Somewhat recently, Blizzard made a decision to restore some of the former glory to the Survival tree, and it has since become a viable and helpful build once more. As it stands today, the Survival tree is now more than just the "melee huntard" tree it was only a short time ago.
   How is the survival tree useful? See below:
   Survivalist increases total health by 10%. But Lass, hunters aren't tanks! They should be getting hit at all! They should be managing their aggro appropriately. You're absolutely right. But, how many times have things gone south and a hunter has had to step up and save a squishie, presumably the healer? With this health buff, we can tank that squishie hater just a little bit longer, until either the tank can come to our aid or the mob dies, which means better chances for the entire party to survive.
   Entrapment gives your Immolation Trap, Frost Trap, Explosive Trap, and Snake Trap a 25% chance to entrap the target, preventing them from moving for 4 seconds. We've all had those times where our traps break too soon and our cool-down isn't up yet to lay another. With Entrapment, you've been bought a little extra time for that cool-down.
Improved Wing Clip gives your Wing Clip ability a 14% chance to immobilize the target for 5 seconds. PvP hunters know the value of Wing Clip. It's time the rest of us caught up with them. This can also be useful in PvE situations, where you're forced into melee combat–slap a Wing Clip on the offending target, and make your dash for ranged combat again (but, in groups, be sure the tank isn't forced to chase you around if the Imp Wing Clip doesn't proc!)
Clever Traps increases the duration of Freezing and Frost trap effects by 30%, the damage of Immolation and Explosive trap effects by 30%, and the number of snakes summoned from Snake Trap by 30%. A 30% buff to the effectiveness of all our traps?! Trapping is one of the biggest jobs a hunter does, especially in groups. It would be insane not to want them to be more effective!
Expose Weakness increases the Attack Power of all attackers against that target by 25% of your Agility for seven seconds. In fact, this talent is the Survival equivalent of Trueshot Aura or Ferocious Inspiration. As you can see, the benefit of this talent scales with the amount of Agility your toon is stacking.
When activated, Readiness finishes the cool-down on your other Hunter abilities. I use this ability a lot in groups. Stray mob whacking at a clothie, but I just used a trap on my assigned trap mob? No problem! Pop Readiness and there's a trapped mob in front of that healer where Death once stood and with the other trap-enhancing abilities of this tree, I should have no problems returning to my regular trap cycle on my assigned trap mob.
As we've discovered, the Survival tree has a lot of situational usefulness to provide you and your party. We understand why, whenever the Survival tree is mentioned, people utter the word: Utility. More often than not, we have noted that Survival hunter will not do as much DPS as a BM or MM Hunter. But the trade-off is that Survival Hunters have adaptability and survivability, particularly in instances, and they're better equipped to save lives.