Survival Hunter PvP Best Arena Compositions — The War Within (11.0.5)

• Ability to crowd control on the "Disorient" Diminishing return
  Examples: Psychic Scream, Cyclone, Blind, Blinding Light, Blinding Sleet, Intimidating Shout

• Ability to stun a kill target every 30 seconds when there is a Freezing Trap on healer
  Examples: Kidney Shot, Storm Bolt, Hammer of Justice

• Ability to do high single-target burst damage, preferably every 30 or 60 seconds
  Examples: Feral Frenzy, Symbols of Death, Avenging Wrath, Pillar of Frost

• Ability to apply a short stun on healers to reliably set up traps every 60 seconds when Intimidation is not available
  Examples: Cheap Shot, Mighty Bash, Rake (with Shadowmeld), Holy Word: Chastise

• Ability to peel when you are stunned, either with damage reductions or crowd control breaks
  Examples: Intervene, Blessing of Protection, Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Sanctuary, Cyclone, Ursol's Vortex, Disarm, Dismantle

• Specs that rely on "multi-dotting" (keeping damage over time effects on multiple members of the enemy team, which would be removed when you Scatter Shot or Freezing Trap the enemy)
  Examples: Affliction Warlocks, Elemental Shamans, Unholy Death Knights

• Specs that have their main crowd control abilities on the incapacitate diminishing returns category (this is the category of your Freezing Trap and Scatter Shot)
  Examples: Polymorph, Hex, Paralysis, Repentance, Imprison

• Healers that require you to stand still or stack in order to heal efficiently
  Examples: Earthen Wall Totem, Mastery: Lightbringer

• Specs that are unable to stun your kill target at least once every 30 seconds
  Examples: All Mage specs, Windwalker, Death Knight

You might have noticed a running theme from the list above. All of the DPS specs that work best with Survival Hunter are melee specializations.

And all of the healing specializations that work best with Survival Hunters are ones that have access to the Disorient diminishing return category (Discipline Priest, Preservation Evoker) and ideally, the stun diminishing return category as well (Holy Priest, Restoration Druid).

It is recommended that if you are just starting out or trying to push as high as possible, then you play with a healer.

The gameplan will almost always be:

1. Use a Wildfire Bomb to put the first charge on cooldown
2. Use Explosive Shot
3. Freezing Trap Healer
   (out of Intimidation, Harpoon, Holy Word: Chastise, Mighty Bash or Rake if needed)


4. Burst DPS
   (stun them with Holy Word: Chastise, Mighty Bash, Rake or Maim if possible)


5. Use your disorient diminishing return out of the Freezing Trap
   ( Psychic Scream, Mind Control or Cyclone)

The Survival Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle page of this guide goes into more detail about your opening damage rotation.

And between that:

• Scatter Shot DPS to peel if needed ( Cyclone out of the Scatter Shot if playing with a Druid)
• Kite with Concussive Shot, Tar Trap, Ursol's Vortex
• Swap to the enemy healer if the kill target uses defensives or kites you (consider using Chimaeral Sting on the healer swap if it looks like the healer might die)

Here is a ranked list of Survival + healer compositions for 2v2:

Disclaimer: during the first weeks of an expansion, any tier list is subject to change as the meta develops and Blizzard make balancing adjusments. This page will be regularly updated as the meta develops for The War Within Season 1.

• Survival Hunter + Discipline Priest

• Survival Hunter + Restoration Druid
• Survival Hunter + Holy Paladin
• Survival Hunter + Preservation Evoker
• Survival Hunter + Holy Priest

• Survival Hunter + Mistweaver Monk

• Survival Hunter + Restoration Shaman

If you are confident as a Survival Hunter and have a good partner who is willing to use voice, understands how to stay alive without a healer and is happy to occasionally face unwinnable matchups; you can also play with DPS specializations. Note this is much harder to do, but arguably can be more fun.

Note that when playing double DPS as Survival you may want to consider playing Pack Leader for the additional on demand healing from Den Recovery, especially when playing with specialisations like Subtlety Rogue where the area of effect damage from Sentinel can easily ruin a crowd control chain (for example by breaking a Blind).

Here is a ranked list of Survival double DPS compositions for 2v2:

• Survival Hunter + Subtlety Rogue

• Survival Hunter + Feral Druid
• Survival Hunter + Retribution Paladin

• Survival Hunter + Shadow Priest

There are many comps available to Survival Hunter in 3v3. Usually the strongest compositions will be Survival + melee + healer with a melee DPS that is able to stun your kill target regularly.

The two ranged DPS specs that sometimes perform well with Survival are Shadow Priest and Devastation Evoker as they're able to support the Hunter, have high damage when left alone and bring crowd control on the disorient category ( Psychic Scream and Sleep Walk) to extend crowd control chains before or after traps.

The best healer for your comp will usually be either be Holy Priest or Discipline Priest. Restoration Druid will sometimes work if your comp has very high damage and doesn't need a healer that can apply the disorient diminishing return category (Restoration Druids struggle to cast cyclone or use stuns in 3v3 as they need to stay at a long distance to heal effectively). Restoration Druid + Survival 3v3 comps tend to win by having great damage and efficiency rather than through crowd-control setups.

Preservation Evoker can be good as it is able to apply the disorient diminishing return category with Sleep Walk, as well as being able to do significant burst damage and apply pressure with Scouring Flame. This is particularly powerful in The War Within as many magic buffs have been added to the game, and magic buffs such as Power Word: Shield are more powerful than they were in previous expansions.

Sometimes, other healers can be competitive with Survival Hunter if their healing is highly overtuned. Currently, in Season 1 of The War Within, Holy Priest is considered to be undertuned and Discipline Priest or Holy Paladin will be the best healers for most Survival Hunter comps.

Your gameplan will almost always be:

1. Use a Wildfire Bomb to put the first charge on cooldown
2. Use Explosive Shot
3. Freezing Trap Healer
   (out of Intimidation, Mighty Bash, Cheap Shot or Holy Word: Chastise if needed)


4. Stun your kill target and use burst cooldowns
   (stun them with Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, Storm Bolt, Maim or Hammer of Justice when the healer is in a Freezing Trap)


5. Scatter Shot The second DPS when the kill target is stunned or when you are using Freezing Trap on the healer
   (so they can't use defensives on the kill target or deny your Freezing Trap)


6. Use your disorient diminishing return out of the Freezing Trap
   ( Psychic Scream, Mind Control, Cyclone or Blind)

Note that the final step is crucial to your success playing any setup Hunter comp, and this is why Holy and Discipline Priests are so good with Survival. If you aren't able to achieve long crowd control chains by using a disorient category crowd control out of Freezing Trap, you will find it difficult to kill your target unless your comp has enough damage to kill enemies without crowd control on the healer.

The Survival Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle page of this guide goes into more detail about your opening damage rotation.

The most common issues that cause teams to struggle to climb with a Survival Hunter's composition is that either:

• Your team is not lining up their stun on kill target with your Freezing Trap
• Your team is not using their disorient ( Psychic Scream on the healer immediately before or after Freezing Trap)
• You are missing Freezing Traps or not landing Freezing Trap every 30 seconds because your team are not helping to set them up by using their stuns on the enemy healer.
• Your team are not using cross-crowd control (e.g., Scatter Shot) on the second DPS when the enemy healer is in a trap, and your kill target is in a stun, and therefore, the second DPS is able to save the kill target (e.g., with Intervene or Blessing of Protection).
• Your team are not rotating defensive cooldowns or kiting the enemy DPS players when they have damage cooldowns or crowd control active.

It doesn't matter what comp you play; if you are not solving the above issues, your team will struggle to climb (and if you are able to solve those issues, your team will climb very quickly).

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 3v3:

Disclaimer: during the first weeks of an expansion, any tier list is subject to change as the meta develops and Blizzard make balancing adjusments. This page will be regularly updated as the meta develops for The War Within Season 1.

• Jungle Cleave (Survival Hunter + Feral Druid + Discipline Priest/ Holy Paladin)
• Cupid Cleave (Survival Hunter + Retribution Paladin + Discipline Priest)
• Scatterplay (Survival Hunter + Shadow Priest + Holy Paladin)
• Thug Cleave (Survival Hunter + Assassination Rogue/ Subtlety Rogue + Discipline Priest/ Holy Paladin)

• Survival Devastation (Survival Hunter + Devastation Evoker + Restoration Druid/ Discipline Priest/ Preservation Evoker)
• Thug Cleave with Restoration Druid (Survival Hunter + Assassination Rogue + Restoration Druid)
• KFC (Kung Fu Cleave) (Survival Hunter + Fury Warrior + Discipline Priest/ Preservation Evoker)
• PHD (Survival Hunter + Unholy Death Knight/ Frost Death Knight + Discipline Priest/ Preservation Evoker)

• Beast Cleave (Survival Hunter + Enhancement Shaman + Restoration Druid/ Holy Priest/ Discipline Priest)
• Outlaw Thug Cleave (Survival Hunter + Outlaw Rogue + Holy Priest/ Discipline Priest)