Survival rocks in hardcore

WoW Classic WoW Classic Hardcore
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A build that relies on traps, CC, snares and roots. In this video I am killing orange level 48 mobs at level 44.

Also your frost traps in dungeons are god tier with 5/5 entrapment. Happy hunting!

Wolf pet is used to furious howl.

Melee weave during immobilization procs.

Improved feign death. Win.

Since we gear for spirit as the primary stat, we do not take lightning reflexes or survivalist talents. Instead we talent entrapment 5/5 (gives a 1/4 chance to immobilize), Wing Clip 5/5 (gives a 1/5 chance to immobilize) and 5/5 deflection +surefooted+counterattack.

Serpent String + Immolation Trap (with 2/2 clever traps) + pet damage is sufficient to kill any mob your level or lower with two raptor strikes (your ranged attacks during the concussive shot kite will take them down to 70% health before the first raptor strike).

In short you play as if you’re in a PvP battle against npcs that can’t PvP. Much more entertaining than AFK beastmaster, kills things faster than beastmaster, and has the tools to escape/survive bad encounterers (deterrence, feign death, etc).

I’m planning on putting my remaining points in beast master, with 4/5 in aspect of the monkey (since I’m a night elf, I have +1% dodge) and the last five points in concussive shot for a fourth stun/snare/root. If I wasn’t night elf, I’d go 5/5 monkey and 4/5 conconussive.

https ://youtu.be/eJeq_asFR0U?si=BKX6TeJEF-5awaZx

3 Likes
2

(This is the character I made the video on).

Overall, I can never go back to beastmaster for leveling after this.

3

hunters in general are perfect for HC :expressionless: survival definitely works well

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJeq_asFR0U

Use the preformatted tekst for links </> or CTRL+e much easier for us to copy/paste :wink: Thanks for the tips, I am not sure I’m fast-fingered enough to do this, but it looks impressive.

5

My advice is to play PvP in on a regular era server on hunter (take scatter shot instead of wyvern sting), then when you level your hunter on hardcore, play against the mobs like their are bad pvp players (you’ll see in the video I used counterattack immediately on proc four times when it wasn’t needed against the mobs, because its something I’m used to doing in actual PvP).

In PvE take wyvern string.

Macros like:

#showtooltip
/petpassive
/petfollow
/stopattack
/cast Wyvern Sting
/cast [combat] Feign Death

and

#showtooltip
/petpassive
/petfollow
/stopattack
/cast Immolation Trap
/cast [combat] Feign Death

Will let you use traps and wyvern sting in combat.

Keybind Wing Clip to “q” next to your “w” key with the macro

#showtooltip Wing Clip
/cleartarget [dead][help]
/cast Raptor Strike
/cast Wing Clip
/startattack

And keybind counter attack to “~” to the left of your “1” key.

#showtooltip
/cast Counterattack
/startattack

2 Likes
6

I’ve been curious about leveling as a survival hunter and this piques my interest. Thank you for posting

1 Like
7

It definitely has most xp per hour when doing two-mob grinding (pet + growl + ranged on one mob; raptor strike mongoose immo trap on second mob).

Three mob pulls are also easy since your traps last longer and can’t be resisted (other than the 1% base resist).

  1. Wyvern String the mob you want to kill first. Send pet on second mob (usually the hardest hitting) and put hunters mark on this mob too. Distract shot (if you must) third mob into trap so it’s CC’ed.

  2. Open concussive and kite a little on the first mob to break wyvern string. Since wyvern is string is 6 second dot it will expire for serpent sting before mob reaches you. Also serpent sting the second mob that you pet is tanking.

  3. When first mob reaches you raptor strike. If no counterattack proc or wing clip proc, either continue to melee while shooting the second mob and hitting the first mob with raptor strike. if you get counter attack or wing clip proc, then open the distance to shoot it.

  4. Mobs 1 and 2 usually die same time. Send pet on third mob to break trap. Serpent string and shoot while walking towards it. When you reach it feign death immo trap into raptor strike, then retreat again and keep shooting it.

  5. Wolf pet furious howl is best for this. High armor pet that buffs YOUR damage and even its own!). Remember to manually cast growl twice on the mob pet is tanking. You want the focus points for furious howl. Manually cast once when third mob trap is broken.

Also some cheap gear recommendations from level 40 to 46.

Icemail Jerkin level 39. 5Agi, 15 Stam, 24 Spirit, 10 Frost Resist. Always under 10g.

Stonerender Gauntlets (level 46). Both go for under 10g on the AH. 10 Stam, 10 Int, 20 Spirit, 10 Nature Resist. Also under 10g.

Bonechewer Rare Polearm (level 43). Always under 5g. +23 Str and +10 Stam.

Guttbuster Gun level 45. +3 STR and +8Sgi. Always under 20g.

Belt of the Gladiator, level 44 . Around 15g. +18 Str, +7 Stam.

Arena Bands (around 12 gold) level 45. +6 Stam and +28 Attack Power.

Herod’s Shoulder (SM drop), level 37. +6 Str, +15 Stam.

For all remaining green slots, stack Int and Spirit (… of the Owl) OR stack STR/Agiilty (…of the Tiger). But don’t do both.

Tiger gear kills faster but more downtime. Owl gear kills slower but less downtime. Overall net zero gain of either set over the other.

Save money on ammo buy convert solid stone and mithril bars to mithril bullets (my hunter is mining + engineering).

Stun bombs, heavy runecloth bandages and target dummies are good too. Get your world buffs and use armor, agi and strength elixirs.

8

This is all great advice, but it doesn’t require Survival for the most part. Beastial Mastery is definitely higher DPS, particularly with cooldowns. Melee-weaving with an immo trap on a second target while you ranged shot with your pet on a primary target is not unique to Survival, nor is it more efficient on Survival.

I do think Survival gets a bad rap. It’s a strong spec with better utility and survivability than BM. It’s totally fine, and even appropriate, to level as Surv. Much like Subtlety, it just gets overlooked because the alternative is objectively stronger and easier - I think it’s great you’re choosing this route, having fun, and think it’s powerful. Hunters are probably, overall, the strongest/easiest hardcore class.

With zero talent points spent at all, Hunters are A-tier hardcore levelers.

But yeah, two mob pulling, melee weaving, as BM, is stronger than your build. Whether it’s safer or not is arguable. The extra 30% pet armor and substantially higher threat from BM talents is likely “safer” for elite mobs, but isn’t super necessary for regular old questing.

Cool video.

9

For me it’s about having 2/2 Improved Feign Death…vs not having it. Huge difference in hardcore.

Assuming you’re twinked out on the surv hunter with world buffs and consumes, the only advantage of beast master is 2/2 spirit bond (the trade off for 2/2 improved feign death).

A lot of the hunter leveling guides assume someone is going straight to 60 in greens on an era server (non-hardcore server) without stopping for wb’s and consumes.

Also I’m still going 5/5 pet health and 3/3 pet armor. They are at the beginning of the BM tree.