Survival Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.1.5)

• Maximizing Focus and Tip of the Spear stacks generated by casting Kill Command on cooldown without ever letting it cap you on either resource.
• Maximizing Focus spent on Mongoose Bite by never Focus capping.
• Ensuring that Tip of the Spear stacks are spent on high-impact abilities and not fillers.

• All the same goals as the single-target Rotation.
• Maximizing our Wildfire Bomb charge generation and reducing wastage with Butchery, and occasionally Fury of the Eagle.

The AoE Opener for Survival Hunter is extremely context and Talent-dependent, and it is simply not possible to take every permutation of scenarios into account for a generic opener. The goal is to maximize our Bomb usage and generation and to get into Coordinated Assault quickly. Then, using Tip stacks, we want to use heavy-hitting AoE cooldowns like Fury of the Eagle before continuing with our normal rotation flow.

1. Ensure Hunter's Mark is active on the target from you or another Hunter in the group!
2. While the pull is being gathered and you are not comfortable doing a lot of damage yet, you should pick a target and spam Kill Command to build a few Tip of the Spear stacks ahead of time. You can also use Explosive Shot at this point — Since it explodes at a 3-second delay, you can fire it rather early and get some extra damage while you are unable to do much else. If you have a Howl of the Pack Leader proc on your Kill Command, you should also activate this before starting the rest of the opener.
3. Cast all your Wildfire Bombs.
4. Cast Butchery. You may wish to skip this until all mobs are stacked up.
5. Use any remaining Wildfire Bombs.
6. Cast Coordinated Assault, along with your Potion and on-use Trinkets.
7. Cast Spearhead.
8. Cast Kill Command if you have no Tip of the Spear stacks.
9. Cast Wildfire Bomb.
10. Cast Fury of the Eagle if you have a Tip stack at this point. Otherwise, hold onto it until you do.
11. Cast Flanking Strike.
12. Proceed with the normal rotation, according to the priority list below.

This priority list describes the optimal AoE Rotation for Survival Hunters. In short, you should press the highest-priority ability for which the conditions are met, every single cast.

A lot of the rotation revolves around Tip of the Spear, a buff generated by Kill Command that buffs the damage of other abilities. I will refer to this as "Tip", or "Tip stacks" throughout the rotation.

1. During ranged globals, like Kill Command and Wildfire Bomb, you should try to break melee range just a little in order to cast Harpoon. The Focus regen conferred by the Terms of Engagement Talent is a significant DPS increase, upwards of 1. 5%.
2. Cast Wildfire Bomb if Lunar Storm is able to be triggered. Track it using this WeakAura.
3. Use Raptor Strike/ Mongoose Bite if you have a Strike it Rich proc that is about to expire.
4. Cast Kill Command during Coordinated Assault if you have no Tip of the Spear stacks. Thanks to Relentless Primal Ferocity, it will generate 3 Tip stacks to be used on other abilities.
5. Cast Wildfire Bomb with Tip of the Spear active if it is about to hit 2 charges, and if you will get another charge of it back in time for Lunar Storm to be available. You only ignore Tip for Bombs under the following circumstances:
   • If Bomb is already on 2 charges;
   • If Lunar Storm is able to be activated;
   • If Coordinated Assault is off cooldown, you should dump all of your Bombs regardless of Tip stacks due to Bombardier.
   • If Butchery is coming off cooldown, dump all your Bombs so that you can Butchery on cooldown without overcapping your Bomb charges.
6. Cast Butchery on cooldown.
7. Cast Explosive Shot on cooldown. If Tip of the Spear is up, great, but we do not go out of our way to Tip these.
8. Cast Spearhead on cooldown if Coordinated Assault is on cooldown. Try to generate some Tip of the Spear stacks in reserve when it is about to come off cooldown — we want to really make the most out of our 10-second Spearhead window.
9. Use Coordinated Assault on cooldown. Make sure to dump all of your Bombs first to not waste the ones you get via Bombardier.
10. Cast Fury of the Eagle on cooldown with Tip of the Spear.
11. Cast Flanking Strike with 1-2 stacks of Tip of the Spear, but not 0 or 3, to ensure that we both buff it with Tip, and generate a charge of Tip without overcapping.
12. Cast Kill Shot whenever you have a Deathblow proc. It will cleave thanks to Sic 'Em.
13. Cast Kill Command to generate Focus if you have less than 77.
14. Cast Wildfire Bomb on cooldown if you have Tip of the Spear.
15. Cast Kill Command as a filler when you have nothing else to cast. Yes, even above Raptor Strike/ Mongoose Bite!
16. Cast Mongoose Bite if there is nothing else to do, as a filler.
17. Cast Raptor Strike if there is nothing else to do, as a filler.

1. During ranged globals, like Kill Command and Wildfire Bomb, you should try to break melee range just a little in order to cast Harpoon. The Focus regen conferred by the Terms of Engagement Talent is a significant DPS increase, upwards of 1. 5%.
2. Cast Spearhead on cooldown, if Coordinated Assault is on cooldown.
3. Use Raptor Strike/ Mongoose Bite if you have Hogstrider active. You should also cast it at this priority if you have a Strike it Rich proc that is about to expire.
4. Cast Kill Command during Coordinated Assault if you have no Tip of the Spear stacks. Thanks to Relentless Primal Ferocity, it will generate 3 Tip stacks to be used on other abilities.
5. Cast Wildfire Bomb whenever possible. We do not care about Tip or anything, just press it.
6. Cast Kill Command if you have a Howl of the Pack Leader proc/Beast to activate.
7. Cast Flanking Strike with 1 or 2 Tip of the Spear stacks. Not 0 or 3, as we both want Flanking Strike to benefit from Tip, while also generating 2 stacks of it. Its AoE damage is not fantastic, but it is a more powerful Tip-generator than Kill Command, and does hefty single- and priority-target damage.
8. Cast Butchery on cooldown.
9. Use Coordinated Assault on cooldown. Make sure to dump all of your Bombs first to not waste the ones you get via Bombardier.
10. Cast Fury of the Eagle with Tip of the Spear on cooldown.
11. Cast Kill Command to generate Focus if you have less than 77, or if it is close to reaching 2 charges.
12. Cast Explosive Shot on cooldown. If Tip of the Spear is up, great, but we do not go out of our way to Tip these.
13. Cast Kill Shot if you have a Deathblow proc.
14. Cast Mongoose Bite as a filler.
15. Cast Raptor Strike as a filler.