Itemization: Understanding Stats

Itemization: Understanding Stats

Quick Reference

Combat rating "Stat Caps" for Level 80 raiding

Hit: 8% (263 rating)
Haste: 12.57% (412 rating)
ArPen: 100% (1232 rating)

Combat rating conversions:

1 Stamina = 10 Health
1 Intellect = 15 Mana

1 Attack Power = 1 Ranged Attack Power & 1 Melee Attack Power
1 Strength = 1 Melee Attack Power

1 Agility = 1 Ranged Attack Power
1 Agility = 2 Armor
83.33 Agility = 1% Crit


Rating System

Hit, Haste, Critical Strike, Armor Penetration and Resilience are represented in both rating and percentage form. The conversion formula from rating -> percent changes based on your level and the stat involved. The higher your level, the more rating you need to achieve the same percent. Ratings Buster is a good addon that breaks down the ratings into %’s so you don’t have to. For convenience, there is also a table here:

32.79 Hit Rating = 1% Hit
32.79 Haste Rating = 1% Haste
45.91 Critical Strike Rating = 1% Crit
12.31 Armor Penetration = 1% armor ignored
82.00 Resilience Rating = -1% chance to be Crit, -1% damage taken from DoTs, -2% damage taken from Crits


Critting, Hitting, and Missing

Ranged attacks can either crit, hit, or miss. (They can be blocked too, but you can ignore that). They cannot be dodged or parried, so Expertise -- the stat which lowers dodges and parries -- is useless to us. (Incidentally, Expertise does not transfer to pets either from the hunter's gear, but if the hunter is hitcapped the pet will be hit and expertise capped).

Hunter theorycrafters believe that a "two roll" attack system is used for ranged shots. That is, for each shot you make, the server “rolls” two numbers. The first roll decides whether your shot missed entirely. If it didn't miss, the server rolls again to determine whether the shot hits or crits. This implies that having hit rating that is below the cap will actually decrease your crit chance as well (i.e. if your chance to miss is 5% and your chance to crit is 30%, your actual chance to crit is 28.5%)


Eliminating Misses

As you can see, hit rating is very important for a hunter. Fortunately, gear with hit rating on it is fairly easy to obtain, and there are talents to help out as well. So how much do you need?

Base chance to miss depends on your target's level compared to your own:

+0 level - 5% miss
+1 level - 5.5% miss
+2 level - 6% miss
+3 level - 8% miss

Yes, that IS suddenly an extra 2% going from two to three levels higher. Raid bosses -- with the skull for a level -- are treated as +3 targets.

The talent Focused Aim adds 1% Hit per point (for a maximum +3%) which is not reflected on paper doll stats. FA is a good talent with which to maximize your hit if necessary. There used to be an issue with Focused Aim not affecting pets- FA now grants 1% hit per ppint to your pet (and about 0.5% expertise per point, which seems to be a bug).

The good news is that there is lots of gear with hit rating on it. Every 32.79 hit rating grants another 1% hit at 80. To stop missing against raid bosses, you need:

263 hit rating - normal
230 hit rating – with Draenai aura
164 hit rating - with 3/3 FA
131 hit rating – with 3/3 FA and Draenai aura

(In PVP you need only 5% hit, or 164 without FA or aura)


Attack Power and Crit Synergy

Attack Power increases the damage of your hits and your crits. Crit chance increases frequency of crits. Both stats become more valuable as the other stat improves. 1% Crit means more at 2000 Attack Power than at 1500 Attack Power. 100 Attack Power means more at 30% Crit than 20% Crit. Many Hunters have trouble seeing both directions at first. This misunderstanding can make those with really high Attack Power continue to favor Attack Power, or those with really high Crit continue to favor Crit. Best results come from favoring the lacking stat.

It can be hard to tell which combination of Attack Power and Crit is best, given your current stats and talents. Use of a spreadsheet like the one linked at the end of this guide is essential for making the most of your gear and maximizing dps.


Attack Power

Attack Power is the stat that makes individual hits and crits show big numbers. The exact contribution of Attack Power for any particular attack varies by that attack's formula. See the 'Shots and Stings' section of this guide for details.

Critical Strike Chance

Crit stat increases frequency of crits, not damage done by individual crits. Untalented, crits deal double damage compared to normal hits. With 5/5 Mortal Shots, they deal 2.3 times normal damage. Improved Tracking, Noxious Stings and Focused Fire all add to normal damage, and therefore crit damage as well. The Relentless Earthsiege Diamond metagem adds 3% crit damage.

Agility

Agility is good for ranged damage because it adds to both Attack Power and Crit simultaneously, taking advantage of the synergy between those stats. Survival Hunters gain an extra 15% total Agility from Lightning Reflexes and 1/4 of total Agility becomes Attack Power for SV hunters and their pets when Expose Weakness is up.

In The Burning Crusade, hunters typically socketed agility gems over any other sort, figuring that raw agility was a dps increase over socket bonuses or the advantages of attack power. In Wrath of the Lich King, traditional MM and SV hunters still socket agility, but BM hunters find Attack Power gems the new standbys because of the mechanics of pet stat transfer.

Haste

The "haste softcap" is the amount of haste required to reduce the cast time of Steady Shot from the base 2.0 seconds to the Global Cool Down of 1.5 seconds. It is most important for SV hunters, as they have fewer haste effects of their own compared to MM and BM hunters.

Haste does not change damage done by individual Shots. When a Shot's formula calls for ranged weapon speed, it's asking for the unchanging speed listed on that weapon's tooltip. Haste reduces the time between Auto Shots and the cast time of Steady Shot. Divide current time by 1 + Haste to find the new time. For example, a 2.0 sec cast with 20% Haste increase:

2.0 / (1.20) = 1.67 sec

Multiple Haste effects are multiplied together. Haste Rating from gear is added together, converted to a percent, and used as a single Haste effect to be multiplied with the other Haste effects. Let's apply Serpent's Swiftness (+20%), Rapid Fire (+40%), and Improved Aspect of the Hawk (+15%) to that same 2.0 sec cast:

2.0 / ( 1.20 * 1.40 * 1.15 ) = 1.03 sec

Through some fairly simple math, we see that BM hunters are softcapped right out of the box with 5/5 Serpent's Swiftness and a +15% quiver. MM and SV hunters, however, have a 15% quiver and no talents, so they require 523 haste to soft-cap. Having a minor haste buff in raid (commonly supplied by a ret pally) reduces the requirement to 412 haste rating.

It's not as bad as it sounds, though- imp Aspect of the Hawk helps quite a bit, as does its glyph, and there is plenty of haste on entry level gear in WotLK. iAotH is worth 98.37 haste per point when it is active, and the glyph adds 196.74 to that. In other words, the beginning MM or SV hunter can take just 1 point in iAotH and be assured of 295 haste on a regular basis!


Armor Penetration
ArPen was a maligned stat at the beginning of WotLK. TBC raiding had reached the point where massive amount of arpen were extremely desirable, and WotLK opened with a nerf to its effectiveness. Since then, arpen mechanics have changed again, making it a desirable stat for some hunters. The beginning hunter should not focus on arpen.

The hunter with ulduar and ToC gear can choose to gear for a ArPen MM spec. This is the current top dps, but it requires a arpen "proc" trinket and a large amount of arpen to make it effective. There are two such proc trinkets in existence: Grim Toll, which requires 789 additional arpen from gear, gems, food and elixirs, and Moljnir Runestone, which requires 735 additional arpen. Once the "soft cap" is reached, it is a dps loss to continue gearing for arpen. Agility should be pursued at that point.

Intellect

Each point of Intellect adds 15 to mana capacity, and 1 AP with 3/3 Careful Aim.

Stamina

Stamina adds to health (1 stam = 10 hp, without modifiers) and is modified by the Tauren racial (+5% health) and the talent Endurance Training (+1% per rank). The talent Survivalist adds +2% stamina per rank, and is required for the talent Hunter Versus Wild, which turns stamina in attack power for the hunter and pet.

Magical Resistances

Reduces damage from a school of magic by a certain percent. Your raid leaders should let you know about any resistance expectations.

MP5, Spell Power & Spirit
These stats are effectively useless for Hunters and are not worth stacking.