Hunter Class Mechanics 101 – What to Stack and Why

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 Please understand, I’m not taking an Elitist Jerk attitude and think that you need to min/max your way to the top of the meters.

However, I do think that if your starting out in the game or have started to become frustrated because you get dropped from Instance Runs and Raids because of your DPS, having a good understanding of Hunter Class Fundamentals will help increase your enjoyment of the game.

 First, understand that Hunters are a Ranged Physical Damage class..  Meaning, unlike Rogues, Arms or Fury Warriors, or Feral Druids, we sit back typically with the casters and healers and pew pew away.  (Yes, our pet goes into the fray, but we’ll get to that on another post.)

Next we don’t typically do spell damage, yes our shots are mana based (don’t ask why, Blizzard just decided to do it that way), but most are considered physical attacks, now this might change as we continue to move towards attacks like Explosive Shot (Fire Damage), Arcane Shot (Arcane Damage), Volley (Arcane Damage), and the future Black Arrow (Shadow Damage), but for now our base shot is still Steady Shot and Auto Shot both of which are Physical DPS.

Now, since we’ve established that we’re Ranged Physical DPS that means we should look at those stats that help us in that area. Yes, anything with +Stamina is nice but unless you plan on doing PvP or Arena, you’ll be better off with something that increases your +Agility for crits, +Intelligence for Mana (AP with Careful Aim).

So let’s go over the basics stats too look out for when choosing gear.

• Hit Rating (Until capped – link – we’ll explain Hit Rating another time)
• Agility
• Attack Power or Ranged Attack Power
• Critical Strike Rating
• Stamina
• Intelligence (More important if you have talents in Careful Aim)

Note: With 3.1 Armor Penetration seems to become important but I’m not going to go into detail on ArPen and Hunters but for a good reference check out Drotara’s artical at Less QQ More Pew Pew. (link)

Now if you REALLY want to get geeky you can check out the following stat conversion chart and see how your Agility actually helps your Critical Strike, Attack Power, and Armor and still is the base stat for most hunters.

Level 80 Stat Conversions:

• +1 Attack Power = 1 RAP
• 1 Agi = 1 AP
• 14 Ranged Attack Power = 1 DPS
• 1 Agility = 0.012 Critical Strike Rating
• 45.91 Critical Strike Rating = +1% Critical Hit
• 83.3 Agility = +1% Critical Hit
• 75.19 Agi = +1% Dodge
• 1 Agility = 2 Armor
• Haste Rating needed for +1% Haste = 32.79
• 15.39 ArPen Rating = 1% Armor Reduction

 So that’s what class mechanics is about and kinda go over it’s importance but how do we use this knowledge to increase our DPS?

I’ll use the above Stat Conversions to help explain. Yes, there’s more to DPS than just the straight 14 RAP = 1 DPS but it’s a pretty good guideline. If you want all the details on DPS check out WoW Wiki’s DPS Page (link).

But using the above, our goal is to get maximum Range DPS. So that means basically needing to get our Range Attack Power (RAP) and Critical Strike Rating as high as possible.

We do this by looking at Armor, Weapons (yes, melee weapons add to our stats), Enchants, Gems, Glyphs, and Talents that help us acheive this goal.

Pre Wrath, the main school of thought was to get your Hit capped (or maxed out) then stack +Agi. While this still holds true as a base strategy, nowadays knowing your Spec is even more important.

For example, Marksman Hunters tend to focus more on a Hit and RAP, Beast Mastery and especially Survival look at their Hit and Crit Rating first then heads over to ways to increase their AP. But no matter what, eventually our RAP becomes main thing we look at.

So next time you see those gear choices and you can choose between the one that has +Str and +Stam and the other has +Agi and +Stam or even just +AP and +Stam you’ll know which will really help you out better.

A good tool to use to help you figure all of this out is The Hunter DPS Spreadsheet.  If you use it, you can actually see how changing your a Base Stat Like Agi vs. Str increases or decreases your DPS.  And ultimately even if we’re just playing for fun, isn’t part of the fun seeing just how fast we can pew-pew those mobs? (Note – here’s a link to the spreadsheet guide)

Ah.. one last thing, I suggest using the RatingBuster add-on as a way to help show which item will help improve your stats and why. It’s a great in-game way to learn how different stats impact your in-game performance.

So yes, you might end up looking like a clown, and people might /point and /lol at your clownish gear, but you’ll make their jaws drop and drool as you pew-pew your way to the top of the meters all because you now have a better understanding of what you should be stacking.