Survival is dead to me...Dead!

I was bored on my lunch break today and decided to do some forum surfing just to see what's what in the world of Hunters. The endless litany of BM > MM > SV > BM <>/= SV posts just make my head hurt sometimes, but for some reason I keep getting drawn to them. After reading a few, the same thing kept coming up, that BM is a better raiding spec than SV. I kept telling myself that this wasn't true, but really there is only one way to find out if its true.

Respec! (Not the Aretha Franklin kind like in Blues Brothers, that's R-E-S-P-E-C-T)

Before I go over the respec, let me explain why I did what I did back when I did it. If only this blog could do a flashback scene.

Flashback to April, I was level 70, had my epic flying mount, was pretty much an MM Hunter. I read a couple forum posts on a MM/SV hybrid that did some decent damage, so I gave it a try. It was hard giving up Silencing Shot, but a 30/31 build worked for me. I was doing decent damage, I was trapping better and everything seemed good in the world.

In May, I started reading more forum posts by Elakuan, a Troll Hunter, specifically this gem that went into detail on what gear to get for DPS. I looked up Elakuan on the Armory and saw he was a 41 point SV Hunter. His posts were well thought out and gave good examples, so one day I just respecced 0/20/41. My damage increased a ton, I was critting like a madman! Talents and trinkets were proccing all the time. I resocketed all my gear to +8 Agi gems, and boy did it cost a lot. I farmed for pieces of Felstalker gear and had a friend craft the belt and bracers for me. SV fit me like a glove.

Up until yesterday. I had been down on myself over not topping the Damage Meters in Karazhan and wondered if there was a way to squeeze out a little more productivity. Maybe BM was the key. The thing that put it over the top was Ferocious Inspiration.



Expose Weakness, at Rank 3, was providing a debuff on mobs that equals an AP increase of 25% of my Agi. I was running with about 800 Agi buffed, so equating to (800 Agi x 25% = +200 AP) +200 AP during fights. The only downside to this is that it only applies to melee and ranged attacks. My Karazhan raids usually have 1 Warrior Tank, 1 Paladin Off Tank, 1 Paladin Healer, 1 Druid Healer, 2 Mages, 1 Shadow Priest, 1 Warlock and 1 Hunter. The 10th spot is usually taken by a Rogue, Hunter or Shaman. This translates into 4 Spell DPS and 2 Ranged DPS. So only two people were really taking advantage of the Expose Weakness. Ferocious Inspiration only applies to your Party, but by putting me in the Mage/Priest/Lock party, we all increase damage by 3%.

With a sad goodbye, I respecced to a 41/20/0 BM build.

I will be testing it over the next few days, but after last night's run, making second on the Damage Meters, and almost beating Evangelia (Jer), I am happy so far. It also felt good to break out Rema again, I missed the old girl.