Eidotrope at OutDPS: Survival is the spec of choice these days thanks to the buffs the spec received in 4.3 and 4.3.2. This means that the spec is receiving closer scrutiny than it has in the past. The consensus build appears to involve SV taking three points in One With Nature, two points in Sic ‘Em! and none in Careful Aim. However, often left out of talent discussions is how this build’s optimality is conditional upon pet talents.
Because (1) Sic ‘Em! is a discretionary talent for SV and (2) Sic ‘Em! interacts in an interesting way with the pet talent Wild Hunt, we need to look at player talents in conjunction with pet talents to determine the best SV talent distribution. Throughout the post below I will be using this femaledwarf profile, which largely uses the default settings for SV. The gear level is around 395, includes 4p-t13, and generally follows a Crit>Haste>Mastery priority. The relative benefits of Haste and Mastery for SV are on my to-do list to investigate, and preliminary investigations suggest slight gains for me were I to prefer Mastery in reforging. It is also worth keeping in mind that the levels of both crit and Arcane Shot usage obtainable with raid gear may result in different findings than those obtainable with just dungeon gear; they both result in more Sic ‘Em! procs and increase the value of having two rather than one point in Wild Hunt. If you are still in dungeon gear, you may find that having only one point in Wild Hunt is best.
The table below looks at the various combinations of SV’s discretionary player talents. . . . read full post
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I was going to suggest trying out builds that included Frenzy and Bestial Discipline with One with Nature because that was what had yielded the highest DPS on my Survival hunter on Female Dwarf until I remembered that I hadn’t switched my Serpent Sting glyph over to Arcane Shot once I had received my 2-piece T13. Previously, I had been running with a Frenzy/Bestial Discipline build with Go for the Throat and my pet had been specced 1/2 in Shark Attack and 1/2 in Wild Hunt. After doing some testing with the Arcane Shot glyph, Sic ‘Em with One With Nature and my pet being specced 2/2 in Wild Hunt yielded the about 90 higher DPS than my previous settings. This is of course anecdotal data but I was wondering if the opposite might be true at different gear levels, putting Frenzy ahead of Sic ‘Em. Do you mind doing some testing?
I have updated the post to include comparisons with Frenzy builds.