Now we begin our series "Picking the right hunter loot." Where we will review what truly makes something qualify as hunter loot, and not just loot hunters can use. We'll also review the drops off of each major raids starting with Naxxrammas and ending with the PTR Patch 3.3 raid, Ice Crown. So join me, Eddie Carrington, aka Brigwyn from The Hunting Lodge, as we explore what loot we should put on our watch lists.

Things on the patch 3.3 PTR are getting closer and closer to wrapping up, so I thought it might be a good idea to review hunter stats and how they help you select the right gear for you. In the past we have talked about how to use iLevel to do a gear check. Also, we've talked about how to use the different hunter tools and resources out there to select an upgrade for your hunter.

What we really haven't talked about was what makes up good hunter gear, and in each of the different raids in Wrath of The Lich King makes up some good hunter gear. And a recent comment on the Damage Dealing forum from Ghostcrawler got me thinking that it might be a good idea to make sure to first review how stats impact our gear choices, and how they impact both our and our pet's raid performance.

Just like the hunter leveling guide, I'd like to set a few discussion guidelines.

• All of the advice in this guide is to help with attacking bosses in raids that are recognized as being level 83 in WoTLK.
• This is not a guide to determine which spec is the most optimal and should be used. It's to help identify how each stat impacts all specs and help them perform at their best.
• References to Attack Power or Ranged Attack Power can be used interchangeably for hunters.
• The gear identified drops within 10/25 modes of each dungeon. We will discuss badge gear in a different guide.
• This guide is not to be used to determine what "Best in Slot" is but how each individual piece and set bonuses impact your hunter and pet's performance.

With those guidelines set, let's take a look at what makes up "Hunter Stats" and how they impact a hunter and their pet.

If you've played a hunter for any length of time, you've heard the mantra that hunters should always, "Stack Hit until capped. Then stack Agility, followed by either Critical Strike or Armor Penetration." That's solid advice, but the choices presented really depend on you being Marksmanship or Survival.

Unfortunately, we tend not to explain why or how they help your spec of choice. And forget it if you're a Beast Master, you might never learn how to improve your pet's performance to help increase your own raid performance. (Okay, I'll admit to having a bit of a bias for letting people raid the spec of their choice instead of whatever is today's maximum dps darling.)

Anyways, let's take a look at what we call hunter stats and how they impact your hunter.

Hit Rating

Hit rating is probably the single most important stat you need to track as a hunter. So important it's even one of the few stats that Ghostcrawler has opened up and said hunters would need to stack even in Cataclysm.

You can check WoWWiki and it'll give a long explanation on how Hit is defined as the percentage chance you will miss a target. I don't know about you, but talking about reducing your chance of missing as a definition of hit is a bit confusing. So let's make it a bit simpler.

With each percentage of Hit you achieve, the better the chance you'll hit your target. Simply put, you can't hurt it if you can't hit it. So you stack Hit to make sure you hit the raid bosses.

Also, keep in mind that Hit impacts your pet also. Based on the patch notes of 3.2.0, your pet receives 100% of your hit. Meaning, every 1% below Hit cap the hunter is your pet will be 1% under cap also. So if you're at 8% Hit, you're pet will be capped and can't miss.

Now let's talk about what we need for our hunter and our pets to reach our Hit cap.

• 32.79 Hit rating: 1 % Hit
• Base Hit Cap: 263 Hit Rating or 8% Hit
• Draenei Hit Cap: 230 Hit Rating or 7% Hit
• Hunter Pets: Hunters need to reach 263 Hit Rating (8% Hit) unless Draenei. Draenei hunters need to have a 230 Hit Rating (7% Hit)

Agility

Agility has always been known as the main stat to stack for hunters. This is still true for hunters that raid as Survival and the same for Marksman until they switch to stacking Armor Penetration. Beast Masters take heart, you still get benefits from using Agility it just doesn't transfer to your pet like Attack Power does. Of course when Cataclysm is eventually released we'll probably see that change some.

Let's take a quick look at what Agility gives us and why it's makes such a great stat for hunters.

• 1 Agility = 1 Ranged Attack Power (This will change to 1:2 with Cataclsym)
• 1 Agility = .552 Critical Strike (83.33 Agility = 1% Crit)
• 1 Agility = 2 Armor
• 79 Agility = 1% Dodge

That's a ton of benefit from a single stat. You get two critical bonuses from Agility that is key for both Survival and Marksmanship hunters. First for every point in Agility you get a point of added Attack power. The next major bonus is increasing your Critical Strike Rating and having more consistent crits mean doing consistently more damage.
This is why even today some of the recognized theorycrafters out there will still recommend stacking Agility over Armor Penetration for Marksman hunters today.

Attack Power

Now that we've talked about the "King Hunter Stat" Agility, let's talk a little about another base stat, Attack Power.

Attack power is often overlooked as a primary stat for hunters. Mostly because stacking Attack Power is more beneficial for Beast Mastery than Survival or Marksman hunters. That being said, and with BM starting to be be recognized as viable in raids, let's look at Attack Power a little more and see how AP can help a hunter and their pet.

The nice thing about Attack Power is how you can easily convert your Attack Power directly into DPS. You can calculate your base DPS by converting each point of Attack Power into 14 DPS. Just remember this is your base DPS and it doesn't take into consideration any modifiers like Critical Strike, Hit, or Armor Penetration. But it is a good rule of thumb when comparing gear and want to check to see if it's potential upgrade or not.

Now, for Beast Mastery hunters we see that Attack Power also transfers to our pets. This is where Attack Power shines as a preferred stat for BM hunters.

Let's take a look at how Attack Power helps our Hunter.

• 14 AP = 1 DPS
• Hunter Pets: At the base, 1 Attack Power gives the pet 0.22 AP and 0.1287 spell damage. If you spec your pet with 2/2 Wild Hunt 1 Attack Power gives your pet 0.338 AP and 0.18 spell damage.

Critical Strike Rating

The higher your Critical Strike Rating the higher the chance you'll score a Critical Strike and do double the damage. This is another core component of Survival and Marksman hunters. Typically, when choosing gear, SV or MM hunters will look for the combination of added Agility and Critical Strike Rating. And BM hunters will look to see a combination of Attack Power and Critical Strike Rating.

So how does it help with your hunter?

• 22.08 CSR = 1% Critical Strike
• 83.3 Agility = 1% Critical Strike

When do you reach the cap for Crit? You don't. You might hear people saying when you reach 35% (772.8 CSR) or even higher. I guess the real cap would be reaching 100% crit. Others might argue that point and say there really is one. But this isn't so for hunters because our shots can't miss if we're at our Hit cap.

Armor Penetration

And now finally the most confusing stat that has become the darling of Marksman Hunters out there, Armor Penetration.
Armor Penetration is the stat that tells you what percentage of your targets armor will be ignored. How this happens is more complicated than I'll go over here, but you can feel free to check out some of the more detailed analysis done by Euripides of OutDPS! or Drotara of Less QQ, More Pew Pew.

But really, the easiest thing to remember is that Armor Penetration reduces a percentage of the bosses' armor so your attacks are more effective.

The major point of confusion is how much Armor Penetration you need to make it worth ignoring Agility and stacking ArPen exclusively. (This is a tactic I personally don't fully agree with, but it is a very viable and accepted stat choice.)

• 13.99 ArPen = 1% Armor Ignore
• Minimum ArPen Rating Target = 400-500 (28%-30% Armor Ignore)
• Minimum ArPen to Ignore Agility = 850 (61% Armor Ignore)
• Armor Penetration Cap = 1,400 (100%)

Personally, I think MM hunters that decide to stack some ArPen have a solid strategy. However, I'm not one to support the current trend of stacking ArPen to the exclusion of Agility. Mostly because I know that we're going to see it fade away come Cataclysm.

There you have it. We've discussed the different stats and how they impact your gear selection.

First, we talked about how and why every hunter needs to strive for the Hit Cap. Then we discussed how Agility and Critical Strike is typically chosen by Survival. And Marks tend to look at Agility and Critical Strike mixed with ArPen. And finally, we talked how Beast Mastery hunters can help increase the combined damage from Attack Power and Critical Strike Rating.

we're going to start exploring the hunter loot that drops in Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Grand Crusader. I'm sure we'll have some spirited debate over the merits of each item. And, I'm pretty sure we'll see druids mangling their keyboards and rogues will throw in a cheap shot or two over our ability to equip almost anything.

In an effort keep the carnage at a minimum let's try to keep a few things in mind. We're only reviewing raid loot and how each item affects your hunter and favorite raiding pet's performance. Which means, we're not going to talk about where else to go and get geared. Nor are we going to debate what is and is not considered "Best in Slot" or not. And if you're looking for PvP alternatives? I promise, we'll tackle all of those later on in a different guide.

Now if you're wondering why we're not talking about what's over on the PTR for patch 3.3. We'll make sure and cover all of Icecrown when it's released. Then head on back to the other Northrend raids and finish up where we left off.

With that said, let's walk through the swirly portal and head into Trial of the Crusader and it's heroic sibling Trial of the Grand Crusader.
Introduced in patch 3.2, Trial of the Crusader (TOC) is the normal version, and Trial of the Grand Crusader (TOGC) it's heroic counterpart. Their purpose is to make sure that all of the heroes heading off to challenge Arthas and his minions in Icecrown are ready. Set with 5 different boss fights: the Beasts of Northrend, Lord Jaraxxus, the Faction Champions, Twin Val'kyr, and finally Anub'arak.

Today we'll visit the work our way through these feared bosses and look at the gear drops from both the 10 and 25-man Normal and Hard modes. We'll also look at what is hidden for us in the tribute chests, another feature introduced in TOGC. So let's get started and see what these guys have to offer. First up, Beasts of Northrend.

Normal 10-Man

Collar of Unending Torment (Horde) / Collar of Ceaseless Torment (Alliance)

Hunter Improvements

• 11.71 base DPS = (57 Agility 97 Attack Power) / 14 Damage Per Second
• 82.98 CSR = (67 Agility * .552 Critical Strike Rating) 46 CSR, 3.63% Critical Strike = (82.98 CSR/22.08 CSR)
• 42 Armor Penetration

Pet Improvements

• 25.65 Stam = 57 Stamina *35%
• 24.25 AP = 97 Attack Power * 22%
• 1.73 base DPS = 24.25 AP / 14 DPS
• 12.125 Spell Power = 97 AP *12.5%

Bracers of the Northern Stalker (Horde) / Armbands of the Northern Stalker (Alliance)

Hunter Improvements

• 11.14 base DPS
• 13.64 base DPS (with 3/3 Careful Aim) = (67 Agi 35 Intellect 89 AP)/14 DPS
• 36.984 CSR, 1.622% Crit
• 45 Hit Rating, 1.37% Hit = 45 HR/ 32.79
• 35 Haste

Pet Improvement

• 203 Armor
• 11.25 Stam
• 22.25 AP
• 1.589 base DPS
• 11.125 SP

Acidmaw Treads (Horde) / Acidmaw Boots (Alliance)

These are primarily rogue boots so they should have the loot priority. Even so, these can still offer some positive benefits for a hunter if you need an upgrade.

If you're Marksman or Survival skip the 4 Crit socket bonus and go with a Delicate Cardinal Ruby ( 20 Agi). This will give you an added 2.85 base DPS and give you a 11 CSR (.5% Crit). On the other hand if you're raiding as Beast Master get the Bright Cardinal Ruby ( 40 AP). Using this will end up giving you a 2.85 base DPS increase but also give your pet 10 AP or .7 base DPS.

Hunter Improvements

• 14.5 base DPS
• 46.92 CSR
• 2.05% Crit
• 63 HR, 1.92% Hit

Pet Improvements

• 143.5 Armor
• 35.1 Stam
• 29.5 AP
• 2.1 base DPS
• 14.75 SP
• 1.92% Hit

10-Man Heroic

Collar of Unending Torment (Horde) / Collar of Ceaseless Torment (Alliance)

Don't let the blue socket fool you, the 4 agi Socket bonus is tempting and if you really want it then use the Balanced Dreadstone. However you will probably see a bigger gain if you just forget the socket bonus and go with the Delicate Cardinal Ruby for the 20 agi instead. And if you want the AP bonus for your pet, socket it's counterpart Bright Cardinal Ruby for the 40 AP.

Hunter Improvements

• 12.57 base DPS
• 90.64 CSR
• 3.975% Crit
• 40 ArPen

Pet Improvements

• 29.25 Stam
• 26.5 AP
• 1.89 base DPS
• 13.25 SP

Bracers of the Northern Stalker (Horde)/ Armbands of the Northern Stalker (Alliance)

Unlike it's normal mode cousin, this version has a red gem socket. So it's stick with the program and use the Delicate Cardinal Ruby (MM/SV) or Bright Cardinal Ruby (BM).

Hunter Improvements

• 11.35 base DPS, 14.213 base DPS with 3/3 Careful Aim
• 38.64 CSR
• 1.694% Crit
• 50 HR, 1.5% Hit
• 36 Haste

Pet Improvement

• 211.75 Armor
• 18 Stam
• 22.26 AP
• 1.589 base DPS
• 11.125 SP
• 1.52% Hit

Acidmaw Treads (Horde) / Acidmaw Boots (Alliance)

These are still rogue boots so they still have loot priority.

The Acidemaw Treads or Boots are a solid upgrade over the normal version. Besides having improved stats, you'll notice they have 2 yellow sockets. If you want the added crit bonus go with an orange gem like Wicked Ametrine ( 10 AP and 10 CSR) or go with the Deadly Ametrin ( 10 Agi and 10 CSR).

Hunter Improvements

• 15.714 base DPS
• 51.336 CSR
• 2.251% Crit
• 79 HR, 2.409% Hit

Pet Improvements

• 149.8 Armor
• 38.25 Stam
• 31.75 AP
• 2.257 base DPS
• 15.875 SP
• 2.409% Hit

Normal 25-Man

Cuirass of Cruel Intent (Horde) / Breastplate of Cruel Intent (Alliance)

We've already talked about what Red gems you should get (Delicate Cardinal Ruby or Bright Cardinal Ruby) when the Cuirass or Breastplate of Cruel Intent drops. And as we said for the Color of Unending or Ceaseless Torment go with the purple Balanced Dreadstone as your blue gem. This will give allow you to get the 14 AP socket bonus. The added bonus of this is your pet will see a direct benefit from both the added Attack Power and the Stamina.

Hunter Improvements

• 23.5 base DPS, 28.57 DPS with 3/3 Careful Aim
• 122.84 CSR
• 5.388% Crit
• 71 Haste

Pet Improvements

• 506.8 Armor
• 48.15 Stam
• 63.75 AP
• 4.55 base DPS
• 31.875 SP

Cloak of the Untamed Predator (Horde) / Drape of the Untamed Predator (Alliance)

Hunter Improvements

• 12.64 base DPS
• 91.952 CSR
• 4.032% Crit
• 50 Haste

Pet Improvements

• 74.7 Armor
• 34.2 Stam
• 25.25 AP
• 1.803 base DPS
• 12.625 SP

Legwraps of the Broken Beast (Horde) / Leggings of the Broken Beast (Alliance)

Since this is a leather drop the polite thing to do would be to let rogues and feral druids have priority on this. However, if they aren't around, don't let it go to waste. It's a solid item for any marks or survival hunter that might be below the hit cap.

Hunter Improvements

• 19.214 base DPS
• 66.24 CSR
• 2.905% Crit
• 74 HR, 2.25% Hit

Pet Improvements

• 245.25 Armor
• 61.2 Stam
• 37.25 AP
• 2.66 base DPS
• 18.625 SP
• 2.25% Hit

Stygian Bladebreaker (Horde) / Steel Bladebreaker (Alliance)

I know that running around as a hunter dual wielding daggers isn't the most popular thing, but there are some out there that kinda like it. And when you look at these stats I can see why they're tempting. However it is good to remember, this particular item is truly a feral druid item, so let them have it if you see it drop.

Hunter Improvements

• 10.5 base DPS
• 75.016 CSR
• 3.33% Crit
• 30 ArPen

Pet Improvements

• 25.1 Stam
• 22.25 AP
• 1.58 base DPS
• 11.125 SP

25-Man Heroic

Cuirass of Cruel Intent (Horde) / Breastplate of Cruel Intent (Alliance)

When we reviewed the normal mode we talked about how you would want to gem the red socket with Delicate Cardinal Ruby or Bright Cardinal Ruby. Then in the blue socket we said go with a purple Balanced Dreadstone.

The heroic version adds a yellow socket. We'll stick with the Wicked Ametrine or go with the Deadly Ametrin.

Hunter Improvements

• 25.714 base DPS, 31.428 with 3/3 Careful Aim
• 133.472 CSR
• 5.854% Crit
• 80 Haste

Pet Improvements

• 506.8 Armor
• 54.45 Stam
• 68.5 AP
• 4.892 base DPS
• 34.25 SP

Cloak of the Untamed Predator (Horde) / Drape of the Untamed Predator (Alliance)

Make sure to socket it with a purple Balanced Dreadstone.

Hunter Improvements

• 12.5 base DPS
• 99.54 CSR
• 4.364% Crit
• 57 Haste

Pet Improvements

• 60.55 Armor
• 38.25 Stam
• 24.5 AP
• 1.75 base DPS
• 12.25 SP

Legwraps of the Broken Beast (Horde) / Leggings of the Broken Beast (Alliance)

Just like before, hunters should be polite and let the feral druids and rogues get priority on this.

Also, with this upgrade you now have the opportunity to use three different gems. The Balanced Dreadstone for the blue socket. Then use a Delicate Cardinal Ruby or Bright Cardinal Ruby for the red one. Finally, in the yellow socket use the orange Deadly Ametrin or Wicked Ametrine.

Hunter Improvements

• 22.071 base DPS
• 75.624 CSR
• 3.316% Crit
• 86 HR, 2.622% Hit
• 86 Haste

Pet Improvements

• 199.5 Armor
• 68.85 Stam
• 42 AP
• 3.071 base DPS
• 21.5 SP
• 2.622% Hit

Stygian Bladebreaker (Horde) / Steel Bladebreaker (Alliance)

Since we covered this in the normal 25-man I thought it was only right we go ahead and review the heroic model. The same loot rules apply though, this is still very much a feral druid dagger.

If you decide to roll on it and get this dagger make sure to use the Deadly Ametrin or Wicked Ametrine for the yellow socket.

Hunter Improvements

• 10.142 base DPS
• 82.016 CSR
• 3.597% Crit
• 33 ArPen

Pet Improvements

• 29.7 Stam
• 21 AP
• 1.5 base DPS
• 10.5 SP

There you have it folks. That wraps up part 2 of our "Picking the right hunter loot" guide. Next week we'll either review what's available in Icecrown from patch 3.3 or take a look at Lord Jaraxxus. In the mean time, do you have a Northrend Beast encounter you would like to share? Why not leave a comment and let's hear what you got from IceHowl.