Regarding #16 C). I'm rather concerned at potential hunter changes. Not in regards to OMG nerf that will be flooding the WoW forums, but in my overall decision on items. Beyond the Hunter Set, I am trying to make a valid choice on items to fill in the rest of the slots beyond 8/8 or 9/9 set pieces.

Weapons, rings, neck etc: Items now such as Prestor's or Band of Reanimation which flood agility and are on par with many of the highest crit/ap items seem to have their value change considerably under the light of a potential hunter re-eval.

How are hunters upgrading themselves with consideration to their own raid-dps and fair distribution of loot while also thinking about long-term value come TBC?

BTW, I'd prefer Dragonfang Blade slightly to Doom's Edge if only for the change of STR->STA.

Personally I'm not worrying too much about accounting for the changes come TBC. It seems increasingly likely current end-game gear won't last all that long while leveling up (I guess depending on if you choose to level in instances, where you may find replacements, or just by pure grinding).

Added to that there's no way of knowing if/how they're going to change "hunter items" from having pure Agi to some Agi and (R)AP.

you can be confident scythe of the unseen path will be reitemized, since it's class restricted to hunter. doom's edge/brut blade and the like won't be. other existing agi-stacked weapons will drop in value, but you'll see agi/ap/crit weapons that you don't see now.

Thankfully, I've been MM for a very long time and never contemplated a switch so I've been gathering +AP items all along. Something we all will need to keep in mind is the iLvl of the items we're spending our DKP on if we're keeping an eye to the future. Since it looks like our set items will be re-itemized to yield the same RAP, I think rings, neck and cloak are the most obvious places we need to be careful. I'm hoping to collect an AQ40 choker to replace my ony pendant (and don't plan on trying for prestors. . they're still pretty expensive points-wise for our raid) and I've already gotten a Cloak of Firemaw and master dragonslayer's ring. . . not sure what I should try to pair that with. . . I suppose Ring of the Qiraji Fury.

Another concern is weapons and their iLvl scaling. Currently I run with the FotF + Hakkari Warblade combo. I'll have to check the iLvl of all my items when I get home. . . but right now the "upgrade" from one of those to a silithid claw is very small. . . but could be huge come the xpac.

So my short answer to the question is, I intend to gather +AP items with a high iLvl without overspending points for 'em. I am still going to go full-bore after T3 pieces. ;)

Nobody mentioned Harbringer of Doom ? 16 RAP, 8 stamina, 1 crit/1 hit - i think thats very good.

My guess is all current items will keep the level 60 crit/hit/spellpen/whatever ratings. That gives us "incentive" to upgrade to new gear, which is after all the driving force behind their income from the game.

I'm surprised no one mentioned Iblis, Blade of the Fallen Seraph (1 crit/hit, 26AP)

Everything with 1% crit is converting that to 14 crit rating. Similarly, 1% tohit => 14 hit rating.

Hunter set items are being reitemized with respect to AGI/AP so they give the same RAP and Crit at lvl 60 as they do now, so most of our items will be safe.

Non-set pieces are not getting the fix, altho I sincerly hope they do fix the Barb and the Eye... and then some since they got so much from LR. Essentially, our desire for Agi is going to be much like a rogue, so like rogues, pure Agi items are often crappy compared to much lower ilvl items. Really makes me feel sad, actually, I like wearing this neck from Nef or this cloack from C'thun as a memento of our mighty journeys :(

Abi mentioned HoD in post #12. A good weapon, but like Kingsfall, it's a rogue thing.

I would imagine (hope) Blizzard would change Barb of the Sand Reaver and Eye of Nerub to reflect the BC changes. They may not say "Classes: Hunter" but really, they are designed with hunters in mind. And really, would any warrior complain if Barb changed to 27 Agi, 55 AP? (I can't remember the BC hunter agi:crit, so I just went with 35:1)

I too liked Hunters getting 2 RAP for 1 Agi, it made for a different class style, and made items differ in appeal to DPS classes. Now they may as well just slap AP/Crit on every item with a bit of Agi on the side to maximize your iValue. Only class that would care is Feral Druids (get far less from raw AP than equivalent Str/Agi) and Bliz could just slap +Feral AP on everything and we'd be happy clams.

I don't entirely believe the change is justified, even from a PvP standpoint (every class is capable of rediculous bursts that the oponent is powerless to stop) And it seems to be creating excess work with retroactive gear changes, and future monotony with DPS gear, not to mention a significant nerf to one of the talent trees. I'm hoping there will be sufficient changes/additions to your talents (if we ever get to see them ..) to make all 3 desireable in 25 mans.

Items like this and core hound tooth get the cold shoulder from a lot of hunters because they would rather have 1-2 more AP than a substantial amount of stamina, which is a bad way to kit your character IMO. Also the optimal damage gear for a marks hunter pre-expansion requires 1% hit in a weapon slot according to my math, so it's a good substitute for kingsfall.

And secondly, why the hell is everyone talking about that 1 agi = 1 ap rumor like it's been confirmed? I have yet to see any real proof of its validity, and it was originally posted with blatantly fake talents. So why does everyone take it for granted? If you have proof, please show it to me, otherwise it's about as plausible as any of the other retarded talents that have been put out there.

Like I said, I consider this hearsay until I see screenshots. I've seen several different sets of hunter talents, and they all seem just as plausible as the talents posted with this change, so I don't have any reason to believe that this is true.