Rejoice! Survival Hunter Mastery *somewhat* fixed!

[Maizou]

From the hotfix notes:

Survival Hunters' Mastery will correctly be activated by pet auto-attacks.

According to the official forums, it's about a 10-15% dps buff by fixing this bug, AND due to Spiked Collar, it's now MORE OPTIMAL to use a ferocity pet for survival one again.

Unfortunately, Mortal Strike can still proc mastery, so we're still stuck with a River Beast, Scorpid, or Carrion Bird, but it's a step in the right direction!

People are currently testing to see if Snake Hunter is worth taking still, or if Murder of Crows will be better, as the new Mastery fix apparently makes it really easy to get to 6 stacks without needing Snake Hunter. It also apparently makes Mastery and Haste more valuable, with the top SV hunters agreeing we want to -try- to get to at least 8-10% mastery.

[Shelassa]

It's very good news!

A friend of mine had mentioned that he'd seen a surprising amount of procs of Mongoose and even abandoned Snake Hunter for AMoC, but it's nice to see it put into blue words from Blizzard.

[PrimalTazza]

Holy hell, that's why I was getting all those mongoose bite charges. Good to know. I thought I'd just gotten crazy lucky (Headless Horseman's mount finally dropped!) or something. I'll probably still stick with snake hunter personally for the time being, I find it pretty convenient and sometimes you don't get all those procs.

[Shelassa]

For PvP I'm sure going to stay with Snake Hunter - sometimes getting those 3 charges on demand is just too good to pass up

[TygerDarkstorm]

With this change, is it still recommended to leave our pets in tenacity spec or is ferocity better?

[Gimlion]

It's kind of tucked away, but because of Spiked collar, Tyger, it's higher dps to once again use Ferocity. The mortal wounds issue still limits top-tier to the 3 families, but that's only for super min-maxing afaik, and if you're doing that, other melee specs have much higher output anyways

[Quiv]

Unfortunately, Mortal Strike can still proc mastery, so we're still stuck with a River Beast, Scorpid, or Carrion Bird, but it's a step in the right direction!

Whats the loss if not using Mortal Strike pet? Surely it can't be but a few points over the course of a fight (trying to gauge if this is min-max territory or a substantial loss).

[Maizou]

Unfortunately, Mortal Strike can still proc mastery, so we're still stuck with a River Beast, Scorpid, or Carrion Bird, but it's a step in the right direction!

Whats the loss if not using Mortal Strike pet? Surely it can't be but a few points over the course of a fight (trying to gauge if this is min-max territory or a substantial loss).

It's one less thing they can do to proc an extra charge, so it's all RNG based.

[Shelassa]

In addition to Mastery tweak, in the latest PvP Balance changes:

(Survival) Stamina has been increased by 15%.
Developer Notes: As a melee DPS, Survival Hunters have been a bit too squishy in PvP, so we're increasing their Stamina.

Obviously, PvP only. Changes are being tested and are scheduled to go live after the maintenance.

[Maizou]

So apparently, haste is now our best stat. Stat priority has changed to Haste >= Vers >= Crit > Mastery. Unlike before, Mastery is not bad, it's just not as important as the other 3 stats. So this change has actually made all 4 stats useful for survival, unlike prior to the fix, where Crit and Vers >>>>> Haste and Mastery.

Keep in mind until SimCraft updates with this hotfix, it will sim Haste and Mastery as less than ideal, so use common sense when deciding on gear upgrades. If you use Pawn, I'd suggest using Icy Vein's basic stat weights until SimCraft updates with the change.

( Pawn: v1: "Azor-Survival": CritRating=6.57, Agility=9.55, HasteRating=6.77, MasteryRating=5.25, Versatility=6.64, Dps=9.55, MeleeDps=9.55 )

And according to icy vein's guide writer and the simcraft people, survival has moved from the lowest dps class to the highest -potential- single target dps class with this bug fix.

What even just happened. (Potential and Single Target are key words there. In a perfect environment with absolutely no cleave, etc.)

[TygerDarkstorm]

It's kind of tucked away, but because of Spiked collar, Tyger, it's higher dps to once again use Ferocity. The mortal wounds issue still limits top-tier to the 3 families, but that's only for super min-maxing afaik, and if you're doing that, other melee specs have much higher output anyways

Thanks! I'm not too worried about min/maxing for this character. She's just for fun and I'm still leveling her anyway.

[Maizou]

And since we're on the topic:

https://twitter.com/Muffinus/status/793494273735876608

Blizzard is officially looking into the fact pet's Mortal Strike attacks can proc SV's Mastery.