BM helm questionFollow

It's not 3% crit CHANCE. It's 3% crit DAMAGE. That said, 3% crit chance is what you get from 120 Agi or 66.24 crit rating, so if you were right it would be HUGE. But it's still quite a bit, especially since it scales with your crit chance (if your crit chance is 20%, that's a 0.6% DPS increase, the same as you'd get from 14 crit rating...at 30% crit you'd be looking at 0.9% increase, the same as from 20 crit rating).

Let's compare the three(assuming you socket for the bonus)
EWC - SHoSS - BLH
530 armor - 503 armor - 530 armor
41 Agi - 31 agi - 37 agi
25 Stam - 33 stam - 21 stam
18 Int - 8 int - 22 int
20 AP - 98 AP - 70 AP
3% crit damage - 0% - 3%

Difference?
Armor = 23 - 0 - 23
Agility = 10 - 0 - 6
Stamina = 4 - 12 - 0
Intellect = 10 - 0 - 14
AP = 0 - 78 - 50
Crit Dmg % = 3 - 0 - 3

EDIT: Didn't see the "BM" in the question...

You NEED int as a BM, since your mana efficiency is through the floor. Picking up an extra 210 mana is really helpful, you get that on the BLH. You only lose 22 AP (the agility makes up for a bit) and 12 stamina (which you get crazy amounts of on outlands gear anyway) for 14 intellect, which most hunter itemization is lacking. 22 AP + 12 stamina = 19 value points, and 14 intellect only = 14 points, but then you have to factor in the 3% crit damage (about equal to 14-20 points depending on gear), so that alone makes up for the difference.

Edited, Jan 8th 2008 12:56am by skribs

Sorry, helps to finish reading the above post before i ask a question that has already been answered, thx for the help. One other question though, for raiding, taking into account that the guild that I hopefully get into already has enough SV hunters, would I do more damage as a MM/SV over a BM/MM?

Go with the Stalker's Helm, and socket with +16 AP gems.

I personally went with the Stalkers Helm and socketed with three purple gems (8AP +2mp5) for the socket bonus and it served me really well for wuite a long time. I'm BM and that helm really covered my bases the best, it has more sockets, raises your AP a good amount by itself, adds Intellect which BM is desperate for and looks badass.

Remember though what the stat priorities are for a BM Hunter. AP> Agility<>Crit>Intellect>Hit>Stamina. The thing about Agility and Crit is Agility adds 1 AP per point and some crit while Crit allows for more consistant Kill Commands so it really depends on where you are sitting for Crit and AP as to which is more important.

Never forget about +Hit though because point for point +Hit gives you the biggest jump to your DPS up until you hit the ceiling with it which is +8.6% (achieved with +142 Hit I believe) because at that point you will never miss a raid boss. Lowering it a bit is not detrimental to your DPS, but just don't neglect it and know that if you already have 1400 AP and 20-50 +Hit, a +8Hit gem will benefit your DPS more than a +8 AP gem.

Stalkers helm is the worst of the 3, BL is in my opinion the best blue helm ingame.
Why? because 1 agi > 2 Ap once you are over ~300 tooltip dps (actually its somewhat lower but this is just to be safe) and that is reachable with pre-raidgear, and easely passed with a few pieces of kara gear.
Agility also scales better with gear and buffs (BoK for example) and the +3%critdmg easely gives you 0.7% extra dps in a raid, and it only gets better.

also one of those that went with stalkers mainly its a really good QUEST reward so its easily obtainable compared to BL helm.
and the fact that the looks were great back when i had it togehter with felstalker set and beastmaw shoulders(old looks) it looked like a red T2
and we all know looks are important ^^
anyways didnt replace it until the T4 helmet and imo strating out raiding ill say go for stalkers and focus more on upgrading other parts of your gear, its a "100% drop" and will last you to gruul

The meta socket adds 12 agi + 3% crit damage. Which, unbuffed, should be the equivilant damage increase of 12 agi + 14 crit rating, more than what 3 +8 agi gems are worth.

Lol. Admire? no. Respect that he posted his response and qualified it with well thought out reasoning? Yes. I don't care how many times you've posted your feelings on subjects, your mathmatical equations, any usefull information. Short posts like:


Will always get ignored.

I've questioned people, on this website, far more respected than you who have posted short answers with no reasonings behind their post, and I will continue to do so. If you tire of posting your reasonings behind your conclusion, then don't even bother posting anything.

Too many people go around blindly obeying advice simply because someone with a pretty colored name, or a billion post count said a few words, gave a simple answer like that and those words are law to them.

All three choices have their advantages, it really just depends on where your other stats lie as to what would be the best choice.

I agree that the Beast Lord Helm is the best one, but SHoSS is a quest item and is good enough to raid with. So if someone has access to or already has the Stalker's Helm and is desperate to raid without running Mech 25 times to get the BL Helm, don't worry about it and get on with your raiding.

Point taken =D

Kinda depends on what stats you value, right? You've decided that the non-DPS stats make it a secondary choice, but other Hunters might value those stats more than you do.

You state that the SHoSS is better for DPS here:



So when you're making broad, sweeping statements such as that you've shown people that it isn't the best, just try to be fair and keep reminding people that it's your value judgments which are putting in in something other than first place.

Hunters are a DPS class. And while I've made a good number of DPS compromises with my own Talent spec and gear, when speaking strictly about the numbers it's best to be sure that you inform your audience of any possible biases.

And....Your evaluation failed to consider the fact that AP contributes to the Pets DPS, and AGI does not (save for the effect of boosting Pet DPS via Focus recovery from 2/2 GfTT). This places the SHoSS just a bit further ahead.