Kicking around the idea of Survival spec

[• Aurorawind]

So with the fights that are getting harder on the pets lately, and later fights that are insta-death for pets, I've been kicking around the idea of trying Survival spec for a week or two to see how it compares.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cZVVbRVZIhz0xcrhVhA

Cons: Lose Ferocious Inspiration for +3% damage to myself and usually 3 casters grouped with me.
Lose Beast Within for fear/CC immunity and DPS bursts
Lose pet survivability

Pros: More mana efficiency
don't burn through ammo like mad
More crits
less +hit gear needed
Close to 40% crit rate that procs +160 attack power for all attackers for 7 seconds per proc.
I don't need to re-gem/re-enchant

I'll start reading around to see what some opinions are on this. I've heard that alot of hunters go back to marksman spec in BT/Hyjal because of so many pet insta-deaths.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

[♦ Assault]

I like it in principle if it wouldn't nerf your own dps by a whole lot. If you stack as much agility as you possibly can that's a pretty hefty attack power bonus for all the rogues/warriors/hunters/Kuberas in the raid. We're a little under-melee'd compared to other raids I think, which makes it slightly less attractive, but I definitely like the idea.

[♦ Etrigana]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cZVEbRV00hZIhoMhcrhV0h

That would make you the melee angel. Between expose weakness and imp. hunters mark, i think any damage you might lose from the change would be made up by the increase in melee dps.

I, however, do not think you need to go 40 points in survival and would argue that 33 points is more than enough. Points in thrill of the hunt seem wasted and if you stack agility/crit (and drop some hit since youll be gaining 3% from talents) you would probably come close to 40% without master tactician. The difference between applying the 7 second debuff with 40% crit chance and 50% crit chance seems pretty marginal in my opinion (you should still be critting once every 2-3 attacks or so with 40%). Meanwhile, you can buff your non-crit attacks and crit attacks by 3% with ranged weapon specialty. I also think 1 point in entrapment and 2 points in clever traps would be more helpful than points in deflection and maxing out suvivalist. While kiting trash in Hyjal, youll be able to stop, plug a few more shots in the mob and then continue kiting. The duration increase would likely help as well. Not to mention more snakes!

I would say if you did spec survival, you would want to stack nothing but pure agility. Factor in the 15% bonus from talents and then 10% from kings when calculating your crit/AP when you make the change. AP wont scale though so its pointless to socket for item bonuses that give AP. Also, crit rating doesnt scale so I would suggest hitting the hit cap and putting in agility gems across the board regardless of most socket bonuses (of course you will need to make exceptions for certain items and meta gems as needed). Just an old druids opinion though

-Etri

[• Aurorawind]

I'm reading more on TKA something and getting some interesting input.

1 thing is that for an excellent shot rotation, they are suggesting being paired with a shadow priest for mana regen because it is more intensive than Beastmastery.

Also looking, I would have to re-gem yes on my yellows and orange to get the most out of it. The greens I'd have to keep for the meta gem...at least 2 of them. I don't think I have any AP gems except the 1 orange +agil/+ap for an experiment I was doing (came out a failure).

With Clever traps I don't agree regarding Hyjal trash in that I need to keep the kited mob moving so the NPC's can't pull them away from me, so having a chance to freeze them in place and let the NPC's catch up to them seems counter-productive. And with Clever Traps, they mobs are over and past things in a few seconds so extended duration again I don't see as being of use in Hyjal.

I have been reading that Master Tactician isn't nearly as important with it's low chance to hit and at higher agility levels where the crit isn't as important, so that can be dumped.

I'm also not sure on the +3% damage compared to getting 100% of the mana back on a critical shot, and since I'd be working an auto/steady/arcane rotation I think that'd be much more valuable in the long run. Especially in situations like the Naj'entus fight where I can't drink mana pots due to using frost resist pots or Kaz'rogal where I'm in a high mana consumption mode with that as a limiter.

As to survivalist, hit points for me still equals more health for my pet as well (not a huge amount though). Especially with the endurance we have had to deal with in fights of late I'd believe that maxing it out would be very useful.

Re-gemming to all agil (except 2), with the +15% agil talents, would bring me to 705 Agility, 721 with Mark of the Wild, 761 (and almost +1% crit) with Elixir of Major Agility, and 848 with Kings...I'm thinking I've worked the % in right.

Being less melee heavy does make me question a bit of wisdom in doing this. Assuming single boss we'd have...

Aoree, Nort, Tierr
Wildeyez, Assault, Jackal
Myself and Haythan for the physical DPS it would boost by 212 (rough guess) AP with expose weakness up

Add another 110 to all but Haythan and I (since we already get it) and would that be worth the loss of 3% to 3 casters and myself, plus reduced personal DPS (not sure by how much)

I'd also put out this spec for consideration. 1 point still in entrapment since I need to have it somewhere in there as a 10th point. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=cZVEbRV00hZIhoMhcrhV0h

[• Zhek]

Hunters shoot

[• Tierran]

Surely you didn't forget the Kub in the physical damage department...

[• Mithwen]

I have a level 45ish survival hunter, and she pwns, so obviously I'm an expert on this topic and I shall contribute. Survival iz fun cuz u get traps that last a long time and u can piss people off with entrapment. 1 day i'll hav wyvern sting but I went for aimed shot 1st lol.

As a caster, I'd be sad to lose your ferocious inspiration, but it might not be a big deal to lose it, more on that later. We have more melee lately, and the physical damage types are doing good things on the charts, so giving them (yet another) buff can't be a bad thing.

I also think it's healthy to shake your spec up once in a while. Keeps you interested in playing your main if just to regear for a new spec.

We don't really buff all our casters. I've seen the WWS stats on other raids, and their shadow priests get a shaman and a hunter. 3% more damage a lot of the time is great, but 101 more spell damage all the time would be a hell of a lot better. With spell coefficients I think more spell damage is more bang for the buck. *angry stare* Ahem. We know who's important.

Buffing three casters (wait, 4 ... I'm a caster too!) vs. buffing all physical damage people raid wide and not having it be dependent on the group you're in ... well, the latter seems like the better choice.

Pika.

[♦ Assault]

*angry stare* Ahem. We know who's important.[/b]

Some day I'm going to put myself in like, group 2, then we'll see what's what, and nip all this naysaying in the bud. I will, however, insist Nort gives me battle shout. It's the best buff.

On another note, switching back to combat seems like a good decision. My dps was 200 higher last night than it was on Tuesday, which more than makes up for the raid losing the hemo debuff. Although some of that dps comes from being able to couple adrenaline rush with blade flurry on trash, so a better test would be comparing my personal dps on the same boss with the same gear with each spec. Maybe I'll try to look for a good comparison.

[• Mithwen]

Maybe I'll try to look for a good comparison.[/b]

Go kill Dr. Boom. Oh wait, you CAN'T!

[• Aurorawind]

Well the big hurdle is getting a hold of 7 red gems to be made into the +8 agil gems, freaking expensive.

Could make me a priority healing though, "heal Aurora or we lose 322 attack power for 8 players!"