Leveling as Survival Hunter

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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I’ve made the legendary Tauren Hunter and was wondering if survival is a viable leveling spec? Currently going BM, but Survival seems cool.

BTW I know it isn’t optimal, just looking for a fun spec to play

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Awesome! :+1:

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I leveled up to 60 as Survival spec & loved it. I would have kept it at 60, if raids didn’t whine about True-shot Aura so much (which only has a 30 yard range on a 41 yard shooting class, so isn’t even in range of the melee a lot of the time, lol). Ah well, Survival will be a good “endgame” spec in TBC at least.

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most guilds dont really care about TSA at this point, rogues and warriors do a lot of damage without it, they would stack just warriors and mages if they could. the only utility a hunter brings to a raid is the capacity of pull mobs and tranq shots

survival actually out dps MM if you do max melee weave because you dont have your pet 100% of the time on the boss

im not sure about leveling as survival hunter, is doable for sure but BM is way easier. about end game here is a cool video about this topic

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5

I don’t see any point in leveling survival. Besides the fact that it is just worse, you will also more than likely end up playing in the exact same way as a BM or MM hunter. There is no special playstyle to survival unless you are just going to give up on ranged altogether.

If you want to have more of an emphasis on melee just play BM and melee weave while double pulling. Pull a mob, dps it to about 35% normally and pull aggro off your pet, send your pet to attack a new mob, melee the mob that is aggroed onto you while shooting at the mob your pet is on. After the mob on you is dead you should be ready to pull aggro off your pet and move onto the next mob. It takes a little bit of learning your damage and threat thresholds but it makes the leveling much more interesting and can be very efficient if done properly.

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Here’s how I’ve been leveling as Survival.
It’s really just a continuation of your 1-9 leveling: Keep Aspect of the monkey up, set immolation trap, pull with serpent sting, pet on defensive.

That puts 2 dots on the mob. Talents increase trap damage, and lowers mob’s chance to resist. Wolf works great with furious howl. Keep howl and taunt turned off, and use howl right before you first hit the mob with melee: raptor strike.

Talents increase raptor strike crit chance. So howl will add damage to that raptor strike. Then you auto-attack to regen mana.

Leveling this way will keep your defense, ranged and melee weapon skills maxed. There are some weak points to this build.

First, you don’t do so well as ranged. Your pet has no talents (until after 40, if you choose), so makes a bad tank; and you don’t even have improved aspect of the hawk. Caster mobs are a pain.

Secondly, you don’t do so well in dungeons. Most of your damage will come from immolation trap. If the tank works with you, great. Otherwise, it’s tough to use it.

What’s great is, you’ll have a ton of dodge. Can get the increase agility talent, and, later, the improved aspect of the monkey. You’ll be the tank, not your pet. Your immolation trap will build more threat than your pet, even with growl (which is why I turn it off).

You’ll rip through mobs though, faster than BM, in my experience. Another problem is that, for hunter, 1 agility = 1 melee attack power = 1 strength. So your melee will suffer, and you won’t hit as hard as a shaman, warrior, paladin, feral druid.

Immolation trap makes up for this. And you can get straight attack power gear, and gear with BOTH strength and agility: 1 str + 1 agi= 2 melee attack power. You’ll still have high crit chance with agility.

My leveling build:

  1. 5 Deflection
  2. 2 Savage strikes, 3 humanoid slaying (for casters)
  3. 2 Clever traps, 3 Survivalist
  4. 2 Trap mastery, 3 Sure footed
  5. 3 Killer instinct, 2 Survivalist
  6. 5 Lightning reflexes
  7. 1 Wyvern sting

After that, up to you, but Improved aspect of the monkey, and building your pet up would be good.

This is really a soloing build, though it works great in small groups, if you pull to your trap. Beyond Deadmines, I haven’t done a single dungeon with it. Have fun. :slight_smile:

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It eventually becomes the most optimal raid spec…

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  1. Play what you like (especially while leveling)
  2. SV is a perfectly viable leveling spec. You will have to kite more.
  3. Main reason BM is good is because pet can hold agro (better)
  4. SV is much more gear dependent. BM is the least gear dependent.
  5. If you play on a PvP server, I think the most important hunter ability is scatter shot.
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Unless you are running way too many hunters it will never be the most optimal raid spec. TSA is stronger than any damage bonus the agility will give.

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I’ll give the roleplay answer, then. Survival is great if you really like the idea of you and your partner animal surviving and fighting side-by-side as you explore. BM and MM don’t really give that same feeling because one is dual-pet and the other is generally best with no pet. You can do BM with one pet but then you lose the side-by-side thing.

Especially as a Tauren with the Legion artifact spear for Survival, which is an ancient Tauren spear used by Huln Highmountain himself.

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Wrong forums for that, you’re talking about a Retail hunter. These are the Classic forums.

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It is very good for PVP. If you are on a pvp server there are definitely talents that are viable in the tree.

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13

Ah…so these are. Whoops.

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14

Happens to the best of us! You’re spot-on for Retail.

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15

BM leveling is so much fun but i think your can make survival work.

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Any combination of race, class, and spec possible is viable.