SURVIVAL HUNTER FUNDAMENTALS COURSE

SURVIVAL HUNTER PLAYSTYLE

Welcome to our Survival Hunter Damage Course for The War Within, which is custom designed to equip you with all the essential knowledge needed to excel in PvP. Now, in this introductory video, we're going to be exploring what to expect from the Survival Hunter playstyle and what's changed going into The War Within.

So, unlike most classes, Survival has seen major changes in its playstyle from Dragonflight to The War Within. However, some abilities that were once optional, like Fury of the Eagle, are now amazing picks due to significant reworks that changed how these abilities work.

So, as expected for a Hunter, your playstyle is centered around setting up trap goes and trying to win with your burst cooldowns in those windows. When playing Survival, you have two distinct playstyles to choose from.

The first, and arguably more exciting, approach is to go all-in. Play.

Playing like a true melee. You'll use your crowd control offensively to prevent yourself from being peeled and aim to take down your target before they can kill you.

Now, for those who prefer a safer route, you'll instead focus on playing for traps. You want to try to be in melee range as much as possible, but when you're taking too much damage, you can hang back on a pillar between goes or stay at range.

In these cases, you're relying on wildfire bombs and kill command for your damage while waiting for trap to come. In these cases, you're relying on wildfire bombs and kill command for your damage while waiting for trap to come.

So, now that you have an understanding of the playstyle for Survival Hunters, it's time to take a look at your goals inside of Arena. Arena.

SURVIVAL HUNTER GOALS

Welcome back! In this video we're going to be outlining some key goals for Survival Hunter that you should aim to follow throughout your games.

These are the objectives that the top players strive to achieve in every match. First, there's positioning.

Now this might seem obvious, but for Survival Hunter, positioning is key for two main reasons. First, maximizing cleave is crucial.

Survival Hunter has some of the strongest cleave in the whole game with explosive shot and wildfire bombs. To get the most pressure, you should be positioning to maximize your cleave.

Second, as a hunter, survival often means kiting. But since survival is a melee spec, it's kind of a balancing act that requires moving in and out of range while maintaining pressure still.

This positioning can be a little bit tricky, but it is essential for staying alive. This clip perfectly illustrates how adaptable Survival Hunters need to be with positioning based on their positioning.

Here we watch as the hunter shifts from engaging the priest up close to adopting a more ranged focused rotation that leans heavily on kill command and wildfire bombs. The reason?

Well, it's pretty simple. By adjusting their positioning, they minimize cleave damage, which is absolutely essential given how squishy survival hunters really can be.

This leads directly into our next goal though, maintaining uptime. As melee, your aim is to always be hitting something, even when running toward your kill target.

Quickly tapping to hit anything within range can make a significant impact on the game. In the War Within, the emphasis on consistent damage is even higher than before, especially given how rapidly dampening increases in solo shuffle.

We can see this in action here. The hunter is ultimately trying to get to the priest, but on their way over, they do a bit of damage to the warrior.

This strategy is especially effective with Tip of the Spear, which allows you to build up kill command stacks before reaching your main target. This provides a small damage boost to your next ability other than kill command.

Your third goal is pretty straightforward. Make full use of your crowd control.

Survival Hunters have some unique CC compared to other Hunter specs such as Sticky Tar Bomb and Harpoon Root, which can help you survive and maintain uptime. You also have the classic Stun Trap, which is the fundamental skill that allows you to use your Stun Trap to your advantage.

The Stun Trap is a skill that allows you to use the fundamental setup that's essential for closing out games. Most of your crowd control can be combined to secure a trap, and randomly tossing traps usually won't land and can absolutely waste a crucial win condition.

Instead, pairing trap with abilities like Intimidation, Binding Shot, Chimerial Sting, or even Harpoon can make it much easier to land your most important CC. Technically, you could use Scattershot to set up a trap, but it's best to avoid using Scatter and trap shared diminishing returns.

This would be only if you had no other option or you absolutely need a trap in that moment to win. Our final goal is to make the most of your utility.

As a Hunter, you have powerful utility tools that can often be overlooked. Flare is an incredibly valuable tool, not just in the opener to reveal stealth targets, but it can also be used to prevent a Rogue from using Vanish or thrown around a corner to prevent a restell.

Roar of Sacrifice can protect teammates during heavy burst cooldowns, and Master's Call can help you and your team kite more effectively. You could also take it a step further by using your roots defensively to peel when trapping isn't needed or it's on cooldown.

When thinking about how to use your utility, ask yourself one question. How can my team live until the next trap go?

SURVIVAL HUNTER DAMAGE PRIORITY

Welcome back! Now that you have a broader understanding of both the playstyle and the goals of a survival hunter in the arena, the next step is learning how to deal damage effectively.

Now it's most important to remember that this is not a rotation, it's a priority system. And what that means for you is that the abilities at the top of this list should be prioritized over those that are below them.

If you're running the pack leader hero tree, Kill Command becomes a high priority ability since it's how we activate Howl of the pack leader. However this only applies while Howl of the pack leader is active.

Now during this window, each Kill Command will summon a beast that either deals significant damage or boosts your overall output, making it essential to use Kill Command. Then we have Explosive Shot.

This ability deals some pretty big damage and the good news is that it can no longer be dispelled. Explosive Shot interacts with Wildfire Bomb thanks to the Grenade Juggler talent.

For each Wildfire Bomb you use, there's a chance to reset the cooldown of Explosive Shot and every Explosive Shot used reduces the cooldown of Wildfire Bomb. These abilities complement each other really really well.

Next up in our priority is Wildfire Bomb. This applies when you have two charges or are at the risk of overcapping charges.

Every second you sit with two full charges of Wildfire Bomb could cost you a potential cast throughout the match. You don't want to dump both charges at once.

You want to be able to use both charges at once. You can use either one of the two charges to avoid wasting your cast while still keeping your burst potential.

We then have Flanking Strike which should be used when you have at least one stack of Tip of the Spear as it instantly grants two additional stacks upon activation. Since Flanking Strike also charges you to your target, do be mindful of when you use it.

Make sure you actually want to be in melee range before pressing that button as bad positioning could put you in a super tough spot. After that we have Kill Shot when the target is below 20% health or you have a Deathblow proc.

Now while it is still useful for finishing off low health targets, it doesn't necessarily hit as hard as it does for our ranged counterparts so it doesn't take the same level of priority in your rotation.

Raptor Strike or Mongoose Bite depending on your talents serves as your filler ability with the added bonus of applying Serpent Sting. It just doesn't hit as hard as it used to.

It is mostly used when you have literally nothing else to push. This is a good way to get your target to be in a good position.

You can also use it to get your target to be in a good position. Now while it can be useful for burning extra focus if you are about to overcap, it still doesn't take priority over any other abilities.

While Kill Command itself doesn't deal massive damage, maintaining Tip of the Spear is essential as it provides a significant damage buff. To keep Tip of the Spear active you need to weave Kill Command between your other abilities ensuring that you don't overcap focus since Kill Command generates focus for survival.

SURVIVAL HUNTER PACK LEADER BURST SEQUENCE

This is the video that you have been waiting for, as in this next section of our Survival Hunter course, we are going to be breaking down the exact sequence you want to be following in order to set up the highest burst damage possible. This sequence is called the Full Burst.

This is a longer burst sequence that is typically done at the start of the game when you have all your cooldowns available. Now, before bursting, it's going to be a good idea to apply Hunter's Mark.

This provides a small boost to your burst. First, use Kill Command to proc Howl of the Pack Leader.

Next, use Explosive Shot into a Wildfire Bomb. Then use Coordinated Assault, followed by another Wildfire Bomb.

After that, use Kill Command again. This is important because we want to make sure that we have Tip of the Spear for our Flanking Strike.

Next, use Fury of the Eagle. This does great damage and also grants a small haste buff.

Finally, use Flanking Strike. This is a really big hit, followed by two more Wildfire Bombs.

This burst sequence is slower compared to the next one we're going to cover, but if you manage to pull it off, it can deal some pretty serious damage.

SURVIVAL HUNTER PACK LEADER MINI-BURST SEQUENCE

In this burst sequence, we're going to be covering how to burst when you need to close out the game in a small window. Now this might be during a trap or even a stun, but the idea is that you need to deal a lot of damage in a short window without having to follow every single step of the full burst.

First you're going to open with Explosive Shot. We don't want to waste time applying Hunter's Mark here.

You then use Coordinated Assault into Kill Command. You'll then use Fury of the Eagle into Flanking Strike.

You'll notice that this sequence skips the Wildfire Bombs and the extra Kill Command. This is going to result in less overall damage, but if you only have a short CC chain, then this is going to be your go-to.

SURVIVAL HUNTER OPENER

Alright, let's move past the theory and get to the practical. In this next part of our survival damage course, we are going to be guiding you through the best strategies for how to approach openers.

The first thing that the hunter does is go into camouflage and honestly, there's almost never a game where you won't start in camo. It allows you to set up perfectly, you can line up your damage, you could sneak in for a trap, or just move into position without anyone being able to stop you.

You're going to notice that this hunter also used disengage though. Survival is slightly disadvantaged as a melee spec, so it's helpful to create some initial distance here, while also benefiting from the movement speed bonus provided by post haste.

The hunter gets knocked out of camo by the demon hunter, but you're going to notice they don't trinket the stun. Hunters by and large are relatively squishy, so if you don't save your trinket to pair with a wall or turtle, it can be very risky, especially if you don't even have cooldowns rolling.

Out of the stun, the hunter follows up with scattershot. Using scattershot early is a great way to peel during the opener.

It helps reduce overall pressure and can be very disruptive and just generally annoying for the enemy team. Now at this point, the hunter shifts focus to ramping up damage and drops a binding shot stun on both the demon hunter and the mistweaver.

Binding shot shines when you can land it on multiple targets as it provides a strong AOE stun and if you're running horsehair tether, it'll also pull enemies back into the center. The hunter goes for a trap off the stun, but the monk revivals it.

This really isn't necessarily a big deal, and you realistically won't land every single trap you go. In fact, if you think about it, you're trading your 25 second cooldown for their 90 second cooldown.

Getting revival there or forcing any major cooldown is always going to be worth it. Now the hunter is moving toward the warlock.

They get stunned again by the monk, but you're going to notice that they're still not trinketing here. If it's not your cooldowns or you need to do something else, then you can't do anything.

If it's not your cooldowns or you need to do something else, then you can't do anything. If it's not your cooldowns or you need to do something else, then you can't do anything.

If it's not your cooldowns or you need to do something else, then you can't do anything. damage to the Warlock while trying to reconnect, while also kiting the Demon Hunter. Once the Hunter gets closer, they pop Coordinated Assault to charge them toward the Warlock.

Once you use Coordinated Assault, your goal is to do as much damage as possible. While your opener can vary based on how much the enemy team peels you, what cooldowns they use and how quickly you can use Coordinated Assault, your goal should always be to get CC on the healer and get your burst off as fast as possible.

SURVIVAL HUNTER WIN CONDITION

Alright, so far in this course we have outlined our goals in Arena, we have provided you with a straightforward damage priority, thoroughly explored each ability, and even covered how you should be approaching openers.

Now, it's finally time to bring all of that together and demonstrate precisely how you should use all this knowledge to win you games. Hunter's strength lies in its ability to win without relying on a single win condition.

The traditional freezing trap go is always an option where you land a trap to secure a kill. Then there's the overwhelming damage route where you dish out unhealable damage to the enemy team.

Lastly, we can play for dampening. With a wide array of tools to stay alive indefinitely, you can focus on denying the enemy team their win condition until they run out of mana.

Trap remains the quintessential hunter strategy for winning. You can set up a trap off nearly anything.

A root, a stun. A slow.

Or even just throw it. The most reliable setup is the simple stun trap and now with two stuns, intimidation and binding shot, you can almost always have a stun available for your trap.

This clip really illustrates the power of a well-timed trap setup, especially with a little bit of help from your friends. Here, the hunter opens with Chimerial Sting to silence the priest, then uses Harpoon to keep them locked in place before tossing a trap.

With a full six-step trap, you can easily get the trap to work. With a six-second trap, the shadow priest is struggling to survive.

Now, this is where our team is important. The red paladin moves in for a Hodge on the priest.

And the healer follows up with a fear to secure the kill. Survival Hunter's damage output is nothing short of absolutely absurd, making it an easy win condition in many cases.

So, take a look at this example here. Watch as the healer moves in.

Watch as the healer gets stunned, only to be life gripped away just before the trap lands. Even though this happened, the hunter stays committed to that go.

Despite the healer being out of CC and the priest having sac, we're able to push through and close out this game. The combined damage from Coordinated Assault and the warrior is simply too much to handle.

Now, even though the hunter uses Scatter at the end to finish off the priest, it's likely the priest would have died regardless. Hunter's strength in Dampening is one of the key reasons it remains one of the best classes for 2s.

Now, in this clip, Dampening ramps up to a staggering 70%, and the game doesn't even end until hitting an incredible 75% Dampening. The approach here isn't about rushing for a win.

It's about safe, strategic plays and denying the enemy their win condition. For instance, against a rogue who relies on Shadow Dance, you can save Disarm and Roar of Sacrifice.

This way, you can shut down their burst and then kite away. Hunter can also use Scatter defensively to save the game in clutch moments and even use Knockback paired with a root to keep enemies away.

On this page