PROS
Higher base damage; higher Ranged Attack Power.
Higher Arcane and Steady Shot damages.
Higher Mongoose Bite damage.
CONS
Lower Critical Strike percentage.
Lower Dodge percentage.
Lower Armor.
TALENTS
Hunters that invest in Attack Power prefer Marksmanship for its RAP-boosting
talents. The majority of that tree emphasizes enhancements to base damage,
which goes hand-in-hand with Attack Power, and talents such as Ranged Weapon
Specialization and Master Marksman do best when there is a sizable pool of RAP
to work with.
MAJOR CHOICES
When it’s time to pick your allegiance in Shattrath City, you will want to go
with The Aldor for the Inscription of Vengeance, which adds Attack Power to
your Shoulders. You’ll also want to have your gear enchanted with as much
Attack Power bonuses as possible, though there are only Agility enchants
available for certain item slots, as in Cloaks and Boots. Also, look for gems
that adds to your Attack Power instead of Agility.
OVERVIEW
Attack Power favors those who prefer having a steady DPS with high base damage.
Although you don’t get the Armor, Dodge, and Critical Strike perks that come
with Agility, you can be sure that each of your shots will count, especially
with the higher base damages for Arcane Shot and Steady Shot. Attack Power is
the preferred stat for PvE players.
-------------
Beast Mastery
-------------
So if Marksmanship works well with Attack Power, and Survival does the same
with Agility, you’re probably left wondering where Beast Mastery stands.
That’s a tough one. In a tree that focuses on enhancing your pet, it could go
either way. None of the tree’s talents direct you towards either stat, and once
you’ve placed 41 talent points into that tree, you’ll never have enough points
left to reach the other trees’ key talents such as Master Marksman and
Lightning Reflexes.
With whatever points you have left, they’re best spent on the bulk of the
tier-1 or tier-2 talents in the other two trees. Beast Mastery Hunters will
almost always have Lethal Shots, Hawk Eye, Humanoid Slaying, and Monster
Slaying as secondary talents, though you may notice that none of those talents
favor either stat.
What will truly make all the difference is ranged weapon speed. Serpent’s
Swiftness, on top of the best ammo pouch and quiver in the game, will give you
a whopping 35% increase in attack speed. That’s not counting Improved Aspect of
the Hawk, which boosts your speed by another 15% when it triggers. The best way
to take advantage of all of this speed is to look for a slow ranged weapon. A
higher base weapon damage benefits more from speed increases than a lower base
weapon damage, and slower weapons will tend to have that higher base.
---------------------
Mana Tick Over Spirit
---------------------
The way Spirit works is that for every five seconds in which you don’t use a
spell or ability, you regain mana. For a Hunter, that can be extremely
difficult since you’re constantly firing Shots and Stings, which leaves little
to no room for Spirit to do its work. Most of the gear that is suitable for
Hunters also has little to no Spirit so you’ll never get enough of it to make
it worthwhile. Although it’s easy to simply Feign Death and drink, it means
having to completely take yourself out of a fight, and sometimes you don’t get
that kind of luxury.
Fortunately, there’s a solution: the Mana Tick. Also referred to as “MP5” (Mana
Per 5 Seconds), Mana Tick is a very common stat that appears on many of the
rare items in The Burning Crusade. What makes it so much more effective for
Hunters than Spirit is the fact that it’s unaffected by the five-second rule.
You will continue to generate mana while using your abilities. Many of the rare
items that are specifically tailored to Hunters have a Mana Tick on them, and
although many of them are small, yielding no higher than single digits, it adds
up, especially if you add gems with Mana Tick.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
g. Class Arguments
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Players have continually had arguments and debates over the abilities of many
Classes, and the Hunter has had its fair share of forum arguments. Here are
some of the issues that have been brought up again and again.
-----------------
Spell Damage Gear
-----------------
Since various abilities such as Arcane Shot and Volley are magic-based, some
Hunters once expanded into gear and talents that adds to their damage done by
spells and effects. Various staves, daggers, and swords add spell damage and
since Hunters can equip such a wide variety of melee weapons, there’s a lot of
variety, especially in the endgame raid instances.
The abilities that would be affected by spell effect bonuses would be:
- Arcane Shot
- Serpent Sting
- Volley
- Mend Pet (Healing Effect)
Traps are not affected by spell power.
Spell damage may have had its uses a long time ago, but nowadays, it’s pretty
much useless for Hunters. The problem with spell damage is that most equipment
that has bonuses to spells and effects usually don’t come with Agility or
Attack Power. This is mainly because such armor and weapons were designed with
casters in mind, and they get few benefits from those two stats. Such gear may
have resulted in some hard-hitting Arcane Shots in the olden days, but those
days are now long gone, especially now that Arcane Shot adds 15% of your
ranged attack power towards its base damage.
Another problem is that casters need the kind of gear that a Hunter would be
looking for if he/she were to design a spell damage build. You won’t make many
friends rolling on valued items such as Witchblade and Rod of the Ogre Magi.
In endgame raiding, most guilds won’t let Hunters get priority on such gear.
The game has developed to the point where spell damage is unnecessary for
Hunters. You’ll never have to use a caster’s sword or dagger to get the most
out of Arcane Shot or any Shot for that matter.
---------------
Hit Percentages
---------------
The great thing about ranged attacks is that they can’t be dodged or parried
but they can still miss. This is where gear with hit percentage bonuses come
in, but how much is enough? The answer is 9% Chance to Hit at level 60. Some
players have reported that the miss rate is always capped at 5%, but at 9%
Chance to Hit, I’ve never missed a single shot against enemies as high as three
levels above me. The same seems to apply for melee swings as well, though those
can still be dodged, parried, or blocked.
------------------------------------
Slower Weapons Versus Faster Weapons
------------------------------------
This topic has been an ongoing debate to which there are few answers. Many
players assume that it doesn’t matter, and that overall weapon DPS is what
counts, but unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Most experienced Hunters argue
that slower weapons are better because the higher base weapon damage factors
into Aimed Shot and Multi-Shot, even though Blizzard normalized the damage
calculation of the two abilities a long time ago. They also feel that faster
speeds result in higher ammo costs since it means using up more ammo over time.
Theoretically, the effects of speed boosters, such as Rapid Fire, on overall
DPS also affect slower weapons more significantly than faster ones.
However, that’s not to say that fast weapons are necessarily obsolete. A Hunter
with the proper gear and talents can make fast weapons extremely potent. A
Grand Marshal’s Bullseye (1.90 speed) with Improved Aspect of the Hawk,
Serpent’s Swiftness, Harpy Hide Quiver, +1% Haste Enchant to gloves, and Rapid
Fire can cause astonishing amounts of damage over time, especially when
augmented with attack power. That’s not counting the Troll’s racial Berserking
ability, which adds yet another 10 to 30% more speed. Such weapons also benefit
more from scopes that raise base weapon damage than slower weapons.
Also, your core abilities use Ranged Attack Power instead of weapon damage.
Arcane Shot and Steady Shot, for example, are powered by your ranged attack
power. Scatter Shot and Silencing Shot use too little of your weapon damage to
make a difference, and most players don’t use them for damage anyway. Aimed
Shot is now regarded as an opening shot, but when your Auto-Shot timer resets,
the runtime for a faster weapon will be shorter than a slower weapon. That
leaves Multi-Shot, which you’ll seldom use versus a typical mob.
What especially complicates the matter is Steady Shot. Because of Steady Shot’s
incredibly short charge time and low cooldown, some Hunters argue that it works
best with faster weapons. As you weave other Shots and Stings between your
Steady Shots, you’ll notice that with a faster weapon, you’ll fire more Auto-
Shots between Steady Shots as the global cooldown goes into effect for each
Shot and Sting.
It’s a very tough decision but a lot of it will come down to your personal
preference. Weapon speed still matters, but it doesn’t matter as much as it
used to. Once you obtain Steady Shot, you will ideally not want your weapon to
go any faster than 1.50 after all speed boosts are taken into consideration,
since 1.50 is the time it takes for one global cooldown to take effect.
===============================================================================
-----------------------------[ IX. Future Plans ]------------------------------
===============================================================================
I’ve yet to experience Eye of the Storm. I’ll be sure to write down what I’ve
learned once I get a hands-on feel for this Battleground.
For those who are interested in the Rhok’delar quest, I have plans to make it a
separate guide, which will be initially hosted on GameFAQs.
===============================================================================
--------------------------------[ X. Credits ]---------------------------------
===============================================================================
I give thanks to the following people:
CJayC (Jeff Veasey)
- If it weren't for you and GameFAQs, I would never have had the opportunity
to even consider writing this FAQ. Thanks Jeff Veasey.
DJellybean (Dingo Jellybean)
- It was you who came up with the style of borders that I use now for my
FAQ's. Thanks Dingo!
Aaron Wright
- Thanks for providing me the formulas to how weapon speed affects a Hunter’s
overall DPS.
Samuel Meder
- Thanks for notifying me of the Burning Crusade enchants.
You, The Reader
- I’ve received a lot of e-mail from you guys and I must say that I’m grateful
for all of your feedback. Thank you for your support of my guide!
A very special thanks to the kind and loving folks at <The Hand of Fate>!
Rob, Sarah, Andrew, Paul A, Paul G, Jay, Dave, David M, Denise, Jeff, Kelly,
Qasim, Tom, Barri, Joon, Alex, Derj, Rich-lar, Rich-qua, Art, Luke, and I
know I’m missing a whole lot more people but these are all I could remember
off the top of my head!
I also give thanks to the many fine folks who have hung up their tabards and
have moved on to greener pastures. I hope you guys do well in wherever life
takes you!
END
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