ranged upgradeFollow

Easy way to check: Try it out and see. Bows and xbows both use arrows, so no need to even pick up new ammo.


That said, you will be finding even better bows later on, and a lot of crossbows, so if your bow skill is low and you don't feel like leveling it right now, you can safely wait a bit. The stats and damage aren't enough higher to make it worth using instead if your current bow has a good scope on it, either. Since you're leveling, though, it can't hurt too much to play around with different weapons a bit--worst that will happen is that your pet will have much less trouble holding aggro. ;)

Haste is almost useless for BM hunters, decent for MM, not sure about SV. All haste does for hunters is reduce the cast time of Steady Shot--BM hunters can get SS to less than the GCD with talents and quiver alone, which is why it's useless for them. MM and SV still need a bit of haste to get to that point, but should not sacrifice essential stats to get it, especially since their attack rotation isn't exactly a steady spam as it is for BM hunters. Unlike with casters, haste does not reduce our GCD. It's pretty much a filler stat.

I'm feeling too tired to go look up links right now, but I believe that's pretty much what anyone will tell you, minus the pretty numbers.

Bolded the important bit for you...

Also, iirc, Haste does not transfer to our pets, making it even worse for BM hunters since about a third to half of our damage can reasonably be expected to come from pets. If I am incorrect here, that would make it *slightly* more decent, but still a pretty crappy stat for BM.

Like I said, it's a filler stat--it's not going to hurt anything, but stacking it is fairly pointless, and choosing it over more useful stats like hit, crit, and AP, or even int, would be just stupid.

Edited, Dec 22nd 2008 2:57am by isyris

All other DPS stats (Hit>AP>crit>agi>int)being equal you take the item with more haste. It adds to DPS (in the form of faster auto shots as posted above).

As a hunter this is the only thing I care about, the +stam and armor issue is not relevant.

Hmm, seems you were saying it was completely useless. The problem when we start to say that haste is just useless is that people will pass up upgrades because they have haste. A 1% increase in haste is a 1% increase in our white damage.

It doesn't currently transfer to our pets, so no, it isn't a very good stat. It's perhaps 1/4 as effective as hit, and half as effective as crit. (that's actually lower if you have MS) The point is, I saw hunters in my guild passing on items that were huge upgrades just because they also had haste, which is silly.


I agree, but it's also not something to avoid.