Dual weildingFollow

2-handers have a base miss chance of 9% against targets your level if your skill in the respective weapon is maxed.
When you dual wield, the chance to miss is 24%. (but their total DPS is usually higher, especially with high AP/hit)
Hunters hardly ever need melee weapon demage, so my adivice is to only look at stats.

The only time you should be in melee is PvP (I hate warriors.. and rogues.. and the rare feral druid.. and can only barely stand enhance shammies) or to wingclip something and move back to range.

Your melee weapon(s) are for stats. Your armor is for stats. The only thing you really need to care about is your ranged weapon.


I now have deterrence, and raid experience with deterrence tanking. C'mere warriors!

My bad i shouldnt have led you to belive i was a noob. i dont plan on any melee unless (as mentioned) the situation allows nothing else (but thats what scater shot is for right?). my main concern is if dual weilding lowers my chance to hit with ranged attacks. Sorry again and thank you for posts.

The important thing is stats, and you will get more stats on a melee weapon. According to wowwiki's page on item values, a 2-hander has a 1.00 multiplier for stats, and a 1-hander has an 0.42 multiplier. This means that DW will yield 0.84 multiplier (less than a 2-hander).

Look at the Brutal Gladiator's Cleaver vs. Brutal Galdiator's Decapitator (1H vs. 2H Axes):
31 Stam (62 DW) vs 66 Stam
9(18) Hit vs 19 Hit
22(40) Crit vs 50 Crit
12(24) Res vs 33 Res
38(76) AP vs 100 AP
49(98) Armor Pen vs 98 Armor Pen
While the armor penetration is the same, you get 4 stam, 1 hit, 10 crit, 9 res, and 24 AP more on the 2-hander. The only advantage DW has on stats is enchants, as you can enchant for 20 agility each vs. 35 agility on a 2-hander. However, 5 agility is not worth all those extra stats, it's not even worth 5 crit or 10 AP, let alone 10 crit, 24 AP, and other stats. While yes, Brutal Gear is some of the top-end gear, this trend applies to lower ranks of gear as well.

I would hope that it was clear that it was considering a level 70 character. If you're not level 70 or you don't have maxed weapon skill, then you're going to need a different amount of hit to never miss a like-leveled target- for that there is a formula:

5% + ([5xMob's Level - Your weapon skill]*.1%) = Chance to MISS

If the difference for 5xMob's level and (Your weapon skill) is more than 10, then the formula is:
5% + ([5xMob's Level - Weapon Skill - 10]*.1%) = Chance to MISS



Source? I've never seen anything that even suggests that a 2h weapon has a higher chance to miss. If you don't have anything in your off-hand slot (that you can attack with), it is considered a single-wield.

Edited, Aug 24th 2008 8:16am by ProjectMidnight

He probably knows there's a base 5% miss chance, and that 2-handed characters need to have 9% hit to be hit-capped against a level 73, but realize that 5% vs. level 70 and 9% vs. level 73 does not mean that you have a 4% greater miss chance with 2-handers, but rather it's the level difference.

And in general...2H gives better stats.

Just like everyone else said, the big thing that you look for with melee weapons are stats. The only REAL positive to dual-wielding as opposed to having a two-hander is that if you raid, you can use two Mana Oils as opposed to one. Other than that, the hit rating translates the same way, you'll just need to add up the two from two weapons as opposed to the lump on a two-hander.

Then I have a tough one for you :)

Should I use:

Shivering Felspine

or 2x Shiv of Exsanguination

Stat wise it is 95agi, 120ap, 53haste rating vs. 90agi, 84ap, 392armor pen, 16mp5
So 5agi, 36ap, 53haste or 392armor pen and 16mp5?

What would you guys use?

Currently I use the Felspine, but I'm not really sure that haste rating gives me that much of a dps increase.

The problem with Cheekys is that is depends on constant lag and things like that.
One day I have a latency of ~30ms and can spam my rotation just fine. The other day it changes anywhere from 50-150ms with the odd spike now and then :)

I use the felspine since I read everywhere that ~80 haste are perfect for a SV hunter using a 3.0 bow and I currently have 0 haste without the felspine (damn items won't drop, I can't stand ZA anymore but I have never seen the cloak with haste on it).
On the other hand there are just days when I feel my dps really sucks (like those 1,5k dps Brut fights when I usually have like 1.8k dps).
I really can't wait for the day when autoshot is no longer clipped by steady shot.
It sucks a lot to have a slightly different ping and all of a sudden your dps drops by 20%.