The Bitter end

Alright.. yeah..


I'm playing Warhammer now. If you recall I only came back to WoW because I liked the hunter changes for WoTlk.. but they fucked it up as they always do.. so..

Basically all info on hunters in this guide is worthless now and has been ever since 3.0, and I will not be able to post any new info seeing as I don't play anymore. The general "Survivalism" game play strategy is no longer viable in PvP (this is my experience in 3.0, and I have no knowledge of 80.)

Survival spec is not what it used to be.

To those who attempt to follow the path of Survivalism past Wotlk and to 80, my hat is off to you. I hope it will work out for you, but as for me and this blog.. is no more. Feel free to come here whenever you feel nostalgic, or just want to remember better times. I might finish the compilation video when I have more time.

Lulz?

Know I've been away.. school ETC.

Also.. I'm working on my new video.. It's basically going to be a tribute to the golden days of WoW PvP, and changes over the years. It will include footage from all my movies, including new dwarf clips, and footage from the short period in which I was named "Lagspike" and made a movie, however, the movie turned out pretty crappy so I don't host it anymore.. but there is a few good clips that I took out of it.


It is kind of interesting, because it shows the evolution of not only the hunter, but the person playing the hunter. At the start, I am not as good as I am now, I have no addons, and I... click a few skills. *cringe* It then shows how my UI slowly evolved to what it is now, as well as my ability. Also, it is funny to notice at how over three years my keybinds have stayed the same except for minor changes, and additions of new ones for new skills. Infact, the only thing I changed on my dwarf from what I had two years ago was moving viper sting to f4, where scorpid sting was, and moving that to f10, where viper was. I realized this when I was undergeared, and was kiting a mage around a pillar with viper sting, because I would have no chance otherwise, and I could not reach viper sting.. and then later in one clip I mean to scorpid sting a target to remove a dot, so I can trap him.. but by habit, I hit f4, which was viper.. and it totally ruined it, but I salvaged the fight.. I thought it was funny.

It's also for personal reasons.. a lot of my older movies were made when I sucked at editing.... and it will be good to re-do them. Any player who PvP'd at 60 will appreciate the movie, and that is what I'm shooting for.. a movie to bring back the golden days.

Marksmanship

So... after playing both SV and MM for PvP.. I can safely say that I am quite pleased with the result of Chimera Shot.. and that exploding arrow sucks. My usual WS/SS spec.. isn't.. well.. the same. I can tear through people with my MM spec without any problems.. I don't have scattershot, but I do have silencing shot, disengage, and readiness (Which, I hardly ever use..)

Blizzard tried, I'll give em that.. but SV sucks now. *Cry*

The day has Cometh.

All right, well.. so far I don't have much to say. I have mostly been spending my time finding my feet. New skills = new playstyle = new keybinds, plus new skills/mechanics for every other class.. the game has changed. I haven't gotten a chance to do arena yet, since my druid has been away fer like 2 weeks, So I can't say much about that.. I have done a few BG's, but a lot of the times it was like.. something stunning me and a paladin walks up to me, turns shiny, and then WHAM! wheres my hp gone?

Concerning ret paladins:

Alright, they do insane burst.. but in a 1v1 scenario I don't really have any problems.. They repentance you.. you wait.. (you prolly had a trap of some sort to get em as they walk up to you) then you prolly disengage once they get to you if you had a frost, just walk away if its freezing (I prefer frost, because they can't trinket out of it) and then you have lock n load and a aimed shot to pop em with, and they have hit you maybe once.. All they have left is hammer of justice and you have your trinket.. they can't slow you, and will probably die before HoJ is up again. The only thing else they have is BoP (which you can purge) and bubble, to which you basically can just run away, and after its out most likely your trap will be ready again, to which I would use freezing because they probably have HoJ up.. so they stun you and get frozen.. then you just walk off and finish em. Mostly you just have to stay away.. Eye for an eye is annoying when you have 50% crit chance with arcane shot >.>

But yeah, as I said, there are tons to get used to.. For example, I still hit multishot after I use aimed shot.

And what is up with roar of sacrifice? I wish there was an easier way to activate it on myself...

Aimed Shot, Barrage, and You.

Why does it seem to me that every buff we get is something we have needed for years?

Apparently Blizzard knows that we blow.. Ghostcrawler has flat out said we suck in arenas multiple times. They try to fix the problems by tiny little tweaks.. which basically all the tweaks are doing is making the class less of a pain in the ass to play, but not as much towards balance, while we don't get anything "new".

The new fun and shiny thing we would have gotten was camo.. but that has not only died, it was hung, beaten, flayed, and then burned, ever so cruelly. It was replaced by the crap sho.. uh.. trap shot. It's good and all that they removed the arming time (which was totally bogus to begin with) but it isn't very much a trap, nor is it hidden.

Dictionary.com says a trap is:

2. any device, stratagem, trick, or the like for catching a person unawares.

Okay, not only are traps not hidden, but the shot makes a pretty blue rainbow and then makes a frost nova when it lands.. totally inconspicuous.

I know I am beating a dead horse with trap shot.. but it's just a great example of "whats not new" Its the exact same as freezing trap.. just with range and a lot more noticeable.. even shares the CD.

Disengage? We needed that, sure, but its not like we haven't been needing it forever.. hunters have never had any escape abilities short of freezing trap, and that was not even an escape ability, it was a CC. We also got masters call.. but it has a longer cooldown than any other snare remover, and requires LoS of your pet, and requires your pet to be alive. It also removes stuns.. but it can't be used while stunned. I won't even bother with that one.

Instant Aimed shot? The moment arenas entered we needed this one.. honestly anyone who got hit by an aimed shot was either CC'd or a moron. The need for this increased once we got a MS effect on the shot... which made it the worst MS in the game. It also got its damage removed with a swift kick to the groin. "It will do more damage than multi-shot" they said.. it didn't. Granted, in the end, the new aimed shot will do more damage than the old one, since you can actually get it off whenever you want, including being able to jump shot it, but our burst is gone.. they just replaced multi-shot in our burst rotation with aimed shot. We are "Casters" thus we should have burst.. but we don't anymore.

Deterrence? I asked for that buff at level sixty. Hunters never had caster mitigation, and now we still don't. Deterrence WAS a good buff, but they nerfed it. I guess a worse ability than CloS on a five times as long CD is op.

Scatter shot? I like this change personally, although in the end it does absolutely NOTHING for me, since I feel explosive shot is fail and I would rather get scatter over it anyways, now, instead of getting scatter over explosive shot, I'll get readiness over explosive shot. It needs to be trainable.

Tranq shot? You can't tell me the first time a hunter got this book from luci they haven't wanted it to dispel frenzy/enrage effects in PvP too, or remove rage/energy. This change is only like 5 years late.




Basically, hunters in WoTLK = we get everything we have been needing for years (Except caster mitigation, bastards.) but nothing new and shiny.

A reason to spec BM

I'm sorry, for that I would go 51 points in BM.

So what if you outdps me, and own me in arenas and pvp.. I GOT A FUCKING DEVILSAUR IN MY SIDECAR!

@Rilgon

I got my scope recipe from Kara.

Get owned.

Holy Instant Jumping Aimedshot Batman!

Upcoming Hunter Changes
Greetings.

I have some good news, and some bad news. First, the bad news. Unfortunately we won't be able to do the Aspect of the Viper change I discussed yesterday (passive instead of requiring you to attack the target) at this time because of technical limitations and its potential to shake up our current balance goals. However, we will evaluate it as an option for a future patch.

Now, the good news.

- Aimed Shot - This shot will now be instant cast, its damage/effect/cooldown will remain unchanged.
- Scatter shot - This will now be an 11-point Survival talent.
- Readiness - This will now be the 21-point Marksmanship talent.
- Trap Mastery - This will now be the 41-point Survival talent. Granted, not very sexy for a 41-pointer but we'll do some changes there in a future patch (after WOLK ships).
- Surefooted is swapping places with T.N.T. (so Surefooted is now in tier 2)

These changes will be live in an upcoming beta build.

[ Post edited by Koraa ]
Class Designer



Holy Instant Jumping Aimedshot Batman!

Not only that.. 11 point SV scattershot?

Survivalism triumphs again!!

A Glimmer of Hope

Hope.. we haven't seen that in a little while.

The mana is not based upon your damage. It is a general rule now to not make your mana scale with damage or healing etc., because mana doesn't scale as fast as those stats. What it does is regenerate a % of your base mana relative to your weapon speed (nullifying the need to have a fast or slow weapon to game the aspect).

What we're going to do is balance the passive regen to be around the same as if you were attacking the target.

So our afkautoshot viper got changed to a passive. This is a large step for hunters in arenas. It went from being godly with the 100% of your damage, to being crap, to being slightly less crappy, to back to where it started. Walking around in circles...

But on the bright side, it won't scale with intellect anymore. Gravy.

Things are looking grim for us right now still.. But it is still beta, and there is still hope.

Revealing Blue Post

BM hunters are extremely competitive at PvE on Live. We are trying to get Survival and Marks up to that point. It's harder to to talk abour PvP because we have made so many changes that the problems on Live may not be the same problems of LK. In short, we just need a lot more PvP testing. A lot.

Apparently BM is miles better in PvE than MM or SV. Apparently they are trying to balance it and haven't looked at PvP yet.

Best get cracking blizz.. 2 months to go.

Wrath of The Developers

Thats what WoTLK is, as seems to me. It is obvious that they favor some classes and not others.. They have openly admitted to not having played a hunter over 50 because "They were boring"

What was at the top of arenas? Rogues and Warriors
What was at the bottom of arena? Hunters
What got buffed in WoTLK? Rogues and Warriors
What got nerfed in Wotlk? Hunters

So far, they took the worst arena class, and cut the leg off.

I understand Trackhoofs feelings about "Losing the Hunt" and I have understood it for years now. I had spent at least two weeks PvPing at 49 in AB, and that was great. I would see the same people every day and PvP with them. We knew who was bad, and we knew who was good. The first time I went to the hall of heroes when I hit stone guard, I saw my path. I thought the epic PvP set was the coolest thing ever, and it was. As I worked my way up, I got the full blue set. After I had that set.. I eventually got into raiding and when I went to my first MC raid.. It was just.. dull. I did not like the idea of having to put up with 40 other people who talk about being the best in the world and still can't manage to press "W" at the right moment. PvE was extremely easy, and yet people could not do it. They spend all this time to get gear to raid to get gear to raid to get gear.. and so on. I decided that day that I would only use PvE to further my PvP progression. So I did.

I got my leaf and sinew, Got my Rhok, and wore full PvP blues all the way to warlord.. and it was fun. I would kill the same people who were in full epics all the way up the grind every day. That was the most fun in PvP. Knowing who your enemy was, and knowing your enemy knew who you are... but where has it gone?

X-realm battlegrounds was by far one of the worst changes ever to WoW besides the change of the honor system and the addition of "Welfare Epics". I would go into a BG, and not see anyone I know.. This was not fun. I saw people in T3 who I dispatched with ease. My server, Darkspear, was not at all a PvE server.. If anything, it was the hollywood of WoW. Darkspear still has one of the highest, if not the, number of movies on WCM. We had Formic, who made one of the first PvP movies, Albis, who amazing editing was only matched by his skill, we had the infamous Swifty and his rival Heinous and all of the movies they had made. We had countless others, including myself, but I digress. In the BG's I saw no one I knew.. and that took the fun out of it. We had never seen tier 3, and now we had.. In poor hands.

Arenas were fun, the thrill of beating other people despite the odds stacked in their favor. That was the thrill of the hunt for me. Despite hunters being so terrible in arenas, people still actually said we were "OP".. How?

Blizzard is now treating us like we were OP in arenas, even though they themselves said we were hurting. The thrill of the hunt for me is PvP, but there is no thrill anymore.

There is some honor to be had for a man who can kill a rabid bear with a knife, but there is no point to fighting a dragon with a nerf gun.

Sure, despite all the nerfs, I would do well as a hunter.. but WHY? Fighting such of an uphill battle is not fun. Having the playing field only a little uneven is a thrill. Now it is just a chore and frustrating.

I doubt Blizzard will fix hunters like they said they would. All I see is spittle in my face. If the content patch comes out before they fix hunters.. that will mean hunters are doomed for WoTLK. In that case I will have ONE last thing to give blizzard:

_|_

Gude to Skill level required in Arena

Yeah... I know I stole the picture from Eve Online, but I think it fits the scenario none the less.

Of DST's and Men

Did Gruul's last night..

DST dropped..


I didn't get it.



Oh... non-interesting post is non-interesting.. I just have never actually seen it drop.

INJUSTICE!!

* Wing Clip - New rank added "Inflicts 50% normal melee damage and reduces the enemy target's movement speed by 30% for 10 sec."
* Most Pet Skills - All ranks had a slight damage increase or decrease.
* Froststorm Breath - All ranks now slow for 5 seconds.
* Glyph of Aimed Shot - Now only reduces the cooldown by .5 seconds instead of 1
* Lock and Load - Now only affects your next shot, not the next 3.
* T.N.T. - Chance to stun only on when trap lands, and now increase the critical strike chance of your Explosive Shot and Explosive Trap by 3/6/9%, down from 5/10/15%
* Kill Shot - Now deals 200% weapon damage plus [RAP * 0.3 + 400.0] instead of weapon damage plus [RAP * 0.15 + 2500.0].
* Hunting Party - Effect now listed as lasting for 15 seconds.
* Master's Call - Can no longer be cast while stunned.
* Aspect Mastery - Aspect of the Monkey - Reduces the damage done to you while active by 5%, down from 10%. Aspect of the Hawk - Increases the attack power bonus by 30%, down from 50%.
* Cobra Strikes - Only next 2 of pets attacks will benefit, down from 3.
* Invigoration - Now gives a 50/100% chance to instantly regenerate 1% mana instead of giving instant regen of 1/2% of mana.
* Improved Steady Shot - Now only reduces mana cost by 20%, down from 40%.
* Aspect of the Viper - Now each ranged attack regenerates a percentage of maximum mana equal to base ranged weapon speed, down from 100% of damage done. Still incurs 50% less damage.
* Deterrence - No longer gives a 60% chance to resist all spell attacks for 10 sec




They took the worst arena class... And totaled it.



Like...


I'm speechless.

Kordwar's SV page

Always happy to give a shout out to a fellow SV hunters blog

Here is Kordwar's blog.. a new blog for another follower of Survivalism!

Will all the KZ raiders... please stand up

Yup, so despite the 22 delicious badges.. I got Skulker's Greaves from Netherspite. Bless leather loots for SV hunters! I stuck 3 8 Agi gems in there and they are probably one of the best pieces for SV on that level. 56 agility, 64 AP, and some hit to boot.


Speaking of SV loots.. The day has come, and I have specced SV. I has all epix on my PvE set.


Oh.. And I got a gorehowl.. FOR TEH LULZ

The WoTLK raiding spec..

Is it MM hunters time to shine?

Despite the other buffs that have been given to MM for DPS there is one, in conjunction with a great nerf to SV. MM has been granted the gift of raid support, the one thing that manages to keep hunters in raids.. and it has been stolen from SV.

What is this great atrocity you ask?

TSA now affects the entire raid, gives a hefty % bonus to AP, 10%, and Expose weakness.. only works for the one hunter, and despite the fact that hunting party has been nerfed into the dirt.

So.. as how there is only one SV hunter per raid, in WoTLK there will only be one MM hunter for the raid.


Well.. at least Rilgon will be happy.

That bastard.

dualboxing in 2v2

I saw the darndest thing last night..

This warrior druid team was dualboxing. Only one would be moving at a time.. At first we thought they were lagging but no.. alas.. It was one guy actually playing two characters.

I don't mind the free points, but I found it rather funny.

Sad part is I'm sure he actually beat someone.

Disarm Trap in WoTLK

Wow.. It makes a lot more sense when you picture it like that..

In the 2v2

Was me+druid versus Rogue+paladin..

They killed my druid after I oomed the paladin.. So I finished off the paladin and trapped the rogue to bandaid while I was at 300hp.. and proceeded to kite him..

He deadly throw'd me when he was at 30%.. took me down to literally 1 hp and I finished him off..


It was epic.

Null

Null

Null

Null

Null

Null

Null

Null

Battlefield 2

http://files.filefront.com/hesbollahwmv/;11697438;/fileinfo.html

If anyone likes BF2, one of the things I did during my wow break was make this movie.

I like to play shooter games when I'm feeling down about my class being underpowered, and just frag everyone I see. I like dogfighting because it takes a good amount of skill, experience, and knowledge.. Instead of just being imbalanced.

If you do watch it, please download it.. Set your resolution to 1024x768, set it to fullscreen and enjoy.

What I liked about the movie was how smooth it was. I would turn in a way which looked like I went the wrong way, only to line me up for a perfect shot moments later. It shows more of the actual dogfights than just a frag movie like most are. One of my favorite scenes was at 4:00 when the target is right above me, and I do a roll to fire my missiles, so they will hit, otherwise they wouldn't have a good shot, or at 9:34, when I am chasing one, and being tailed by another.. and I kill the one I'm chasing, dodge 5 missiles from the one behind, then kill him.

I plan on using the music from this movie in my next hunter vid.

GEEERS- p2

I did Kara last night, and I am happy to say that I got 4 upgrades, plus enough badges to buy my s2 boots. I got Chestguard of the Conniver, Legacy, Drape of the Dark Reavers and Demon Stalker Gauntlets.

Sadly, none of those pieces were any PvP upgrades, save the boots, because I already had PvP pieces for those slots.. But I'm closer to not having to raid as MM!

GEERZ

So.. I am rapidly approaching the big day!

What is the big day?

Simple! It is the day in which I can discard these MM shackles and embrace Survivalism once more!

My brother, Roflologist is learning fast, and while never playing a druid or even doing arenas, we are doing well.. Sure our rating is still a bit low, but it has to be a gradual increase.. Every team we fight has twice as much resilience as us because it is so easy to get PvP epics now.. it only takes time. Time, that we haven't had enough of yet.

While Rofl was doing a PuG Kara run made by some prot paladin in a Hyjal/BT guild while he was still undergeared for kara, he made such a good impression and demonstration that the guy flat out invited him to his guild and the next day he was raiding BT in tier blue. The GM even offered to buy him a geared resto druid so he could help them progress faster (The GM is quite wealthy IRL and server myth has it that he is Will Smith, I don't know if it's true, but I would like to believe it!)

I am as fortunate to have him as a partner as he is to have me!

But.. back on topic.. The big day, usually said when you reach 600 agi unbuffed you can spec SV because the DPS is better, but in PvP you don't necessarily need the DPS.. In fact, my old hunter had only around 550 agi in the gear I got gladiator as, Including LR. I'm telling myself I can go SV once I get out of all my blues.. I have four left.

And.. once I do that.. I can begin to craft my next movie, and I got a great idea for it.

Xp Grind Complete.. Gear grind, Commence!

I have no shame.. Yes, thats me dualboxing Rofl and myself in the AFKave. I normally do participate in the battles in the other battlegrounds.. but AV has become very boring.

There was a time in which an AV game had no time limit.. A place of refuge that all hunters could go to in order to do what we do best.. Sit back and unload. There was a time when you could have over one thousand honorable kills, several million damage, and two hundred killing blows in one single game(stats taken from my experience while doing warlord grind on my orc...).. That would double my dwarfs total killcount as of yet. But what is it now? The games last 7 minutes on average, comparable to several games which I have seen last several days.

There is no PvP. 40 alliance run straight to Iceblood Garrison, passing but 100 feet from 40 horde running to Stonehearth. You cannot stay and defend, less you have a premade of about 10 people, unless you plan on getting slaughtered.. Any Horde who stays to defend their base share a similar fate.. and mowing down 5 people behind 30 friends is far from entertaining. The only real way to get some good honest PvP is when Rofl and I either stay at the base of IB to intercept stragglers that died and are returning to the front, in which they will usually fight back and usually have more than one.. or to go to stonehearth bunker right after the horde moves on to stormpike.. in which case we can get a good fight on the 2-5 horde defending it.

It is very common to see first place having three killing blows now. AV is small-scale at best, and is NOT what AV is supposed to be. Every now and then you get a small turtle but in the end it is just a small group holding them off the cap at either the Aid station, or the Relief hut, and it is quickly overcome either by the attackers or the loss of reinforcements.

I used to have a strategy in which I would follow up behind the horde and recap everything, killing all who stayed behind as I went.. until eventually the horde is all stuck fighting the alliance at iceblood, and it just goes from there to push the horde into their base. Then we could get a nice.. hour at most, fragfest in which a hunter really has time to enjoy his class. But on my old hunter... I ran BG's for fun.. not for gear. Now I need the gear so I would rather the game be won faster.. and it is won. Alliance almost always wins. So, here I am. At the AFKave, because there is no point in even fighting, I can follow the zerg around killing NPCs, or I can do nothing.. and in the end, the result is exactly the same.

I know.. If everyone did what I do.. the game would be lost.. but for some reason they don't.. They all must get a rise out of killing NPCs, and come to a BG to do that.. In fact.. when I would try to go PvP at SH and recap things.. they would actually yell at you to stop it, because that would lead to them actually having to PvP! How DARE I initiate PvP in a battleground!

AB on the other hand is a lot different. I love AB, and always have since I grinded many hours away getting to Warlord in there. It is a good battleground. You can get nicely sized 10+ vs 10+ fights, moderate 6v6's and 4v4's small 2v2s and plenty of 1vX's if you bother to go find them. You are also free to do whatever you want in AB.. It is very possible to go solo to one base and kill the 2-3 defenders quickly and cap the flag.. as opposed to WSG where you are forced to kill a 50k armor, 20k hp bear who is unstoppable by any slowing abilities, and is hell bent on getting that flag to the other side while destroying everything in its path and has multiple healers on it even though it can probably heal himself just as well, and if you stop to DPS the healer, the bulldozer bear can get to the other side before the healers are even close to low on mana, and then you get a turtle fest which is no fun at all.. WSG goes against years of PvP experience in which everyone is trained to "Kill the squishies first" and instead "Kill the most heavily armored, stongest, individual first!" I don't like it. I like AB where I have free reign to pop every mage I want. AB also isn't as long as WSG, but it is long enough for a decent chunk of PvP without it becoming redundant and it is different every time. In AV, you know exactly what happens.. They all rush past eachother.. Horde to SH, Ally to IB. In AB sometimes, they go LM, sometimes they go Mine, sometimes they even rush stables... and then sometimes you are in a group who rode the short bus and no one capped stables on alliance.

Unfortunatley, AB almost always loses while you are pugging... which is why I am in the AFKave.

Eye of the storm is just horrid.. I cringe every time I have to get new boots. Eye of the storm is a perfect example of blizzards way of taking all their old ideas, mixing them together to create something new and shiny, and terrible. The bases are lost by sheer numbers, and are unable to be retained no matter how good the players defending are, unlike in AB where two skilled players can hold off 5-7 attackers. You can't do that in EoTS, the base just loses control. It also has a flag.. the only real fun I can ever have in that battleground is when the game has become a stalemate, two bases to two, and both teams are in the middle, just killing each other.


I have high hopes for the new BG in WoTLK.. If you havent heard of it, it is basically a D-Day scenario in which one team attacks a coastal keep by sea and the other team defends it. This is new in battlegrounds.. it is a scenario in which both sides do NOT start off on level turf. They are doing the same thing in Arenas. Also, this most likely means the sides will not always be the same, and you will sometimes be attacking, and sometimes be defending. This also seems like a good scenario in which a hunter can lay out some massive damage in a fragfest. The keep should also be interesting, as they are implementing siege weaponry to use. This means that unlike everything else that ever was in WoW.. the fortifications will actually have DOORS that the attackers have to break and can't just rush in. The same in a entire world-pvp zone that they are adding in, in which there will be keeps to take and defend in the world. This is a promising world-pvp setup, earlier all world pvp ideas that have been implemented are all just in zones that people go to in order to quest or grind, not to PvP, but anyone who comes to this zone will be for PvP only, and if there are people there, there will always be a constant supply of PvP. It also brings in to relief which many have felt killed a lot of the fun in WoW.. X realm Bg's.. In the world PvP zone.. It will be from the same server, and have the same people every time. Unlike in BG's where you see a new set of people every game, here people will be recognized, and groups of players will be known. Every server had their own kickass PvP guild before X-realm BG's that everyone knew they were going to lose to when they saw the opponents roster fill up with them. It will be the same in here. Killing people you know is always more fun than killing randoms.






RAMBLE RAMBLE RAMBLE

Outlands, Ahoy!!

Level 61.. 1 20 hours played.


I don't think I'll beat athene's crazy time... But not bad for one who wasn't trying to.

How did I do it you ask? It is actually extremely easy...


As you probably have read.. Blizzard implemented a new system with the recruit a friend function.

Here are the benefits of it.

3x bonus XP on mobs and quests
You can summon eachother anywhere on an hour cooldown.
Every 2 levels the referee gets, he can grant one level to a lower level character of the referer.

These benefits only work to level 60.


So I leveled with my brother's druid all the way to 60, and in a group with the bonus experience we actually got MORE experience per mob than when we solo. The main trick we did though was to give me all the gather quests and not have him take them.. So that speeds us up. Doing this makes me pass him in experience... So every time he falls behind I grant him a level. And then once I hit 59, I gave the rest of my levels to a level one character he made so that they wouldn't be wasted when I hit 60 and they dissapear. Free level 18 woo..

I haven't ever mentioned my brother before.. He is my older brother and he is just as competent as I. I convinced him to go a druid so we can do 2v2, and I do not forsee us having any problems getting gladiator at least.. Probably more.



And he wont dump me like my last druid did for a warrior!

"Suspected Exploitation"

Ye Gods!

Blizzard gave me a 3 day ban for playing too much!

I would honestly be pissed if I didn't find that so damn funny.



Suspected exploitation is when they dish out temporary bans for people who level really fast because they think they are powerleveling..

They underestimated the speed in which a determined hunter can stay in the forest... Killing boars!

Leveling

The biggest chore.. Aint it?

A leveling guide can make it extremely easier. I am using a free one at http://www.wow-pro.com/leveling_guides/jame%2526%2523039%3Bs_alliance_leveling_guide_-_chapter_i_%2830-41%29 Not only is it more efficient, it keeps you on track, which is most important. You never are wondering where to go, it tells you.

It helps a whole lot

wri/sts

I keep pressing f11 for my multishot.. but nothing is happening!!


Auuugghhh!! too low level! I feel unclean.

Wotlk Talents

MM talents:

First, its obvious what there strategy is here. None of the early BM or SV talents have more than one change, but MM is packed with them. This is because every hunter specs at least into lethal shots for MM, unless they are retarded. No one goes only 10 points into BM.

Improved concussive shot
Increasing the length on concussive shot can be good, and it would help with steady shot and its ability to do more damage versus dazed targets, especially with new talents that improve steady shot, but personally I prefer the old way with the stun. Even at a only 1/5 chance of it landing, it saved the life of me and my arena partner numerous times. Now I lose the one stun my class had.

Improved hunters mark

Yay, it wont be dispelled (Which is good for masking traps and what not)... However this talent is barely used in PvP anyways.. so much better things to spend on.

Focused aim

Yes. It was needed very badly. It is however a shame you have to spend 3 points in it, but I would have to spend those points to get to scatter shot anyways.

Careful aim

Very good that they moved it down, now basically every hunter with half a brain will have that extra AP bonus.
Concussive Barrage
They added the effect to volley too... I heard in wotlk volley also doesn't suck. That remains to be seen.

Piercing shots

Was definatley needed for a long time. It remains to be seen how much 6% will actually help.

Improved steady shot

Looks good, but it requires too much standing still to make use of it. Mostly PvE talent.

Wild Quiver

Unreliable. It's basically just there for that extra kick now and then, however it can be useful. Not something you want to be counting on in PvP. A good dps boost talent for PvE.

Chimera Shot

Yay, you can do 300 extra damage on serpent sting (Versus people who likely have 20000 hp in Wotlk) or you can get some mana back, provided neither are dispelled after the first tick anyways. Is this worth it for going 51 points in MM? This has Blizzards trademark FAIL all over it.

Survival Talents

Improved tracking

Yay.

Improved Feign Death

Uh... I guess it could be useful in PvE situations right before a boss does some large AoE attack, for example when doomwalker does his earthquake, but in PvP it seems rather silly. Yay, you do less damage to me! but wait.. I do 100% less damage to you! Maybe run around a corner and feign while dots are on you? Talent still a worth of points IMO

Master Tactician

Yes! Now everyone can not spec into it!

Potent Venom

I, Personally, remove any dot on the target ASAP with scorpid so it doesn't break CC. I see this talent having close to no use in PvP, but in PvE its a constant DPS increase as well as a mana efficiency talent. Good for PvE.

Point of no Escape

Every SV hunter wants one thing most: Their high critical chance to actually work on that aimed shot that goes off on the helpless, trapped, fellow, you can even keep up the bonus while kiting around a frost trap. This is a good talent for PvP. The frost trap can even give you some benefits of it in PvE, however the bosses would be immune to the slow anyways...

Sniper Training

A good, all-around talent. Im pretty sure kill shot is that ranged execute we thought we were getting in BC, and it will be a very useful skill to have. You get the extra punch to finish someone off (Because by that time they are usually humping your leg with their axe, and you need to put them down) and you get a nice boost for PvE damage too. This talent will probably be nerfed by the duel zone radius however..

Hunting Party

Totally PvE, and probably limited use in PvP, because you would most likely be spending the points elsewhere, such on MM to get to the famous scattershot which is essential for a SV/MM build.

Explosive Shot

Remains to be seen how good this will be. Looks like it might be annoying in breaking CC with a dot that will probably be as useful as the fire traps dot, and the aoe will probably be just as useless as well.

Well.. Less useless than volley...

Just as at 70, getting this talent means you can't get scatter shot. Scatter shot we all know is an extremely good skill in PvP, and even if you only kill scripted mobs and never fight in PvP, scatter shot can save lives there too. Unless this skill does a lot of damage, I don't see a future in it.

BM

LolBM.

Specs

I probably would go something like:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=cZfeV0 ... iohfqIo0uh

Basically the same as my old WS/SS build, except now I got more points to put in readiness and the new SV toys. There are quite a few variant of this avaliable.. Just like the old one where you can put points in different spots.. Maybe you want improved stings instead of a bit more AP... Maybe you want a bit more damage instead of lower trap cooldown.. all can be done.

What I DON'T see

Is what we still need.

All I really see is more damage. More crit, which will probably be worthless when everyone has 900 resilience and 20k hp in season 6. We get a bit more AP for everyone who wasn't already MM, but it still won't be much. Hunters needed more survivability. Damage improvements were meager at best. Mana reduction talents are worthless when our class needs focus, not mana. We need something that removes negative effects on us. Some way to escape snare. I don't think Blizzard has learned anything and one thing we really need won't be changed. Itemization. Our gear will stay the same as it is right now, and as we level to 80 we will slowly fall behind as everyone else pushes ahead. Being level 80 will just make hunters have a larger gap inbetween them and everyone else.

What happened to camoflauge? I heard it was a super hunter skill we got in wotlk, basically the same as vanish, but now we don't get it anymore? Coulda seen it coming.


Pet talents on the other hand look amazing.
All pets get the 30% run speed increase. Finally. It made no sense that anyone with a run speed enchant could outrun my tiger.

Pet reincarnation? Yeah, I'm down with that.

Pet roots/snares? Why have we had to wait this long?

I am getting a crab, and naming him CitizenSnips.

Okay...

Well... So.. I've been playing conan. I just hit 80 and because of the early release on the game due to their budget problems, it has no end game yet. That leaves me bored. Unfortunatley, boredom leads to WoW, since WoW is "Lack of a better idea".
At least if it takes control over me I know I can quit, I did once.

I sold my account, so I'm rerolling Dwarf on Dragonblight with Alumatine. I was a bit upset that it was a PvE server, but world PvP is dead anyways so in the long run it doesn't make any difference. I can expect to make movies of killing people in greens once I hit 70.

Unfortunatley, some untraceable fanboy already stole my name here, so I had to name myself ßandet.

But, It feels so damn good to be back in the saddle. I don't know how long that feeling will last.

Blizzard Continues to Fail

Yes, despite the obvious, what particular thing has Blizzard failed at recently?

The s4 hunter-only axe

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35110

Apparently, Blizzard listens to the whines of every other class that complained about us getting a "Free Weapon" when in reality they know absolutely nothing about the hunter class or how useful our "Stat-Stick" is.

So, the primary gripe from season 3 on the hunters PoV was the lack of agility. Why would a hunter-only weapon have no agility? Everyone knows Agility is -THE- primary hunter stat. We said this multiple times to them, and apparently they didn't listen. The new s4 one-hander Still has no agility on it.

Also, notice how it is "Main Hand" meaning that we will also have to buy an off-hand weapon at full price and at arena rating. They listen to the people who complained about hunters actually having something fair for once, and we got it taken away.

At least the gun looks cool..

Rock Paper Scissors

The outcome of a 10 hour long 2v2 determined by rock paper scissors.


http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/4601/omgitsover1cu1.jpg


I don't know how they sat there for 10 minutes, or how the rogue priest never actually won the fight (I guess they did nerf mana drains..) but god damn..


Guess they got bored after their gear started to break and did a gm petition..









Waiting for the GM petition was probably the last 5 hours of the game.

Megatf quits

A sad day indeed.

Megatf was not a survivalist, but he was one to be remembered. His strategy guides are the basis of hunters in arenas.

So long to the top rated hunter in all three brackets, and helpful chap.

May he hopefully play Warhammer upon release.

Seriously.

WoW is now trash.

Hunters are a complete waste, I'm done with this game.

I just can't stand playing twice as hard as everyone else anymore.

Peace.

~Megatf

Why?

One of the most enjoyable things you will experience as a Survivalist would be the sensation of pummeling those noob rogues into the ground with your s3 axe.

When the inevitable noob rogue complains that you are running like a panzy and not standing and fighting (lol?) it is really funny to just destroy them melee, because the type of person that makes that comment somehow assumes they are far better than anyone else, yet everyone else knows they aren't....

It is great to see their reactions afterwards. My personal favorite is the ones who insist that after I meleed them, I was still running around him like a panzy and should stand still... I mean come on... He is demanding that I not only not kite him, that I stand still and auto attack him...


I guess now I know how people can be in the 800's rating.

(World/BG)

Alright you have heard enough about arenas, methinks. Let us talk about other PvP that is outside of the arena, because they are indeed very, very different.

We have already talked about how you should improvise and not let them lead the fight, but instead be unpredictable and confuse them, and take control yourself, and they will become lost. Here I can tell you how to use some of your various survival talents to do this.

The basic strategy you will live by is this: Get off as many aimed shots as you can. Because it is not a matter of IF you crit, only when.
That does NOT mean get off as many as possible. As many as you can. You need to know when you can and cant shoot one, otherwise it will be very wasteful. You should probably know what happens if you try to aimshot while something is attacking you.

Spec

First of all, your spec should be different for arenas and general PvP. A Basic spec would be something like 0/24/37
Now, keep in mind that you can mix and match a lot...
Don't like rapid killing and go for the throat? Get improved arcane or efficiency.
Don't like barrage? You can put it in trap skills.
Don't want EW? You can get more support skills.

A lot of people ask me why I spec into savage strikes, a seemingly useless talent. Do I really have a reason? No. I mostly do it for the lulz.

Readiness, Scattershot, and you.

Some people might comment that you are not actually a survival hunter because of the lack of readiness. You would probably agree with me in calling that person a moron for more reasons than I would bother to name.
Why don't we have Readiness?
Scattershot.
Scattershot is probably the single best talent for a hunter in the game. It is a quick 30 second cooldown, a nifty 4 second disorient, and can be used in melee range. Every hunter who is not BM has this usually in place of a OH S@#T! button. Many people would choose not to go BM because they would miss this talent. Scattershot most often is used to get the target to stay still long enough for a trap to take effect after the arming timer. Most hunters rely on this too much, and consequently cannot use the shot to interrupt casts or stop the target, but basically use it as a freezing trap. You should learn to instead lure them to the trap, thus saving your scattershot for a rainy day when everything else is on cooldown.
The second purpose of saving scattershot is using it with aimed shot, so you can get one volley off for each instead of just one on the trap.

Using traps.

Freeze trap is your friend. Duel a warrior and try to see how many times you can possibly get him frozen/wyvernstung just to irritate him. It never gets old. They do share the same DR however, and you need to learn to time them so that you don't get that big fat immune pop up which will really ruin your day. Don't just spam the trap once the CD is up, play it smart. Use the traps not just to CC them, but to stop them from doing other things. Either have a cooldown timer for your enemies or do it by memory. Put a trap down when a warrior is about to intercept or a mage is about to blink. Also, know which traps to use. Freeze is not the best for everyone. Snake trap shamans and paladins so you can viper sting them. Don't use a freezing versus a warlock, because the failhunter will just resist it while its humping your leg, instead use a snake trap and it will shoot ranged mind numbing onto the warlock.


I'll post more later... Bandet out

Concering my Movies

You have probably seen the various links to my movies throughout the site. I use them as references so people can visually see and watch the acts being performed. There is something you need to know about them however...

As I have stated in the warcraftmovies description of them, I make the movies to be entertaining, not to show skill. You have read how I try to promote survival, and these movies were part of that. I do not try to show off in my movies, I just try to make survival look fun so people will try it themselves.

Why don't I show arena clips? They are boring. It would be even more boring showing a survival hunter in 2v2. You have read the strategies, how you basically run around for 30 minutes not doing any damage.. Honestly, that might indeed show skill but It would be extremely boring. The majority of my fights are over 12 minutes long, and most of my movies are under 10 minutes long. A lot of times it might show me fighting undergeared opponents, but its all for the effect. I never stage any fights (Except for the very last one in Once Was Horde, but that fight was epic... mostly because it was staged, it is obvious to see why it was needed to be staged though) and they are on the spot.

Just something I thought you should know about my movies, since more often than not you will watch at least one of them to see a trick in action.

Tips & Tricks (Nightelf)

Oops, forgot this one in Engineering!

Nigh Invulnerability Belt is very very useful. Pop it and you get a shield, meaning no casting interruption, which means you can get of aimed shots/steady shots while you are being attacked. Normally it isn't a good idea for hunters to cast these spells while under attack, but using this belt can up your damage significantly. Plus you get 4000 damage shield!

Nightelf

Long have we Night Elves been scarred by the despicable "XxLeGollaSsXx"! We have been scorned for huntardation and uselessness. Our racials have been discriminated against, and we as a whole are discriminated against!

But fear not! Night Elves racials are very useful, you just need to know what to do!
Most people go into a fight trying to predict what everyones moves will be and how they will counter it. I have explained how you should not do this, and instead try to disorient them so that their plans crash and burn, and then they become confused and have slow reactions and you can pull ahead. This is the key to being a great hunter. Using shadowmeld can be one of many tips in your disorientation war.

Feign + shadowmeld
You probably know this one, but doing this can lead to the possibility of other tricks.

The wing clip trick. I showed this three times in Thrill of The Hunt. Basically, what you do is feign + Shadowmeld, wait for the melee class to get close, run at him and hit wingclip as you pass.
What this does:
You can successfully slow them without giving them the chance to target/slow you. This can be very effective versus a rogue and warrior, but usually the warrior will just intercept you shortly after. Time it right. Sadly, the trick failed in my movie from them dodging or parrying or me running the wrong way. Unlucky =/

Shadowmeld + Eat/drink.

This one is extremely effective in arenas and bg's. More than once I have done this when at 100 hp in the middle of a 6v6 or more in a BG, and managed to eat/drink to full w/o anyone the wiser. In arenas it can help you get that extra 10 seconds of drinking you need. I do this often in duels, trapping someone and then drinking/eating. You can see it a few times in Thrill of The Hunt.

If you know a warrior is going to intercept you, you can Shadowmeld a second or so before his cooldown is up, perhaps buying you those last 5-10 seconds in which you need for your scattershot/trap or Wyvernsting cooldown to be back up and run out of their charge range, shadowmeld can also be used in general to prevent damage while waiting a short time for cooldowns to be up.

Round the corners

Using shadowmeld is awesome when you run around a corner. They will keep running and you can go the other way. I showed this in Bandet-2. Usually it won't have much use, but if you do it in the right situation it can greatly disorient the opponent. Confusing them for a second can win the fight.

It was also useful to feign and shadowmeld while a mage was in your deadzone. It could give you a few seconds that you need for frost nova to wear off, but this isn't as useful anymore now that we don't have the deadzone.

Tips & Tricks! (Engineering)

Alright now that I finished the basic arena perspective, I get to move on to fun stuff!
Most of these will be little tricks you can do to disorient someone or stop them. Not all of it revolves around the survival tree, but more of hunters in general. Combine them with the survival talents and you got yourself a hunter that is a bitch to kill!
All the more power to you if you already know these tips, but I'm sure that many people do not so I'll tell them.

First on the list Engineering

Probably not many of you are engineers, and that is fine since engineering blows now, and most of the stuff doesn't work in arenas, but nonetheless these are funny tricks that I love.

My all time favorite (Night Elf):
Get your Gnomish Cloaking Device and pair it up with Shadowmeld. When they see you and start coming, stealth, and then pop the cloaking device and run behind them. It lasts 10 seconds, and the cooldown is 10 seconds on shadowmeld. You have a second of lag while turning visible again and its rather easy to re-shadowmeld in a different location. MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE YOUR PET ON STAY OR IT WILL GIVE AWAY YOUR TRICK!! And after you relocate, be sure to put on a new trinket for DPS The common stereotype for Night Elves goes something like this:

Lol idiot huntard. Like I don't know where you went. What a stupid racial.. Now I can just take my time walking up to him...

But after using your cloaking device it goes something like this

Lol idiot huntard. Like I don't know where you went. What a stupid racial.. Now I can just take my time walking up to him...
*Blink*
*FROST NOVA*
WTF.. must have missed him
*Arcane explosion spam*
*Aimed shot in the ass, multishot, arcane, auto*
OUCH WTF WHERE DID THAT COME FROM

More than once I have been called a hacker doing this, it is extremely funny. The best part is you get range on a Mage and he has blink on CD as well as Frost Nova. This trick works well on any class, because you get to have the jump on them without them knowing where you are, but not quite as effective as on the Mage. Only downside is that it has an hour long cooldown.

Reflectors

These were so much more fun back in the day... They now nerfed the shit out of them and they have a 50% failure rate. However, out of all the wasted attempts, and all the pain and suffering of enduring the terrible profession that is engineering, the ONE time you reflect an AP POM Pyro is all worth it. I guarantee you will be pleased with this result. It is very difficult to do however, because you have to activate it before they shoot the spell, and the reflection effect only lasts 5 seconds. You will not have more than a split second to get it off after you see the lightning on their hands, and you will fail many many times.. but you will get one eventually, and it will all be worth it. If you can get it on fraps, bonus points. I show it happening once in Once Was Horde, one of my movies, and I wish I could have gotten that clip of when there was two macro mages in this 3v3... I could not stop laughing for 4 minutes.

Shadow reflector!
Yay! We all hate warlocks! Here is a nifty trick that you can only do as Survival with a shadow reflector that if it succeeds will almost always guarantee victory. It is really quite simple.. First Wyvern sting the warlock, then just prepare to do your volley, starting with Aimed Shot. Once the shot gets off, click your reflector, and proceed to continue the volley. I swear, 90% of the time every warlock is sitting there spamming skillcoil while they are CC'd.. so damn predictable.
Unfortunately, this trick works a lot less often than it used to. With reflectors success rate at 50%, and everyone having trinkets to get out of CC it isn't as guaranteed as it used to be, but the one time it happens you will love it. I show doing this strategy twice, once in my movie Bandet-2 versus a gladiator warlock, and once in Thrill of The Hunt Also, reflecting fear is a good alternative.

Grenades!
Ah yes, we all love grenades! They are kind of expensive now, but they can be great fun. If you want to go classy, you can go get some arcane crystals from thorium veins, they drop rather easily now, and make some arcane bombs. Drains 1k mana, 500 damage, and a 5 second silence. Gotta love it. Usually however I am stuck with the Adamantite grenade. Note: Use grenades, NOT bombs. You cannot move when casting a bomb, but you can move when casting a grenade. It was a very useful trick to toss a bomb when you were frost nova'd and in your deadzone, but that isn't as useful now when you can just reptar strike them in the face, however you could do it when your reptar strike is on cooldown.. Usually I use them in place of scattershot. In Thrill of The Hunt I show using them versus mages. In one scene, the mage resists my freezing trap after I scattered him over it, so I just lobbed a grenade at him and then Aimed shotted. You can also use your grenades to get off Aimed shots, the casting time is short enough to permit it now, especially when you pop rapid fire. In another scene, I show using it in place of a scatter shot when it was on cooldown to scatter trap someone. Or you can simply use it to interrupt casts.

Sapper charges
A not exactly useful tip, but very funny. Run up to someone in town and scream "ALLAHU ACKBAR" and then trigger a sapper charge and feign death. Looks excellent and you will atleast get a few lulz.

5v5

Okay we are at 5v5s now.. You probably already know how different all the brackets are.. 5v5 is just proof here.

Survival is not nearly as effective in a 5v5 as a 3v3 or 2v2. I highly recommend marksmanship over SV in 5v5. Why?

Survival has two purposes, high dps & raid buffs, or control. You cannot bother trying to control a 5v5, thats more of a warlocks job... 5v5 more resembles a battleground where you have a few people fighting, and you on the outskirts tossing some arrows. Your cc is mostly useless, with usually 2 or sometimes 3 different classes that can cleanse it, and as a control SV build you cannot hope to do damage.

As a damage build in 5v5, we all know SV gets its DPS from agility. You cannot have the amount of DPS that a marksman has without making some big health/resilience sacrifices. You can't sacrifice that in a 5v5, people can get bursted down too easily. As I said before, resilience gear gives ap and crit, stats a Marksman can use, but not so much a Survivalist.

I'm sure most of you know Megatf, a hunter known for having the highest rating in all three brackets. He made a discussion post of this very topic (Don't mind the lulz, was blizzards annoying april fools joke..):

Warrior
Rogue
Hunter
Druid
Priest

Warrior-Standard Mace Stun Warrior
Rogue-ShadowStep
Hunter-Survival (Give me a sec to explain why)
Druid-Cyclone + NS
Priest-Pain Suppression, Dispel, Mass Dispel .

Double Traps
Double Wyvern Sting
Expose Weakness

Couple 3 player's with 800 armor penetration, expose armor, sunder armor, and expose weakness on a cloth target kekeke.

Expose Weakness increases the Attack Power of all attackers against that target by 25% of your agility for 7 sec.

Couple that with 2 Wyvern Stings you can use offensively to coordinate kill shots, force healers to trinket early to leave them open for cyclones, and 2 AoE slows you can use simultaneously with each other offensively and defensively lmao.

Your role would be more difficult than any other makeup, BUT imo. lolcats. I lol'd IRL. would offer the most utility, and viability over other setups .

With Thrill of the Hunt you might even be able to use Aspect of the Hawk for a long time in the beginning to put serious pressure out on people, you will be rocking at least 40% in full S3 lol.

I have 36% crit with my dwarf with the 2 hander's and 35% with the 1 hander's rofl.

I could easily break over 40% with him as a Survival Spec I lol'd IRL.

Priest dispels on the target to clean buffs, mass dispel for iceblock, bop, cyclone's, wyvern stings which will be really useful since you have no CC's that break instantly on dot damage so the 1200 damage done after wyvern wears off or is trinketed will have no affect on future CC's is just amazing I think for offensive pressure I lol'd IRL.

Anyway, what do YOU guys think ?

I need to assemble good player's lmao. But I want to seriously run this combo lolwut.

Going to run this setup tonite.

Basically he was debating that using SV to give his arena partners buffs can be useful in a 5v5. I explained that that a MM build would be better because their buff is constant, and the SV buff would only be slightly better, and only active on criticals of one target.

If you get enough agility on your gear to make 600 w/ LR, you will be lacking in resilience, and that is not good since most often a hunter would be a 1st target in 5's

600 agi would give 150 ap on EW.

Trueshot aura would have 125 AP permanently, also allowing you to gear more stam/resilience. EW only works when you crit and only for several seconds afterwards. TSA is always up and not on only one target, so they get the benefit when you are kiting, trapping, etc.

I had roughly 560 agi as SV spec when I was in full pvp gear .

SV is not for damage buff in arenas. SV is for 2v2 and 3v3 specced for controlling the fight, and for having over 1000 agility in raids to give a nice buff. MM is better for 5v5.

Not much more needs to be said. I recommend that fellow survivalists avoid 5v5 or respec MM.

3v3

3v3 is great for survival. Get the right combo and you will love it. There is far less pressure on you. 3v3 is by far my favorite bracket, but I did get gladiator in 2v2, not 3v3.

Basically, in 3v3 you get to play the biased referee. You run around and control the fight. Usually you will have a melee dps and a healer. I have done warrior/hunter/paladin pretty well. Basically in 3v3 the strategy is the exact same as 2v2, except there is someone else that can dps for you. You just keep their dps in the frost and off your healer. You run around putting MS up to help your dpser, and draining their healer. Your goal is to control the fight. Keep them from CCing your DPS, the DPS keeps their healer occupied by healing the DPS's target. They will run out of mana sooner rather than later, and then it is a walk in the park. Sometimes they might try to focus you, which usually doesn't work because it doesn't stop the fight. You just keep moving around over the frost, while your viper sting is still on the healer, and your dps gets to go crazy.

If they have a mage, shadow priest, or hunter you really want to drain them before you start draining the healer, same in 2v2, except in 2v2 if they have a healer and a mage or shadow priest, its pretty much a walk in the park. Draining them should be very fast and will cut their dps in half, also preventing them from mana draining your healer. Keep pets off your healer, with 2 dps the pets usually can die pretty fast, allowing your parched teammate to get the water he oh so wants. With a warrior paladin hunter combo, enemy druids are simply a matter of judgement of justice and a warriors fist, and they cannot escape. Don't neglect scare beast, far too many people do and it is a very valuable CC.

2v2

Lets talk about 2v2.

First off what partner?

I have tried with a paladin/priest/warrior/warlock/druid/spriest
I have not tried shaman, but if you speak chinese you can use Goodoopile's guide on how to do that. Just find a Murtdragon.

I started getting good ratings when I went hunter/druid. My druid partner was Albis, a very talented mage. In this situation, it was easy, he could basically take care of himself and I never had to worry. The only problem was It took forever, each fight was usually 30-40 minutes. He eventually went warrior druid when we were around 2k, and a disc priest named Velia paired up with me.

The fights were indeed harder, but they were shorter. At times, it seemed like Velia did more damage with his smite than I did at all. More than one time he managed to burst down warriors while his druid wasn't looking. He also had mana burn, and that sped the process up, but the priest cannot protect himself. Unlike with a druid, I ended up having to protect the priest. My whole strategy would revolve around keeping the melee off of Velia while I drained. Survival was EXTREMELY helpful here. I could have two frost traps down, one on each side of the pillar, with entrapment. I had scattershot and Wyvernsting. More than once improved concussive shot saved Velia's life. Wyvernsting acted as an instant GTFO MY HEALER button.

In the end, I would defenatley say that druid/hunter is easier than priest/hunter. Druids are OP.

You can take a look here at my usual arena spec 0/26/35 to see what I mean about sacrificing damage. Notice how I avoid humanoid slaying, EW, Survival Instincts, barrage? I also have other talents: Traps, deterrence, improved stings(Also works on wyvern sting, can resist dispels), counterattack, improved wing clip, and theres a pattern through it all. The critical strike, not damage talents are all taken.

One thing about the honor gear that doesn't add agility is that it does add critical strike chance, a lot of it. You will have a lot of crit and your dps will come from that.

The goal here however, is to not DPS at all. You want to keep the enemy in control and out of commission. Your pet is essential to keeping the healer in combat, but it is unreliable. I would recommend maxing out its nature resistance and its armor. Druids like to sleep/cyclone/root it and the resistance helps a lot. It is very easy for a druid to get around a pet, seeing as how they can just run away from it and be faster, especially in blades edge where your pet wont follow it off the side, any healer can do that extremely easy. You cannot just leave your pet on the healer and ignore where he goes.

Smart teams will often kill the pet first, and you need it badly versus warrior druid teams. It will die very fast, having no resilience and low hp. Unlike a warlock, it is hard for us to revive. It is a 10 second cast and costs half our mana. Dismissing your pet while a warrior is on it can help, but then he gets angry and starts to beat on you with his winherald =/ Make sure your partner knows to keep your pet alive at all times.

Now when I say no dps, I don't really mean none. What I mean is don't try to kill anyone. You can shoot and attack, just don't keep it up or you run oom very fast.

When they do run out of mana, you can dps them down. Once they are oom it is generallly a good idea to try to get a good drink off and get to full before you start to dps, because the last thing you want to do is run oom while he is at 5% life. Viper sting owns here because it keeps the healer oom and from getting just enough mana to heal. Make sure your healer, whatever it may be, uses any interrupts it has on the healer. My priest usually would help me dps the target, especially if it's a warrior because I can hardly hurt the armor. You will do low damage, but you will crit. It won't take too long for the target to die once his healer is out.

Versus double DPS teams

Longer is better. You want to drag these fights as long as you can. They want it to end in 20 seconds, because they know their weakness. They will have extreme burst damage and well placed cc's which your healer will not be able to outheal. Paladins are great for these teams, as are druids because they will never die in a hurry and can get you out of trouble. When you are with a priest, they will usually go for him first and your only real hope besides wyvern sting (Which they will trinket out of) is to kill one fast. Your critical chance can help this, and you can dps all you want since they have no healer. This however, is a last resort strategy.

You want to play the pillar game. You can oom their dps and make it much, much easier on yourself. Every point of damage you do they will never get back, it is a timed fight. Continue to run around in circles, ABOVE ALL ELSE AVOIDING LOS! Their ranged dpsers will hurt, and the other one will generally lock you down so you can't move. Once one is out of mana, its a walk in the park. Come out of the pillars and just destroy them. A good idea is to remain on your mounts, most often than not one will be a rogue and if you can get away from them at the start it makes it so much easier, since it is very hard to get off of a rogue these days. Double rogue is almost never seen at high ratings, but if they pull it right it can be an extreme bitch.

Arenas

Alright I have basically described a general hunter strategy in the world PvP.. but here is where it all changes: In the arena.

First off, lets talk about the arena. We all know that to most of us it ruins the hunter class. We are basically fighting against the very geometry of the system much less than our opponents, and it seems like we have been taking out of a kiting environment that we have been built for and have been like a child tossed into a pit with a rabid boar.

Basically, If you choose to be a survivalist in the arena, unless you can get it down well, it will be simply hinder you.

First, if you recall the gear discussion, you will see how the very gear is weighted against us. With items like Vindicator's Band of Triumph it is easy to see why. Do you notice something about that item? It has no agility.

Agility is the key stat for survival.

To live in arenas, you need resilience. To be survival, you need agility. You cannot have both. You can either sacrifice your health, or sacrifice your damage.

To sacrifice your health in arenas, you can put out some decent damage. When I am helping some one's 5v5 or 3v3 I usually just roll in my PvE gear & spec because the competition at those ratings tend to be fairly easy, and I just kill things extremely fast. In a higher rating, this strategy does not work. We have all seen how blizzard is eliminating being able to burst someone down. They do not want 30 second arena matches, they want 10 minute ones. Games of efficiency and tactics.


So in order to succeed you will need to sacrifice your damage, and here is where the play style changes. Hunters have always been about high burst and top damage, now it is about doing near zero damage, while attempting to take none.

World PvP

World PvP

At last PvP! World PvP is mostly being ganked/ganking. Survival hunters can dominate this field easily. You start out with the normal Aimed/Multi/Arcane volley, and they hit your trap for the second one like a MM would, but after the second volley, you have Wyvern sting for a third one! Also, wyvern sting lets you sleep someone, feign and mount away to safety when you don’t feel in the mood for PvP.

In world PvP, you generally won’t be using frost traps. It is mostly snakes and freezing, which makes entrapment pretty useless. Why would you want to immobilize the guy who is cc'd anyways?

My real goal is not to teach how to kill each class, but how to improvise and you can find out yourself the best way to kill each class. I can give examples of things I have done, but in general I don't have any strategies.

Be an ass.
That is what survival is good at. Your abnormally high crit chance will guarantee many aimed shots to hit home. Your original volley of shots (Aimed, Multi, Arcane, Auto) is extremely lethal, especially if they all crit. (You will start to see this regularly).
The ultimate goal is to incapacitate people so you can get this volley off multiple times.

Think of it. In the world, people generally don't wear their PvP trinkets. You can sneak up behind someone, unload the first volley, Wyvern sting, second volley, and if they are still alive after that you can remove the dot with scorpid and put a freezing trap at your feet, and you already have your volley #3 lined up, and you haven't taken any damage.

The most upsetting part of world PvP is when you kill someone with your initial volley. You will love yourself the first time you do it, but after about the 30th time, the effect wears off. Especially when you are trying to fraps for a PvP movie...


Other times, either when they use a racial to remove wyvern sting, or they do actually have a trinket on, or of course the inevitable stealthed rogue hiding right next to him... Survival can accommodate. The thing about survival is its flexibility. Survival is good for getting out of sticky situations, where as MM or BM cannot. You can either attempt to CC two people, scatter the third and peace out with cheetah, or feign mount. Probably won't have that chance with MM. Or, you can CC two people, completely destroy one person with your incredible burst damage with everything critting, killing him instantly, and then doing that twice more. That one happens rarely, unfortunately.


Thats they key to being powerful in survival. Improvising. You can theorycraft as much as you want, but it never, ever, goes as planned. You need to be able to think on your feet and fight without a plan. Survival gives you toys to help in this. You live longer, you can maintain the same damage as standing still and unloading with a few well placed crits, or you can use wyvern sting as a "Pause" button if you want to take a break and think it through. Planning never works, except when I use my shadow reflector on warlocks.. but that is a different story.

PvE

There isn't really more than needs to be said that can't be found at nightdrifter.com, Alumatine's site. I try to focus on the actual "Gameplay" of survival, since all the rest of the work has been done.

Most people miss the point of survival. They think they should play it the same as MM, but that is not true.

Gearz

“Why is survival gear dependant?”

Lightning reflexes, mostly. It is said the magic number for going survival is 600 agility. That simply means at 600 agility you will get more DPS benefit from survival than marksmanship. So why isn’t everyone survival once they hit 600 agility? Because in PvE, you only want one SV hunter, and in PvP, survival is different, and most say, harder to play.
So basically, if you don’t have gear, survival will suck?

Yes.

In PvE, you want to get every bit of agility you can for maximum Expose Weakness output, if you want the maximum raid buff. If you want to top DPS as survival, a very feasible venture, you should consider a more balanced approach, after all, the more Agility you have, the more DPS everyone else will do! ;)

In PvP, you want to balance agility, crit rating, and stamina. We don’t want no glass cannons in survival. Use PvE agility jewlry/cloak pieces for PvP, as well as the 5 pc arena set and the honor bracers/belt/boots. Use every piece of PvP gear for arenas. Yes, that kills your agility to around 575, but you don’t want DPS for Arenas. I will explain why later. Remember, survival’s dps is based on critting, but you do NOT stack crit, that leads to weak attacks.

When will you get this gear? Most likely, your gear will not be good enough for survival in just kara or pre-kara gear. Try on some of the arena gear in spots where you cannot otherwise fill with an ample piece. Also, don’t be afraid to ninja rogue leather. They tend to have better stats for survival than mail.

How to socket?

Agility. Put a agility gem every where you can find a hole, and only use other gems to meet the meta requirement of a 12 agi 3% crit damage meta, which you will have.

Where do I find this gear?

Lucky me, Fellow survivalists have been working long and hard at this ultimate question. I do not think I could find a more complete list than.Alumatine's Listings.

Talents.

Over the years, Survival has had a very negative perspective. It has too long been the “Worse” spec, and has too long been treated as such. If you know me, you know I constantly support the survival spec and help anyone who asks about how to play with it.
Back when WoW was new, survival WAS the crappy spec. It was that way for so long, people got used to it being the “crappy” spec. It is no longer, and it is up to us to show fledging survivalists their path.

I will be going over Survival aspects only. If you want a full hunter guide, I’m WAAYY too lazy.

Notice how I refer to Arena PvP and PvP as different things, you will see why later.

1. Talents

Ah yes, what to choose, what to choose? Before deciding what talent spec you want to go with, let us first go over each talent so we can have a better understanding of Survivalism.


Monster/Humanoid slaying
Increases damage and critical strike damage versus said target types.
First off, it is confirmed that humanoid slaying DOES indeed work in PvP.
Monster slaying is obviously purely PvE talent; Humanoid slaying is good for both. I would not recommend humanoid slaying for Arenas. (See arena PvP for explanation)

Hawk Eye
Increases range by 2/4/6 yards.
This obviously has its uses in PvE, however it is not required. It can give you that extra bit of range to avoid crucial AoE effects. PvP it gives you the ability to out range any other class, by a few yards. It is debatable whether it has merit in arenas.

Savage Strikes
Increases Critical strike chance of Mongoose & Raptor strike by 20/40%
It isn’t recommended for PvE, unless you are that “half hand” dwarf hunter.. But you aren’t a melee hunter, are you? This talent received a large indirect buff in 2.3. Due to the removal of the deadzone, other classes would rather take smacks in the face from our overpowered arena axes, rather than our bows. Having this talent can make all the difference versus a mage. I mainly just use it for kicks.

Entrapment
Gives your traps a chance to immobilize the target.
In arena PvP, a lot of MM hunters go into survival for getting this specific talent. This talent is one of the best things we have for arenas, seeing as how useful the frost trap is in an arena setting. This talent, however, is not as useful in world/bg pvp as it is in arena (See world PvP for details)

Deflection
Increases parry chance
Not really worth it for the amount of points required.

Improved wing clip
Gives your wing clip a chance to immobilize the target
This obviously is invaluable in all PvP.

Deterrence
Increases your dodge/parry chance by 25%
This has uses in PvE, but is mostly PvP. In PvE, when your feign inevitabally fails, you pop this and it may save your life. Evasion tank FTW!!!
In PvP, this can be helpful versus melee classes. In arenas it can keep you from getting MS on you, which your healer will love, and it keeps hamstring off of you. It also works quite well versus rogues, but a smart rogue will use a well placed kidney shot to ruin your day.

Clever Traps
Increases duration of your traps/Damage of your traps
Clever traps + Frost trap + pillar = lol
You can also get the longest PvP CC effect in the game with this.

Survivalist
Increases hit points
Obviously very useful in PvP.
In PvE, it isn’t as useful and the talent points can be better spent elsewhere.

Trap Mastery
Decreases chance of trap resist
It is decent for PvE. The one time the raid lead actually wants you to trap something, it would be nice for it to not fail, right? It can also be used in PvP, but trap resists are far less often than in PvE.

Surefooted
Increases hit chance/Increases chance to resist movement impairing effects
If you are going survival, this is a talent you can not pass up. In PvE, it gives you that extra hit %, so you can have more damage gear, and in PvP you can resist the ever hateful Spamstring, Poisons, and frost nova.

Improved feign death
Decreases chance to resist feign death
Lol? No. Points are better spent elsewhere.

Survival Instincts
Increases attack power/reduces damage taken
Very good talent for PvE and PvP, but not as much for arena. (see arena PvP for details)

Killer instinct
Increases critical strike chance
This is another talent you will not pass up.

Counterattack
Can immobilize the target after a successful parry
Pretty much useless in PvE. Can get you out of a sticky situation in PvP. A low % of it happening though, but when you pop deterrence you will get it off.

Resourcefulness
Not very useful for PvE. Decent for PvP if you want that. In arenas it is very useful, having a frost trap on each side of the pillar makes for good dancing.

Lightning reflexes
Increases agility
This is the key talent of survival, and why we need certain gear for it to work. It also was the source of much complaint when they nerfed agility’s AP bonus.
You will get this talent.

Thrill of the Hunt
Gives a % of shot’s mana back on critical
A decent PvE talent, it is debateable whether it is needed, and you may want to put points elsewhere, but it is an open option. You can use it in PvP, but it is not really recommended, nor is it very useful.

Wyvern Sting
Sleeps the target
This is useful in every aspect. It is basically an instant GTFO me button. Has uses for a think fast CC in PvE, and can save a life in PvP

Expose Weakness
Gives a debuff to the target that increases attack power versus it on critical.
This is the main point of PvE viability for a Survival hunter. It gives a raid wide buff, and everyone wants a survival hunter. But they only want ONE, because it doesn’t stack. If you want to be your guilds SV hunter, better stack that agility. In PvP it is debateable whether it is good or not, because most of the time it is just you, and you might want to put those points somewhere else.

Master Tactician and Readiness
Gives a proc to increase critical strike %, and clears all cooldowns
MT is for the most part a useless talent at 5 point requirement. Readiness is good, but no where near the value of Scatter Shot. If you were a PvE only hunter, you MIGHT want it, but I doubt it. Not enough bang for your buck.

Now, where to spend the other points not in survival? MM.
But what about B- no.
Put the points in MM. SV/BM has never been good and probably never will. Plus you get mortal shots, which is a huge boost in damage since survival DPS is based on criticals.
We will go over specific talent specs in later sections.

The Temple of Survivalism

It has been born.

Here is a place where questions can be answered, where tales may be told, and where many survivalists will be born.

What is Survivalism?

Survivalism is a way, a calling. It changes the hunter class completely. Survivalists require completely different gear, they use a very different gameplay, and they should not be classified as the same as a hunter.

What are these differences? Is probably a question you are wondering.

Here, you will learn the differences, and how to become a survivalist.