Survival Hunter Guide for The War Within - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

Last updated Today at 08:18by Azortharion27 comments

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for SurvivalHunter. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everythingyou need to know about the Survival Hunter spec in theforthcoming The War Within expansion, including changes, Hero TalentTrees, and some light predictions on the state of the spec going intothe expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, withregular changes expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This isnot meant to be a launch guide for Survival Hunter, butinstead serves as a resource for you to keep up to date with how thespec is evolving on Beta, and what you can expect from its playstyleand feel on launch.

The Hunter Class Tree has received a substantial rework, with theentirety of the Class Talent Tree as well as all Spec Trees havingbeen redesigned. Below, I have listed some of the most central changesthat will affect your gameplay, decision-making, and power in The WarWithin, with commentary in italics. I have not included everysingle change, particularly not if it has no impact beyond merenumbers.

• Survival of the Fittest is now a 30% baseline damage reduction. Through other talents, it can get a 1.5-minute cooldown, 2 charges, and an 8-second duration. This is a huge boost to Hunter survivability!
• Counter Shot can now, via talents, get a 22-second cooldown, down from 24.
• Tranquilizing Shot can now, via Talents, either remove an additional Magic effect on cast, or have a 5s shorter cooldown if it only removes one Enrage effect.
• Intimidation can now, via Talents, hit up to 2 additional targets for 50% effectiveness.
• Explosive Shot is now placed in the Class Tree in such a way that all Hunter specs will be using it, all the time.
• Feign Death and Aspect of the Turtle can now, via a Talent, remove all Poison and Disease effects from you. This is extremely powerful in some niche scenarios.
• Bursting Shot is now available in the Class Tree.
• Intimidation and Binding Shot can now, via Talents, have their cooldowns reduced significantly via Scrappy.
• Steel Trap and Death Chakram have been removed.
• The new talent, Implosive Trap (choice node with High Explosive Trap) is an AoE knock-up trap that can be used as an AoE stop.
• In additional, several Talents that used to be 2-pointers are now 1-pointers. This means that we can have all of the DPS-related Talents in the Class Tree, and most of the utility without having to choose. There are other changes too, but these are the most important ones.

The Survival Hunter Spec Tree has also been reworkedfrom the ground up. Below, I will list all of the new talents and someinteresting interactions and outcomes from the redesigned layout ofthe Tree.

• Redesigned Talent: Tip of the Spear — Kill Command increases the damage of your nextnon-pet spell by 15%, stacking up to 3 times. You now consume onestack of Tip of the Spear at a time and multiple stacks of Tip of the Spear no longer increase its damage bonus. Thisis basically a new core mechanic of Survival. The goal is to haveevery non-Kill Command ability be affected by Tip of the Spear.
• Redesigned Talent: Flanking Strike — Now replaces Kill Command on every 4th cast, had its range increased to 25yards, and generates 15 Focus.
• Redesigned Talent: Coordinated Assault — It now deals heavydamage on cast, and then increases all the damage of you and your pet by 20%for 20 seconds. Kill Command's reset chance is also increasedby 15%. the choice nodes below it can also cause it to either reduce itscooldown to 1 minute and grant 3 stacks of Tip of the Spear instantly oncast, or increase your Haste, Tip of the Spear generation rate,, and improveTip's damage bonus during it. This means no more pesky Kill Shot and PetBasic Attack Macros.
• New Talent: Grenade Juggler — Wildfire Bombdeals 5% increased damage and has a 25% chance to fire an Explosive Shot, and Explosive Shot reduces thecooldown of Wildfire Bomb by 2 seconds.
• New Talent: Exposed Flank — Your Flanking Strike now strikes 2 additional nearby targets at100% effectiveness, and causes your Kill Command tohit 2 additional nearby enemies for 10 sec.
• New Talent: Merciless Blows — Casting Butchery makes your next Raptor Strike or Mongoose Bite hit up to three nearby targets.
• New Talent: Sic 'Em — Kill Command has a 15%chance to reset the cooldown of Kill Shot and make it usable on anytarget, and strike up to 2 additional targets. This chance is doubled during Coordinated Assault.
• New Choice Node Talent: Relentless Primal Ferocity —While Coordinated Assault is active, Kill Commandgenerates 2 stacks of Tip of the Spear, you gain 10% Haste, and Tip of the Spear's damage bonus is increased by 50%.
• New Talent: Flanker's Advantage — Kill Command has a 10% increased chance toimmediately reset its cooldown, increased by 100% when Kill Command critically strikes a target.
• Wildfire Infusion has been redesigned — Mongoose Bite and Raptor Strike have a 15% chance toreset Kill Command's cooldown. Kill Command reducesthe cooldown of Wildfire Bomb by 2 seconds. This means nomore multi-colored Bombs.
• Redesigned Talent: Spearhead — You and your petcharge your enemy target, applying a heavy bleed that increases yourchance to critically strike them by 30% for 10 seconds.
• Redesigned Talent: Deadly Duo — The cooldown of Spearhead is reduced by 30 seconds and increases yourcritical strike damage against the target by 30% for 10 seconds.
• Mastery: Spirit Bond has been redesigned — You andyour pet deal increased damage and take reduced damage, increased by100% when within 25 yards of each other. There is a 10-second graceperiod on this effect, which lets it persist even if you leave therange of your pet for a few seconds.
• Mongoose Fury now stacks 3 times, and lasts 10 seconds. It also refreshes its duration when it is reapplied. This turns Mongoose Furyinto more of a maintenance buff, and shifts Survival more towards the playstyle of using Kill Command empowers for other abilities as the primary gameplay loop.
• Wildfire Bomb's damage over time effect is now a rollingperiodic. Essentially, this means that back-to-back Wildfire Bombswill not cost you any ticks, as existing DoT ticks get rolled into thenext debuff. This is crucial now that we no longer have multi-coloredBombs.
• Kill Command and Alpha Predator are now Survivaltalents (were Class).
• Bombardier has been redesigned — Casting Coordinated Assault grants 2 charges of Wildfire Bomb.When Coordinated Assault ends, you gain 2 free charges of Explosive Shot.
• Ruthless Marauder has been redesigned — Wildfire Bomb cooldown reduction effect is now 1 second bydefault and no longer is increased by the second talent point.
• Many 2-point talents are now 1 pointers.

Aside from the changes to Survival Hunter's corefeatures, The War Within also has major implications for all specsthanks to the Hero Talent Tree system, new tier sets, and the naturalreduction in secondary stats when entering a new expansion.

Survival Hunter gets to choose between theSentinel and Dark Ranger Hero Talent Trees. In sectionsbelow, we will talk more deeply about the implications of these HeroTalent Trees for the spec, and some thoughts on what looks strong andweak ahead of launch.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Survival Hunter inThe War Within. After the wording of the bonus, you will find a briefnote/commentary that is italicized.

• Hunter Survival 11.0 Class Set 2pc — Wildfire Bomb damage increased by 5%. It is hard toprovide any commentary on this.
• Hunter Survival 11.0 Class Set 4pc — Mongoose Bite/ Raptor Strike deals 10% increaseddamage to targets affected by Wildfire Bomb. With Bombsbeing so plentiful, this will be up for the vast majority of thetime.

Both set bonuses are completely passive and are not expected tohave any gameplay impact.

How Good is the Survival Hunter Tier Bonus in The WarWithin?

The 2-piece bonus is numerically very weak. Even in pure, raw AoEscenarios where Wildfire Bomb damage contribution can exceed 40%, weare still only looking at 2%. On single-target, expect half that, orworse.

The 4-piece bonus is similarly very weak, expected to be 2% onsingle-target at best, and likely worse on AoE.

The total expected value of the Tier Set is around 4%. Overall,this is extremely weak. The damage buffs on offer for some core spellsare simply too low.