aimed Shot in the meantime

---

Yes I utilize this myself because of how hard it can be to micromanage at some times, another big reason to get soft capped haste.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

Additionally stating that your abilities don't scale off Arp is just plain wrong. Aimed, Steady and Auto Shot all still scale off Arp and do so very nicely even as SV. Thus Arp is also the go to stat for SV over agility. The point at which that happens is just a lot later than mm. As MM it's around 1k Arp (including gems). As SV this point is only reached once you actually nearly Arp hard capped. This is especially crucial since not only the mentioned shots benefit from Arp yet also the Auto Hits we are trying to weave in (and of course Mongoose Bite and Raptor Strike)!

---

This is a lot to address, and I have done my fair share of tests, and this only comes from person experience and not from hard data so don't take my opinion as me stating a fact.

When I say it doesnt affect your abilities I assume people reading this guide (such as yourself) know that it DOES affect aimed, steady, autos, but I meant your core abilities, Explosive trap and Explosive shot. My guide tries to gear players into a different mindset on how to play this spec, because I find most people give up after realizing that MM is 200% better (In their current gear), and why I stated you need 2 sets of armor. Arp DOES affect your abilities with the least focus, but the damage becomes extremely negligible once you start to prioritize Explosive trap and Explosive shot, at some points I leave steady shot without a single cast for over 15 seconds. Yes the autos are affected but since your set pieces and most gear gives arp you usually sit at 50%, which means that you arent at a total loss.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

Thus Arp is also the go to stat for SV over agility.

---

I disagree, although this can be seen from either side of the coin depending on if you have a Deaths Choice Trinket and a DBW trinket, because these abilities give 500 and 700 agility respectively and BOK+Lightning reflexes and Hunting party give a % based bonus I am in favor of agility at BIS gear because your procs will increase your agility by a staggering 1700, meaning 1700ap+430ap (exploit weakness) and whatever all that agility gives in crit bonus.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

And why use a Wasp when saying to pick either Wolf or Wasp? Wasp brings the Armour reduction to the table which doesn't stack with Faerie Fire which is on the boss anyway...

---

If youd like to know more about this please message me in game and I'd be happy to show you something that most people aren't aware of which makes wasp a viable option, even with fairie fire active.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

And why would you want tailoring and engineering? Isn't the whole point of tailoring to get that sweet sweet back enchantment? For mere stats it's worse off than Blacksmithing when aiming for max dps since you lose the standard 22 agility enchantment.

---

Thats why this was an either or situation, why I suggested it was because it has the same uptime and cooldown timing as your deaths choice trinket, meaning you can maximising your dps while procs are up, although it may be more or less dps, Im not 100% sure, im in the process of making an orc survival hunter with engineering and tailoring to test the AP gain with tailoring, deaths choice and STS alongside the bloodfury racial since DC, STS and tailoring enchant all share uptimes. This way I would drop DBW in favor of STS, solely because the way I play is oriented on sustained dps rather than burst, and DBW is much more of a bursting trinket than STS is. One more thing to add is that traps are affected only by AP, so having BS or JC will be less effective than tailoring ONLY if using constant traps like I am, AP will outperform anything, and given the proc time of 15 seconds out of the minute, that almost perfect correlates to my trap uptime which is 20 seconds every 24 seconds. With a proc tracker you could almost always trap right after the trinkets and cape enchant goes off.

If youd like to check my current progress on my test survival hunter just armory "Survlval", that is with an L not an I.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

profession always JC and 2. profession can be chosen between tailoring and engi

---

While this isnt what I meant now reading what you wrote after writing the reply above i see now youve already concluding the same things I have and now I have a new perspective and will update my guide, if playing survival you should ALWAYS take engineering though, because movement is such a key element, at times ive though of replacing my meta gem for the 8% movement speed. Although the abilities dont scale like you said it does mean that you can make your intilial burst massive. What I personally do is fire an explosive and serpent sting, then place my traps and then pop all my cooldown because usually I proc my trinkets right as I place the traps, and why I am curious to see how much extra dps I can gain this way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

Have you calculated the glyphs through?

---

No calculations just sheer personal experience, I have tried all the glyphs time and time again and even on marksman I see steady shot glyph underperforming, I forgot to mention that Killshot Glyph is a HUGE dps boost for survival, and your third glyph can change depending on playstyle but my personal favorite is killshot just due to the devestating damage it does especially since you can rotate ES, KS, AS, SS, ES, KS, Steady, Steady, in near perfect unison.

Thanks again for all the insight and thoughtfulness, goodluck with everything and if you find any useful or important info please keep me on the know :D

Why would raptor strike bring the edge over MM? MM can just use it as well. And MM even does more damage with it due to armour penetration, or not? At least with your gear of low arp. I never find myself ooming in a 25 man raid. By multi shotting adds and switching to viper mode before the shots hit and then quickly switching back to dragonhawk as they landed you for example have a fully normally hitting multi shot that grants you mana as if you shot three arrows in viper mode. This way I also never oom in the longest fight of the expansion: Lich King 25 HC.

After watching your video it's unclear how many auto shots you lose since you don't have a weapon swing timer addon Oo 100% you waste some dps here n there because of that. Weaving in auto shots like here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twk5BMUaOdI works well without delaying auto shot since you just shortly dip into melee range and then out of it again. If you wanna lay a trap you gotta go much further to make the boss actually trigger the trap. Inevitably you sacrifice an auto shot there which is the reason I don't use that technique.

You do use every GCD possible (although you missed on 2 gcds in the vid the second time u went in) but the question was directed towards the value of the gcds. Whether it's worth it to run in and slow trap instead of shooting a Steady shot when there is a 60% chance that LnL proccs from Explosive Trap. But then again if it's true what you say that the "Point of no Escape" talent works despite the absence of a debuff on the boss it probably is worth it as long as the boss doesnt move too much. Also i am staggered that your Steady Shot apparently does less damage than your auto shot. How is that possible? :D As far as I am concerned Steady Shot does auto shot damage + some influence of your ranged attack power.

I am unable to test this but going from your video your ranged attack speed doesn't influence the gcd of traps. Since there was no heroism used in your clip I just did quick search on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ici8jPs-vTU this vid is from may this year. No influence of Bloodlust can be seen on traps gcd. No clue where you are getting this from that you can lower the gcd to 0.5 seconds. maybe gcd hacking? :DDD

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IrMd1

Youre onto something here but didnt quite get there, this took me a year to realize. When your arrow hits the boss is when it starts ticking down, meaning your current distance from the boss will always change how long you must wait to recast explosive shot, and with 3 points into hawk eye and max range you can rapid fire your explosive shots without cutting off the ticks from the previous. This was such a big variable in my dps and why I decided to track the debuff on the enemy rather than tracking when I last casted explosive shot, because if im close to the boss Ill wait til the debuff is 3/4 complete, but if im really far away I will cast it at halfway. In my demonstration video you can see me disengage with a parachute, why do that when ill be coming into melee range again? Because the farther away you are the faster you can cast explosive shot without wasting ticks.

---

I legit don't understand what you are trying to bring across. 3 points in hawk and then rapid firing your Explosive Shots without cutting? I don't understand. It makes no sense to me. With my method all you have to do is fire the next Explosive Shot 0.5 seconds after your gcd ended since your gcd is fixed to 1.5 seconds. As long as you and boss don't move too much you can safely rely on that method and don't have to perpetually anticipate how long the flight path of your first explosive shot was and then subtracting that from the 2 seconds tick duration. Stating that the farther you are away the quicker you can shoot Explosive Shot is wrong. It always depends on flight path and current debuff duration of the current Explosive Shot. In the end w/e happens it's always 0.5 seconds after finishing your gcd as long as the distance between you and the boss is constant.

What is soft cap haste? You mean the 523 Haste to lower the casttime of Steady Shot to 1.5 seconds? I highly doubt that this is worth it due to losing a lot of agility/arp. There is a reason why Haste is so far back on every stat priorisation list for hunters.

I guess the way you play SV agility really is better than ARP. It's hard to calculate. The regular spreadsheets obv only involve the standard rotation. Weaving in auto shots would benefit the arp side of things though since you lose nothing yet only gain another physical damage attack source. For the standard SV with regular rotation data states that arp hard cap is desirable even for SV. Speaking of calculation, have you calculated Black Arrow vs Explosive Trap? The former does less damage and has half the opportunities to procc LnL as the latter yet increases your whole damage done by 6% for 15 seconds!

About that Wasp pet: Can you maybe send me something on the forum? :D I am never online on Icecrown :3

And the crit procc of DBW is barely wasted as long as you are at 90%. No clue if that is plausible as a standard in raids. But since Bosses are considered level 83 mobs you need more than 100% crit to have a 100% crit chance on them. If i remember correctly the mark is 104.8% crit. Given that 45,91 crit equal 1% crit you would end up at 105.25% crit.

You wanna replace your current meta gem for the slight movement increasement? Oo Bad idea. Especially playing SV where you crit so damn much you nearly give away 3% of your damage! As a non engineer I just enchant the BC enchantment 6 agility + 8% movement speed if needed. And even when playing engi for the most part i just play with 16 agility though since any major movement can be done via disengage and the smaller one can be done by simply playing with a good sprinkle of anticipation in mind and moving to the desired position inbetween gcds and auto shots.

I did a bit of testing myself. When watching your video you constantly drop Sniper Training due to excessive movement. Weaving in Auto Hits works best for me by doing it after every Explosive Shot since that's the perfect time window for sniper training to recover. Implicating that you use the optimised MM rotation you can still weave in more Auto Shots as MM.

Also using aspect of the cheetah is possibly dangerous to use during boss fights since they have constant AOE damage. I know it should NOT slow you down at Sindragosa but the rest I dunno.

Oh and Haste doesn't influence the gcd of your aspects. This has been changed end of TBC i believe or early WOTLK that aspects are on a seperate gcd and only have 1 sec gcd. Stating that traps aren't on the same gcd as your regular abilities is wrong.

The 2 set bonus doesn't grant AP, it grants 15% extra damage. The 4 set bonus grants AP and contrary to your statement it doesn't procc that often since it can only tick once every 3 seconds while Auto Shot is fired more often due to haste and the Hawk thingy talent. It only proccs more often if you constantly dot another add with serpent sting (for example the shamblers at LK or the adds the PP). Purposefully recommending Haste and Zod's bow is purposefully recommending lower dps as long as you can get your hands on agility gear and the 284 crossbow. The effect from Zod's bow doesn't trigger tier 10 2 set bonus.

I am actually curious though. On fights like LK 25 HC SV might be able to compete since most people struggle with mana there and the Frost + Explosive Trap on LK + 3 valks and then volley into them with Explosive Trap glyph sounds pang as ****. Similar with basically every encounter except Saurfang, Princes, BQ, festergut, Rotface, PP.

As a final note I'd prolly try it with this specc https://db.rising-gods.de/?talent#cb...hxkAhsk:bfLmMz

Maybe one day I have the opportunity to raid a full ICC raid as survival with bis gear and this adjusted playstyle. The one time i tried it on the last PVE server I played on (Gamer's District (the video i posted is from there as well)) it didn't go so well :D but that is probably also due to the lack of adaptation at the time. Getting used to Sniper Training is rough.

hey FRIEND. Thank you for playing this amazing SV playstyle. I very enjoy trying to join pugs and getting SV called "PvP spec", maybe it will be called now a /ˈriːˌtɑː(r)d/ spec

i hope you kiss yourself.


--------------------------------
If you want to play this guy's playstyle but want a better guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftfqU63Q08E

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SunsGlory

maybe it will be called now a /ˈriːˌtɑː(r)d/ spec

---

Survival is quite nice, but man this bypass is impressive. Never thought anyone would think of that. Nice!

just for you.

this is the MM playstyle where you point and shoot

https://i.imgur.com/bRspYXU.jpg

sorry about ForteXorcist being a huge blob of trash middle of my screen, i recently redid my UI and havent set up FX on hunter

http://armory.warmane.com/character/...ecrown/profile

Remember to kiss yourself!!


-----------------------------------------------------
EDIT: Played some SV, basically normalish SV with Black arrow replaced with Explosive trap 3 AM raiding btw POGCHAMP, could be better wasnt used to yet being in melee range etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJYIBJvqqAA

yeye im lazy i didnt use MD on CD or dps beasts.

would be nice if you could put ur own comparsion, ik ik raids are not same etc. but will be close enough
i consumables used: 40 agi food, haste pot and flask of endless rage.

I don't have a character on icecrown for PVE currently thus I can't provide you with a fitting comparison. Once I have equal gear I might get back to you but that won't be any time soon lol. Also how the **** can you camp in melee range? I always thought u gotta try to keep your distance to people elsewise u would massively hurt the raid. But seemingly this doesn't apply here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HomerjayAT

I don't have a character on icecrown for PVE currently thus I can't provide you with a fitting comparison. Once I have equal gear I might get back to you but that won't be any time soon lol. Also how the **** can you camp in melee range? I always thought u gotta try to keep your distance to people elsewise u would massively hurt the raid. But seemingly this doesn't apply here.

---

maybe ppl being counted melee is based on range from boss? idk tho whats up with that