I recently got into a convo with my guild hunters about this trinket (disclaimer: I'm a rogue).

Being the dps whore I am, I was curious as to the actual upgrade hunters get from this trinket compared to the upgrade rogues and warriors receive. My guild uses a DKP system which ends all conversations about the subject. I personally just want to know a bit more about the game mechanics regarding hunters and how much + to hit is actually useful for them. My understanding is that hunters need +6 to hit and the rest is gravy. With the bow enchant, talents, and marginal gear you should be able to attain that and more. Leaving the trinket as basically a +8 AP upgrade over your DM trinket. This is my understanding of the Hunter class. I would love some input.

For reference here's my character
http://ctprofiles.net/1203902

Thanks,
Beerguzzler
Failure Guild - Elune
http://www.failureguild.net

Hunters need +8-9% hit to (almost) never miss. With 2% from Dragonstalker's and 3% from talents, this means that hunters only need 3% hit from other items. The DFT is an easy place to get some of that 3%, as it's the best option for the slot even without the +hit. If you're learning BWL, the only items availible to a pure pve hunter for the +hit are Band of Accuria, DFT, Onyxia neck, and possibly Puissant Cape. The Band is better on a combat rogue, so it means that hunters at that point basically have to choose between DFT and the scope, and losing the +7 damage scope makes a huge difference.

Once you're farming BWL and moving on to AQ, hunters start getting way too much +hit, and the DFT becomes just +56 AP. It's still the best item for the slot, though, and about the only thing that they can replace thier DM trinket with, while rogues have a few other options (for a SF rogoue, the ZG EoM trinket is actually almost as good). I'd personally consider it a bit of a waste on a hunter, as it really isn't much of an upgrade, though.

So essentially what your saying is that with 3% from talents, 2% from gear (dragonstalkers, rings, whatever), and 3% + to hit on your bow....then the DFT is essentially a 8 AP upgrade?

My 2nd question then is what is the ideal 2 trinket setup for hunters?

Not every hunter is specced 20pts or more into survival. So no +3hit.

5/5 Striker's 3/8 DS 0 hit, 2 hit with Falcon's Call enchants. (Best available armor-setup)
Best melee weapons = 0 hit (Sil. Claw and FoTF)
Best rings = 0 hit (Qiraji Fury & Godslayer)
Necklace = 1 hit (Prestor)

So that's 3 hit sans trinkets with best raid-pve spec. With Accurascope & DFT our imaginary hunter here would have 8% hit. Which still makes you steer away from Godslayer in favour of Signet ring.

So, to wrap it up. For survival spec'd hunter, DFT might only be +8 over DM trinket. But for a marksman without Sure Footed, it's 2 hit that the hunter is going to need even when running around in 9/9 Crypstalker.

Edit: And yes, we need 8.6%hit on +3 mobs.

this is the thread you are looking for I think:

http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=6136

You forget one factor, Hunters ZG enchants each give 1% to hit. So if you take a Surefooted talent build, you really need 2% to hit on the rest. You get 1 from onyxia necklace which is a really good neck and easy to obtain, or 1% from nefarion's talisman of conivery that I forgot the whole name of. That leaves 1% to get on a ring, or your cloak, without having to bid up warriors and rogues on a drakefang. With the various good rings available(don julio is decent, zg band of jin/seal of jin set is another good option, the nozdormu rep one is good at revered or exalted, nef's head reward I think has 1% to hit?) and concentrated hatred cloak/puissant cloak, I do believe giving a drakefang to a hunter is a waste, even in a dkp system. But hunters tend to be loot whores due to the dullness of itemization. Or might be another reason, I was a hunter myself but never considered bidding up warriors or rogues on a small upgrade, even when I wanted to dual wield brutality+fang of the faceless.
I do believe the drakefang benefits rogues and warriors the most(and possibly fury warriors the most but well I won't enter that discussion ^^). However the other hunters didn't really agree, which led to many cross class bid wars, and due to the lower numbers of hunters compared to other classes, at least on horde side(no legolas factor I guess), they usually won them too. Lots of drama followed, I'll skip the details.

As for the 3% hit scope, it's an alternative, but you sacrifice dps from a sniper scope.

Conclusions from the other thread
+6% to hit you'll miss <1% of the time
+8-9% miss <.05%, but not particulary noticable.

Am I correct in making these assumptions?

Arkat - I thought dual Pugios were the best hunter weapons. That's 2% right there.

As for trinkets, I'm still using Blackhand's Breadth and the Eldre'Thelas seal

hakkari main hand + 15 agility
Fang of the Faceless offhand + 15 agility

are the consensus "best of the best"

Silithid Claw is a 2 AP and weapon dps upgrade to both of them. :eng101:

Not to mention the "cool" factor of having a huge razor on your main hand.

My build is 31/20 atm (sometimes i switch to 5/31/15) but i'm clearly MM hunter. I don't have +3 from talent points because its too deep in the tree.

My gear has +2 ZG enchants
DFT + 2
Prestor's Talisman + 1
And during raids it wear Brood of Nozdormu rep ring + 1
And Don Julio + 1
And Ossirian binding +1

Thats +8. Max is +9 that is still about 0.6% more before it hits the cap.
I will not put +3 scope because that is instead of +7 dmg scope which isn't little as it may seem.

I can wear DS/GS shoulders for 1 more but that equip gives me amazing flexibility allowing to use items like Barrage Shoulders and DS bindings instead of Wristguards of True flight wich increase my AP and thus damage in total. So no DFT isn't a waste on a hunter. Its an amazing trinket.

no hunter with an optimal raiding build can have access to surefooted. no hunter with the current optimal gear (5/5 strikers) has sufficient +hit from armor alone, since for some ungodly reason strikers has 0 +hit. we get +2 hit from ZG enchants, +1 hit from prestor's, +1 hit from brood ring...and that's it. you can get an ossirian's binding, but that means breaking up 3 piece DS and losing the RAP bonus from hawk. you can get accurascope on your weapon, but 7 damage per shot even on ashjre'thul is over 2 DPS on autoshot alone. drake fang talisman is downright necessary for the most effective hunter gear setup available. it is far more than an 8 AP upgrade because it allows you to tune the rest of your gear more effectively.

Sorry I disgree with your hit assumptions.

vs 63 lvl mob

+6 = 2.6% miss
+8 = 0.6
+9 = 0

Those are numbers I achieved from long time testing.

With full GS, ZG enchants, Ony tooth, and the Jin rings I have 7% hit. That's pretty optimal gear for an early BWL hunter and I still lack 2% hit to be at the cap of 9% (as I understand it to be from reading these forums). I've been planning to bid on Drake Fang Talisman when we see it because it's an upgrade of 8AP and 2% hit. I don't see a point in the future where I wouldn't need the 2% hit. There are plenty of ways to get to 9% as a hunter, but the optimal set up will always involve DFT.

Our survival hunters tend to be at or over the hit cap due to surefooted, so if they plan to stay survival DFT seems to be a small upgrade to them. It might be a more significant upgrade to our rogues, I'm not sure.