Hunter • Survival • PVE
Survival Hunter (PVE)
Agility-scaling hunters who trade raw damage for deadly traps, control, and raid-wide debuffs that empower physical DPS and reward precise play.
Talents
Survival PvE is built around one thing: keeping [Expose Weakness] active as often as possible. Your personal DPS matters, but your raid value comes from converting your Crits (and Agility scaling) into a raid-wide Attack Power buff for all physical damage dealers. Most PvE Hunter builds are locked into at least 20 points in Marksmanship because [Mortal Shots] is extremely high value. From there, Survival takes the core throughput and utility talents—especially [Surefooted] to help cover Hit while you gear aggressively for Agility/Crit.
Key Takeaways
Survival is brought for [Expose Weakness]—your job is to maximize uptime and keep the raid’s physical damage amplified. You will generally deal less personal DPS than Beast Mastery, but the raid-wide gain outweighs that trade-off. Survival scales extremely well as Agility and crit increase through later tiers.
Standard Raid Build — Survival 41 / Marksmanship 20 (0/20/41)
This is the standard talent build for raiding and dungeons as a Survival Hunter. The core objective is maximizing raid value through [Expose Weakness] uptime while maintaining strong personal DPS. Because [Mortal Shots] is such an important talent, most PvE Hunter builds are locked into a minimum of 20 points in Marksmanship. From there, the Survival tree provides the full [Expose Weakness] package plus key scaling talents like [Lightning Reflexes]. This build also centers around [Readiness]. There are multiple high-impact uses for it, such as using **two [Rapid Fire]** on bosses or using **[Multi-Shot] twice** on trash packs for a consistent overall DPS gain. Flexible points: - [Savage Strikes] is optional if you truly never melee weave. - [Deterrence] is not required for PvE throughput; you can move that point based on preference. - If you value AoE/trash damage, shifting points into [Clever Traps] for stronger [Explosive Trap] is a reasonable option. We intentionally skip [Counterattack] and [Wyvern Sting] because they provide basically no PvE value. If you insist on taking them, you can drop points from [Mortal Shots] or pull 2 points from [Thrill of the Hunt], but your mana efficiency and/or damage will suffer. Marksmanship choice: Your main MM decision is where to place your second 5-point block: **[Efficiency]** (mana savings) or **[Improved Hunter’s Mark]** (raid value). If you are the only Hunter applying [Hunter’s Mark], [Improved Hunter’s Mark] is effectively required.
Crit/Haste Variant — Survival (DST + LotP Focus)
This build is based on your raid composition and gear and is most valuable when you have a Feral Druid providing [Leader of the Pack] and key items like [Dragonspine Trophy]. The intent is to increase crit and haste consistency to improve [Expose Weakness] uptime. As with any Survival build, your most important talent is [Expose Weakness]. This ability benefits your entire raid’s physical DPS output by providing an Attack Power buff to physical damage dealers against your target. [Surefooted] remains critical in all Survival builds and allows you to gear aggressively for Agility while not worrying about Hit cap as much. [Improved Hunter’s Mark] is also important in this setup if you are responsible for applying [Hunter’s Mark]. Many raids treat the Survival Hunter as the dedicated puller/mark applier, making this a common requirement depending on your roster. This variant leans into talents like [Improved Aspect of the Hawk] and [Focused Fire] to increase haste uptime and slightly improve crit/damage flow, resulting in stronger [Expose Weakness] consistency when your gear supports it.
Readiness Usage
[Readiness] is a major reason the standard build is so reliable. In practice, it’s most often used to reset [Rapid Fire] for boss burn phases or to improve trash throughput with back-to-back [Multi-Shot] windows. The strength is control—you decide when to double up on your most valuable cooldowns.
Efficiency vs Improved Hunter’s Mark
If you are responsible for [Hunter’s Mark], take **[Improved Hunter’s Mark]**. If another Hunter covers Mark, take **[Efficiency]** for smoother mana across long encounters. This is the most common point allocation choice in the Marksmanship portion of Survival builds.