**Note: much of this post is reused from the last version, but the comments there were left over several patches, so I’m updating it and reposting.
0/15/56 is the survival spec that gets me the most DPS. Lets go over the basics, and why I took (or didn’t take) things.
In general, you want to take things that increase your ability to DPS at range or with a pet, but not in melee. Also, each point should generate as much DPS as possible. Open up the wowhead talent calculator and follow along.
First tier: Max out improved tracking for a 5% DPS on most bosses. Hawk eye allows us to move less on kite fights, but is not a direct DPS increase. It’s nice to have though, so consider putting your floater point here. Savage strikes is melee. Don’t take it.
Second tier: Max out survival instincts because it gives us 4% crit. The only other talent that will increase our DPS is trap mastery, which is 30% to black arrow. That’s a hell of a lot better than entrapment or surefooted. I might consider moving a point from trap mastery to hawk eye in tier 1, but only if I really need to.
Third tier: Survivalist is your best DPS per point here, so max it out. Only because it allows you to get to another talent that unlocks the DPS in all that stamina on your gear. Scatter shot, deflection, and survival tactics all do nothing for our DPS.
Fourth tier: You’re going to spend more than the minimum of points here because TNT and lock and load are so good. TNT boosts the damage from explosive shot, and lock and load allows us to fire three of them in a row sometimes, depending on black arrow procs. Max them both out.
Fifth tier: Hunter vs. wild is that talent I mentioned in the third tier. It turns your stamina into a little bit of attack power, but since much of our gear comes with stamina and we had to max out survivalist to get here, it’s well worth maxing out. Killer instinct is also good enough to justify a full 3 points, which puts us beyond the minimum for this tier as well. Counterattack should not be available because we’re not taking deflection, and is really a pvp melee ability.
Sixth tier: Again, more than the minimum here. Lightning reflexes should be maxed out because it’s awesome, and it leads to something awesome. Resourcefulness should be set to 2 (not maxed out!), because it will shorten the cooldown on black arrow to just a little more than the lock and load internal cooldown. This increases the number of lock and loads you’ll get at the expense of a little of the uptime of the 6% damage boost from the black arrow DoT. In all my models, however, that third point in resourcefulness is a very small amount of DPS compared to the first two, and is better spent elsewhere (as pointed out by Zeherah on the last post).
Seventh tier: You only need two points in expose weakness because you will crit so much, but you do want it. This talent, by the way, is partly why agility is so much better than AP for us. It magnifies your agility by 25%. Now we’re going to pretty much waste a point on wyvern sting, but only because it leads us to something good. Lastly, thrill of the hunt is for reducing your mana spent. If you don’t need to bring replenishment and your fights are short enough that you never run OOM, then feel free to skip this for some points in the BM tree. I’ll go over this later.
Eighth tier: Master tactician should be maxed out. It’s good DPS per point. And, since you wasted that point in the last tier, you want to max out your reward of noxious stings. Yet another flat out percent damage increase. It makes serpent sting worth having on our bars.
Ninth tier: Obviously, we want black arrow. It increases our DPS by 6% when it’s up, and allows us lock and load procs. And it’s a damage over time. We also want to max out sniper training, which is another 6% DPS if we can stand still for 6 seconds. Get used to counting your GCDs while standing still- as soon as you get 4 shots off, you can move for a little bit before having to stand still again. Good for fights like Razorscale. We want to ignore point of no escape, as it’s more of a pvp skill and we’ll almost never have bosses that are vulnerable to traps.
Tenth tier: If you need to bring replenishment to the raid, you can do it with hunting party. Also, unless you can go for the 6th point in BM, hunting party is more DPS than the slight speed increase from improved aspect of the hawk. I’ll go on about this after I finish.
Eleventh tier: Explosive shot is what we’ve been working toward this whole time. It’s the lion’s share of your damage, because properly magnified by all the other talents (black arrow, lock and load, serpent sting, sniper training), it hits like a convoy of mac trucks transporting anvils.
Okay, lets talk about hunting party and replenishment. It’s not always a requirement- for example, in 25 mans with plenty of shadow priests, ret paladins and other SV hunters who do bring it, you’ll have plenty of mana floating around. One thing to bear in mind is that hunting party has a weird mechanic. Each point gives you a chance to proc what I’ll call a “mana blast”. This will go out and find up to 10 players without a replenishment buff already and give them one. It will give them a quarter percent of their mana per second for 15 seconds, and does not stack. The more of the blasts you trigger, the higher the average uptime on replenishment will be per raider. The thing is, a single point from a single hunter gives us over 80% uptime. Another point (even from another hunter) will raise that uptime to maybe 95%, and every point after that will get you from 95% to 99.999% uptime. There’s a serious diminishing return. It’s even worse in 10 man- assuming 7 mana users, is it safe to assume that you’ll get a 33% chance proc from 15 seconds of critting like a banchee? Luckily, it also increases our DPS. How much it increases your DPS depends on how much haste you have- run your character through the DPS calculator and try moving a point from hunting party to improved aspect of the hawk.
Now we have two other trees we can use to poke raid bosses full of holes. Beast mastery and Marksmanship. I’ll start with the weird one. Beast mastery.
The second popular raiding build sacrifices a bunch of points in mana regen and conservation for the ability to get a point in the second tier of BM. Focus fire (tier two, BM tree) is more than a 1% increase to overall DPS. Problem is that the points in tier one are less than 1% each. Improved aspect of the hawk increases your DPS by increasing your haste. Haste won’t make explosive shot or black arrow come off cooldown any faster, so it really only affects your auto-shots and steady shots (if they happen to be slower than the global cooldown). When I do the math for my character, a point in IAotH is worth about half the DPS as the agility from hunting party. However, factor in unlimited mana and a raid that doesn’t need your replenishment to get it, and this build becomes more DPS: 6/14/51. Be aware that this is not the build you use if you run out of mana normally.
Next up, the marks tree. Both the above builds have points in the marks tree.
Tier one: We max lethal shots for more crits. We don’t take improved concussive shot because it’s for pvp. Wait, won’t my steady shots do more damage with it? No, because (a) many bosses aren’t capable of being dazed, and (b) even if they were, you wouldn’t make back the lost damage from wasting a global cooldown on a non-damaging shot by buffing your weakest shot a little. We might have to take focused aim if we can’t get hit capped any other way, but it’s generally better to get your hit through gear. Especially because now that hit from focused aim doesn’t appear to pass as much expertise to pets as hit from gear does.
Tier two: Max out mortal shots to increase the crit magnifier, and max out careful aim to unlock all the intellect on our gear’s DPS value.
Tier three: Take only one point in go for the throat. It’s a fairly good DPS increase because even with mac truck convoys of explosive shots, our pets will do 10% of our DPS. This goes down considerably if they’re focus starved. But since we crit so damn much, taking the second point will almost always be a waste as the pet won’t be able to spend his focus as fast as you generate it. If you are taking the mana regen build (0/15/55 plus one floater), consider taking aimed shot. You can cast it while running, and it won’t break CC or damage adds that aren’t allowed to be damaged, like multi-shot, it’s free companion. It also gets the 6% boost from sniper training, which multi-shot won’t. Still, multi is better when there’s more than one target you’re allowed to damage. Have them both key bound. If you elect to not take aimed shot, take a point in improved aspect of the hawk.
Tier four: If you have the two piece tier 9 gear bonus, you might get more DPS out of improved stings here than you would from hunting party in the SV tree.
Lastly, glyphs. No matter what spec you choose, the best DPS seems to be from the following three glyphs: glyph of explosive shot, glyph of kill shot, and glyph of steady shot. Kill shot is still situational, and you have to be on the ball about using it, but on add fights (like most of Ulduar) it’s nice to be able to do 18k crits to finish off an add and get back to the boss. You just have to be aware that the health of your target is getting low and maybe hold off on that last explosive shot to use kill shot, thereby saving the explosive for the next add. Another option (that seems to be less DPS for me, but your mileage may vary) is glyph of the hawk or glyph of serpent sting.
Euripides
jurgwena
Faeghleis
lemli
eidotrope
pherra
femaledwarf
Shadowstreak
After some modeling on the spreadsheet combined with real life testing, I find talent points are better spent a different way for SV hunters.
Rather than spending 6 points in Hunting Party and Thrill of the Points, try a few in Improved AoH and Improved Stings. Combined with the SSting glyph, you should see a boost in DPS. There was a good discussion on this topic some time ago on EJ. The 30% boost in Sting, longer uptime, and better attack speed seem to pay off more than 3% AGI.
Your Glyph choices make sense until you respec as suggested, then swap SShot for SSting.
I forgot about the stings- as far as I know though, you need the two piece T9 bonus for them to be worth it. I’ll go and edit the post :)
Thanks for updating this Euripides.
I can confirm (well, at least from throwing my gear through the spreadsheet) that if you have them the tier 8 and 9 2-piece set bonuses make Improved Stings a better dump talent than Hunting Party or IAotH.
I’m currently having trouble with whether or not I should take points out of Resourcefulness (as you’ve done for a different reason) to max out Improved Stings. I’d prefer to keep one point in Hunting Party since I raid 10-mans so much.
Resourcefulness is good, but check the DPS loss for taking a single point out- with the new high proc rate of lock and load and the 22 second cooldown, the results may surprise you.
Yeah, you’re right, dps-wise it looks like it’s better to drop other talents instead.
I would have to agree with you (2pc tier 8 2pc tier 9). I took out the 2 points in Hunting Party and 1 point in Aimed Shot to put 3 points in Improved Stings and boy what a huge DPS increase. In my shot rotation, I would replace Aimed Shot with Multi Shot.
Just one comment on the serpent sting versus steady shot glyph debate. Steady shot sometimes comes out a bit higher dps in the spreadsheet, but steady shot is also the most likely shot to be reduced in damage on movement fights. Serpent sting glyph saves a GCD periodically that can be spent on whatever’s up, so it’s a bit more flexible in its usefulness. Additionally it saves mana (since serpent sting is one of our most expensive shots), so if you tend to run mana tight this is also a consideration. So check what the damage gap is between the glyphs for you and then make a judgement call, keeping that all in mind.
i have the spec 6-14-51 with glyphs: exp shot, kill shot, steadyshot.
im thinking to change to: 0-20-51 and change steadyshot for serpentsting glyph. good idea?
I’m using a 2-18-51. The DPS website and real game experience show the 2 points in IAotH pay off. In MM, I skilled Arcane and Aimed completely. And yes, if you spec this way, swap the glyph. Good luck.
I’d suggest using the DPS calculator at http://www.femaledwarf.com and seeing which one has the higher maximum DPS.
Good point, since results are somewhat gear and ability dependent. For me, 2-18-51 was best, for you it might be different. When I’m raiding, I’ve always got femaledwarf.com up in case loot drops. Only want to spend DKP if gear is really an upgrade for *me*, not just cause everyone ooos and ahhhhs.
need some advice here:
currently i have the points in hunting party since i don’t do 25 mans often and need the mana regen. even with it i occasionally run out during longer boss fights and am forced to pot/go into viper for a tad.
my question is, even with that issue is it worth speccing into imp stings and getting the glyph once i get the 2 piece tier 9? i bought the chest already and am 20 badges from the helm, but if it’s not going to be worth it to change spec/glyphs if i’m going into viper more than already, should i just stay as is?
You have to make a judgment call. The calculators and spreadsheets are bad at modeling specific raid comps’ mana profiles. My gut feel is that if the theoretical DPS in an unlimited mana situation is close, then take replenishment. It brings raid utility too.
Need advice im a surv hunter with 4 piece t8 is it worth it to drop 4 piece set bonus for the 2-piece t9 bonus serpant sting crits.
Probably. If not because the 4t9 is a little underwhelming and 2t9 is quite good, because the t9 pieces have much better stats.
ok i have a problem. my hunter is in almost full epic gear from fos pos and hor dungeons. all epic gems and enchants. gear score just about 5000 my spec is sv and its the same as u have listed same glyphs shot rotations everything. best is the same been like this for awhile now but my DPS is only 2500-3500 WTH am i doing wrong? im embarassed to do raids with my guild because of my dps i did the dps analyzer after uploading my charater and i should be putting out almost 5k……what am i doin wrong?
ok i have a problem. my hunter is in almost full epic gear from fos pos and hor dungeons. all epic gems and enchants. gear score just about 5000 my spec is sv and its the same as u have listed same glyphs shot rotations everything. best is the same been like this for awhile now but my DPS is only 2500-3500 WTH am i doing wrong? im embarassed to do raids with my guild because of my dps i did the dps analyzer after uploading my charater and i should be putting out almost 5k……what am i doin wrong?
What Hunterbabe is describing is exactly my situation. I’m doing 3200 combined dps on the elite boss training dummy, but can’t get more than 2500-2800 in raid. I was doing better as a BM.
I’ve been practiceing the SV shot rotation. My gear score is 14500. and I’m fully gemmed and enchanted.
What’s up? What do I need to do differently?
I’m going to write up a post addressing this- look back for it soon.
I really appreciate your work here, Rip, but some of the Glyphs recommendations are pure theoretical. I am sure you tested a lot on femaledwarf.com spreadsheets and dummies, but both assume the best case for shooting practice: the stupid boss that wait for you to eat his life.
My GS score is 5600 and I do usually around 6K DPS on ICC10. I have tested too on femaledwarf.com and it say the SS glyph is better for me than Mark, SrS or Hawk, but ICCs not filled with Patchwerk clones…
In practice, all the bosses from ICC require a lot of movement and target switching. So, that Steady Shot glyph is almost useless, as I find myself rarely having the time to SS the boss between adds waves or bone storms or whatever trick Blizz have put on them…
SrS glyph may be the first alternative, but only if you still have 2pT9 bonus. If not, is only a matter of laziness in reapplying SrS.
Hawk glyph, which Frostheim recommend us, fail for the same movement reasons. But he play SV only on Saurfang to help him beat the BBs and that article was wrote a year ago, with different kind of boss fights…
So, I have decided to go with Mark glyph instead of SS one, as it will be constant on the boss and it will increase the DPS of other ranged raiders too. This will be the only sure thing in those fights filled with madness…
Aimed glyph, hmmm… Until now, AimedS was off from my SV spec, as MultiS have helped my DPS better into the HCs. But as I have started to raid ICC10 weekly (only by PUGing, not being into a raiding guild), I have realized that I may have more use of another instant shot on the move, than the static MultiS. So, those 2 more sec may prove a greater DPS increase, as you will find yourself using mostly ExS and AS against adds or while running around the boss.
So, apart from KS and ExS glyphs, I think the best choices for SV raiders in ICC are Mark or Aimed glyphs. I will say again, that for those with 2pT9, SrS may be better, but this must be tested on real fights, not on idealistic spreadsheets…
Tinliin, Moonglade EU
This week I have bought Wodin necklace, Carapace of Forgotten Kings and I have crafted myself the Ashen pants (I have the boots already). So, I have left T9 bonuses behind, my only low (under 245ilvl) pieces being Greatness trinket and T9 gloves.
Tweaking the talent points in femaledwarf.com, I have found that, beside those recommended here, the best choices for me in MM tree are now 1 point on Improved Hunter Mark and only 2 on Improved SrS. So, Mark glyph seem the best way to follow…
I need to redo the post a little, but for me, my single target DPS is higher with the serpent sting glyph than the alternatives. Especially when you have improved stings and the 2t9. On single target, I could get just about an equal benefit from one of the other glyphs, but any multi-target fights, the serpent glyph comes out far ahead.
Yes, with 2T9 bonus, Serpent Sting becomes very efficient and the glyph can only make it better. No doubt about this.
In fact, I am kinda confused now about my DPS, after I have abandoned 2T9… Last Wednesday I have farmed Ashen rep and finally got revered and the recipe for Ashen pants. I have crafted them and put aside T9,2 pants, remaining only with the T9 gloves. Next day was ICC10 raiding day and when we got to Saurfang and his BB, I had the surprise to see that my DPS is about 5700-5900, while the week before it was above 6000.
Now, I am not sure this drop was because I didnt had those SrS crits anymore, or because I have fought my BB almost alone, the ShPriest on my side being unable to use his offspec too well. Will see what the next fight will tell…
Can you take a SS of the best survival spec yall have found and post it here? I am usually solo or in 5 mans so mana is important to me…