Deciding Hunter Stat Priority

There’s a ton of debate on this topic, so I’m sure I’ll be flooded with comments, suggestions, flames, and maybe even /cheer.

So anyways, brace yourselves here’s my thought on stats. And yes, I KNOW this is a HUGE post, so I’m sorry about that ahead of time.

A while back one of our best theorycrafters (now retired) wrote a great expose on Hit and along the same lines helped define how we should maybe look at our stat priority.

So here’s a way to help determine how to stack your stats.   If you were thinking I was just going to simply hand it to you, hopefully you’ll see why as you read further.  Also, you need to know how the stats affect you at any given time in the game to better determine what’s an upgrade and why.

First let’s look at the critical stats for a Hunter (To make it simple, I just listed these alphabetically that way I can’t be accused of giving priority.)

• Agility
• Armor Penetration
• Attack Power/Ranged Attack Power (AP/RAP)
• Critical Strike Rating or Crit
• Haste Rating
• Hit Rating

So let’s look deeper into each of these to see why we should stack them.

I have said this before and will say this again. Agility is a critical stat for hunters to stack. You gain way too many benefits from Agility. As a Hunter you gain the following (see original EJ post for source info).

For each point you have in agility you get the following stacking bonuses. Key being Stacking.:

• +1 Attack Power
• +2 Armor
• +.012 Critical Strike Rating
• +39.35 Dodge

Now remember I said that this all stacks? Well the simple way to show this is a while back I explained the details, but simply put remember:

For every point from Food Buffs, Potions/Flasks/Elixirs, Racials, and Class Buffs you get increases these 3 stats not just a single one.

These bonuses are why I say Agility is King!!

This is probably one of the newest and hottest debatable stats today. Many are wondering, should I stack ArPen over Haste, or even Hit…

Well let’s explore this a bit.

Armor Penetration simply put is how much armor you remove from your target and increasing the damage done.

See, this is one of those little things that hunters that went into PVP started to learn. ArPen was suppose to be the answer to Resilence in PvP along with all those High Armor values PVP players got. But a funny thing happened on the way to the raid. It was noticed that this stat affected Bosses also. It actually helped reduce their Armor, and in effect increased Hunter Damage!! SWEET!!!!

So let’s start stacking that ArPen right!!?? Well.. not entirly so

Here’s how it works.

ArPen is based on a rating system (Yes, like about everything else in WoW these days.) So you need to work it up.

• 15.39 ArPen Rating = 1% Armor Ignore. (Source)

So what does that mean? You ask?

Simply put, your Actual Damage, not the Paperdoll damage we always calculate, is based upon the ability of your mob

to Absorb or Mitigate your attack. “Huh?” I know bear with me.

In WoW terms it’s called Damage Reduction. This is why you can crit for 1,000 but only do 800 points of damage. The Mob mitigated 200pts of your damage.

Take it another way…

A typical Lvl 83 Boss has 49,905 Armor Cap. So sitting on 49,905 armor and you have 76.95 ArPen Rating (5% Armor Ignore)

This now means instead of having to go through 49,905 of armor to score a hit, you only need to go through 47409.75. If that doesn’t seem like much, think of it another way then.

There’s not a direct correlation for figuring out how much ArPen you should think about having, but we do have a formula to help you figure out how much of an impact that ArPen is giving you.  And by using that you can figure out the DPS gain.  But put to put it in the most simplist terms, ArPen means you reduce the mob’s armor effecitveness by x% without even firing a shot.  Now you can’t say that’s a bad thing!!

If you want to really read more about this I suggest you drop over to Less QQ More Pew Pew and read Drotara’s great article.  It explains this better than I ever could.

In the end it seems like a handy stat to stack no?  Well.. yes and no. It is great, but often times comes with a sacrifice to some other stat, that typically being Hit or Agility. So again, you’ll need to balance this out. Personally? I say stack it when you can, because reducing the mob’s armor is always a good thing (just think of it as the embedded Sunder for non-warriors. ) But it should NOT be your primary stat.

This stat is interesting. Everyone is always showing off how much RAP they have. And with some good point. This is the stat that determines how hard you hit. But more importantly, it also is the stat that influences your DPS. Now you’d think SWEET!! I’ve found the mother stat!! Maybe true if your out soloing, or don’t have any friendly Paladins, Druids, Alchemists, etc… around. It is a key stat to keep your eye on because of what I said, it does determine your damage and ultimately damage per second.

There is a much quoted (even here) stat of:

• 14 RAP = 1 DPS

This is often misunderstood and probably should have an automatic caveate at all times. “14 RAP = 1DPS, (Note: This is base DPS and does not include any weapon speed, bonuses or mitigation that might happen in the course of the game.)

SO.. AP/RAP = 14 RAP = 1 Base DPS.

So yes, keep this one in check and it should be going up, but remember the big issue with this is it is not a Base stat. What’s a Base stat? These would be Strength, Agility, Intellect, Spirit and Armor.

So it’s more of a “Modified” or “End Result” stat.

Easy example. If you get the new Enchant Chest – Super Stats Scroll and add the +8 to all stats. You’d see this number go up, but not because it increased your Attack Power directly, but because it increased your Agility wich gave you +8 RAP.

Also, remember that although anything that gives a +Attack Power will increase your Ranged Attack Power also. These will not be increased by buffs. So think long and hard about just increasing your Attack Power over anything else.

So easily defined this is the Chance to double your normal damage.
People do get confused between what is Critical Strike Rating or Crit %. We’ll focus on the Crit %, but just keep in mind that:

• 45.91 Critical Strike Rating = 1% Crit

So to get to 25% Crit, you will need a CSR of 1,147. Many people freak out over this. Don’t you get crit from different places and it goes up suprisingly fast. But at the same time.. You now see when you get that +2 to Crit it might not be as HUGE of an increase as you first thought. On the other hand, when you see that your getting a +2% Crit.. Hmm.. then WOW!

Anyways, so should you focus on Crit? Absolutely. But remember, it again is NOT a base stat and is not buffed with those normal +stat buffs directly.

But here’s the more important reason.

It’s pretty much accepted that Hunter’s work off off a 2 Roll System. Meaning… WoW first decides did you Hit or Miss (for sake of argument just throw in Dodge, Blocked, Parry and Absorbed (Yes, I know Parry and Absorbed don’t really count but just go with me).

Anyways, WoW does the following:

• Attack = Hit or Miss, IF Hit then Crit or Dmg

Did that make any sense?

See the game first decides if you Hit the mob or missed it. Then it determins the damage based on if you did a crit or not.

Wait.. You thought it was all decided up front thus Crit was almight!?!? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, if that was the case.>

So now your wondering “Hmm.. why worry about it, it’s not primary and it’s only if I hit or not, why have it?”.

Easy!! let’s say your normal damage is (using Armory, just avg your Min/Max Damage and that’s a good rule of thumb.), 400.

This would mean if you did a crit you would now hit for 800. So if you didn’t stack Crit you’d only hit your base 400 dmg everytime. But as you increase your crit, the better your odds are at doubling your damage. So if you have 25% Crit, then you have a 25% chance at doing twice the amount of damage than normal. Pretty

Sweet!!!, No?

Easily put, Haste increases your attack speed, maybe better said, reduces the time it takes to attack. Now everyone reads this and shouts out a glorious SWEET!!!! This is awesome!! and yes it is. But as with everything..balance is required.

First understand Hast is a rating, so again we need to convert this thing into something tangible.

• 32.39 Haste Rating = 1% Haste

Easily put, If your current Attack Speed is 3.0 (Base Weapon speed). Then just by adding a Nerubian Reinforced Quiver you get a 15% Haste Increase (or +485.85 Haste Rating) Increase. This reduces your attack time from 3.0 sec to now 2.55 Seconds. This is just an example. But add on other haste effects from Talents or from potions and this continues to get faster and faster.

Now the bad news, there seems to be a “cap” or limit to the amount of haste that hunters should stack. Why? See our shots are based on the Global Cool Down (GCD) and the the casting time of our shots.

The Global Cool Down is 1.5 Seconds, and like I said, this affects everything we do. Fire off an instant, and wait 1.5 seconds for the next.

Normally, not a really big deal right? I mean, heck.. Autoshot, will just keep going off so no biggie. Well, for the most part this isn’t a huge deal.

Except for our most used shot, Steady Shot.

Because of the Global Cooldown we are basically stuck to a 1.5 second minimum cast time. Now this use to have a larger impact because we tried to find ways to create our shot rotations to fit within this. But now, well, let’s just say we’re stuck with it.

So, as for a priority stat? Heck yeah.. if you can get it, by all means, but don’t concentrate on it?

meh.. I just thing there’s bigger bang for your buck.

Just as a BM hunter and talent placements, you basically hit the GCD barrier. Yes, you can use Readiness to reset it, but think about it. That’s basically use.. PoP off cast.. oops wait for that Cooldown now.. grr..

So what’s my recommendation?

Check your haste, if your already down to 1.5sec Steady Shot, then stop stacking.   If not, then work on it till you get down to that limit.  Because having a constant volley’s of Steady’s is a nice thing. And, as a Non-BM hunter, you’ll notice your still using Steady as your basis, just now have the opportunity to weave other shots in there also.

Now the daddy of them all. I know, I know.. I said Agility is King. And it is. Really. But Hit is the daddy stat. Why?

Well, simply put, you can’t do dps if you can’t hit them. Now, the real question is when is enough is enough? Should I go for the cap? If I’m low is that okay? How low is too low, how high is to high?? And what is the cap anyways? So here we go…

• 32.79 Hit Rating = 1% Hit
• Base lvl 80 vs. lvl 83 Mob Hit Cap = 9% Hit, 295.11 HR

(NOTE: There seems to be some clarification needed and this very well might be dropped to 8% as it seems that most people are now reporting that they aren’t missing with 8% Hit, but for now we’ll keep the cap at 9%.)

So.. Needing between (rounded) 264-296 HR is a TON of hit for us to acquire. Well, not really, hit can be found on gear, gems, enchants, food, jut about everywhere.    So you’ll find it.

The thing to remember is you do need to stack it within 1-2% of the cap to have the maximum DPS effect. That means it is one of those required stats to get. BUT! Look at what I posted, I posted the lvl 80 vs. lvl 83 Mobs.

If your not into endgame, or your not raiding those level 83 bosses.  Then your cap is actually lower and you can save some gold there. For example, just to tackle those measly lvl 80 Elites?   You only need 5% Hit to hit every time.

So see, there’s the rub.   When and how to stack hit is the important thing.   There isn’t a question.   You stack hit, but when you stack it should be dependent where you are in the game currently.

Also, remember there’s a cool little talent that will help get you there, Focused Aim.   Basically think of it as an easy 3% hit.  So if your shy, and you have the talent points, you can use this to help mitigate the loss and now focus on some other stats.

Basically, this. It’s up to you to balance your character and play style. We can give you caps, stats, etc.. but we don’t play your character. You do!

I can’t tell you should you focus on ArPen or Crit? Well, that depends. Have you noticed that your hitting okay, not really having a ton of mitigation, but just not enough DPS? Well then maybe focus on Crit.

Wondering how to get boost to your armor, but really like those leather boots? Well, think about how Agility gives you a +2 Armor for every +Agi point. Maybe that mitigates the Armor difference between that piece of Leather gear with awesome +Agi or the Mail ones with better Armor but not so much on the +Agi stats…

I Know.. you still want the easy answer. So here’s a guideline that I use, right or wrong it’s just my guideline.

• Keep your hit within the cap of the mobs your attacking
• Stack Agility over AP, unless you just need PURE dps (e.g. Arena, PvP)
• Stack Haste until you reach the GCD on your Steady Shot
• Stack Crit when you can, but in balance with ArPen
• Stack ArPen with care, but know it has direct returns, but not at the sacrifice of Crit and Agi

Well.. thanks for hanging in there with me.