Hello everyone, McDonald's here and welcome to the Survival Hunter guide for Dragonflight. In this guide, we're going to talk about stats, talents, legendaries, and all that good stuff. But before we do that, everyone, a very Happy New Year! I hope you made it through New Year and still have all your fingers. If you do not have all your fingers, Beast Mastery might be the spec for you.
Somewhere on the screen, you will probably be able to click on the Beastmastery Hunter guide or the Marksman Hunter guide I made earlier. Now, if this is something that you like, then consider leaving a like and subscribing to my channel. It helps me out a ton. Let's get into the video.
Survival Hunter Stats
Now, let's talk about our stats. Agility is the most important stat that you can get, and it is found on every item piece except for your neck and rings. Therefore, you want to go with the highest item level first. After that, you will want to go for the best secondary stats. The best secondary stat depends on whether you are doing single target or AOE damage.
For single targets, it goes as follows: you want to prioritize haste, then crit, then mastery, and lastly, versatility. For AOE, the order is: haste, crit, versatility, and mastery.
If you want to survive as a Survival Hunter, you will want to consider a build that emphasizes survival over damage. This is because, as a Survival Hunter, you will find yourself in melee range more often and may die more frequently. In this case, you should prioritize versatility first, then mastery, then haste, and lastly crit. This is because versatility increases your damage and decreases the damage that you take, making it easier for you to survive as a melee player. Mastery increases the damage from your pet's focus spending abilities, and also regenerates your health while your path is active.
Please note that this build is not optimal for damage, but if you are new to the Survival Hunter role and have a lot of mastery gear from playing a range role before, it can make your dungeon runs easier and help you survive longer while you learn to play the role better.
Survival Hunter Talents
Let's talk about our talents for Survival Hunter in Mythic Plus content. We will begin with Kill Shot and Improved Cool Shot for increased damage output. Next, we will take Post Haste to avoid movement impairing effects, such as in Azure Fault where it allows us to easily dodge damage and move quicker. Lastly, we will always take Muzzle to interrupt spells, it's very important to interrupt.
Now, we will take Natural Mending for increased cooldown reduction on acceleration and more self-healing. Survival of the Fittest is also important for better damage reduction. Torch Wrap is not mandatory. I would not recommend taking Misdirect on Survival Hunter as the burst damage is not great, especially compared to Marksman where it is necessary. On the latest patch, tanks also got more threat, so unless you are playing often with a tank that can't handle your burst, I wouldn't take it. Take Tar Trap to help the tank kite. Tranquilizing Shot is very important in certain weeks and dungeons, especially on an enraging week or an online ranging week. It's especially good with Improved Tranquilizing Shot, as you will gain a lot of focus back. In every dungeon, there is a mob with a stacking buff or shield that you can remove with Trench Shots.
Mythic Plus runs will be easier with the talent Intimidation, which stuns targets. For example, during a Sanguine week, you may want to take High Explosive Track to knock mobs out of Sanguine if your tank is not quick enough. Alternatively, you can take Scatter Shot instead of Binding Shot this week, if you prefer not to trap mobs in Sanguine. However, in general, always go with Binding Shot as it is amazing for helping your tank guide.
Moving further down, I prefer to take Nature's Endurance to have Survival of the Fittest up more often, rather than it being stronger. Camouflage is purely optional. If you are not doing any dungeon skips, then there is no need to take it. Instead, you may consider taking a point in Pathfinding to increase your movement speed. The same goes for Improved Tranquilizing Shot, if you are not tranquilizing many mobs, then you might want to go for Pathfinding instead.
Further down the tree, there may be some variations in talent choices for Survival Hunter, as it depends on personal playstyle preferences. For example, you may choose to take Stampede instead of Chakram. Both abilities deal similar damage, but Stampede syncs well with Coordinated Assault for a bigger burst in a two-minute window. It's a personal preference. Additionally, you will take Explosive Shot as it is very powerful, deals a lot of damage and especially if you have a ring from the raid that deals extra fire damage to mobs.
Explosive Shots will provide fire damage for you, allowing you to do more damage. Unfortunately, Arctic Bola does not deal a significant amount of damage. For the best amount of DPS, it is recommended to use Serpent Sting, as it is a familiar and reliable option. However, for the most damage, Poison Injection is the best choice.
I personally prefer to use Hydra Spite over Serpent Sting. With Hydra Spite, arrows are fired at two additional enemies near the target, and its damage over time is increased by 20%. When running into a group of mobs, I like to shoot Serpent Sting twice, which will hit around five or six mobs at once. In my rotation section, you'll see why I prefer this method.
However, when I research guides, I see that many players prefer Poison Injection. While it is a balanced damage option, my personal preference is for Hydra Spite. Now, let's move on to the Survival Hunter side of the tree.
Survival Hunter Mythic Plus Build
So, you will go of course for Raptor Strike then you will take Tip of the Spear, your Kill Command increases the damage of your next Mongoose Bite by 25 and that stacks up to three times. Then you will take Harpoon and for the most DPS output you want to go for terms of Engagement which will deal damage when you Harpoon an enemy. I do not like the playstyle, I don't like backpedaling and using my Harpoon to get back in or backpedaling and disengaging and Harpoon back in. It is the best damage option, I do not like the playstyle and so I'm not using it.
The damage is it's it's a little bit of a little bit of an increase but not all that much. I like to go with Aspect of the Eagle, increase the range of your Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite for example when you go to the nono good offensive and you are on the second boss and you need to Dodge all the swirlies and stuff like that.
I like to use this and just start wailing away from a distance. That helps you deal damage even when you can't get close. Or maybe you're in a plus 10 and you need to run to a DPS because you have the Thundering effects on you and otherwise you get stunned. You can pop this and run to the other person, dispel your debuff and still damage at the same time. That is of course if they don't run to you, which they should. You're in melee, but anyhow. That's what you can do and that's what I prefer. Now we take Wildfire Bomb because this is a big part of our damage kit. We will take Ferocity, all Damage Done by your pet is increased by 10% and we will take Blood Seeker, your kill command causes the target to bleed for a certain amount and you will gain attack speed.
This is very powerful in combination with your Red Bomb and I will talk about the bombs and how the rotation works later on in the rotation section, but this one is very good.
Now Butchery is amazing, we are very happy that we have it back and so we are taking Butchery. Besides Butchery, lunch increases the range of your melee attacks and abilities by 3 yards. Again, just like with aspect of the eagle, this will give you just that little bit more leeway on how you can hit stuff. It just it's a little bit easier. I like that.
This will reduce the cooldown so immensely of both flanking strike and your bombs that it is amazing. It is a must-have Talent. Now we go further down the line we take Red Strike, we take Sweeping Spear, sorry Brother Strike, Mongoose Bite, Butchery and Garf, damage increase by 10%. Who doesn't want to deal more damage now? We have Sharp Edges here, in critical damage dealt by four percent. This is very nice. These points you can take out to put somewhere else as well. These are not mandatory points, you can swap them around if you want to. It's just a little bit of more crit now. We take uh no, we took that one, improve Wild Fire Bomb, Fire Bomb deals more damage very nice.
We take Intense Focus, Kill Command generates additional Focus. We take Viper's Venom and this is important now. Viper's Venom, your Raptor Strike or in this case Mongoose Bite because it replaces it, your rather try and Mongoose Bite have a 30% chance to apply a Serpent Sting to your Target. Now what does what what does this mean if you are playing with Poison Injection then you will want to use your Raptor Strike to apply the Serpent Stings and then when the when Poison Injection hits about eight Stacks then you will want to rep to strike that Target to deal the most amount of damage because I'm playing Hydra's Bite there you already have a lot of dots running on the Target and you can use your Raptor Strike to either refresh the dots or you can use your Raptor Strike or Mongoose Bite in this case you can use that to just dot the Target that not are not hit by your Hydra Spite.
Wildfire Infusion getting a lot of different bombs makes everyone very nervous, you're still gonna take it because it's amazing and I'm gonna talk about how the bombs work so you'll be good. We go like this; we will take Coordinated Assault because the Coordinated Salt is awesome and you will it is it has changed but you and your pet charge your enemy.
This is important, you change your enemy. Don't be the idiot like me that you use your Coordinated Assault because you Hello everyone, McDonald's here and welcome to the Survival Hunter guide for Dragonflight. In this guide, we're going to talk about stats, talents, legendaries, and all that good stuff. But before we do that, everyone, a very Happy New Year. I hope you made it through New Year and you still have all your fingers. If you do not have all your fingers, Beast Mastery might be the spec for you. So, somewhere on the screen, you will probably be able to click the Beast Mastery Hunter guide or the Martian Hunter guide I made earlier. Now, if this is something that you like, then consider leaving a like and subscribe to my channel. It helps me out a ton and let's get into the video. Now, let's talk about our stats. So, agility is the most important stat that you can get and this is found on every item piece except for your neck and your rings. And so, you want to go with the highest item level first. After that, you will want to go for the best secondary stats.
Now, the best secondary is that that depends on either single Target or AOE. So, for single targets, it goes as follows. You want to go with haste then crit, then Mastery, and lastly versatility. The last two swap around for AOE. So, it's still haste, still crit, but then it's verse and Mastery for AOE. Now you want to actually survive as a survival Hunter because for some reason you decided after playing BM and Marksman you decided let's go and play Survival Hunter and you find out that standing in melee happens that you die a lot and that's not so cool. So you want this total garbage build which actually helps you survive.
Then if you want to go with that then you will want to go over his versatility first, then mastery, then haste, and then crit. And why is that because I do not want to join your guild but thank you very much you will want to go with versatility because it will increase your damage but it also will decrease the damage that you take making it if you are learning to play a melee you will get hit More Often by certain mechanics and this will help you survive just a little bit more. Mastery it will increase the damage from your pet's Focus spending abilities. Sorry, um, that's okay but while your path is active you both regenerate your health as well and so having a lot of Mastery and a lot of Versatility will help you survive a lot more in your case.
This is of course not a viable build damage wise but if you are learning and you manage to have a lot of first Mastery gear on you because you played a lot of range before then well you can consider it making your dungeon runs just a little bit easier and you are able to live a little longer, play it a little better, learn it a little better.
So yeah, you can do with that whatever you want, Well, let's dive in. First off, try not to overcap on Focus. Don't use your kill command or flanking strike when you're at 100 Focus. Next, use your Chakram and coordinated assault only when you can get the maximum duration out of it, or at least a lot of it. For example, coordinated assault lasts 20 seconds, and Chakram lasts 10 seconds. If you use it when you only have 3-4 seconds left, it will be a waste of the cooldown. Same goes for explosive shot and flanking strike, use them on cooldown. For Butchery, which has 3 stacks, and Wildfire bomb, which will have 2 stacks, use your stacks so there is always one rolling, and one on cooldown. That's very important.
Now let's talk about our bombs. Because the bombs will have different implications because you're using Wildfire infusion. For Shrapnel Bomb (blue bomb), it shrapnels the targets causing Mongoose Bite and put tree to apply a bleed for 9 seconds. This stacks up to three times. To squeeze out a lot of DPS, you will want to pull your Butchery, and not use it when you see a blue bomb coming up. Then hold one, two, or even three stacks of Butchery, throw your blue bomb and instantly use your three Butchery stacks. That way, you will of course get a new bomb up, because you will reduce the cooldown by 15 seconds, depending on if you're hitting five targets of course. But secondly, you will have the enemies all with three stacks of the bleed, dealing a lot of damage.
For Pheromone Bomb (red bomb), your kill command has a 100% chance to reset against targets coated with Pheromones. To get the most out of kill command or red bomb, you don't want to use the red bomb when you're at 100 Focus, because kill command will give you Focus. So try to think of the red bomb as something that you will use on low Focus, and when you use your kill command and it resets, you will swap to different targets and kill command them. That way, your Blood Seeker will be more effective.
Lastly, let's talk about our Mongoose Bite and how the Mongoose Fury window works. The Mongoose Fury window increases the damage of your Mongoose Bite by 15% for 14 seconds, stacking up to five times. Successful attacks do not increase the duration. When you hit your first Mongoose Bite, that's when your Mongoose Fury window starts. In those 14 seconds, on single targets, you will want to pump out as many Mongoose Bites as you can. On AOE, this will cost a lot of focus and you will need your focus for other abilities, such as Butchery.
So in single targets, you will want to use as many Mongoose Bites as you can in those 14 seconds when the Mongoose Fury window is almost done. When you have three seconds left, you will want to stop gaining focus and just dump everything because if you are at five stacks, and you can dump in maybe two more Mongoose Bites, they will hit like a truck, especially with your four set. So on single targets, be very mindful of when you start your Mongoose Fury window, start it with at least 70 focus, best would be in like 90, so that way you can instantly start and get up to three stacks.
Survival Hunter Rotation Explained
Let's talk about our rotation for Survival Hunters. Firstly, try to not over cap on focus. Don't use your Kill Command or Flanking Strike when you are at 100 focus. Use your Debuff Chakram and Coordinated Assault only when you can get the maximum duration out of it. For example, Coordinated Assault is 20 seconds and Debuff Chakram is 10 seconds. If you use it when you only have 3 or 4 seconds remaining, it's a waste of the cooldown. Use Butchery and Wildfire Bomb when they have 3 and 2 stacks respectively. Use them when their stacks are rolling and on cooldown.
Next, let's talk about our bombs. Wildfire Infusion gives you three different bombs: Shrapnel Bomb, Pheromone Bomb, and Poison Bomb. Shrapnel Bomb causes Mongoose Bite and Raptor Strike to apply a bleed for 9 seconds, stacking up to three times. Use Butchery when the Shrapnel Bomb is coming up, hold 3 stacks of Butchery, throw the bomb and use the stacks of Butchery to deal more damage. Pheromone Bomb causes your Kill Command to reset against targets coated with pheromones. Use this bomb on low focus and use Kill Command on different targets to reset it. Poison Bomb deals extra fire damage against enemies suffering from Serpent Sting and applies Serpent Sting to up to three targets. Use this bomb when you have Serpent Sting up on different targets.
Lastly, let's talk about Mongoose Bite and the Mongoose Fury window. Mongoose Fury window increases the damage of Mongoose Bite by 15% for 14 seconds, stacking up to five times. On single targets, use as many Mongoose Bites as you can in the 14 seconds of Mongoose Fury window. When the window is almost done, stop gaining focus and dump everything to deal more damage. On AOE, using Mongoose Bite will cost a lot of focus and you will need it for Butchery.
Special, our damage just goes up just by a little bit. It's especially nothing in comparison to the Shadowlands tier set, but it is a very nice increase of damage. The four set, however, is really nice in my opinion. What happens is the following: Raptor strike, Mongoose bite, carve number 3 have a 20% chance to make your next Mongoose bite and Butchery cost no focus and deal 50% increased damage. This increased damage part is very nice because it's 50%, so everything will hit like a truck. But the no focus part is actually quite nice as well. Because on AOE, butcher or Butchery already does a lot of damage, but on AOE when it costs no focus, you will get your bombs back quicker. So more free butcheries means more free bombs in a sense. On single target, it gets even better because the more free Mongoose bytes you can do, the quicker you can get to five stacks in your Mongoose Fury window. And when you are at five stacks, if you then hit a Mongoose bite which is empowered and deals 50% increased damage, then you will hit like a goddamn truck. So our four sets will deal a lot more damage and it feels very nice. I think when I finally get my four set, it will hit like a truck with your Mongoose bite. So that is our tier set.
So guys, thank you so much for watching it all the way to the end. And if you liked it, then by now leave a like and subscribe if you want to support me even more. You can do that by clicking something on YouTube, and you know, thank me some more. But that's not really necessary. I really am happy with the support that I'm getting. If you have feedback from me on how I should do different things differently, or what I should keep on doing because it's the right thing to do, or what you like to see, then let me know in the comment sections below. That helps me out a lot. So I had a lot of fun making this guide and I will hope to see you guys in the next one. Goodbye.