Choosing Hunter Gear

Choosing Gear

Hunters, like Druids, Paladins, and Shamans, are a hybrid class. As such, it can be difficult for them to choose gear at times. Unlike Rogues and Mages, who can focus exclusively on 2 of the 5 primary stats, Hunters have at least some need of almost all of them. Here I'll briefly discuss how each stat affects you and what you should look for in items.

Strength: Your least useful stat. You can be sure that an item which provides little other than strength is a bad Hunter item. For each point of strength, you gain 1 melee attack power and nothing else!

Agility: Your most useful stat. Items with high agility are the staple of your equipment. Each point of agility gives you 1 melee attack power, 2 ranged attack power, 2 armor, and a marginal amount of crit and dodge. If you have the Survival talent, Lightning Reflexes, each point of agility counts as 1.15 points.

Stamina: A basic stat useful to every class. More stamina equals more HP. Don't sacrifice *too* much agility for stamina, but make sure you have enough to survive the inevitable melee encounters you'll face. Each point of stamina gives you 10 HP.

Intellect: Yeap, you're a caster! Like it or not, almost all your abilities use mana. Each point of intellect gives you 15 mana and nothing else. In the past, we thought that Intellect affected the critical strike chance of certain Hunter abilities, but this has been disproven.

Spirit: Spirit, simply put, raises your mana and health regeneration rate. Unless you're a troll, spirit won't help you regenerate health when you're in combat. I'm not a math genius, so I'm not sure exactly how much mana regeneration 1 point of spirit provides! Take it if you can get it, but don't go out of your way to gain spirit.

Crits: Increasing your chance to crit by 1% requires about 53 agility. As such, items which flatly increase your chance to crit are very valuable to you. Strike a good balance between attack power and % chance to crit. More attack power means bigger crits, which help you kill things quickly.

Now that you know how the most common stats benefit you, you can start selecting gear for various purposes.

PvP: In PvP, you're going to take a beating no matter what you do. Your gear should provide a lot of Stamina, followed by Agility and then focus effects like +Crit, +Parry, and +Dodge. Extra mana helps you sustain battles longer, so go for +22 Intellect enchants on your weapons if you can afford them. A 'glass cannon' (Something which causes a lot of damage but is easily destroyed) does not fare well in most PvP.

Solo PvE: Focus on a balance of agility and stamina as normal. Marksmen, and especially Survivalists with Lightning Reflexes, should focus heavily on agility to boost their damage output. Beastmasters rely on their pets very heavily. As such, they will need more mana than other Hunters to sustain their pets with Mend Pet. A little spirit to help you regenerate mana between fights is also helpful. As a general rule, the more damage you can deal without expending mana, the faster you can grind.

Raid PvE: Have enough mana to use your damage abilities and utility skills and enough health to survive errant damage effects, but focus on raising your attack power and then your critical hit rate. Your goal is to deal as much damage as humanly possible while not taking aggro or getting damaged. If you're doing this correctly, you won't need as much health as you do when PvPing against people who see Hunters as an easy mark. If you're a Beastmaster, chances are you'll need to spend a lot of time and mana keeping your pet healed against deadly AoE effects. As such, Beastmastery is not the most efficient raiding build.

Melee Weapons: Arguments over which melee weapons a Hunter should and should not roll on rage non-stop. Hunters do need to melee sometimes, but they should avoid it when possible. As such, you should choose weapons which have stats that benefit your ranged attack power and crit chance, or else they are useless when you're doing what you do best: Shooting things!

Examples of good Hunter melee weapons:

Barbarous Blade: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35869 -- +Crit and +AP affect ranged attacks. DPS is also decent for use as an actual melee weapon.

Dal'rend Swords: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=18260 , http://www.thottbot.com/?i=23785 -- Many people will tell you these are not Hunter weapons, but in truth, they are great for Hunters. 1% crit and a set bonus of +50 AP on a dual-wield set, which enables you to use two +15 Agility enchants (Adding another 60 AP and .56% crit) The armor and defense skill are also not without merit.

Typhoon: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=35900 -- Agility, Stamina, excellent damage. Also note that this is not an ideal Warrior weapon because of its high speed relative to weapons like the Arcanite Reaper, which squeeze more damage out of Warrior abilities like Mortal Strike.

Examples of bad Hunter melee weapons:

Blackhand Doomsaw: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=20827 -- Provides absolutely no benefit to your ranged attacks. Unless you melee disproportionately often, this weapon is wasted on you, and if you take it from a melee class, it may damage your reputation.

Gatorbite Axe: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=39657 -- Same as above. This weapon is useless except to people who melee as their primary means of damage output.

Barman Shanker: http://www.thottbot.com/?i=14900 -- If you roll against a Rogue on this weapon, he may have a heart attack and die. Its slow speed makes it excellent for use with Rogue abilities, but in your hands, it is just another trash weapon that won't do you much good.

Ranged Weapons: Generally speaking, you want the highest-DPS ranged weapon you can find. If you are comparing two ranged weapons with similar DPS, choose one that has a slower attack speed. Not only does this reduce the amount of ammo you'll use, it also raises the damage you'll cause with Multi Shot and Aimed Shot. This is less of a concern for Hunters than it is for Rogues and Warriors, but slow ranged weapons are still better. You may prefer a fast weapon for PvP, as it will interrupt casters more often, but this is a matter of preference.