Survival Hunter PvP Stat Priority, Gear, and Trinkets — The War Within (11.0.5)

The stat priority for Survival Hunter in PvP is as follows:

1. Agility;
2. Versatility around 20%;
3. Haste to 20%;
4. Mastery;
5. Critical Strike.

Agility is the best stat in all situations. You will want a balance of Versatility and Haste that you are comfortable with and then focus on Mastery.

As a general rule, you want Versatility around 20%, Haste at 20%, and the rest of your stats going towards Mastery.

If you do not have enough Versatility, you will take a lot of damage and likely find yourself dying more often than you otherwise would.

If you do not have enough Haste, you will not be able to use all of the global cooldowns and abilities required to set up crowd control and burst targets down before the enemy is able to crowd control you, kite, or use defensives.

If you do not have enough Mastery, your damage will be too low to finish kills.

• 5,000 Critical Strike rating will give you 7.1% Critical Strike chance (7.5 with Serrated Tips)
• 5,000 Haste will increase your attack speed by 7.6%
• 5,000 Mastery will increase the damage of you and your pet by 12.1% (when within 25 yards of each other or 40 yards during Aspect of the Eagle)
• 5,000 Versatility will increase your damage done by 6.4% and reduce your damage taken by 3.2%

There is a slight increasing diminishing return on secondary stats past 30%, further increased past 40%. In the first season of The War Within, the only stat you might be able to get to 30% is Versatility, and if you are near 30% Versatility, you should be changing some of it into either Haste or Mastery.

You should be aware that Critical Strike damage in PvE content is 200% of the damage the ability would normally have done, but in PvP, this is reduced to 150% of the damage the ability would have normally done.

Conquest vendor PvP Gear will always have Versatility and then a second stat which will be either Haste, Mastery, or Critical Strike Rating.

Almost every piece of conquest gear has a Haste option, but not many pieces have a Mastery option available.

I recommend that you buy gear with Mastery where available and Haste on any piece of gear where there is not a Mastery PvP variant.

If you have too much Versatility, the easiest way to transfer it to Haste or Mastery is to craft the ring Ring of Earthen Craftsmanship or necklace Amulet of Earthen Craftsmanship.

Survival Hunter The War Within Season 1 tier bonuses:

Note that tier set bonuses are nerfed by 50% in PvP.

• (2) Set Bonus: Wildfire Bomb damage increased by 8%.
• (4) Set Bonus: Mongoose Bite deals 20% increased damage to targets affected by Wildfire Bomb.

The tier set from Season 1 increases the power of your Wildfire Bomb and the synergy between Wildfire Bomb and Raptor Strike burst windows.

The tier set doesn't have a major effect on your gameplay, although if you weren't already, the 4-set bonus increases the value of using Wildfire Bomb when you have several stacks of Mongoose Fury.

The 4-set bonus is not hugely significant and it is not required to use Hunter tier pieces except the Head and Shoulders as Survival in PvP. This is because the other three pieces (Chest, Gloves and Legs) all provide Crit rating (a stat that Survival wants to avoid entirely in PvP), rather than the three stats that Survival does need a balance of (Versatility, Haste and Mastery).

If you are playing with the 2-set, I recommend that you use the Head, and Shoulders (leaving the Chest, Gloves and legs because they have Critical Strike Rating).

If you are playing with the 4-set, I recommend that you use the Head, Shoulders, Gloves, and Legs (leaving the Chest because it is high in Critical Strike Rating).

I recommend that you get the 2-set instead of the full 4-set. You would need to be using Raptor Strike a lot for the 4-set bonus to be valuable and currently, Survival doesn't use Raptor Strike enough to justify it.

To craft a piece of gear with the PvP item level scaled to 639, you must craft the Algari Competitor's item for that slot, and apply Forged Gladiator's Heraldry while crafting. You should not use crafted gear unless it has the item level scaled to 639 in PvP.

To avoid letting your Versatility get too low, most of your crafted gear should have Versatility as one of the stats. I recommend only having one or two items crafted Haste Mastery if you are going to craft any.

You can apply Embellishments while crafting gear, and you can equip two Embellished crafted pieces of gear at once.

I recommend that you craft Algari Competitor's Signet with the Elemental Focusing Lens Embellishment and the stats as either Haste Versatility or Haste Mastery so that you can have two Haste Rings. Crafting the ring with Haste Mastery will give you more damage but slightly reduce your survivability.

After that, you can craft any other piece of Algari Competitor's gear with an Elemental Focusing Lens. Note that this embellishment will only activate once you have a piece of gear with an Algari gem so you should prioritise putting at least one gem on your gear as soon as possible.

The Nerubian weapon embellishment Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension (and related embellishment Writhing Armor Banding) is useful for some classes, but as Survival this is not competitive with the Elemental Focusing Lens, even when it reaches ten stacks.

The defensive option for your Embellished gear would be Captured Starlight, although as the shield is not hugely significant, it is expected that the Embellishments providing a throughput increase will perform better.

Note: It is important to be wearing 2 PvP trinkets. This will give you an Agility and Stamina boost that will increase your damage and survivability.

• Forged Gladiator's Medallion
• Forged Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity

• Forged Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity
• Forged Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity

Forged Gladiator's Medallion is a mandatory trinket to have equipped at all times for non-human players. This allows you to remove any crowd control on yourself. Humans can use this trinket to have a shorter (90-second) the cooldown on escaping stuns, for example, into Rogue Mage teams.

Forged Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity increases your Haste and has a chance to proc your primary stat. This is an overall strong trinket, as the stat will proc often throughout an arena match (and will generally proc very early when your cooldowns are active).

Forged Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity grants you some Crit and a powerful Agility on-use every minute. Synchronize this with Coordinated Assault.

Forged Gladiator's Emblem increases your maximum health when used. This gives you an additional defensive when you think a team is focusing you or you think they are about to stun and burst you. A good example of when you will want to use this trinket is when facing Rogue Mage teams.

Here are the best enchants for a Survival Hunter:

• Boots: Enchant Boots - Scout's March
• Bracer: Enchant Bracer - Chant of Armored Speed
• Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Chant of Burrowing Rapidity
• Chest: Enchant Chest - Stormrider's Agility/ Enchant Chest - Crystalline Radiance depending on whether you value 1.5% movespeed over 225 Agility (around 0.4% of your total Agility)
• Legs: Stormbound Armor Kit
• Rings: Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste
• Weapon Enchant: Enchant Weapon - Stonebound Artistry/ Enchant Weapon - Authority of Radiant Power

If you are not using four pieces of the Hunter tier set, you should use Enchant Ring - Cursed Mastery, because none of your gear has Critical Strike rating so you do not lose any stats.

You can use one Algari Diamond gem in The War Within, and for this you can choose between:

• Elusive Blasphemite (increased movement speed)
• Enduring Bloodstone (increased durability as you take less damage when stunned)
• Determined Bloodstone (increased throughput against teams that regularly slow you)

The safest choice of Algari Diamond gems is Enduring Bloodstone, which will increase your survivability when you need it most. The Determined Bloodstone Algari Diamond gem is a straight throughput increase against teams that will apply slows to you constantly at the cost of survivability.

If you are playing Enduring Bloodstone, it is easier to justify crafting Haste Mastery rings for the additional damage they bring compared to gear with Versatility that would reduce your damage taken.

The Elusive Blasphemite Algari Diamond gem will make it easier for you to kite and chase players, but will force you to take some gems with suboptimal stats to get the full benefit.

Your other gems should be selected based on your stat needs.

• For Haste, use Versatile Emerald or Masterful Emerald
• For Versatility, use Quick Sapphire or Masterful Sapphire
• For Mastery, use Quick Onyx or Versatile Onyx

If you are using Elusive Blasphemite, you want as many different coloured gems as possible. There are five Algari gem colours: Emerald, Onyx, Ruby, Sapphire, and Amber.

To get the maximum movement speed when you need the Haste stat, you should use one of each of the following gems:

• Versatile Emerald/ Masterful Emerald
• Quick Onyx
• Quick Ruby
• Quick Sapphire
• Quick Amber

To get the maximum movement speed when you need the Mastery stat, you should use:

• Masterful Emerald
• Quick Onyx/ Versatile Onyx
• Masterful Ruby
• Masterful Sapphire
• Masterful Amber