Apparently [Webbed Death] is popular now for a bug on the off-hand where it double-procs poisons. It looks kind of neat, but I'd really rather have the haste rating and bonus attack power of [Twilight Mist], even at the cost of some AGI (which I would enchant +26 anyway).

Choosing between crit and haste is tough... I think I have more than enough crit, though, and Rogues just don't seem all that attracted to [Twilight Mist] as it's kind of slow. They'd probably bid on it, but if I beat them, they'd probably just grumble rather than nerd rage.

Twilight Mistx2

• 50 Agility (raw)
• 42 Hit Rating
• 66 Haste
• 301.6 Damage (AGI/Stam+26AGI enchant factored)

Personally I would go with two Hailstorms.

62 agi raw
78 sta (hunter vs wild)
62 hit rating
172 AP
50 ArP (meh!)

Then whatever enchants you want on them. Plus it's a 10 man drop so a lot less competition for it.

I'm not sure where I'd sit on [Hailstorm]... Armor penetration tends to turn me off of most weapons, and if I was going after Malygos for anything, I think [Black Ice] would probably be the item I'd set my sights on. Hailstorm is nice... but it has some mediocre stats for the amount of effort that goes into obtaining it... Just looking at it, I find myself favoring [Twilight Mist], simply because of the haste rating.

Armor Pen is somewhat of a turn-off for me too, but if no one else wants it, it is a good weapon until you can find something better.

On the topic of Armor Pen, I have a gear choice that has been rattling my brain and really bugging me. [Vereesa's Silver Chain Belt] or [Sovereign's Belt]? Vereesa's has the potential for much more Agility due to an extra socket, but its AP is pretty bad in comparison to the Sovereign's even when you calculate the agility in. I know that we're supposed to prioritize Agility but that's a 22 AP drop assuming you use rare gems. I have the Sovereign's now and the drop in hit is no big deal but I can't decide whether the badge belt is an upgrade or not.

Heh, I love the [Sovereign's Belt], but in the last twelve UP runs I've done I've seen every other epic drop. Supposedly it drops whenever hunters aren't in the party, although I'd think it's just my bad luck. There's just something... (I dunno, skimpy?) about [Vereesa's Silver Chain Belt]; it doesn't seem to give enough of... well, anything...

I might be wrong, but the [Sovereign's Belt] seems like a much more solid choice, and is (supposedly) easier to obtain.

You can probably get [Torn Web Wrapping] from the AH anytime soon, if you can't already. On my server they are popping up every other day.

I'm not exactly sure on all of the calculations, but I've been sticking with 16AGI gems for my red slots, and just adding in the ATK/STA gems for my blues ([Balanced Twilight Opal]). For one-handed weapons, 26AGI just feels a lot better to me than attack power, as SV is the sort of spec that makes the best out of every stat; attack power by itself is great, but SV is certainly very efficient in that it will take every stat (short of SPI and STR) on a weapon and convert it directly into attack power anyway.

The only time I don't use AGI, however, is on 2H, when [Formula: Enchant 2H Weapon - Massacre] provides a much more solid attack bonus.

I wouldn't bother using balanced at all. Just stick with agi all the way, and maybe put in your choice of green gem in a socket somewhere for the meta bonus.

26 agi ends up being better for you at the moment, vs 65 AP.

A new post from GC

I read the post. I read them all.

I recently addressed some of the pet questions in another thread.

We know there are some problems with the geometry of the Org Arena. We have fixed many of them.

In our most recent testing BM and MM were neck and neck and Survival was probably a little high. We might tone down Explosive Shot before it goes out the door.

We think with these changes, hunter PvE damage will be in line with other dps classes. We're not concerned about scaling at higher gear levels because we are changing hunter damage enough for 3.1 that we will have to rebalance them anyway.


World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> GC: Happy New Year! Just to catch you up...


We will see what exactly tone down means to them....

If I had to guess, it'll go from something like 18% of RAP to 15% and a small damage reduction on the static damage.

That seems like the way they'll go.

On the PTR in a 25 man raid, Explosive is the best DPS spec for a Hunter, by far (I have concrete numbers backing this up). It's just ridiculously good. 15% scaling with reasonable reduction on the static damage should bring the spec into line.

I'm actually really curious about what they're cooking for 3.1 that makes GC relatively unconcerned about long-term scaling on Explosive, though. Sounds like the ammo changes or whatever they were planning are going to be pretty huge...?

I wonder if they will just change all weapons to be like [Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury] instead of using ammo? They could also be doing the pet buff fixes they have mentioned too.

Anyone has "Pawn" value for survival hunter? I'm having trouble with dps spreadsheet right now. I just need a basic one to help gear up in game. Thanks.

I was thinking something along the same line. If they made all ranged weapons Thoridal style, abilities that take weapon damage into its calculation would get buffed, this being the need for a re balancing act again. You're guess is as good as mine though at this point.

Was thinking (hoping?) for something more along the lines of Everquest's Endless Quiver for Rangers... basically buy ammo and never have to replenish it. This opened the door to specialty ammo that could be swapped in when appropriate. They could take this a step further and have a bunch of new crafting recipes for some of the new ammo.

Just making things not use ammo feels like the easier solution/'feature' to implement though I'm guessing.

GC made another post in that thread

The changes are probably going to affect our scaling. In Naxx, it would make us under or overpowered, but in Ulduar and with higher echelons of gear, would balance us out.

I would rather want blizz to come up with the patch asap, even if it means changing us twice. I find it absurd to wait so long just for one patch to fix all the bugs. And yeah, I'm one of the few who's not happy about seeing my dps overtaken crazily by a bunch of hat rogues.

I think hunter changes won't stop at this upcoming patch. As some has pointed out, they will have to work on pet scaling and all that, and I don't think it's fair for this patch to be delayed any longer. I think pets shouldn't be affected by raid buffs. Their stats should be affected by the hunters only, who should be the only ones affected by the raid buffs, and boss fight buffs.

That would make Ammo the hunter equivalent of Idols/totems/sigils etc...
I wouldn't mind that, we could even get some fancy epic ammo dropping from raids.
Although that will be terrible if you only have access to bullets and you've got a good bow.

I hope that's the case. I've been hoping that that would change for ages. Back in the day, rogues had to constantly buy throwing weapons and they could use a few stacks for a long time. They had it easy. A whole bag slot wasted on the ammo pouch is pretty rough for me. I constantly run out of space, granted it's a personal issue, but having more space would be a definite plus. Not to mention the stat bonuses and/or abilities that may or may not be granted by some epic relic type ammo (hence the need for the rebalance), would be quite amazing. Perhsps they might even add an elemental aspect to the ammo, although that would probably be too much.

Not having the correct ammo is also a concern of mine even now. I had a gun going into raids and in my first heroic Naxxramas, Arrowsong dropped. I passed it to the other hunter in the raid (read pick up group), since he had a bow and quiver, but missing out on such great the loot was a bit disheartening. While it's true I could have ported to Orgimmar and bought myself a quiver and ammo, that felt like too much. If that is, in fact, the eventual change, using a space or two for some sweet ammo relics would not mind at all.

I just saw this on MMO-Champion:


Here's to hoping.

During maintenance today, I decided to really find the value of resourcefulness. These numbers of course assume being haste capped and that running in and dropping an immolation trap won't affect your shot rotation(it's another shot basically). Other assumptions include no procs from serpent sting and when a LnL procced, the hunter would use alternate explosives and steady shots. Because of these assumptions, this is inherently not perfectly accurate.

I calculated these until I got an explosive directly after the trap, which would signify a pattern.
0/3 in resourcefulness, the pattern was every 30 seconds, with a trap frequency of 30 seconds, with 6 explosive shots for an average explosive shot frequency of 1 every 5 seconds
1/3 in resourcefulness, the pattern was every 85.5 seconds, with a trap frequency of 28.5 seconds, with 17 explosive shots for an average explosive frequency of 1 every 5.029 seconds.
2/3 in resourcefulness, the pattern was every 54 seconds, with a trap frequency of 27 seconds, with 11 explosive shots for an average explosive frequency of 1 every 4.909 seconds.
3/3 in resourcefulness, the pattern was every 24 seconds, with a trap frequency of 24 seconds, with 5 explosive shots for an average explosive frequency of 1 every 4.8 seconds.

What stood out to me the most was that 1/3 resourcefulness reduced the amount of explosive shots the hunter did over time when using traps on cooldown.