Hi there, as you may already know, we here at Waranvil.com want to make this site better, and we want to give you more content! A good way to start would be some regular class specific columns for you guys and girls! So welcome to the brand new Waranvil.com hunter column Double Killshot, making its debut here and continuing every wednesday! Ok, thats enough exlamations (thats what the kids like now, right? Exclamations?) To kick this column off we are going to do a standard “get to know your class stats” rundown.

Keep in mind these stat explanations are for PvE, leveling and beginning endgame. Extreme soloing is a different matter, and will most likely be discussed at a later time. There will also be a lot of talk about itemization points,and  that article will follow next week.

Base stats: We call these the base stats since they are basically our bread and butter. Pretty much every piece of gear you get from level 10 on will feature at least one of these.

• Agility: Agility is your number one stat. From just one point of Agility you get .012% crit and 1 attack power.
• Intellect: Intellect is a stat you will never gem for, but you will miss it at the early levels of endgame and leveling. Intellect, like all caster stats, will give you a bit of mana, a bit of mp5, and a small bit of spell crit. From a pure dps standpoint, int is nice because it lets us have less time in aspect of the viper, and less viper time = more damage. Also keep in mind that 1 point of intellect is equal to 1 ap if you took careful aim in the marks tree.
• Strength: Strength gives you MELEE ATTACK POWER. You don’t want strength. Move along. No, I don’t care that your pet uses your melee attack power and you specced beast mastery. Move along.
• Stamina: Stamina is tricky. If you are specced survival, it will provide a small dps boost (and piss off the druid tank you keep rolling against staves on). Other than that its only real value is giving you more padding against unavoidable damage. Avoidable damage is avoidable and you really don’t need to stack stamina.

Secondary stats: These are the secondary stats that appear on your gear (the green text), most of these you will not deal with until level 25 and higher, and are more of the contested and varying levels in your set.

Hit: Hit is important, you want to cap it at 8% (7% if you are, or know you will run with, a draenai). Anything over 8% is wasted itemization. Try to balance your gear around the hit cap if you can.

Crit: Critical Strike Rating is very important to us as hunters, a great deal of our trinkets and talents proc off of crits, so you want to make sure you keep a high crit rate to keep dps up.

Attack Power: Attack power is good. It scales our dps (like agility) very well. Not as good as agility, but close, due to the fact that you get double the itemization points.

Expertise: Like strength above, expertise is for melee classes. I understand there are some pieces that look pretty great when just gearing up (Uruka’s Band of Zeal, I’m looking at you.) and they are ok to take them as a stepping stone to better gear. Its just wasted itemization in the end though. (In case you are wondering about your pet, they get expertise equal to your hit rating.)

Spellpower: Back in Burning Crusade, Arcane Shot scaled from spellpower because…its arcane. Anyway, it doesn’t anymore, so stay away from spellpower-it does nothing for us.

Haste: Haste is not a bad stat, but not a great one either. It will speed up your steady shots and auto-shots (It becomes more valuable with 2t10, where more auto-shots = more procs), but it’s not worth gemming for.

Armor Penetration: Armor penetration, to put it simply (because the real explanation is very mathy) reduces the amount of armor your target has, thus increasing the amount of physical damage they take. It also gets better the more of it that you have! I do however have to issue the following big red warning label:

>>IF YOU ARE NOT IN FULL ICC 25/ICC 10 HEROIC GEAR, YOU SHOULD NOT BE GEMMING ARMOR PEN, YOU SHOULD NOT STOP USING ARCANE SHOT<<

Let me explain. There is a special spot in gearing for Marks hunters where ArP actually becomes worth more dps than agility. This is somewhere around the 850-950 ArP mark from gear alone. It also requires more than 4k attack power and over 50% crit. At this point, its usually more dps to drop the improved arcane shot talent and drop arcane shot from your rotation in order to get more steady shots off. It also comes with the condition that if you have to move, you will lose a good deal of dps.

I cannot tell you how many times I have zoned into a ToC or Ulduar run just to see a hunter with 100 ArP from gear, all gemmed up for ArP, just leaving potential dps on the floor.
Bottom line for ArP: Gem Agility, but take whatever ArP you can get from gear – as long as stat wise – its an upgrade.

Not all stats are created equal and we will go heavily into stat weights and itemization points next wednesday! All feedback is welcome in the comments, including column topics.

For those who are interested in my credentials: Armory