PvE Survival Hunter Stat Priority

Author: Jamielolx
Date: July 12, 2022
Updated: February 19, 2023
Expansion: WotLK Classic

PvE Survival Hunter

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

Stat Priority

Best Races

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

Rotation & Cooldowns

Best Professions

Best in Slot (BiS) & Pre-Raid Gear

Addons & Macros

The stat priority for PvE Survival Hunters is extremely straightforward. Agility makes the world go round for Survival, prioritize it over everything but Hit Rating. Essentially, there’s a huge gap between Agility and the rest.

This spec has a unique gimmick in its talents which allows us to gain Attack Power from Stamina, This ultimately doesn’t change things all that much, however, it is worth noting.

Hit Rating – Your cap depends on how many points in Focused aim you have, the total is 8%. Three points in FA makes it 5% + a Draenei in your party makes it 4%.
Agility
Crit
Attack Power x2
- 2 attack power counts as 1 of another stat because that’s how it is itemized on gear and gems etc.
Armor Penetration
- Not a good stat early on as it scales exponentially — avoid it when possible early game
Haste
- Fairly worthless in all tiers — avoid it when possible, you will never reach 0 Haste Rating, except for Phase 3 (but this would be ideal). The reason for this is that it does not increase the damage of your important high-hitting shots and traps but rather only auto-shot and steady shot slightly.

Hit Rating Requirement

Hit Rating will be your most important stat — if you can’t hit your targets, you’re not dealing damage. The hit cap versus level 83 (boss) enemies is 8% this means that Hunters need 263 Hit Rating in order to reach the hit cap — but there are ways to reduce that.

Hunters have access to the Focused Aim talent, which means that we only need 5% hit chance, or 164 Hit Rating. Furthermore, having a Draenei in your party (not raid) gives you the Heroic Presence aura, which offers an extra 1% hit chance, meaning you need 4% hit chance to cap or 131 rating.

With the talent Focused Aim in mind, it would look like this:

0/3 = 263 Hit Rating (8%) required to cap
1/3 = 230 Hit Rating (7%) requipred to cap
2/3 = 197 Hit Rating (6%) required to cap
3/3 = 164 Hit Rating (5%) required to cap
3/3 + Draenei Heroic Presence = 131 Hit Rating (4%) required to cap

Agility

Survival Hunter’s best stat by a mile, it scales with everything and then scales with that, it scales best with literally all of your abilities including volley and traps. Stack it wherever and whenever you can.

Crit Rating

After you’ve got your hit cap maxed out, Crit is the only secondary stat you should care about for Phase 1, simply because the other secondary stats either have to scale first or hardly scale at all in the first place.

Attack Power

Attack Power makes your attacks hit harder — it is the core stat of all physical damage dealers, melee, or ranged. For hunters specifically, you’ll get the bulk of your Attack Power from Agility (1 Attack Power per); it’s not a bad stat, but you have to realize the stat weight on gear is x2 for Attack Power, so you have to compare 1 Haste to 2 Attack Power.

Armor Penetration Rating

Armor Penetration is famously the strongest stat for physical damage dealers in Wrath of the Lich King. Take this knowledge and forget about it during Phase 1 though because it’s not going to be applicable until late Phase 2/Early Phase 3. Armor Penetration is one of the most “math-y” stats out there, and it’s generally pretty difficult to understand, so we won’t go into details about how it works here. The only thing you really need to know is that it takes 1400 armor penetration rating in order to reach 100% armor penetration in raids — that’s not going to happen for a very long while.