Gear Check...kind of...Follow

Legs from Durnholde (scaled greaves of patience), and the epic gloves from mech heroic.
Just as hard/easy to aquire but better.
The 4 piece setbonus from the BL set really isnt that good for a BM hunter, and for an SV hunter its simply crap.

Also, try joining a (crappy) arena team (5v5 prefered) tto grind for the S3 arena Axe in 4-5 weeks.
Its the best weapon until late T5 content, even though it has 0 agility.


Note: the scaled greaves might be a bit harder... but that has more to do with the fact that lvl 66's seem to play so much worse and uncoordinated then lvl 70's then the toughness of the instance.

I would really advise doing the arena though, it'll only take ~1-2 hours a week for 4 weeks and you've got one of the top weapons a hunter can have...
(at least the best until you get the weapon from Kael ;P)

And you'll need to do heroics anyway so why not run mech? its easy, almost everyone knows every single pull, you get to play with MD, it gives 3 badges and the gloves have a 25% drop so it doesnt take to long to get em.
(and until T4 from Curator there arent any better)

Technically, you dont need to do heroics but heroics give badges and badges give epics that are better then kara stuff.
(Kara and ZA also give badges but you wont be there for a while)
Also Heroics require more tactic and fUcup equals wipe so oits nice training for raiding.

Also, Bloodwarden's Rifle is the best blue weapon imo.
Mostly because it'll give you a speed of 2.26 wich is the optimal (or very close to) speed for a 1:1.5 shotcycle.
It will give BM hunters a weapon speed of 1.88 wich is the optimal speed for their 1:1 rotation.
Thanks to the way hunter mechanics work, that is one of the most important things in hunter dps, and makes this weapon the best blue ranged weapon.
I wouldnt even be surprised if it ranks above things like the wrathtide bow and other early epic 3.0+ speed weapons.

A 2.3 weapon speed would be even better for SV and MM, because then you could go for a perfect 1:1 rotation and really good dps, but sadly those dont exist because blizzard kind of somewhat still thought about pre-BC raiding when they created the new hunter weapons and didnt take into account that steadyshot killed the 10 second shooting cycle and requires totally different speeds on weapons =P


You might want to compare the 2.6 speed with a 1:1.5 vs a 2.4 with 1:1 though, i'm to lazy to track down cheeky's spreadsheet and check it myself with various possible shooting cycle's/spec's etc.




Oh, and With TotH, ~30% crit and effeciency you can make do with 6-6.25k mana i guess.
Probably even with a lot less but that is more risky.

check here for detailed stuff about these mechanics by Cheeky

edit: lol, forgot [/url] >.> and @#%^ed up the link in more ways.....

Edited, Jan 5th 2008 10:57pm by Aethien

No blue 2.6 bows i believe, but as i said you can go with a 2.4 one and do a 1:1 rotation.

(Skyfire-Hawk Bow will be your sweety then, also the p;rettiest blue bow around ^^ )


(2.4 gives you a 2.09 attack speed so not optimal but its actually quite close)

I personally rank the repspear above the quill, also for SV hunters.
The quill sacrifices to much stats in favor of agility in my opinion.

1: you need about 11 +hit to get hitcapped so switching out 2 + agi gems for 1 +8hit and 1 +4agi +4hit gem will give you hitcap for only 12 agi.
I'd do that ;)
edit: you might even be able to get 1 or 2 socketbonuses with that.
2: nah, you are very close and you've got ToTh with 28.29%crit and effeciency giving you on average over 20% manacost reduction....
I guess that wil make up for the little bit of missing int ;)

Hell, in raids you'll get a lot more mana back from ToTh because you can probably reach up to 40% crit.

Edit:
For your bow wich scope:
Weaponspeed is 2.4 / 1.15 = 2.09

10 / 2.09 x (1.2829 x 1.263 = 1.62) = 7.751 dpsgain
12 / 2.09 x (1.2829 x 1.263 = 1.62) = 9.301 dpsgain
The dpsgain is the difference you get on the dps meter, not tooltipdps.
Seeing as how a +10 scope is ~25g and a +12 is ~75g, its your choice between ~50g and 1.55 dps ;P

Edited, Jan 6th 2008 2:57pm by Aethien

CH.....HS
19 agi 29
30 int 21
00 sta 22
80 AP. 54

Because of the sick gem its a tough decesion, without the +24AP gem:
Ch.....HS
27 agi 29
30 int 21
00 sta 22
56 ap. 54
2 agi and 22 sta vs 2 ap and 9 int is easy imo ;P

So if you make a new +24AP gem and place it into another piece, you will imrove your gear.

edit: BL shoulders took me 17 runs to get the helm 2 runs and i've seen it about 10+ times =P

And you can do the hel and gloves at the same time wich makes it easier.

Edited, Jan 6th 2008 3:16pm by Aethien

Well, regemming +8 hit and 4 hit 4 agility would be the same as 3x 4 hit 4 agility (gain 12 hit both times and lose 12 agility both times). And the hybrid gems are orange, meaning more possibilities of socket bonus. I'll do that.

I probably won't have efficiency, but I should be fine (especially when you factor in raid buffs). Even at 28% crit, my efficiency would be 11.2%, and if I get 35% crit raid-buffed (with no food/scrolls/pots that's what I'd be at), 14%. If I go OOM a lot I can always respec and shift over the 5 points.

I should also note I'm planning on going with the uber CC build, unless we start having problems with enrage timers. It's not too much worse than the SV DPS build as far as DPS goes (I lose maybe 2-4% for having resourcefulness, wyvern sting, and scatter shot compared to IAotH or MT), but I would gain a bunch of utility. Besides, if my gear is going to be above the benchmarks, my spec can hurt a little as far as pure DPS is concerned.

EDIT: Actually won't get any more socket bonuses, as the only piece of gear without a socket bonus is my bracers, which are a blue socket (and going from a red to a yellow or an orange gem won't help me there). But thanks a lot!

EDIT Part 2: Only needed to change my 2x 4 agi/4 hit gems for 2x 8 hit gems. In my spreadsheet I'd put 4 MP/5 for one bonus when it should have been 4 hit. SO 20 MP/5, but hit-capped, at the cost of 9-10 agility after talents.

Edited, Jan 6th 2008 11:26am by skribs

Edited, Jan 6th 2008 11:37am by skribs

Nope, 1:1 it was gonna be, with a 2.4 bow. Is there a macro to throw in multi and arcane shots in a 1:1 (i.e. on a 2.0 attack speed, auto-multi-auto-arcane-auto-steady-auto-steady-auto-arcane...).

Also, the weapon speed you listed is for those with IAotH I assume. The goal to get steady shot cast + 0.5 seconds to be just under the autoshot timer on a 1:1 ratio, right? So for 15% quiver and 15% IAotH I'd assume 2.2 would be the best cast speed, and without IAotH 2.1 would be best?

[ 1.5 (steady cast) / Attack Speed Increases ] + 0.5 = Desireable Auto Delay
Desireable Auto Delay * Attack Speed Increases = Desireable Weapon Speed
Example: 15% quiver and 15% IAotH
[ 1.5 / 1.15 / 1.15 ] + 0.5 = 1.634
1.634 * 1.15 * 1.15 = 2.16, so 2.2 would be desireable for a weapon speed.

For a 1:1.5 it's a lot harder to figure out

For a 1:1.5 (I'm assuming Auto-Steady-Multi-Auto-Steady-Auto-Steady-Arcane-Auto-Steady...) you need the GCD from the first shot to not clip the next steady shot so much that it will clip the next auto-shot. The first cast needs to be steady cast + 1 (for multi and auto casts), and between the first steady and second steady needs to be 1.5 seconds.
Without Hawk:
Steady cast 1.5 / 1.15 = 1.304 seconds. Multi will fire at 1.804 seconds. Auto-shot could fire at 2.304 seconds. Next steady will be ready at 2.804 seconds. Steady will fire at 4.108 seconds. Next auto-shot can fire at 4.608 seconds. This means that 2.304 works for the delay, and 2.64 would be desireable for the delay (or a 2.7 attack speed).
With Hawk:
Steady cast 1.5 / 1.15 / 1.15 = 1.134 seconds. Multi will fire at 1.634 seconds. Auto-shot could fire at 2.134 seconds. Next steady will be ready at 2.634 seconds. Next steady will fire at 3.768 seconds. Next auto could fire at 4.268 seconds. Meaning a 2.134 delay is preferable, or 2.82 bow (2.9 bow).
(Apparently, changing the 1:1 to a 1:1.5 equation is simply changing B from 0.5 to 1...makes sense as the auto-shot plus 0.5 seconds on either side adds up to 1.5 second GCD).

Tomorrow I'll factor in RF, too tired to tonight (RF I'm assuming would be 1:1 no matter what, probably on faster bows/BM spec a rotation without steady).

EDIT: On second thought, I'll do it now.
For a 1:1 with no steady (just auto and arcane), I believe any attack speed would work as long as it is above 1.0, meaning a 1.9 bow with IAotH and a 1.7 bow without. If you wanted to stay at 1.5 and be on the GCD, it would be a 2.8 bow with and a 2.5 bow without.
For a 1:1 with steady on RF, you would be below a 1 second cast time on Steady anyway, so 1.5 would be the speed, and 2.8 bow with or 2.5 bow without IAotH would be prefered.

So...
No RF, No Hawk, 1:1 - 2.1 weapon
No RF, Hawk, 1:1 - 2.2 weapon
No RF, No Hawk, 1:1.5 - 2.7 weapon
No RF, Hawk, 1:1.5 - 2.9 weapon
RF, No Hawk, Steady - 2.5 weapon
RF, Hawk, Steady - 2.8 weapon
RF, No Hawk, A/M - 1.7 weapon
RF, Hawk, A/M - 1.9 weapon

From that, I gather that without hawk (which I wont have...and idk if I'll get it on a DPS spec or if I'll get MT, since MT allows me to control my speed and keep it at a more optimal pace), for a 1:1.5 I should get a 2.7 weapon, for a 1:1 I should get a 2.1 weapon, and for RF I should get a 2.5 weapon. For the purposes of RF, the 2.4 skyfire-hawk bow is looking really nice, I think I'll just use that.

Edited, Jan 7th 2008 3:03am by skribs