How to play SV in solo PvP?

Classes Hunter
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I never really managed to fully understand SV Hunter in PvP. :sweat_smile:

BM I can do perfectly well with in PvP, since it is ranged and can shoot while moving, so I always considered “staying just out of range” as a major defensive when playing Hunter.

But SV is “semi-melee”, and can’t do that half the time.

Other defensives are on 2+ min CDs, and are either very small heals, or 8 sec dmg reduction. Which I get is totally fine for BM… But SV Hunter as well…? :melting_face:

All I can see is that SV can use up a PvP talent to pick Bandage? Which breaks on dmg. So I’m guessing the same defensives BM has is supposed to be enough for SV Hunter as well…

And yes I know we have traps, but they are more meant for creating distance, trying to get a reset, or CCing a 2nd enemy. Not for direct combat while we deal dmg. :mouse_trap:

If I go up against ANY class that has minor healing defensives, I will be at a disadvantage. Once I use Exhilaration, that’s it… No more healing for me. And if I use SotF or Turtle, I have to wait 2.5+ min before I can engange another enemy… :sweat_smile: All I can do from here is trap and run, or hope to out damage the enemy…?

So clearly I’m missing something here, since other players are doing just fine playing SV Hunter. :slight_smile: Would just love to know what exactly I’m misunderstanding here with it’s playstyle in PvP.

I really LOVE the idea of playing SV Hunter, but it kind of feels a bit like you are giving up A LOT of ranged kiting, which is what makes hunters strong, just so you can “kid around” with a melee spec. :sweat_smile:

I’d love to know from other SV Hunter players, how you manage to not die? :slight_smile:

1 Like
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Watch Bicmex on Twitch to see how SV is played. It’s more of a poke-from-range spec and close in for the kill at low health. You can’t hope to survive in up close against other melee classes because SV is squishy asf and has no real defences as you rightly pointed out. SV is still a mess of a spec IMO but others like it and make it work.

2 Likes
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Hmmm didn’t consider that approach. Might try to give that a go. :slight_smile:

A few minutes ago I discovered that Scatter Shot also dispells all harmful DOTs, which also helps with using Mending Bandage in order to not break the cast. Had a bit of success with that in a few BGs.

Same with Aspect of the Eagle, which I haven’t really been too good at utilizing, so I can “poke at range”. :slight_smile:

Thanks ^^ Will give Bicmex a go, and see how he does it.

I watched a bit of Soulscape, and noticed he does the same thing. “Poking at range, and then moving in for the kill”.

EDIT:

I have now fought quite a few WPvP duels against equally geared opponents.

I died, and died, and died, and… :sweat_smile:

I fought a Enhance Shaman, a SPriest, a Monk, and two different Warriors. Adding up to maybe 14 duels.

My experience was that you WILL… ABSOLUTELY… DIE… if you try and go within melee range. :sweat_smile:

You constantly gotta stay ranged, and use Aspect of the Eagle to use Mongoose Bite at ranged. If you don’t, and you try to go in close, you will die. :skull:

Which leads me to “why go SV then, if you HAVE to play it ranged?”… Might as well go BM instead then. :sweat_smile:

For context, I did beat all of the above in duels, except for the Shaman. However only the Shaman “tried” his best at winning. The others tried to run and such, so they weren’t really commiting.

But man… Did it feel awkward not being able to Mongoose Bite much of the time, unless I wanted to die…

I don’t know… I LOVE the idea of SV Hunter, but it just feels so awkward. :confused: Any class that has heals, and actually TRY to win, would squash me…

Think I’ll just go BM, or return to my Shaman main. :sweat_smile:

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SV is the strongest solo pvp hunter spec by far. You win against most classes 1v1 and you have no glaring weaknesses. You have burst, sustained pressure, virtually cannot be kited, hard to kill in 1v1 scenarios. You get most specs to 50% health just in the opener. But you must learn the spec first, and it’s not intuitive snd doesn’t play like any other melee. If you harpoon in the opener like a warrior would charge, you will get destroyed.

3 Likes
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Sv plays by oppertunity. If you charge in right away and yes i have done this a bunch of times, it will be hard to get any momentum for a kill afterwards. I believe sv is one of the more complex but rewarding and fun specs in the game atm.
Keep distance and kite till the enemy runs out of their burst, get your dots up while kiting, then go in. Oversimplifying the play here but that is to my understanding the jist of it.

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It’s a VERY hard spec to play right because the specs design can very often play against you. It is a very powerful spec when played right though, and in my opinion is better than both MM and BM, which is actually saying a lot since its design is still an absolute disaster. It easily has the potential to be one of the better, most complete specs in the game, but as it stands now you have to be EXTREMELY skilled to make it work, but if you pass that barrier you will do a madness with it.

As much as I detest Bicmex, he is the one you want to watch if you want to know what to do with the spec.

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Why do you detest him? Did he say something about your mother or something?

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Nothing major, but he often says stuff to P me off. Won’t deny he is an exceptional player, and have watched some videos, he plays the spec very well and does things I don’t do, and some things I could probably never do considering my skill level.

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Hmm ok. Fascinating. I’ve never heard him say anything that pisses me of. Maybe you’re just being irrational about it?

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With all that said and agreed with I’ll have to say it’s one of the most fun specs I’ve ever played. Loved it since i first tried it after they changed SV from range to melee.

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While I admit that the first pass of melee SV had its issues, I still prefer it to the BFA, SL and DF iterations. I’ve given the spec numerous go’s after Legion but I just can’t get into it as much as I did in Legion. Harpoon felt meaningful back then but now its more of an afterthought with all the other gap-closers we have.

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Its great to land traps and root people or simply move across the arena. Our other gap closer apply a buff so i wouldn’t recommend using it willy nilly.

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just watch bicmex guide on youtube thats all you have to do literally… SV best spec out of hunters … but I’m playing MM, because SV feels sus

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How can you win 1v1 rogues that have 2 evasions and vanishes, wars that have crazy self heal, or warlocks?

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I’m yet to play much rated arena but I do reeeeally enjoy the concept and playstyle of the spec. A lot of people call it a disaster, but I like it a lot… I just wish, as a SURVIVALIST spec, living was a little easier. But yeah, it is a very “poke from distance” kind of spec, but you dart around the map which is fun and your CC is valuable. You got good utility, too. I’m planning to make this my main alt and am gonna get into some shuffle games as soon as servers are up.

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If you know that there is a rogue you can flare yourself and place a freezing trap behind you. Take Mending bandage to lose the dots and kite them. If they burst you can use dismantle. Survival tactics reduces damage taken by 90% for 1,5 seconds as well when you feign death.

Kite and slow them. They need to make contact to heal. DIsmantle and steel trap keeps them from reaching you.

We have int, chimereal sting, stun and interlope to deal with casters.

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Hey,

I renewed my account since they announced MMR will be fixed, so I can reply in the forum.

As SV hunter you should never lose to a rogue, especially if you are prepared (picked the right PVP talents):

  • always use tenacity pet: its ability is usable while you are stunned (since the pet does it, not you) and it gives you 20% max health and then heals you for 20% of max health (so essentially for 20% of 120% which is 24%).
  • Roar of Sacrifice is usable while you are stunned too
  • And you have trinket

So you have 3 things you can do while stunned. Don’t use them all at once. One stun you trinket. The next stun you roar. The next stun you use pet heal. Next stun you try to be smart and pre-wall or pre-tracker’s net f.e.

Then, you have the honor talent “Tracker’s net” which destroys rogues. Using this on them makes them miss 80% of all melee attacks so kidney, blind, etc… basically they miss everything against you for 6 sec. There is a learning curve to this, but once you get it you become much stronger.

Then there is the opener if you are trying to kill a rogue 1v1:

  • scatter shot
  • explosive shot (does not break scatter)
  • death chakram (does not break scatter)
  • bomb (the initial hit does not break scatter, only the dot ticks)
  • intimidation
  • flanking strike
  • bomb
    (you must have high haste, like 30% to pull it off with fast globals, so get full gear ;))

So basically it’s like a stunlock, but you only use abilities that don’t break scatter during scatter, and then use the others during intimidation. You one shot a rogue with this combo if they don’t trinket, so you basically trigger cheat death.

  • always use the Battlemaster trinket. pair this with your big heal

  • keep hunter’s mark on the rogue, they can only remove this with cloak of shadows

If you are f.e. in shuffle, and you don’t want to kill the rogue, but their partner, this is your combo against the rogue:

  • scatter shot
  • flare
  • steel trap
    (in that order)

They can’t break the root (sprint root break talent was removed), they can’t cloak it (it’s physical root), they can’t vanish, because of the flare. So you take them out for around 8 sec (scatter and steel trap combined).

While the steel trap is about to fall off, you hunter’s mark the rogue (ideally last global inside the steel trap)

Against warlock, you just straight tank and destroy him most of the time. Demo is a bit harder, but doable.

  • use the Interlope PVP talent to redirect the coil every 45 sec
  • your opener combo against warlock is: chimaeral sting + interlope : first 3 sec he can cast, but you have interlope so it’s ok, then 3 sec he is silenced, then as silence is about to fall off, you use intimidation. You normally want to use bomb twice and then immediately coordinated assault and chunk him with big damage. When you don’t have any more cc for the lock, you can pre-wall, and then also add roar of sac.

Against warlock with the proper setup you have 3 ways to survive big damage:

  • Fortitude of the Bear + Battlemaster trinket + Exhilaration heals you to full, you can be 1% health it doesnt’ matter. This is a bit tricky against Demo as he has mortal woulds from the pet, but for the other 2 specs works completely.
  • then you have 40% wall + Roar of Sac for a period when you are basically immune
  • then you have turtle (last resort) + bandage. Ideally you want to use this while you still have the buff from BM trinket and the bandage heals for a lot
  • you must trap the pet, if succubus
  • you must root all demo lock pets on CD with the AOE root (tar trap)

Basically these are your main pointers. You have a very good chance against any spec as survival. Not saying you can beat anyone, but you have tools and answers for any situation, you never feel absolutely useless even against your biggest counters as with a lot of other specs.

Another remark, as I always say use tenacity pet (with mortal stike ofc). In today’s PVP Master’s call is not so important any more. Only to break your healer out of boomie root+beam, but that’s it. Most of the time the tenacity pet will be better for your personal survivability. If you really miss freedom, you can play with f.e. the following talent setup:

  • survival tactics
  • chimaeral sting
  • wild kingdom

With wild kingdom create the following macro:
#showtooltip Wild Kingdom
/cast [@player] Master’s Call
/cast Wild Kingdom

(note- the order is important as Wild kingdom is on GCD, master’s call is not)
Spam it 2 times fast and you get your cunning pet + freedom
You can do it every 1 min (opposed to 45 sec for master’s call if you always have the cunning pet) so it’s still ok.

Good luck and have fun!

Edit: I saw you asked about warriors. Vs them you play the long game (play like a ranged class the whole time). The key to winning warr matches is timing scatter shot. Nothing else matters as much. Ideally against warr you always scatter when he stormbolts so you are both cced at the same time, and he can’t damage you. This takes practice. Usually you can just spam scatter shot as he’s closing in so you can intercept the stormbolt. Another skill play against warr is to feign death the big damage from charge.

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I dunno, but against an equally skilled rogue, I would imagine you will never win. Unless you play everything perfectly, like landing flares with predictions, and landing traps without setup.

Just realised that mending bandage is still a thing. Been so long since that was viable outside of some niche comps i completely forgot how stupidly godly this is against melee classes in general as you can cc and heal up. Well everything except for DHs, as they have a DoT you cannot clear no matter what you use.

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