In this article, we list your Survival Hunter (WoW MoP 5.3) core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation). We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that playing a Survival Hunter will face you with.

The other articles of our Survival Hunter guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Kennyloggins, a leading figure in the Hunter community, who raids in Blood Legion.

1. Single Target Rotation↑top

The single target rotation for a Survival Hunter is based on the following priority system:

1. Apply Hunter's Mark on the target.
2. Apply and maintain Serpent Sting to the target
   • it will be refreshed by Cobra Shot so it only needs to be done once, normally.
3. Cast Explosive Shot on cooldown
   • thanks to Lock and Load, you will often have a proc that resets the cooldown of Explosive Shot, and allows you to cast it twice without it costing focus or incurring a cooldown.
4. Cast Kill Shot (when target is below 20% health).
5. Cast Black Arrow on cooldown (if the target will live for the full duration of Black Arrow).
6. Cast Arcane Shot if you have sufficient focus to still execute steps 3 and 5 afterwards.
7. Cast Cobra Shot.

Managing the Lock and Load procs is important, although simple. We detail this in a specific section further down the page.

2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top

2.1. Less Than 4 Enemies

In this situation, we advise you to make use of a normal rotation, with the following changes/additions:

• Replace Arcane Shot with Multi-Shot as your focus dump.
• Replace Black Arrow with Explosive Trap, assuming that at least two targets will remain in the area affected by your trap. Doing so will give you more overall DPS and will improve your chances of getting Lock and Load procs.

Also, you can distribute your DPS among the several targets that you face by using Lock and Load procs in the following way:

• Cast a first Explosive Shot on one target (A).
• Cast a second Explosive Shot on a different target (B).
• Cast a third Explosive Shot on A or a third target (C).

Handing Lock and Load procs in this way will not increase your DPS, it will only cause you to DPS all the targets more evenly.

2.1.1. 4 or More Enemies

Abandon your single-target rotation and use this priority list:

1. Cast Multi-Shot as often as your focus allows.
2. Place an Explosive Trap under the enemies, provided that they are stacking.
3. Cast Explosive Shot when you benefit from a Lock and Load proc (triggered by Explosive Trap).
4. Cast Kill Shot (when target is below 20% health).
5. Cast Cobra Shot whenever you have insufficient focus for Multi-Shot.

3. Cooldown Usage↑top

In this section, we assume that you have taken Dire Beast, A Murder of Crows, and Glaive Toss from your tier 4, 5, and 6 talents, respectively. This is because we deem them to be best talents for your DPS.

In short, this is how you should make use of your DPS cooldowns.

• Rapid Fire, Dire Beast, A Murder of Crows, and Stampede should be used as many times as possible during the encounter. Stacking Stampede with Rapid Fire is important.
• Rabid (an ability your pet gains if you choose the Ferocity specialisation) should be used as many times as possible during the encounter.
• Glaive Toss should be used on cooldown.
• Readiness should be used immediately after using Rapid Fire, A Murder of Crows, and Dire Beast, in order to reset their cooldown.

More details about cooldown usage, as well as information about the other talents (that we do not deem optimal at the moment) can be found in our detailed cooldown usage section.

4. Aspects↑top

You should always have an Aspect active. As a Survival Hunter, you should always be using Aspect of the Hawk.

Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack are generally not advised during combat because of their negative dazing effect, but can be useful for speeding up your raid's running after a wipe. Note that in the case of Aspect of the Cheetah, you can remove the dazing penalty by using Glyph of Aspect of the Cheetah.

A hunter's aspect will persist until removed by the hunter or until the hunter's death. Aspects can be changed in combat, but they cannot be changed while a cast is in progress. Aspects are on the global cooldown.

5. Optional Read: Mastering Your Survival Hunter↑top

While the rotations we gave in the previous sections will yield very good results, there are many things you should be aware of, in order to play your Survival Hunter to its full potential. You will need to understand all the subtleties, pertaining to your abilities, rotations, and cooldown usage, that we present below.

5.1. Focus

Hunters and their pets use a unique resource, called focus. Focus works in much the same way as other class resources, like rage and energy, in the sense that some abilities grant focus, while others cost focus in order to be used.

A Survival Hunter's focus has a maximum capacity of 100, and regenerates at an innate rate of 4 focus per second. This rate is increased by Haste Rating. In addition to this, certain abilities such as Steady Shot (Marksmanship-only) and Cobra Shot (Beast Mastery and Survival-only) also grant focus.

Most of the abilities in the hunter rotation cost focus to use, and some talents decrease the focus costs, or offer other ways to gain additional focus.

Hunter pet focus works similarly, and is of no concern to you as you cannot do anything to modify it, nor will you be casting pet abilities manually.

As a general rule, you should always have enough focus to cast your shots as soon as they come off cooldown, but also to never have 100 focus (as any extra focus you generate would then go to waste).

5.2. Auto-shots and Special Shots

Hunters do the majority of their damage through the use of shots. The rest of the damage is made up of pet damage and DoT damage.

Auto Shot is the default Hunter attack, which works similarly to melee classes' auto attacks or "white swings". It is affected by your Ranged Attack Speed, and it continues to work while moving.

The other hunter shots are of all varieties: instant cast or with a cast time, costing focus or granting focus, and some are utility shots which cost no focus and deal no damage.

One of the most important aspects of doing competitive Hunter DPS is to make sure your shots are always used without delay.

5.3. Dumping Focus

Your only means of dumping excess focus (thus preventing capping your focus at 100, which means wasting focus) is Arcane Shot. The cost of an Arcane Shot is 20, and these should be cast only so that you do not cap your focus. There is no need (and it is indeed detrimental) to deplete your focus pool by casting several Arcane Shots at a time, if that causes you to delay Explosive Shot or Black Arrow even for an instant.

5.4. Lock and Load Procs

Whenever you deal periodic damage with Black Arrow or Explosive Trap, you have a 20% chance to trigger a Lock and Load proc, which causes your next two Explosive Shots to cost no focus and trigger no cooldown, in other words allowing you to cast three Explosive Shots in a row.

The proc has a 12-second duration, and 10-second internal cooldown. In order to maximise the benefit from Lock and Load, you need to make sure that you have used up every proc before the internal cooldown expires. This should not be a problem.

Whenever you get a Lock and Load proc, you should simply fire the Explosive Shots one after the other. Prior to Mists of Pandaria, this was a small DPS loss, due to the way the Explosive Shot DoT worked, but it is no longer a problem.

In the event that you are at maximum focus when a Lock and Load proc happens, or you reach maximum focus between your two Explosive Shots, you should simply cast one or more Arcane Shots.

Note that Lock and Load also procs each time you trap a target with Ice Trap or Freezing Trap. You can make use of this by placing an Ice Trap at the location where the boss will spawn/become active/be pulled, if the encounter allows. As long as you are able to do this before combat starts, then you will have a guaranteed Lock and Load at no cost whatsoever.

This strategy is not worth using during combat, since it is not worth the global cooldown (and Black Arrow procs Lock and Load quite reliably anyway).

5.5. Detailed Cooldown Usage

5.5.1. Rapid Fire

Rapid Fire should be used as many times as possible during the encounter. It is not recommended to stack this cooldown with Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp. It is, however, advised to stack it with any other procs, on-use trinkets, potions, and fight mechanics that cause you to deal increased damage.

5.5.2. Rabid

Rabid increases your pet's attack speed by 70% for 20 seconds, with an 84-second cooldown. You should use this ability as many times as possible during the encounter.

There are no cooldowns for you to stack this with that would increase its benefit, so try to use it as many times as possible during the fight. Additionally, if you can time it so that it is up at the same time as procs that increase your pet's DPS (such as increases to your own Critical Strike Rating, Mastery Rating etc.), this is recommended.

5.5.3. Stampede

Stampede's 5-minute cooldown means that it will most likely only be used twice during the vast majority of encounters. Your only concern is to make sure that it is cast as many times as possible during the fight. If there are moments when the boss takes increased damage, or when burst damage is important to your raid's strategy, you should save Stampede for such a time.

Whenever possible, you should stack Stampede and Rapid Fire, since this increases the amount of attacks the pets from Stampede will do.

5.5.4. Readiness

Readiness should be used to reset the cooldown of your other DPS cooldowns. It does not work with Stampede, so its chief usage will have to do with Rapid Fire and the abilities granted to you by your talents.

For an example of proper Readiness usage, please refer to our opening sequence section.

5.5.5. Tier 4 Talents

Dire Beast usage is very simple. It should be used on cooldown.

Fervor should also be used on cooldown, with the mention that you should only use it when neither you, nor your pet, are at or above 50 Focus.

Thrill of the Hunt will sometimes provide you with a focus cost reduction for your next 3 Arcane Shots or Multi-Shots. You will simply benefit from this reduction passively, although you do have to be careful not to reach maximum focus.

5.5.6. Tier 5 Talents

A Murder of Crows should be used as many times as possible during the fight. There is no benefit in stacking this ability with anything else, but you should be mindful of using it in such a way that you can reset its cooldown with Readiness.

Lynx Rush should simply be used on cooldown. You can also benefit from its cooldown being reset by Readiness.

Blink Strikes is a passive ability, so it requires no explanations.

5.5.7. Tier 6 Talents

Glaive Toss should be used on cooldown. In case there are additional targets in the fight, you should position yourself in such a way that the glaives hit the other targets too.

Powershot should be used on cooldown.

Barrage should be used on cooldown.

In the case of Powershot, you should follow the same positional recommendation that we issued with regards to Glaive Toss.

It is interesting to note that you can change where Barrage is directed by turning your character while channeling the spell. This allows you to hit more targets than those you were initially facing.

5.6. Opening Sequence

As a Survival Hunter, you possess a large number of cooldowns. We will provide you with an example of an opening sequence that maximises the gains from cooldowns:

1. Make sure that Hunter's Mark is applied to the target.
2. Cast Rapid Fire and Stampede.
3. Cast Explosive Shot.
4. Cast Serpent Sting.
5. Cast Black Arrow.
6. Cast A Murder of Crows.
7. Cast your Tier 6 talent ( Glaive Toss or Barrage).
8. Cast Dire Beast.
9. Cast Rabid.
10. Cast Readiness to reset the cooldowns of all your abilities (except for Stampede and Rabid).
11. As soon as the buff from Rapid Fire fades, and as soon as the crows from A Murder of Crows disappear, re-cast these abilities. Re-cast Black Arrow as soon as the DoT runs out on the target. Fill any time in between these spells with Cobra Shots and Arcane Shots.

• 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: mentioned that Blink Strikes is now passive and does not require any kind of management.
• 20 Apr. 2013: Made several important updates.
  • Emphasised the fact that Stampede should be stacked with Rapid Fire.
  • Added emphasis on focus management and using your shots without delay.
  • Added a mention that you can change the facing of your character while Barrage is being channeled, which affects where you are shooting.
  • Revamped the Opening Sequence section.