There is so little information out there about survival, the icy veins guide looks like it hasn’t been updated in a while. I know blur of talons is the go to for single target. But I heard that latent poison got a big nerf some time ago. The best info I could see was wilderness + 2x latent and the aoe talents like Hydras bite and Wildfire Infusion.
I was wondering about the 90 tier though, I have seen conflicting info about which talent to take in M+. Some say Tip others say Flanking strike, also does Butchery ever have a place in M+? What about that azerite trait that makes wildfire bomb drop cluster bombs? Or should I just take blurx2 and be a single target machine even in M+?
Honestly these are good questions. So far I just been single target, and using Hydra Bite. Our AOE imo is lacking compared to other classes. So Hydra, and Bombs. I would like to see some thought on this myself.
To be fair, it’s not like you’re gonna have many Azerite pieces at the same ilvl for you to be changing Azerite talents at will between raiding and M+, usually the only swapping you’ll be doing will be between your weakest azerite piece and your Uldir piece. Rather I’d say, pick the talents with the most synergy with the Azerite pieces that you do manage to get. If it’s Blur of Talons then go Birds of Prey with Alpha Predator for sure, if you have Wilderness Survival then Wildfire Infusion and Guerrilla and good options, Latent Poison is great for Vipers Venom and Hydra’s, etc. Overall even in M+ you should be playing to your specs strengths, SV is good at ST dps and priority targets, so pick overall ST options.
The lvl 90 Tier is exclusively ST dps, and Mongoose is the strongest talent of the tier hands down. Even assuming you used Tip of the Spear perfectly and had one KC for each use of Raptor, Mongoose will overtake it in damage done as soon as it hits the 4th stack. I’m not a fan of Flanking Strike although some people like it on PvP.
Regarding the AoE tier: Guerrilla vs Hydra vs Butchery, I feel like it depends on the circumstance and the week and your azerite traits. For pushing low level keys without fortified, burst AoE is king, and you’ll find Butchery is a fantastically good talent. For fortified keys or generally keys where trash is taking longer to kill, Guerilla is the preferred option, specially if you have Wildfire Infusion. But Latent Poison with Viper and Hydra is a very legit AoE build, although it makes target tracking definitely annoying.
Overall, even if you completely crippled your ST dps by picking all AoE oriented options in Azerite and Talents, it still wouldn’t be competitive with the big AoE players like DH and Frost, and you’d certainly be behind them in ST dps. However, you can swap a couple talents depending on the situation, your azerites and your feeling of the rotation. Even if the sims tell me Viper’s Venom is an optimal choice, I hate the way it introduces RNG GCD tension into my Mongoose windows so I just roll with Alpha. I think the wide viability of SV Azerites and Talents is one of the highlights of the spec.
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Thanks for this helps a lot, if I am running 2x blur given I have the option for any of the other traits at equal gear what would I want to run with my 3rd trait? Titans? Wilderness? Latent? Or should I go for a 3rd blur?
Inside Uldir, always Titans/Matrix.
Outside Uldir, Wilderness will probably give you the most bang for your buck in both ST and AoE. During Tyrannical weeks in keys with godawful bosses, triple Blur is a serious possibility. However, getting to choose your Azerites completely at will will not be a common ocurrence, so the best tip I can give you: When in doubt, sim yourself.
Ya nm I just looked it up, the only azerite head piece in the game with blur drops from Dooms Howl, what a joke it is literally almost impossible to get 3x blur.
Actually SV Hunters are very very lucky because they can get fantastic Azerite combinations off Uldir pieces alone. Zek’Voz Chest, Mother Shoulders and Zul Head let you have the extremely optimal Blur + Wilderness + Archive combo. There’s no need to rely on horrible Dungeon Azerite RNG to get decent azerites.
I have all of those but isn’t blur 2x better than 1/1/1? At least bloodmallet seems to think it is.
Sure, it sims better on ST, I honestly prefer the 1/1/1 spread, but my point was that, as SV Hunter you don’t need to pray to the RNG gods to get good azerites on weekly chest, the best traits are in Uldir as it is.
for m+ you can’t go wrong running 31X1X22 . For Azerite traits, ideally you wanna go 2x Archive of the titans, and 1x Wilderness Survival. 3x Archive works too. Blur isnt that good in m+ because you’re not hitting coordinated assault on just bosses. For raids 2x Blur, and 1x archive is the best with Birds of Prey talent
Thanks for the info, would you change any of that advice based on Tyrannical vs Fort weeks?
Tyrannical vs Fort doesn’t really affect our M+ set up. Not much does; with where gear levels are currently at Mongoose Bite is head and shoulders above Tip and Flanking, and so long as you have 2x Blur or Blur/Wilderness Birds of Prey is crazy strong.
You can opt for Butchery and Wildfire Infusion if your group is really lacking AoE but you can preform just fine in most AoE situations with the “ST” talent set up.
Neat tid-bit also is our splash damage from Wildfire Bomb oneshots explosives so we’re pretty busted on those weeks.
Join the Discord, and the Survival channel is very helpful, Ghostled and some others actually help write the guide on Icy Veins. But the guide sums it up nicely:
Whenever fighting multiple targets of any number, you should spend any time where you are not casting high-priority abilities on cooldown by refreshing and applying Serpent Sting to all targets you are fighting. If you are using the Hydra’s Bite talent, this becomes less of an issue.
On 2 targets and above, your rotation remains the same as normal, although you should ensure that you have both targets in the cone of your Wildfire Bomb. You should also be using Carve to reduce the cooldown of Wildfire Bomb.
The most important thing to note is that the multi-target rotation can get very Focus expensive. You should always make sure to cast Kill Command on cooldown.
Especially on a lot of targets (5+), you can risk wasting a lot of Carve’s cooldown reduction on Wildfire Bomb if you do not make sure to cast Wildfire Bomb directly on cooldown. In those situations it is usually worth delaying Carve for a global in order to cast Wildfire Bomb first.
With the recommended Azerite trait Latent Poison, you should try to only consume stacks when they are either very high, or if the target is going to die soon. You cannot play like you do on a single-target, because there is not enough Focus to constantly consume stacks on multiple targets. You need Focus to cast Carve on cooldown, and refresh Serpent Sting on multiple targets.
As for Traits/Builds, I do not suggest using the Bird of Prey build unless you want to be more single target and not as much AOE. For AOE I would go Wildfire build with Latent as your trait (I use Latent 2x with Archive). I would suggest using sims to find out what works best though.