Ok. Blizz puts all these fancy stats on gear. Let’s cover what they mean and how high they rank.

The Big 4 are:

Agility

(1Agi = 1 RAP, 1 Agi = .025% Crit)

This is by and large the most important stat because it increases our RAP (Ranged Attack Power) and our Crit, all at the same time. And it scales with Kings, giving us even more RAP and Crit in raids.

Attack Power

This increases our RAP, which increases our DPS. Pretty straight forward. (14 RAP = 1 DPS)

Crit Rating

This increases your Crit Rating (22.08 CR = 1% Crit). The more you crit, the more damage you do.

As a BM, straight Agility, while important, is not the be all and end all. You need to look carefully at each of these 3 stats, and know the conversions so you can pick the best piece of gear.

Sometimes having more Agility does not make a piece better. You need to look at the whole picture. (e.g. Ebon Netherscale Breastplate has no Agility on it, but the AP and Crit Rating it provides will increase your DPS more than the Demon Stalker’s Harness which does have Agility)

Also keep in mind buffs you’ll be recieving. You’re almost guaranteed to get Greater Blessing of Kings, which increases all of your base stats by 10%.

Also, pets only scale with the base stats, not raw AP or Crit.

If you’re unsure, err on the side of caution and go with the Agi, though if you have a minute, throw it into Cheeky’s to be sure.

Hit

Hit means your chance to actually hit your target. The higher this is, the fewer misses you have.

(15.77 Hit Rating = 1% Hit)

This has a cap of 9%. Once you hit that, you will be missing almost no shots against any raid boss. So you need to aim for a hit rating of 142 (95 if you have the Surefooted talent in the Survival tree). However, falling slightly short of this (I’d say the bare minimum to be 120) should still have you missing very, very rarely.

Stamina and Intellect

These two are important, but not as much as the ones listed above. You want enough health to survive any magical AoE that a boss might put out, but you should not sacrifice one of the Big 4 stats listed above for this unless absolutely necessary. Mana is important (because it’s what we use for our attacks) but BM is very mana-efficient, and if you have the Efficiency talent, even more so.

(1 Sta = 10 HP)
(1 Int = 15 Mana)

MP5

You’ll see several pieces that have “Regenerate X MP5″. This is very nice, as a fraction of it functions during casting, and not just during “idle” time. This will help keep your mana regenerating during fights, which means less need for pots. Don’t sacrifice the Big 4, and raw intellect might serve better, but it’s still a respectable stat.

Armor Penetration

Currently considered to be one of the best stats to stack. On top of Sunders and Feral Faerie Fire, you can start to bring a boss’ armor down to that of a clothie.

Haste

Haste is an interesting stat. Anything that brings you below 1.5 isn’t gonna do you any good, but getting some means that you can get the harder hitting, slower weapons to do more damage than Wolfslayer, Don Santos, or Barrel Bladed Longrifle.

10 Haste Rating = 1% Haste.

Haste is done multiplicativly with the percent +1, so:

Base Speed / 1.15 (quiver) / 1.20 (Serpent’s Swiftness) / 1.X (haste percentage from gear)

A baseline for stacking haste to get a speed of 1.5 (equal to the global cooldown)

• 2.7 - 30% Haste (300 haste rating) to hit 1.5
• 2.8 - 35% Haste (350 haste rating) to hit 1.5
• 2.9 - 40% Haste (400 haste rating) to hit 1.5
• 3.0 - 45% Haste (450 haste rating) to hit 1.5

Keep in mind procs such as Improved Aspect of the Hawk, Dragonspine Trophy, Rapid Fire (ability, not proc) etc. You’re really going to want to check Cheeky’s once you start getting around 5% haste from gear. I have seen speeds drop below that 1.5 GCD mark on procs, and still work out to more DPS.

USELESS

The following stats are absolutely useless to hunters, and should not be considered at all while picking gear.

• Strength: This applies to melee ONLY. Don’t get strength gear.
• Spell Damage/Hit/Crit/Penetration: Our “spells” follow the physical formulas above. This does jack for us.
• Healing: Mend Pet is unaffected by +healing. Don’t bother.
• Spirit: Aids in health and mana regen, but it’s not worth the boost to sacrifice other stats.

Now you know which stats are important, which aren’t, and what the formulas for each are.

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Feel free to drop a comment below, or send an email to brigwyn@brigwyn.com with any of your comments, suggestions, etc. And we’ll make sure to get them addressed.