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Survival Hunter leveling guide

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A hunter who fights in melee range. Pick this if that idea is why you rolled one. How the Survival talents play from level 10 to 60.

On this page7 sections

At a glanceOur pickOpinion, not confirmed by BlizzardOur reading of the Survival talent text, not a tested rotation.

Build at level 60
0/18/33 (18 Marksmanship, 33 Survival)
16-point milestone
Counterattack, level 25
Last Survival talent
Lacerating Strikes, level 40
In a group
Damage
Our first choice for leveling a Hunter
Beast Mastery
Open in the calculatorEvery point, level by level Share

How Survival plays

  • Survival, in this beta data, is the melee Hunter tree. Its talents are about Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, parrying and a kick, not about shots.
  • Savage Strikes adds 20% critical strike chance to Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite, and Predator's Edge adds 30% to melee critical strike damage and 50% to off-hand weapon damage.
  • Parrying is part of the loop. Deterrence raises Dodge and Parry chance by 25% for 10 sec, and Counterattack, which becomes active after a parry, immobilizes the target for 5 sec.
  • Expose Prey gives your attacks against a target with Hunter's Mark a 10% chance to activate Mongoose Bite, and Lacerating Strikes, the last talent, makes Mongoose Bite leave a Bleed.
  • Improved Tracking adds 5% to all damage against the creature type you are tracking.

What to press first

Most important first. Not a rotation.

  1. 1

    Track what you are fighting

    Improved Tracking adds 5% damage against the tracked type only, so change tracking when the enemies change.

  2. 2

    Keep Hunter's Mark on the target

    Expose Prey only works against targets that carry it.

  3. 3

    Use Mongoose Bite whenever it activates

    Expose Prey activates it for 5 sec at a time, and from Lacerating Strikes on each one leaves a Bleed.

  4. 4

    Lean on Raptor Strike

    Savage Strikes raises its critical strike chance.

  5. 5

    Press Deterrence, then answer parries with Counterattack

    Deterrence makes parries likelier for 10 sec, and each parry opens Counterattack.

  6. 6

    Add Strider Kick

    Strider Kick deals 100% melee weapon damage. The talent text gives no cooldown for it.

Talents that change how you play · 10

From Improved Tracking at level 10 to Lacerating Strikes at 40.

The level is when our build first takes the talent.

  1. Levels 10–14

    Improved Tracking

    Which creature type you track starts to matter.

  2. Levels 15–19

    Survivalist

    More health: 10% at five points.

  3. Level 23

    Deterrence

    A defensive cooldown, and the start of the parry game.

  4. Level 25

    Counterattack16-point milestone

    Parries now open a strike that roots the target.

  5. Levels 27–29

    Predator's Edge

    Melee critical strikes hit harder, and the talent names off-hand weapon damage: two weapons are rewarded.

  6. Levels 30–31

    Expose Prey

    Mongoose Bite starts lighting up on its own.

  7. Level 32

    Strider Kick

    A new melee strike.

  8. Levels 33–34

    Resourcefulness

    Melee abilities and Traps cost 60% less Mana.

  9. Levels 35–39

    Lightning Reflexes

    Agility goes up by 15% at five points.

  10. Level 40

    Lacerating Strikes

    Mongoose Bite leaves a Bleed that runs for 21 sec.

The whole Survival build, every point from 10 to 60

Gear to look for

What the talents reward on items, and items that carry it.
  • Melee weapons matter here, and two of them: Predator's Edge raises off-hand weapon damage by 50% at five points.
  • Agility, which Lightning Reflexes raises by 15%.
  • Strider Kick deals a share of melee weapon damage, so the weapon in your main hand is worth upgrading.

Opinion, not confirmed by BlizzardItems that carry what these talents name.

Levels 10-20

The Hall of Thanes, levels 13-18 Alliance

Groups and dungeons

In a group: damage. New group talents before 3 dungeons.

In a group these talents support damage.

  • Deterrence and Counterattack need an enemy to be attacking you. Next to a tank, in our view, they will fire less often than they do alone.
  • The trap talents, Entrapment and Clever Traps, are not in this build. If you want crowd control from traps in dungeons, that is where the points would come from.

New group talents by the time each dungeon opens

All 9 launch dungeons

Strengths and trade-offs

2 strengths, 2 trade-offs.

Strengths

  • Hard to kill for a Hunter: 10% more health from Survivalist and a Dodge and Parry cooldown.
  • Melee abilities become cheap once Resourcefulness is in.

Trade-offs

  • This is a new way to play a Hunter, and nothing in the data says how its melee damage compares with shots. We have not measured it either.
  • The tree gives your shots nothing. They get their first talents when the Marksmanship points start at level 43.

Compare this build

With Beast MasteryWith Marksmanship

Keep reading

Sources and what isn't confirmed

Unconfirmed: reported, not confirmed by Blizzard

  • The Hall of Thanes being open to the Alliance only
  • The items under Gear to look for, and their stats, as public coverage reports them

Not announced

  • Stat weights
  • A leveling talent order from Blizzard

Sources

  • Beta 1.60.1 talent data: every sentence about how the tree plays is read from the Survival talent text. Nothing here is a published guide or a tested rotation
  • Warcraft Tavern, 19 Sep 2026: the items under Gear to look for, and where each comes from
  • Warcraft Tavern's Forever Hunter guide: which armor and weapons a Hunter can use, and from what level

Updated . Talent data: beta 1.60.1. Details can change in any later build or patch.