Survival Hunter leveling guide

Level as Beast Mastery: your pet holds the mob and does a third or more of the damage, you shoot from range, and nothing you fight reaches you. Hunters are the fastest leveling class in TBC and Beast Mastery is the reason; Unleashed Fury at 20, Intimidation at 31, Bestial Wrath at 41 and The Beast Within at 50 are the levels where it gets better again. The leveling tree ends on the Beast Mastery raid build exactly, so there is nothing to respec at 70 if you stay Beast Mastery, and one respec if you do not.

Your endgame is Survival, the Hunter who brings Expose Weakness: your crits give everyone attacking the target attack power equal to a quarter of your Agility, which with raid gear is a large buff to every Rogue, Warrior and other Hunter in the raid. Your own damage is the lowest of the three trees and the raid's is the highest; one Survival Hunter per raid, no more. One respec at 70, and only once a raid has asked for it.

Beast Mastery, 1 to 70. Send the pet, Hunter's Mark, Serpent Sting, Auto Shot and Arcane Shot, and the mob dies before it finishes walking to you. The real priorities in the tree are Unleashed Fury at 20, Intimidation at 31, Bestial Wrath at 41 and The Beast Within at 50; Improved Aspect of the Hawk from the first point is what row 1 has. Marksmanship levels fine and kills slower; Survival is a raid buff tree and not a leveling one. Beast Mastery is also the raid spec, so there is nothing to undo.

1 to 10. No pet yet. Auto Shot, Serpent Sting, Arcane Shot, Raptor Strike when the mob reaches you, and Concussive Shot at 8 to slow it so it does not. Buy ammo before anything else; a quiver or ammo pouch is the first bag you buy because it speeds your shots. At 10 the trainer gives you the Tame Beast quest chain; finish it before you quest another level.

The pet. Tame a cat, a boar or a ravager at 10. Cats have the highest damage and learn Dash; boars Charge, which roots the target at range, and eat anything; ravagers have Gore and the best damage of all, but they live on Bloodmyst Isle (Alliance, from the teens) and in Hellfire Peninsula (everyone, at 58), and a cat from your starting zone is fine until then. Train Growl from the pet trainer and keep it on; train Bite, Claw and the resistances as the training points allow; keep it fed (Happiness is damage), keep it within a few levels of you (an old pet catches up fast), and Mend Pet whenever it drops below half. Your pet is a tank with no healer but you, and the whole spec is built on it staying alive.

10 to 30. Hunter's Mark, send the pet, Serpent Sting as the pet reaches the mob, then Auto Shot with Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot (18) when they are ready. Never shoot before the pet has hit; one Growl is not a lot of threat and a mob that turns on you has to be Wing Clipped and run from. Aspect of the Hawk the moment you have it, Cheetah between quests and never into a fight. Freezing Trap at 20 is the second mob of every two-pull. Feign Death at 30 ends the fights that went wrong.

30 to 50. Intimidation at 31 is a pet stun on a minute cooldown and a save button when something turns to you; Bestial Wrath at 41 is the elite killer. From here your pet does more than you do, and the loop is unchanged: Mark, pet, Sting, shoot. Mail at 40. The Beast Within at 50 makes Bestial Wrath cover you too, which means every two minutes you are immune to crowd control and doing 10% more, and the pull you time it for is the one with three mobs.

50 to 70. The Marksmanship points arrive: Lethal Shots, Efficiency, Aimed Shot at 63 as an opener on anything standing still, Mortal Shots last. Steady Shot at 62 replaces Arcane Shot as the shot you press between auto shots, and Kill Command at 66 goes on every crit. Aspect of the Viper at 64 is how you keep shooting on a long day. By 70 you are in the raid build.

Weapons: the ranged weapon is everything, the melee weapon is stats. Replace the bow or gun every time a better one appears; its damage per second is yours. Bows, guns and crossbows are the same stat for you, train all three and take whichever drops. The melee weapon is never swung on purpose, so it is Agility and Stamina on a stick; a two-hander with Agility beats two one-handers with more damage. Ammo: always the best arrows or shots your level allows, and never let the stack run out. A Hunter with no ammo is a bad Warrior.

Why not Marksmanship to level? It works, Aimed Shot is satisfying, and it is slower, because the pet does less and you drink more. Marksmanship is the right 70 spec only if your raid needs Trueshot Aura, and there is no need to level in it to get there; the respec plan below prices the switch.

The rule that governs the order below: a talent row is locked until you have spent 5 × (row - 1) points in that tree, and you have level - 9 points to spend. Row 2 opens at 5 points, row 3 at 10, row 9 at 40. The consequence is that you will buy talents you don't especially want purely to open the next row. That isn't a mistake; it's how the tree works. The order below has been checked against the real tree: every point is buyable at the level it is listed.

Where it ends: 41/20/0, the Beast Mastery build WoWSims ships as its default raid spec, point for point. The Beast Mastery tree is complete at 50 and the twenty Marksmanship points after it are the same twenty the raid build has, so the last twenty levels are spent buying the build you would have respecced into anyway.

Improved Revive Pet early is on purpose. It looks like a wasted two points at 18. It is the two points that get your pet back in six seconds instead of ten after the pull that killed it, and row 3 needs ten points somewhere; Endurance Training and Thick Hide are the alternatives and they do less for a pet that is actually tanking.

Animal Handler at 39 is on purpose. It is +10% mounted speed, bought the level before Bestial Wrath and nine levels after you got a mount, because you will ride more than you fight for the next thirty levels. Move it after Ferocious Inspiration if you would rather have the party buff first; the engine validates either order.

The pull

Hunter's Mark, send the pet, Serpent Sting as the pet arrives, then Auto Shot with Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot in the gaps, and from 62 Steady Shot instead of Arcane Shot. The pet has to hit first: Growl is not much threat, and a Hunter who opens with Aimed Shot before the pet lands is a Hunter with a mob in melee range. Stand at maximum range, because every yard is another shot before the mob arrives if it does turn. Nothing in this loop changes from 10 to 70 except the names of the shots.

The dead zone. Between about 5 and 8 yards you can neither shoot (too close) nor melee (too far). When a mob reaches you: Wing Clip, step back through the dead zone, shoot again. Concussive Shot before it arrives means it never does. Disengage at 20 drops your threat on one mob so the pet can take it back.

Two mobs: Freezing Trap down before the pull, the pet on one, the other walks into the trap. Trap the one that hits harder; the trap holds ten seconds at 20 and twenty at 60, and the pet kills the other in that time. Three: Freezing Trap, Intimidation on the second as it reaches the pet, Multi-Shot, and the third is why Feign Death exists. A caster: send the pet first and shoot nothing until the caster has a target.

Feign Death and traps

Feign Death drops your threat on everything and takes you out of combat. Traps can only be placed out of combat. So the dungeon Hunter's macro is Feign Death then Freezing Trap, and the solo Hunter's save is Feign Death, let the pet die or run, Revive Pet, try again. It can fail against higher-level mobs; Improved Feign Death in Survival is why raiding Survival Hunters take it.

#showtooltip Freezing Trap
/cast Feign Death
/cast Freezing Trap

Press it once for Feign Death and again for the trap when you are out of combat, or let both fire if your latency allows.

The pet

Keep it fed: a happy pet does 125% damage, an unhappy one 75%, and it will leave you if it hates you long enough. Keep it trained: the pet trainer in any city teaches Growl, Bite, Claw, Cower and the resistances, and each new pet family brings its own skill (Dash for cats, Charge for boars, Gore for ravagers, Screech for owls and carrion birds, Lightning Breath for wind serpents). Training points come from the pet's level and loyalty; spend them on Growl and the damage skill first, armor and Stamina after. Mend Pet at 12 heals it over time; keep it ticking on any fight that lasts. Revive Pet costs a lot of mana and ten seconds (six with the talent), so a pet that is about to die is a pet you Mend, not one you mourn.

Which pet: a cat or ravager for damage while leveling, a boar for Charge and for eating anything you loot, a wind serpent for ranged damage in groups where melee is dangerous. Rename it; you will have it for sixty levels.

Aspects and ammo

One aspect up always. Hawk when fighting, Cheetah when travelling (it dazes you when you take damage, so never into a fight), Monkey only before 10, Viper from 64 when your mana is low, Pack for a group walk at 40 with the same daze warning. Beast at 30 hides you from Track Beasts, which matters only in PvP.

Ammo is a stat. Every tier of arrows or shots adds damage per shot to every shot you fire; buy the best your level allows, carry a quiver or ammo pouch for the attack speed bonus, and never, ever run out. Engineers make the best ammo at 70, and Thorium Shells and Headshot Arrows before that.

Macros

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot

The 70 rotation on one key: Auto Shot stays on, Kill Command fires whenever a crit has made it available, Steady Shot fills the gap. Before 62, the same macro with Arcane Shot in place of Steady Shot.

#showtooltip Hunter's Mark
/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack

Mark and send in one press, so the pet is always first.

Threat and groups

Feign Death is your threat reset and Misdirection at 70 gives your first three shots' threat to the tank. In a dungeon before 70: Hunter's Mark the kill target so the group sees it, Freezing Trap the one the leader marks for you (trap first, then the tank pulls, and re-trap when the leader says so), pet on Passive and Growl off so it does not pull a shackled mob, Aspect of the Pack off before the first pull. Distracting Shot at 12 taunts a mob onto you; it is for the one running at the healer, nothing else. Volley at 40 is your area damage and it draws threat from everything in it.

Train every new spell rank the moment you can afford it; an old rank of your main nuke is the most common reason a level feels slow. Keep your bags clear of vendor trash before leaving town, and pick up every flight path you pass; the map is the biggest time-saver in the game.

Leveling set: the ranged weapon first, always, and the best ammo it takes; then Agility (ranged attack power and crit in one stat), then Stamina, then Intellect (your mana is your shots), then attack power and crit. Leather until 40, mail from 40, and a good leather piece in your 40s is still better than a bad mail one. "Of the Monkey" (Agility and Stamina) greens are made for you; "of the Falcon" (Agility and Intellect) are nearly as good. The melee weapon is stats on a stick; never pick it for its damage.

Survival at 70, in order: hit to 9% first (Surefooted gives 3% of it, so 6% from gear), then Agility above everything else, because Lightning Reflexes adds 15% to it and Expose Weakness gives the raid a quarter of it as attack power, then crit (Expose Weakness procs on crits), then attack power and haste. A Survival Hunter's Agility is a raid stat.

Quest levels by zone, Horde side. A zone is comfortable when your level sits inside its range; move on when the quests turn green.

Dungeon ranges are the levels the quests and drops are tuned for; you can enter earlier with a group that knows the place. In Outland, every dungeon has a heroic mode at 70 that needs a key from the matching reputation at Honored.

You have not picked professions yet, so this section is the advice on which to take; pick them in the character card and it becomes the route.

The two questions. Do you want the profession to make you stronger at 70, or to make gold on the way? The crafting professions with a bind-on-pickup payoff (Tailoring's cloth sets for casters, Leatherworking's sets for mail and leather wearers, Blacksmithing's Armorsmith and Weaponsmith lines for plate, Jewelcrafting's trinkets, Engineering's goggles, Alchemy's flask that lasts through death) make you stronger and cost gold to level. The gathering professions (Mining, Herbalism, Skinning) make gold and cost nothing but detours. The usual answer is one of each: the crafter your damage gear wants, and the gatherer that feeds it.

For damage: the crafting profession that makes your armor class's set (Tailoring for cloth, Leatherworking for leather and mail, Blacksmithing for plate), paired with the gatherer that feeds it (Tailoring with Enchanting or a gatherer for gold, Leatherworking with Skinning, Blacksmithing with Mining). Engineering with Mining is the universal second choice for the goggles and the gadgets.

Leveling a profession costs the least when you do it while you level the character; every zone's nodes and drops are the ones the route wants at that skill. Pick early.

7/20/34. The Survival build WoWSims ships as its "Survival" preset. Nothing from the Beast Mastery leveling tree survives except Improved Aspect of the Hawk and Focused Fire.

The spec exists for one talent. Expose Weakness: when you crit, everyone attacking your target gains attack power equal to 25% of your Agility for 7 seconds. In raid gear that is a few hundred attack power on every Rogue, Warrior, Enhancement Shaman, Feral Druid and Hunter in the raid for most of the fight, and no amount of personal damage from a Beast Mastery Hunter adds up to it. Your own damage is the lowest of the three Hunter trees; the raid's is the highest. One Survival Hunter per raid, and only if the raid has the melee to use it.

The core is Lightning Reflexes (15% Agility, which is also 15% more Expose Weakness), Expose Weakness, Killer Instinct, Survival Instincts and Surefooted, with Lethal Shots and Mortal Shots from Marksmanship because Expose Weakness procs on crits. The flexible points are the row 1 fillers (Monster and Humanoid Slaying are picked for what a raid fights; Savage Strikes is there because the row needs points), Clever Traps and Improved Feign Death (two points each; swap for Deflection or Entrapment if you never trap in raids), and the one point in Thrill of the Hunt.

Raid job description: keep Expose Weakness on the boss. That means crit, which means Agility and crit on gear and Rapid Fire early, and it means a steady stream of shots: Auto Shot, Steady Shot, Kill Command after crits, Multi-Shot when up. Hunter's Mark on the boss (Improved Hunter's Mark is in this build too). Misdirection to the tank on the pull. You are also the raid's best trapper, with Clever Traps making Freezing Trap last longer, so the add that needs holding on a boss fight is yours. Stand with the melee if the raid leader allows it; Expose Weakness applies to the target, not your party, so it does not matter for the buff, only for Trueshot Aura if a Marksman is present.

When to respec: at 70, only once a raid has asked for it, and only if the raid has the melee to use it. A Survival Hunter in a caster-heavy raid is a worse Beast Mastery Hunter.

Pre-raid gearing, the short version.

1. Hit to 9% from the Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm quest rewards and the dungeon blues with hit on them (6% with Surefooted). Nothing else matters until this is done.
2. A heroic ranged weapon. The bow or gun is the biggest single upgrade on the sheet; the Steamvault, Shadow Labyrinth and Black Morass weapons are good for a long time, and the Honor Hold or Thrallmar reputation crossbow is the one you can plan for.
3. Heroic dungeon blues with Agility and attack power. Honor Hold or Thrallmar Honored for the first heroic key; Lower City, the Sha'tar, Cenarion Expedition and Keepers of Time for theirs, and Cenarion Expedition and the Consortium sell Hunter pieces along the way.
4. Crafted mail from the auction house where it beats the dungeon drop: Felstalker (Breastplate, Belt, Bracers) is a Leatherworker's Agility set that is not bind-on-pickup, and Fel Leather for the leather slots.
5. Ammo: the best arrows or shots the Engineers or vendors on your server sell; a stack of Adamantite Stingers or Shells is a flat damage upgrade to every shot you fire.

The pet is part of your gear. Tame a 70 version of your pet family so its skills are max rank (or teach them from a tamed one and go back to yours), train Avoidance for the area damage, and feed it before every pull. A pet that dies on the pull costs you a third of your damage and a ten second cast.

The heroic keys are reputations from the dungeons themselves: Honor Hold or Thrallmar, Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, the Sha'tar and Keepers of Time, each to Honored. Hunters with a trap and Misdirection get groups as fast as anyone who is not a tank or a healer.

Karazhan attunement starts in Deadwind Pass and runs through Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvault and Arcatraz to Black Morass. Do it as you gear; every one of those dungeons drops something you want.

Start reputations before 70. Every Outland dungeon reputation reaches Honored from normal runs on the way up, and Honored is what buys the heroic key. Cenarion Expedition (Coilfang), Honor Hold or Thrallmar (Hellfire Citadel), Lower City (Auchindoun), the Sha'tar (Tempest Keep) and Keepers of Time (Caverns of Time) each gate a heroic; run the normal versions while they are your level and the keys are waiting when you arrive.

Pre-raid gear is dungeon blues, reputation rewards and crafted pieces. Heroics drop the best of it and pay Badges of Justice for the rest. Quest blues from Nagrand, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley fill the gaps; do not skip the last three zones' quest lines on the way to 70, they are the fastest gearing there is.

The Karazhan attunement (the Master's Key chain through Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvault and Old Hillsbrad, ending in the Black Morass) is the first raid gate on the Anniversary realms; start it the week you hit 70 because it takes a group for every step.

Anniversary realms have Dual Talent Specialization, so the cleanest plan is two trees: Beast Mastery for everything you do alone, and the raid's requested build in the second slot if it asks for one. Check the trainer for the price in game; sources disagree on what TBC Anniversary charges.

Reading an order from any level. Every talent order on this page is a list of which point to buy at which level, and the trees in the talent section have a level slider that can show any of them. To respec into a build at level 70, pick that build above the trees and drag the slider to 70: the highlighted cells are the 61 points to buy, in the order the table lists them. Every order has been checked so that each row is open by the time you reach it.

Into Survival. At 70, after a raid has confirmed it wants Expose Weakness and has the melee to use it: follow the Survival raid order from the top. Do not level in it and do not respec into it for dungeons; it is a raid buff build and nothing else.

The number to budget: 50g per respec on original rules, the dual-spec price once on Anniversary. A Hunter who respecs once at 70 pays well under 60g; nobody should be flipping specs per raid night.

A Hunter watches a pet's health, a target's distance and a row of cooldowns at once, and the default UI shows the first badly and the second not at all.

• A range indicator: anything that colors a button when the target is in range of it. The dead zone is real, and knowing you are at 8 yards before you press is the whole trick.
• WeakAuras: Serpent Sting remaining on the target, Hunter's Mark missing, Kill Command available, Rapid Fire and Bestial Wrath ready, pet happiness, ammo count under a stack, and at 70 Expose Weakness on the target. Aspect of the Cheetah while in combat deserves a loud one.
• A shot timer (Quartz with its swing bar, or a WeakAura on Auto Shot) from 62: Steady Shot weaving means casting between auto shots without delaying them, and you cannot do it without seeing the swing.
• Pet frame improvements: a bigger pet health bar and the pet's target; most unit frame addons do both.
• A threat meter (Omen) in every group; Feign Death when you are second on it.
• One boss-mod addon, DBM or BigWigs, not both.

The addons that pay for themselves on any class: a quest helper (Questie) so you stop reading quest text for coordinates; a bag addon (Bagnon or similar) so you can see what you are carrying; a boss mod (Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs, never both) the day you start dungeons; and WeakAuras once you have a cooldown or buff you keep forgetting. Bind every ability you use in a fight to a key before you hit 20; clicking is the single biggest thing that makes a character feel weak.

Ticks are remembered in this browser for this class and spec.

Now

• Ammo before you leave the first vendor, a quiver or ammo pouch as the first bag, and never an empty stack
• The Tame Beast quest at 10 before anything else; a cat, boar or ravager, fed and renamed
• Improved Aspect of the Hawk 5/5 first; Unleashed Fury the moment row 3 opens at 20
• Pet first on every pull, then Hunter's Mark, Serpent Sting, shoot; the Mark-and-send macro from the basics section on a key
• Train bows, guns and crossbows; take whichever ranged weapon drops

40 to 70

• Level 40: mail, mount, Volley; Bestial Wrath at 41, The Beast Within at 50
• The Feign Death and Freezing Trap macro on a key before your first dungeon in Outland
• 60: epic riding, Tranquilizing Shot; 62: Steady Shot replaces Arcane Shot in the macro
• 64: Aspect of the Viper on a key; 66: Kill Command in the Steady Shot macro
• Respec Survival 7/20/34 at 70 once a raid asks for Expose Weakness; budget about 50g

At 70

• Hit to 9% before anything else; then Agility, attack power, crit
• Misdirection on the tank for every pull; Steady Shot weave with a shot timer
• Expose Weakness uptime is the number that matters; crit is how you keep it up
• Honor Hold or Thrallmar Honored for the first heroic key