I said the same thing for awhile, but the evidence just keeps stacking up.

With that said, if the change is true, there are also a few other things I am hoping are true, and if they are well...I'll miss my old ratio but hunters would probably be better off.

As the above poster said, I liked the 2 RAP per agi; it gave us alot of flexibility for weapons imo. I was heavy AP so I used a scythe of the unseen path and a dragonfang blade for a very long time, since they both had loads of stamina on them, and were amongst some of the highest AP items. (Things like FoF, Hakkari Warblade, Silithid Claw aside, as they had no stamina, and no Crul'shurok as that was a weapon best left for warriors.)

Now it seems like all those nice agi goodies I got strictly because of their high AP ratio value are pretty much wasted items.

Then again, alot of the items I have/want are covered in AP/crit so it would benefit the current change to hunters as well.

The one that really burns me up is that LR is getting a pretty decent nerf, in just about every aspect. Hunter agi is going down on items, therefore there's less for the bonus, and now it will mean less on top of it. /shrug

However, I am hoping beyond hope that they come out with something nice, or at least comparable to what is being taken away. Not that hunters were balanced, or perfect; in their current form they could use alot of buffs, but I figure, this way, maybe we'll actually see something for our troubles. =/

And for the love of god, quit mentioning the trio in pvp; as far as burst it's one of the lamer combos considering it's relative cooldown compared to other classes. ><

Oh and blizzard if you're reading this, make aimed shot a trainable skill! -.-

This link has the crossbow in it: http://wow.rpgbeacon.com/news.php?ID=91

Sure, it is level 70 Arena reward so is quite powerful (equal to the currently best PvE level 70 items), but when you look at that 70+ dps weapon, it makes you think that there is something going on that is different than current mechanics. With current RAP plus a 70 dps xbow, Hunters would be quite overpowered ;).

There are also screenshots of Rhok, Bow from Mag, and Xbow of Smiting around with 10+ more dps than they currently have.

I agree that all the hunter talents that have been linked are fake, but the situation on the Alpha is that hunters have the current talents, yet have the upgraded ranged weapons/downgraded RAP/upgraded crit levels.

Since the hunter talents aren't in the Alpha, there are no screenshots to prove the change, just weapon shots.

I disagree with this statement. If you look at the other weapons on that site, the melee two-handers are all 114 DPS, which is more than that 79 DPS crossbow will be even with ammo. It doesn't seem like much has changed at all. You're assuming this isn't just a way to buff our dps slightly. The weapons, in and of themselves have no connection to whether or not our AP mechanics are changing. If they buffed all ranged weapons in the game by 10 dps, we would still do the lowest dps of any dps class.

What happened to the people that leaked all of the other talents before they were officially released then? I have to believe that if the hunter talents/mechanics were actually in the game, they would have been leaked by now, but so far I haven't seen anything that I would consider believable. It would be easy to take a screenshot of a hunter character window with the agility tooltip highlighted and post it on the internet, NDA or not, and the fact that nobody has done this suggests to me that these changes are not in the game.

What I'm personally wondering about is the Edge of Chaos axe which is a pita to spell. Where does that rate? I've seen a lot of people say that one would want a % crit in the weap slots, but how fast does, say, 1 % crit gain more DPS than the 16 AP when comparing CHT to EoC? I'd guess rather quickly, but as my highest level hunter had the astonishing level of 21, I might be off there. Anyone care to help me out?

For myself, the spreadsheet equivalancy ratings puts chofasjdkfjdfasdkfh as equivalent to 1% crit 6.3 atk, or 1% atk 2.46 agi. Ie nowhere close to either cht or brutality. Note that my gear is fairly average, 3/9 cs 3/8 ds.

For example, at my stats, the equivlances are:
1% crit = 11.6 agi.
1% crit = 29.7 rap.
1 agi = 2.56 rap.

As a note to above, if you look at that odd EAP spreadsheet, the equivalences that spreadsheet shows calculates to about 22rap per 1% crit, depicting the undervaluation of crit and why the EAP list is so wrong.

Crul'shorukh. Yes, I looked it up.
Pre-expansion, Old Crulie is worse than Doom's Edge IMO, you gain 4 AP and lose 0.31% or so crit.

As for CHT, it's a pain to get being a very good dagger.

As has been said, the agi - 1rap change is ingame, while the talents are not, which is why trusting any posted talents is rather silly, while the RAP thing isn't. Anyhow, 79dps xbow, 37dps arrows (highest dps ammo I've seen, revered reward iirc, 32dps was for the adamantite engineering made ones). so 79+37 is 116dps.

It's faulty to take into account the highest dps ammo, as generally, they are a pita to get.

I could say right now that if I want to do loads more dps I'd use doomshot and farm for them, but does that mean I reliably farm for them for every encounter? F**k no, I farm a few stacks and wait till I need them.

If you're going to take into account weapon dps + ammo, do so with a medium ammo, not the best ammo IE dropping off of some stupid mob in Hellfire Citadel camped by 50 other hunters.

for point of reference, what do you consider the appropriate ammo to use to compare DPS right now?

Ice-threaded Arrows!

Ice-threaded or Thorium, as they are relatively easy and somewhat cheap to get.

Comparing the highest dps arrows from the expansion is like making dps comparisons using doomshot arrows now; we are not sure where they come from (Well not all of them) so saying that such and such + these arrows = this much dps is somewhat the wrong thinking as you can't always guarantee doomshot arrows. (They aren't even a 100% drop from the Shadow Hunter.)

If we're talking realistic dps, then talk realistic dps, is all. It's kinda not a fair comparison otherwise.