So on my hunter I just got the strikers helm since onyxia is a dirty whore and doesnt ever drop a DS helm so I wont ever get DS 8 piece thus. Now since I sorta planned on getting legs chest and shoulders is it worth getting 5 piece and even then will it even be useful in Naxx encounters. I personally havent been in any of them and the guild has taken a few trips in with some other guilds but nothing that would give much information to justify a decision or not and make use of the 5 piece bonus. At the moment the only encounters I see making use of it is Emps Cthun and Ouro : / Opinions?

If i recall correctly most of the first boss armor drops for hunters are off set slots like bracers and belt so yeah....

5 piece strikers is excellent gear. the stats are great, and the bonus is very useful in any even slightly longer than average fight.

If you go Strikers you should either keep 3 DS for the 3 piece bonus in the offslots.... or go Ossiran's Belt and Veklor's Gloves with DS bracers(or trueflight if u need +hit still)

ya i was thinking about going Ossirian belt veklor and DS though at the earliest I would be upgrading them to CS though, at the moment I use Black grasps since I use Blessed Musket (no leaf, stopped doing MC, not one stinger dropped and only one um Smiting since is switched mains). The fast attack speed ties in well and gives me really decent mana regen

In terms of DPS I find the DS 3/8 gives the best bonus even over the previously mentioned items. No reason for me to bother getting the belt/goves as I already have my DS with +15 AGI. I'd only consider this if there were better mail bracers in the game.

Come Naxx...I'll be upgrading the the CS Belt/Bracers rather quickly! :) Belt is what I'm leaning towards most :)

Even after I'm in full Naxx gear I'll still be considering the 5/5 AQ along with 4/9 CS. Want to test it out more to see what kind of utility it provides. I'm a big fan of rapid fire, so...

3/8 Dragonstalker is currently bugged. You can turn off aspect of the hawk, put 3/8 DS on, then put AotH on, then put your normal gear on and the bonus for 3/8 DS will stay.

That sounds a lot like taking advantage of non-intended game mechanics though, i.e. exploiting (albeit minor).

Sounds like an exploit...

Besides, however slow Blizzard is about fixing major bugs, that is the kind of thing they will slip in along with a patch somewhere, so you don't want to rely upon it.

The only problem I have with Striker's is the semi-wasted stats taking the place of useful +hit, and that I've recently become addicted to the huge crits from expose weakness.

Not sure if that is bugged. The 3/8 Cenarion bonus, increased damage and time on Thorns, will stay if you remove your Cenarion gear.

Since AotH is a buff, it makes sense to me that the buff would stay even if you removed the armor after buffing yourself.

It's a bug.
The 3-piece Dragonstalker Armor set bonus remains after pieces are unequipped.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...p=1#post103709

They need to go back and replace all the +spell damage with MP/5 on Striker's.

all it really needs is + hit on shoulders and BP or legs and it would be teh sex. Ok maybe 1-2 mana per 5 pieces.

Unless they did this or added +hit I think Striker's Garb is kind of a waste until the core rogues/warriors in your guild have the AQ40 set pieces they want.

edited: typo

while the +dmg is largely a wasted raiding stat (though it gives a decent return on serpent sting), striker's garb isn't nearly as bad as people are saying here. yes, it could use some +hit, but with sufficient +hit in other slots, the additional agility you're getting, along with the set bonus, makes striker's garb a fine raiding set. a lot of fights seem to favor controllable burst damage nowadays, with effects like Berserk or downtime/uptimes like c'thun/ouro, which makes 3 minute rapid fire really effective. also, if you're Alliance, you can't discount the effectiveness of multiple rapid fires as a mana management tool when combined with judgement of wisdom. i don't currently have a huhuran's stinger, but i plan on taking the next one that drops for us solely to use in combination with rapid fire for JOW-fueled self innervates. the additional stamina can't be overlooked, either - environental damage is a big part of a lot of raid encounters nowadays, and going from dragonstalker to strikers is a pretty sizable boost in HP, especially with survivalist.

The boost in agi/stamina and the 5-piece bonus are not enough to make up for Dragonstalker's +%hit and 8-piece bonus. Once you have a couple of hunters in a raid with 8/8 dragonstalker, the additional 450 RAP proc is quite noticible. I think the 8-piece DS bonus is undervalued, and 3-minute rapid fires aren't really anything special(rapid fire gives you ONE, maybe two extra shots with the crossbow of smiting). I don't see how health is an issue either, in full DS I have 5700 health raidbuffed and over 6000 using my Barb of the Sand Reaver(which I do in fights where I take collateral damage). That is plenty of health, more than any other DPS or healer class(except some warlocks).

even in full strikers with barb and ring of reckoning (which is my health-conscious build) where i have over 7k health raid buffed (lawl@bok) i have frequently found myself surviving with ~100 hp. i do recognize that the 8/8 DS proc is very good, but i think you're undervaluing 3 minute rapid fires as well, and 42 spell damage - while generally unimpressive - is not entirely trivial.

if anything, 5/5 strikers is a comparable raiding setup to 8/8 DS - the differences may be something of a wash - but it's a MUCH better pvp setup, which is the primary reason i got it in the first place.

Have you ever considered that if you need 7k+ health to live as a ranged DPS class in PvE, you're doing something wrong? :P Blizzard can't balance for that, because other ranged DPS classes can't approach much health--thus, you're not intended to take that kind of damage. I'm just saying.

As for the bonuses, I'm still of the opinion that 40% speed increase for 15 seconds isn't exactly a huge boost to our damage potential once every 3 minutes. It's nice certainly, but I'm gonna have to go with a 450 AP increase(for all hunters) for 7 seconds once or twice every minute instead(while of course maintaining Rapid Fire every 5 minutes). Hell, I don't intend to break up 8/8 DS until I get at least 4 CS pieces, at which point I believe the set bonuses and bonus stats will eclipse DS's effectiveness.

it's not a matter of blizzard balancing for 7k health, or me individually needing it - it's a matter of giving my healers some breathing room. if i have a boatload of health and can withstand a ton of punishment, that's less attention healers have to pay to me and more they can pay to the more fragile members of the raid. you're drastically overrepresenting the frequency of the DS proc, i think - it certainly doesn't go off anywhere close to once a minute for each hunter with 8/8.

you have to keep in mind that the value of more frequent rapid fires differ for horde and alliance, since judgement of wisdom gives a signficant return in mana every time rapid fire goes off.

That's a fair point.

I'm with Steelfleece on this one, though. I look at the Striker's stats and I'm just kinda unimpressed. Striker's may be an upgrade, but it's not a very big one if it is. I'll just let other people get their armor pieces and wait for Naxx.

Rapid fire gives you 1-2 extra auto shots when it goes off.... thats 56-118 mana....

yup, im with steelfleece, i decided to hold off and stay away from strikers. set bonuses are not worth breaking 8 ds atm. Unless youre avatar, and tanking nefarian, you dont need 7k hp.

Rapid Fire is more useful than that. You're neglecting burst damage trinkets. It's not a coincidence that the 5/5 Striker's Garb set bonus reduces the cooldown of Rapid Fire to three minutes - the same cooldown as most burst damage trinkets. Rapid Fire used in conjunction with, i.e., Badge of the Swarmguard and Earthstrike, is hardly a negligible increase in DPS.

Hunters are the only class that can swap trinkets repeatedly during long fights. Use it to your advantage!

Furthermore, there are a lot of situations where having extremely high stamina can save your life. Dwarfs are expected to soak up poison volleys from Huhuran from 20% to zero, and Stoneform does not last that long. And let's not forget all the crap that Ouro throws at you from 20% to zero. Can you survive a quake mound, a bug (or two), and a sand blast, all at once? I did not spec for Survivalist, so Stamina is even more important to me: http://wow.allakhazam.com/profile.html?39253