PvP Survival Hunter Talents, Builds & Glyphs

Nevermore

In this section of the guide, we will showcase some of the possible builds for Survival Hunter in PvP. Keep in mind that the build you choose will depend on your personal preferences and playstyle. We recommend that you try every single one of them, and also create your own variants as well!

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Standard Talent Builds

This build grants you several bonuses that will enhance your performance in PvP, ranging from defensive talents such as Entrapment and Survivalist to offensive talents such as Lock and Load, Hunter vs. Wild, T.N.T., and Expose Weakness. The build is overall extremely well rounded with plenty of tools against any type of enemy that you might face.

For the sake of experimentation, you can choose to swap talents around, gaining different effects! You can swap Trap Mastery, forsaking damage, for increased survivability through Surefooted. You can also choose to forsake some of the talent points spent on the Survival Tree, only attaining 51 points in favor of 5 points in Endurance Training.

build 1 — *Click here to see this build in the Talent Calculator*

This is a variation of the standard build that is overall similar, however, it has 3 different talent points from the standard build. We renounce Resourcefulness in favor of an extra point into Expose Weakness and Survival Tactics. The rest of the build works entirely the same, however — just like with the standard build, feel free to experiment! Sadly, we rely on Aimed Shot, meaning that the talents spent in the Marksmanship Tree are mandatory, however, you can switch around the talents in the Survival Tree.

build 2 — *Click here to see this build in the Talent Calculator*

Pet Talent Builds

A crab or a turtle can be the perfect companion for you in PvP. The build shown below would be a perfect example of how you can customize your pet’s talents. However, you can consider swapping one point from Spiked Collar in exchange for Intervene (for more utility). No matter how you choose to experiment with your build, you should never exclude Roar of Sacrifice! It allows you to become immune to critical strikes for 12 seconds, with the penalty of having 20% of all the damage you receive transferred to your pet as well.

This will be your main build for your Ravager and Spider pets, however, it’s always good to experiment! The build allows your pet to benefit from increased mobility while also focusing on key talents such as Culling the Herd, a talent that allows you and your pet to gain 3% increased damage whenever one of its special abilities lands a critical strike. No matter how you choose to experiment with your build, you should never exclude Roar of Sacrifice! It allows you to become immune to critical strikes for 12 seconds, with the penalty of having 20% of all the damage you receive transferred to your pet as well.

Notable Talents

Lock and Load is the most crucial talent in your entire build, as your gameplay revolves around it. Lock and Load allows you to gain a proc which empowers your next two Explosive Shot or Arcane Shot, removing their cooldown, ammo requirement, and mana cost. Lock and Load can be triggered by using either Black Arrow, Immolation Trap, Freezing Arrow, Freezing Trap, Frost Trap, or Explosive Trap.
T.N.T. is an effortless yet effective talent that allows you to increase the damage of Explosive Shot, Explosive Trap, Black Arrow, and immolation trap by 6%. This talent is mandatory.
Survivalist is one of the bread and butter Survival Hunter talents, enhancing our overall survivability by increasing our total stamina by 10%. This talent is a must-have.
Hunter vs. Wild is a talent that increases both your melee and ranged attack power and that of your pet by up to 30% of your total stamina. This talent is crucial for Survival Hunters.
Scatter Shot is a mandatory talent that grants us access to one of our most powerful crowd control tools that allows us to disorient our assailants.
Wyvern Sting is a talent that grants you the ability to put your enemies to sleep, effectively poisoning them, and placing a debuff on them after the sleep effect fades. This talent is very important, as it grants you even more crowd control.
Black Arrow is a mandatory talent that grants us the ability to debuff our enemies while also placing a potent DoT on them, effectively increasing all of our damage against the target afflicted with the debuff. You must always have this talent, no matter what build variation you come up with.
Lightning Reflexes is a talent that further enhances agility stacking for Survival Hunters, allowing us to gain a 15% agility increase.
Expose Weakness is a talent that works hand in hand with Lightning Reflexes, allowing you to capitalize even more on your agility stacking! This talent allows you to gain an attack power increase based on 25% of your agility rating. Having full points into this talent is not mandatory, you can choose to have only two points spent and still consistently benefit from its effect.
Aimed Shot is a mandatory talent when we talk about PvP! It grants you a very potent spammable ability that can reduce your enemy’s healing by up to 50%. You will want this talent, no matter what build variation you choose to pursue.
Hunting Party is a talent that grants you 3% increased agility while also granting you the “Refreshment” effect when either your Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, or Explosive Shot critically strikes.
Careful Aim is a talent that increases your total attack power by up to 100% of your intellect. This talent is pretty much mandatory since all of our equipment grants us intellect as well.
Go for the Throat is a talent that you will definitely want — since most of our gameplay consists of landing multiple critical strikes, this talent allows us to enhance our pet’s performance by providing it with constant Focus based on our critical strikes.
Thrill of the Hunt is a talent that further enhances the importance of critical strike chance in our builds. This talent grants you a 100% chance to regenerate up to 40 % of the mana used on one of our “shots” if it critically strikes. Since we are a spam class, we will want to benefit from this talent.
Entrapment allows you to get an enemy stuck in place for up to 4 seconds when they trigger a frost trap or snake trap. As a pure crowd control tool, this talent can be very strong, however, its trigger condition is only useful against melee classes.

Surefooted can be considered an optional talent, even if the slow duration reduction is extremely strong. You can choose to use this talent, instead of some of the more offensive talents, however, you will be trading offensive power for increased survivability in the process.
Survival Tactics can be considered an optional talent, it reduces your disengage cooldown by 4 seconds while also granting your feign death and all of your traps a 4% chance not to be resisted. Since the bonus is not that high, this talent should not be prioritized.
Endurance Training is an optional talent that increases your total health by up to 5% and the health of your pet by up to 10%. This talent is extremely good in situations in which you struggle to “survive”. However, in order to use this talent you will have to forsake some of the talents from the Survival Tree.

Glyphs

Major Glyphs

Reduces the cooldown of Aimed Shot by up to 2 seconds, allowing you to spam it even more efficiently! This glyph is mandatory.

Empowers your Explosive Shot even further, increasing its critical strike chance by up to 4%. This glyph is mandatory since our entire build is reliant on critical strikes!

Reduces the cooldown of Deterrence by up to 10 seconds, allowing you to use the ability much more often. This glyph is a solid choice when it comes to PvP as Deterrence itself grants you nigh invulnerability.

Reduces the cooldown of Disengage by up to 5 seconds. This glyph is quite strong when combined with Survival Tactics. You will want to use this glyph if you are struggling with melee classes, as it allows you to use Disengage more consistently. Use it at your own discretion.

Minor Glyphs

Reduces the cooldown of Feign Death by up to 5 seconds. This is a very useful glyph when you take into consideration that Feign Death has a standard cooldown of 30 seconds.

This glyph allows you to suffer no pushback penalty while casting Revive Pet. It is an absolutely amazing glyph for PvP, especially if you have not yet learned to properly manage your pet.

This glyph allows your Mend Pet ability to slightly increase your pet’s happiness each time it is used. This is a very useful glyph, especially if your pet dies in combat.

Author

Nevermore

Hey there folks, I am Nevermore and have been deeply passionate about WoW for more than a decade. Whether we talk about the hidden mysteries of Azeroth or the otherworldly Outland, my journey brought me here to share the things that I have experienced with you all.