Introduction

Greetings.

This will be devoted to talking about my level 66 Orc Hunter on the Jubei'Thos Oceanic server, within World of Warcraft. It will also contain links to material written about the Hunter class by those more knowledgeable than I, and occasional musings on those issues which I consider relevant at least to my own character, if not the Hunter class in general.

I am, apparently, in somewhat of a minority where the Hunter class is concerned, because in terms of talent specialisation within the game, I am a Survivalist. According to a survey here, Survival Hunters comprise 5.1% of all players within World of Warcraft, however I read about another survey on the Hunter forum recently which claimed that since the first survey, the number had risen to 7%. Either way, however you slice it, we're rare.

Hence part of my motivation for beginning this blog. The official Hunter forum gets a steady flow of questions from the curious about what life is like for a Survival Hunter, and whether or not it might benefit them to make Survival their own spec. It is my hope that I can offer people who are curious about Survival at least my own perspective on the answers to these questions, and also, my even greater hope that I can spare you the need to go into the Hunter forum directly in order to ask them. The inhabitants of the Hunter forum are, largely without exception, a group of relentlessly vicious and deeply elitist individuals, and I would not willingly see their lack of compassion inflicted upon anyone, especially newcomers to the Hunter class or this game in general.

As Exhibit A in terms of evidence supporting the idea that Survival is indeed a viable Hunter specialisation, I also offer the Armory's talent profile of Ahoq, the Hunter class officer of the European guild Nihilum, which from what I have been able to learn is one of the most accomplished guilds on the planet.

Acknowledgement is also given here to BigRedKitty, a fellow Hunter within this game who is infinitely more knowledgeable and experienced than am I, and from whose writings I have learned much. Although his own specialisation is Beast Mastery, while remaining Survival I also recognise the worthiness of that spec, particularly for PvP and levelling. I probably would have won a lot more pvp fights than I have if I had the Bestial Wrath talent.