Intellect vs. Agility Hunter

Cptheals

OG
I plan on starting a hunter and getting all possible gear sets. But...I still havent decided what my main gear set will be. Since 3.1 has come out I have been a little confused on which one I should have for main set. Any input would be appreciated and/or examples of possible gear that I should use.
 
being the 19 hunter class hero, i felt obligated to reply here to help you out.:p



for some reason, lots of 19 hunters have jumped on the careful aim bandwagon. since i don't know any other way to put it, i'm just going to say it straight up: careful aim sucks at 19. don't get me wrong, it's a great talent for the hunter class, and at higher levels it's a must-have. you're going to see people flame me for this reply, so you'll just have to trust me on it. if it makes you feel any better, you can ask around to see what kind of a player i am on my 19 hunter ;)



at level 19, you only have 10 talent points. your first 3 always go into hawk eye unless you want to pvp gimped. that leaves you with 7 points. your 1st priority is to get hit capped, so if you don't have 5%+ hit on your gear, you're going to want to fill points in focused aim until you do. after that, the choice is up to you whether you want to get imp concussive shot or go straight crit (i go imp concussive since i only do arenas).



crit is the most important stat for any physical dps twink class. crit wins games. 30-40 extra attack power does not win games. the magic number you want to shoot for is 20% crit without gimping your other stats too much. hunters get a LOT of crit per agility at 19, so you will be able to get relatively close to 20%. i'll be right around there after i pick up skinning on tipdrill (my hunter).



in addition to providing a lot of crit, agility provides a LOT of dodge at level 19 for hunters. tipdrill has over 33% dodge with monkey on. that's a lot of dodge, especially after the dodge rating nerf for 19s. that's 1/3 of hamstrings, wing clips, gouges dodged - not to mention all the straight up melee dmg :p.



i see all these 19 hunters with sub-1000 hp, 10% crit, and 270 attack power, and i just think....why? not to mention they don't have hawk eye maxed. anyways, i'll get flamed by a bunch of careful aim lovers, but i can tell you this with 100% certainty coming from the 19 hunter class hero: agility is king for 19 hunters.



edit: make sure you get a 22 intellect weapon as well - you'll use this in arenas in order to give yourself 330 free mana. you'll switch to your 25 agi wep after you use the mana.
 
I disagree,

Careful Aim is a must have for 19s, and I don't see why you'd trade +3% Crit for ~+90 AP.

2/2 Imp Conc Shot

3/3 Focused Aim

3/3 Careful Aim

2/3 Hawk-Eye imo
 
i agree with rip. Although in arenas the crit might shine a little more than Attack power. My attack power prior to having careful aim was about 180.. but with it, boom, 230-285 depending on what gear i'm using. All in all, i think Specs should be chosen out of experience.. play around with 3 or 4 different specs ( i started off with an Improved wing clip based spec :rolleyes: ).. find out what suits you best :)
 
Check my Twinks link, Look at my hunter. Hes specced for Careful aim and is at like 280ap with Aspect on. I have agility set, mainly to make myself feel better by having one. Make an intel twink, More ap and mana, so longer fights without drinking.
 
I think Intelect hunters are more for survivability and agility hunters are for max damage... its really all about personal preference but [char=Scarlet+Crusade]Jethoril[/char] thats my int hunter if you want to check him out
 
Just from my experience (two years of twink huntard) people who spec into hawk eye and the +hit talent are... well.. don't have a hunter twink.



While it is certainly annoying when a hunter can snipe you from 40 yards away, when you're a hunter, the only class that gives you trouble is another hunter. For 1vs1 hunter fights, the extra 6 yards will do nothing.



While hit rating is good, I wouldn't go spending talents into it because you can get gear that should get you close to hit capped. (I use spidersilk, lavishly jeweled, and deviate belt. Capped if you have BOA.)



how ever, if you're the type of person that does a lot of premades with the guild, hawk eye and imp. concussive shot may be your best option for playing defense.



I personally don't like putting points into concussive shot because it's really an unreliable move because of pvp trinket, hand of freedom, and druid shapeshift.





People that say careful aim is a bad talent are bad hunters. nuf said.











Anyways, to the topic... I personally enjoy 25 agility on my twisted chanters staff.



A) More attack power

B) Crit rating

C) Dodge



All effective hunter killing stats.
 
I have an int hunter... 1.2k hp, 1.6k mana, 262 RAP and no AGM (yet)

I have rolled agi hunters in the past, and int is by far more viable imo. If you do go int, make sure to pick up skinning for the extra crit; that 3% helps make up for the crit you loose from lack of agi. I frequently find myself at the top of the scorboard, even when fcing, and can take most agi hunters on 1 on 1 and win (though this may reflect the sad state of my battlegroup more that my skill :p)
 
I as well have an int hunter and I've also have an agil set, the only problem with agil is that....you run out of mana TOO fast. and the likelyhood of you being near a hut for that regen is slim, unless you are probably GY campin. With the more int you stack, the more you can freecast and not worry about going OOM. My hunter has 2k+ mana and 1.2k HP with 280+ RAP and it is stupidly OP because when there is that big clash in mid in the beginning of the game, I don't go OOM by the time three people on the other side are dead...and plus, water breaks are ANNOYING...wasted time in a WSG imo...
 
in a hunter/hunter duell you will just need enough mana to do exactly the amount of dmg that is needed to burn down your target. as you will stand in place and just spam buttons. if you gimped your agi too bad, the agi stacked hunter will win for sure. it may depend on critluck, but in most duells the oe with more agi will win.



but would you gear just for a stupid and boring duell?



with lifeblood all around and facing twinks with AGM you will NEED mana to not be oom before you have burned these extra HP pools.
 
Bansil said:
in a hunter/hunter duell you will just need enough mana to do exactly the amount of dmg that is needed to burn down your target. as you will stand in place and just spam buttons. if you gimped your agi too bad, the agi stacked hunter will win for sure. it may depend on critluck, but in most duells the oe with more agi will win.



but would you gear just for a stupid and boring duell?



with lifeblood all around and facing twinks with AGM you will NEED mana to not be oom before you have burned these extra HP pools.
Click to expand...



Because hunter duels constitute standing there and spamming buttons...
 
Same as most i have tried gimping int, agil and stam (i also have a spirit set for regen) and this is a pretty silly arugment if you ask me. There is no clear better set of gear, each gearset has its own situation where it will be more useful than another particular set. It is generally who you are facing and who you are partied with that will define which set will work best when. When 1v1 against hunters or any ranged dps really where all u do is stand and shoot the agility set will of course shine from the extra crit/dodge etc. Against any melee classes (rogue, pally, war etc) the extra int is invaluable to kite them in laps around the bg/arena. The stam set should only be used when flag carrying of course and the spirit set i keep for those rare occasions when i have already used bandages/lifeblood and need to regen quickly. I would also point out that while i haven't bothered with it, a shadow res set would probably also be useful against priest/lock or priest/priest arena teams i seem to hit so often.



As far as talents go I believe no decent hunter should be without careful aim, even in my ag set it provides far to much extra ap to go without. The rest of the talents are interchangable again depending on the situation altho you will always have at least 5 points in the marks tree as a prerequisite to CA.



In short i suggest you get each of the gearsets mentioned (ag, int, stam, spirit and shad res if you feel the need) and play around with it a bit. I usually start bgs with a sort of hybrid ag/int build which can maintain 215 ap, 16% crit (would be 19% if i bothered to do skin instead of eng), 30% dodge (with aspect of monkey) 13k+ health and 13k+ mana all unbuffed. Note that that is with 5 points into lethal shots and i still use a +3 scoped venomstrike.
 
i'm in a full agility set with barely 700 mana to spare...

i do use carefull aim, but it is not for full intellect build.

the problem with the orginal post that says carefull aim is bad... is that he plays only arena when i completely agree, intellect do not need to be focused on. but when it comes to BG, i am killing on burst damage, but then i need some time to recover a bit by drinking every now and then or jump and get killed.



there is one thing you people should consider...

survival > damage !

of course there is a limit, i mean you dont go with all surv and no damage . that would be useless unless you try on being a flag carrier. but thats how i play it. so agility gives me more survivability then intellect will ever do. if i have a warrior on me hamstringing me to death, sorry but having 2000+ mana won't save me, while having a lot of dodge will ! people say that armor is not good at low level either... well considering how much armor is important... even if you get only 2% more absorb, it is still better then having 0% more absorb !



damage needs a boost too though...

even though we only lost 20 agility from head and legs. we did lose a lot of damage burst. before patch i had that 20 agi more and had like 25-30% crit unbuffed... after patch we lose 20 agi and i'm back down at 15% so every people saying we didn't lose any damage in the patch, you can all go to hell as we crit twice less then we used to !



the question is not which spec is better, the question would be more like how can you get back damage output without sacrificing your survival ?



EDIT:

wow 13k +health and mana...

tell me how you achieved that at 19, cause i have 1.4k unbuffed !
 
ArthurianKnight said:
if i have a warrior on me hamstringing me to death, sorry but having 2000+ mana won't save me, while having a lot of dodge will !
Click to expand...



I have to disagree, you can easily outsmart a warrior if you are a nelf...other than that i dunno....wing clip, shadowmeld, trinket and run, if the warrior isnt paying attention, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to get away, plus with the extra yardage on your range, you should hit him before he charges...plus you have a pet, most likely something that can help you cc, which is the whole point of pets
 
My hunter is what I call the falcon build

I still have a decent amount of Agility, but I also have some decent Int. I have bracers, pants, and gloves of the falcon.



Because of this Careful Aim is a must. I love not never running out of mana.



I am losing some stamina though which puts my health at about 1.1K (this is slightly alleviated by my "Gift of the Naruu"



I have 21% crit (33% atm with the cheater scope), 225 AP, 1.6K mana and unless I am up against a pre-made, I am almost always on top. I don't have AGM trinket or the fishing hat yet.



I would suggest trying both out and whatever works best for you, that is what you do.
 
my first reaction would be to say go agility, but than agian with out int good luck slowing down that FC try to have some balance. . .
 
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