10 Quick Survival Lessons
In the words of Ron White, No matter how much you spend, or how hard you try…
I really need to start taking screengrabs of my reactions in guild chat. But here’s a close approximation :
Track : Check it out, just looking at a dual-dagger wielding hunter in Shatt.
Track : man, this guy’s gear is weird, he’s got +strength and +defense rating… I don’t know what he’s thinking… and he has Fiery enchants on daggers.
Guildie : Heh, yeah, just in AV right now.
Track : Let’s see what his spec is…OH GOD, HE’S SURVIVAL
Track : UNCLEAN
Track : UNCLEAN
Guildie : Hey, c’mon, there’s nothing wrong about Survival Hunters
Track : I know – I am one
Track : I have a Survival blog
Track : I still feel dirty by association
What’s worse? Notice that he’s using Threat Reduction trinkets.
YOU HAVE FEIGN DEATH. AND MISDIRECTION. AND DISENGAGE. AND A PET.
YOU DON’T NEED THREAT REDUCTION TRINKETS.
Regardless, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of it, shall we?
10 Lessons you can learn from this guy:
1) Don’t spec Survival without a buttload of agility. 430 is not a buttload.
2) Don’t spec Survival without a buttload of crit. 22% is not a buttload.
22% is barely par for the course.
3) Don’t gem with +strength. Seriously, WTF?
4) Don’t run with Ced’s Carvers. The +crit is nice, but it’s not nearly as worth it as a good +agility weapon.
5) Don’t run with Ced’s Carvers with Fiery enchants on them. If anything, go with Icy Chill.
Fiery is good in Twink brackets, where 40 damage is a big plus.
If you must scrub it up, please, get Icy Chill, even though it procs less, immobilizing somebody is way bigger than dealing a pithy 40 fire damage.
6) Don’t spec for Improved Feign Death when you can get Go For The Crotch Throat. 4% resist is good, but you have traps and Readiness. More than enough compensation.
7) Don’t gem with +Strength. EVER.
8 ) If you are a hunter and you wear a Felsteel Ring, I KEEL YOU.
9) If you are a hunter and you wear a Thick Felsteel Necklace, I KEEL YOU.
10) Never, EVER compensate for your inability to manage threat by using trinkets.
If you can’t manage threat as a Survival Hunter, then I hereby revoke your Hunter License, grab a cup of coffee on your way out, etc. etc.
I need another shower.
-Track
P.S. I’m not re-opening the blog. This was just something that, once again, SOMEBODY will get some use out of. I mean, somebody found my blog by searching “What’s the reason why people hold on to the flag in Warsong Gulch?”.
The answer is, there is no reason. They’re a douche who wants to keep the match going for as long as possible, and frustrate the opposition while their teammates farm honor kills; which is exactly why I’d advocate a “Most Caps in 15 minutes OR 3 Caps” limit on WSG matches.
Mirshalak said,
May 2, 2008 at 8:01 am
Track, a few notes.
In my own experience, 25% crit is probably the minimum point at which Survival becomes tolerable, at least against Outland content.
Azeroth however is a somewhat different story; I wish you and I could run Scholo together at some point. We could talk about my theory on how much (or how little) of this game is left from the earlier period of WoW’s development process. Survival is a lot more interesting in the old school context than it is these days.
Given the sheer number and the close proximity of the mobs, however, dual wield daggers were actually the only way I could get through the trash leading up to Jandice Barov; that and extremely delicate pulling. I should probably make a video of it, but there’d be a lot of outtakes.
My only other use for dual wield daggers has been for Deterrence offtanking in 5 mans; I need the fast attack speed to be able to utilise my procs. (Counter, Mongoose if I spec for those)
I agree with you on Ced’s Carver, though. From memory the stats were nice, but 1.7 sec attack speed is way too slow for me. 1.5 is the very slowest I’m willing to go, with daggers; I’ll always take 1.3-1.4 if I can get it.
Dammerung said,
May 12, 2008 at 9:57 pm
So I can’t figure out why I wasn’t reading you. That has been fixed now.
Draomin said,
August 18, 2008 at 2:52 am
WTF? 25% crit for a survival hunter? No way.
EW will proc maybe once or twice in a fight.
400 Agility? Try 600 MINIMUM.
After trying BM and MM my guild asked me to
spec Survival and I will never go back unless
I stop raiding. However, after much experience
as a Survival hunter I would not recommend it
for lower than level 70. I tried it on one of my
lower level hunters at 62 and you basically
need more talent points and more agility to
make it work. Level as a BM and then try the
spec IF you have: over 600 agility, over 35%
crit AND a reason to do so. Survival shines
in raids and a few people I have seen make it
work for PvP and regular PvE as well.
But outside of a group it is just not that great
in dps compared to a BM build.
I have over 850 agility – 2.2K AP and 42% crit.
That’s UNBUFFED. With raid buffs I have 1.1K
agility, 2.6K AP and 49% crit and I can tell you
that I would never think of recommending this
spec for anything other than raiding b/c you just
will not get the dps your group needs unless
you are wearing T5/T6 gear. You’ll gimp you’re
raid group if you’re not geared to the teeth.
This discussion about lower level survival hunters
is par with the whole “Melee” hunter that people
laugh at. Level as BM and work your way into the spec
after you’re 70 so you can work the WHOLE tree and
not limp along as a “trap master”. I have never seen a boss
that could be trapped in 3 years of raiding and many lower
level mobs will also resist traps and/or their improved aspects.
Expose Weakness is great but of your agility is less than 600
it’s a waste as the debuff on mob will be too low to cover the
dps you COULD have done as a BM spec (do the math).
If you’re serious about raiding as a Survival hunter use this
tree as a guide. After running SSC, ZA and Mt Hyjal I can
tell you this is a serious end-game spec and well worth the
time and expense (oh yes Survival is spendy at 500G a pop
for +10 agility gems etc). I recommend fitting Umbral Shiv
with 2 +10 agility gems and a +20 enchant. If you can dual
wield those you’ll have +104 agility to boost the bonus that
EW gives the entire RAID. With IMP Hunter’s Mark that means
melee also.
Tree 1 I used for quite a while: http://tinyurl.com/5nlttb
Tree 2 I use also in the past: http://tinyurl.com/6dgwa9
Basically if you have an issue with mana the second one is great.
These are both raid builds, if you wonder “WTF where is imp traps etc?”
They are not for end game raiding and are a waste of talent points imo.
Draomin -
Malice/Moon Guard
survivalhuntersanonymous said,
August 18, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Dear Draomin,
Thanks, and you make excellent points. But you CAN be a Survival hunter before 70, and with less than 400 agility. I mean, it WAS in the game before BC and all. It’s not as effective; it’s kind of like leveling as a healer, except with more fun shtuff.
Track