I’ve been asked by different hunters. “Why are you constantly preaching of stacking agility instead of attack power?” (Hmm.. never really thought I was preaching, but I guess it is one the core pieces of advice I do give…)

I mean if you have more AP you get bigger numbers right? And bigger numbers means more kills or Bosses going down faster? Right!?!?

On the surface I’ll agree with you that AP is probably more enticing and those big numbers are addicting to see. But if you look a little closer, you might see a different story.

So let’s look at the math and see how we can help see which really is better. Agi or AP.

Remembering that the goal is DPS we’ll show how we get there.

So first thing is we need check on DPS. Well that’s easy DPS is directly related to your RAP. It’s a 14:1 ration 14 RAP = 1 DPS. Yep it’s true. I know, your going AHA! see I told you so.. just bear with me.

But you see. that’s it. RAP only goes straight to DPS nothing else. Agility on the other hand plays into something else important. Remember those big numbers you wanted, those Crit numbers??? Well Agility gives you both RAP and Crit. Ah.. is the light getting a little brighter?

Yep! Agility is a 1:1 for AP, and it’s about a 40:1 to % Critical Hit. Now is where we see the walls beginning to tumble.

So now we’ll get a little more into the math and we need to keep remembering that:

• 1 Agility = 1 Attack Power
• 14 Ranged Attack Power = 1 DPS
• 40 Agility = +1% Critical Hit

So before you go off and start stacking those AP gems (e.g. Bright Crimson Spinel) You might want to start considering how all this begins to work.

So first let’s just look at how this all stacks.. OH! Didn’t I tell you.. Yeah.. things stack to help you out.

So what will help your RAP. hmm.. Well RAP is directly from your Agility and isn’t a base skill so we need to go see what buffs help your AP.

If you have a pally you can get Blessing of Might or a Greater Blessing of Might for an additional 220 AP.

Oh if your party has a MM hunter you have True Shot Aura that will give you boost of 125 AP. Also if your party has aa Hunter with Improved Hunter’s Mark that’s an additional 110 AP.

Well that’s about it.. So we can stack your RAP from that base of 1820 RAP (130DPS) to now 2275 RAP (162.5 DPS) WHOOT! We’ve increased our DPS by 32pts. Oh but wait.. we get those whether we stack agi or not. And, we didn’t improve our Critical Hit at all.. so we might have more dps out, but it’s minimal

Ok.. so how can we remedy that…

Let’s take a piece of gear your chest piece right? Let’s use a starter 10 man Kara piece, the Felstalker Breastplate notice something? It comes with +26 Agility!! Whoot!! That’s a +26 RAP (1.8 DPS) right off the bat. But you want to add those Bright Crimson Spinals right (we’re all loaded now with dailies :P) Well with 2 Slots that gives us an additional +40 AP and that’s about 2.8 dps) Whoohoo! (I know we could add a purple to the blue, but we’ll just keep it simple) So we’re on our way! hmm still no crit increase though but we’ll get there.

Ok. so we got to enchant this thing. Oh wait. there’s no AP enchant for Chest.. Guess I’ll through on a +Mana or +Resilience Enchant to at least help something…

Hm Ah. Food Buffs.. let’s get those Ravager Dogs that’ll give me an additional 40 AP and another 2.8 dps!!

Hmm.. what else can how about a potion… Let’s go all out and get the Flask of Relentless Assault and give us an additional 120 AP or about 8dps.

So where do we stand?

We started at 1820 RAP and after being fully buffed with everything we can think of for pure AP. we’re now at 2501 AP (178 DPS) not bad a HUGE increase of 48 DPS!!!

But now let’s see what what happens when we go with Agility instead of pure AP.

We have our armor. Remember that it came with +26 Agility? So we get that same bonue there, but what about those gems. Using equivelent +Agi ones (Delicate Fire Ruby) That’ll give us an additional +12 Agi each or +24 RAP. I know your saying see your down 16 RAP already.. Ah.. But wait I’m not done yet.

Remember that Enchant we wanted.. we could Enchant Chest - Exceptional Stats although it doesn’t directly add AP it will increase our base stats (Agility +6) Ok so I cheated, but you said you only wanted AP remember?? Ah. you forgot that AP was based on Agility? Okay, I’ll give it to you, but wait and see it get’s better.

So now to the consumables. Well let’s pick up some things.

Scroll Of Agility V = +20 Agi

Elixir of Major Agility = +35 Agi and 20 Critical Strike Rating (keep that in mind for later)

Warp Burgers = +20Agi

So what does that add up to? Well we added +105Agi or +105 RAP (+7.5 DPS)

AHA!! You say see you didn’t touch my DPS! Ah, my young apprentice we’re not done yet.

Since we’re stacking agility and not just AP we got another talent we can add to the mix. So while one hunter has given us TSA, we’ll spec Survival and add Expose Weakness.

So what, Survival is even lower on the DPS charts. You say? Oh really!! Well with Expose Weaknes maxed it will increase our attack power by 25% of our Agility! Yep, you heard me 25% of our TOTAL Agility NOT Attack Power. So let’s just say our agility is at a modest 600 then with the buffs we’re up to 675 and so our AP gets a gain of 168 AP (12 DPS) on top of everything we did. So where are we?

Totally Buffed Focusing on RAP = 2507 RAP (179 DPS)

Totally Buffed Focusing on Agility = 2548 RAP (182 DPS) oh wait.. That’s not all. We also added to our Crit Rating remember!

How? Well remember 40 Agility = +1% Critical Hit. So our total Agility is now at: 105 that’s about a 2.6 Critical Hit. Add to it the Bonus from using Elixir of Major Agility that’s an additional 1% so a total of 3.6% Crit Increase.

Also a little hidden fact.. Our Armor increased also. Oh didn’t I tell you? Yep, Agility has a 1:2 Armor ration. So for every 1 point of Agility we get 2 points to Armor. So that’s an increse of 210 to our Armor. We got a dodge increase also, but hopefully we won’t be in melee so we won’t really talk about that.

So what were those final tallys?

Starting out at 1820 RAP unbuffed we ended up:

Stacking Attack Power

• 2507 RAP (179 DPS)

Stacking Agility

• 2548 RAP (182 DPS)
• +3.6% Critical Hit
• +210 Armor

So as you can see, that’s why we stack Agility, it really is king!

- Brig

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