Comments on: Armor Penetration vs. Agility, Redux!

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:55:35 +0000

Ps it’s 11:52 pm here lol so where you lot from oh and it’s dos that’s low not dos ;) any help would be appreciated cheers

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:52:00 +0000

Hi I’ve been playing at lvl 80 for about 4 mnths now and I’m in mm with all plus20 agil gems as much as poss anyway but I still get told my dos is low could you check out my char ” taffysparky ” only one of me so easy to find. I know gear is still low but it puzzles me with all the other char with plus on ap etc please help

By: campgod

campgod — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:15:11 +0000

If I gave you my toons name would you be able to take a look and see what the hell am doing wrong?

By: campgod

campgod — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:01:38 +0000

I ran there names without pets or any raid buffs and my dps number is about the same. They do have better gear and am not sure what their shot rotation is. I am puzzled….

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:36:49 +0000

For one, they’re sponging off your investment in IHM. When you run their characters through femaledwarf.com, do you get a lower number than your profile?

By: campgod

campgod — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:18:37 +0000

I dont get it…I have 515 Arp now just on gear. I still have all my Agi. gems and enchants on, got rid of my Arcane shot and the 3 points in the Imp. AS and moved them to Imp HM. my DPS has increase a lot but there are two hunters in my guild who are gemmed Arp before the suggested 850 and are out dpsing me. I looked up on femaledwarf.com to see what it would look like if i went mostly arp gems and I lose dps…(only about 23-30dps)but these other guys have done it and are topping the 25 man raids while i sit like 4 or 5th. PLEASE HELP! lol WTF am I doing wrong?

By: AnbuBlackOrbs

AnbuBlackOrbs — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:46:21 +0000

i was just wondering.. i just switched to MM recently from SV.. and better yet, i find MM more interesting.. but the question is that my gears are gem in agility.. would that be ok for MM as well? i can see some of my gears have ArP.. not a lot tho but overall would like some advice on whether to re-gem or shall i just stick with agility as of right now?

By: campgod

campgod — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:56:44 +0000

Ok trying to learn the magic number’s here lol. So when I need to start thinking about gemming for Arp is when I hit the soft cap? Which is 1400-678(my trinket)=722 (soft cap) Since last post my gear is at 445 arp, with out gems. From what I have read above, I should get rid of Arcane shot and use the points else where? I have looked at other MM Arp hunters on my sever and it seems the gem arp from 409-508 arp on gear. Thanks for any help.

By: campgod

campgod — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:35:34 +0000

Cool, thanks for your help.

By: LFM6kBrainScore

LFM6kBrainScore — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:52:56 +0000

arp cap (hard) = 1400
arp amount from trinket prok = X

1400 – X = arp soft cap for your trinket

As for the 4pi go for it when u can trade in 2pi t10 + 2pi t9 for 4pi t10( with 2 out of these 4 264 lvl, or 3 if ur t9 is 258 lvl).
In general 4pi is good for both raid speks not like t9 4pi which is only for BM

By: campgod

campgod — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:31:06 +0000

Thank you for your reply. I have mostly ICC gear now and am way over hit cap with no gems. I got the 264 helm off the first boss in 25 Icc but am looking to replace it with the Tier helm cause of the Arp on it. My cape is also a 264 drop but I see the one you can buy with frost badges is spec. for Arp as well. If I replace both of those i will be slightly over 500 arp. So that when I should gem for it? I am getting confused with this soft cap. I hear around 500 then 700 not sure what is best. I cant seem to crasp this LOL. One more question is, going the Arp MM spec. should one try to get the 4 set tier bonus? I see a lot of MM stay away from it and go for the 264 vendor stuff. Thanks again for any help.

By: hunter22

hunter22 — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:20:10 +0000

He’s not talking about gemming there. Read further down:

“Don’t start gemming for amor pen until your passive ArP rating gets over 700. You may even need to wait longer, depending on your gear and playstyle. “

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:16:17 +0000

Check again- “In general I recommend switching to an armor pen model only after you have more than 400 or 450 passive armor pen” (fta)

By: hunter22

hunter22 — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:45:18 +0000

He says in that article to not gem arpen until you are at over 700 arpen rating…

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:23:29 +0000

You can, but you’ll lose dps. Try and focus on replacing your current gear with hit and haste to gear with arp. The magic stat trio is AP, crit, and armor pen. Once you’re within reach of soft capping your armor pet (where you would be ignoring 100% armor when your trinket procs), consider looking into gemming for it. Before that, it’s not worth it.

By: campgod

campgod — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:55:19 +0000

I am a Surv. hunter who is looking to do the transfer over to MM. I would like to try out this Arp MM. As of right now my ArP is only at 379(27.08%)without any ArP gems and I have the encrusted scorp. tricket in the bank. So as of right now I should not gem any ArP gems? I only have a few gear that are 245 everyhting else is higher. So do I change the 264 stuff to a lower gear lvl to get the ArP needed? Seems like a waste of good gear. Not sure what to do, What is my best course of action?

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:42:07 +0000

Femaledwarf.com is pretty good at modeling trinket values- the only deviation is when you stack procs with cooldowns, and that the site assumes you’re standing still. Enter your data, and take whichever is more DPS.

Don’t forget that the needle encrusted scorpion is not proccing nearly as much as other ArP trinkets- it’s uptime is a little lower.

By: Werloga

Werloga — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:35:00 +0000

Quick question on a kind of related note,

for a PvE Survival hunter, what would be a better trinket, the Mirror of Truth (for the 1000ap proc) or the Needle Encrusted Scorpion (for the 600 odd ArP) ?

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:31:34 +0000

I'd recommend always using a spreadsheet or DPS calculator, however I'm going to steal Frostheim's short answer and say 400-450.

By: brandon

brandon — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:22:36 +0000

can i still get an answer of a good number to consider swithcing to armor pen gemming and trinkets? for a passive rate

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:51:23 +0000

This is an old article that’s due for an update.

By: tumbus

tumbus — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:06:46 +0000

Euripde. quick question. are you a member of elitist jerks? if so i read a forum that was titled ” marksmenship questions”. Now in that post you say right at the top, if your passive ARP should not exceed 566 with runestone and grim toll with 619 EXCLUDING PROCS. Say im over 619 and i equip runestone, with the proc im at 1354 with the proc active. if i gem full ARP i will hit the cap at 1400. Does this make sence? When is it a good idea to switch to Armor pen when your passive and have NO ARP trinkets and not gemmed. Kripparian and Frostheim have a differnt theory from you. Also i doubt any1 has 815 passive ARP without gems or trinkets, mabye if there BIS.

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:12:11 +0000

No it does not. Hit prevents misses, and armor pen makes your physical damage higher.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 09:28:25 +0000

did hit give u certain amount of arm pen ?

By: brandon

brandon — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:27:17 +0000

One mistake i see in wow that makes me almost laugh is Hunters stacking armor pen. The funny thing is they gem all armor pen and have no armor pen trinket. Well for Armor pen no Hunter should stack any armor pen unless above 700 or reach 700. Good trinkets can help you reach that such as Needle-Encrusted Scorpion, Mjolnir’s Runestone and Grim toll. There has been tests that have shown a dps increase when stacking armor pen if you have the proper gear i.e BIS(Best in Slot) wich at that time would be full TOC Gear. PRE ICC raid. Kriapparian has almost 100% armor pen from stacking armor pen gems and trinkets. He has said it helps in TOC fights for single target while Volley will lower his dps slightly compared to gemming straight agility.
In this post it says 850 i would like to see a reason or theory behind that.

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:44:56 +0000

That’s right. In fact, gemming to get to the soft cap and the getting a trinket is usually no longer more DPS than gemming agility and using just the ArP on your gear. There is a point between the soft cap (which is the hard cap minus your trinket proc) and the hard cap where ArP becomes more DPS than agility. In order to determine where this is, you should always check the spreadsheet or femaledwarf.com, as it varies with the amount of other stats you have.

By: TJ

TJ — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:09:29 +0000

Hi all,

So … “Are you suggesting that you don’t need the trinket, just a ridiculous amount of ArP?” … if I have like +1k ArP (gear + gems) I dont need any ArP proc trinket ?

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:26:03 +0000

I agree with Bowya, the KS glyph will help you when it _really_ counts but the AS glyph will give you an overall DPS increase. I just recently switched to the AS glpyh over KS and saw a 200-300 DPS increase, overall. If you do decide to glpyh it be sure to have all talent points in imp barrage and piercing shots.

edit: 200-300 might actually be on the high side… sorry about that. It was an increase but it might be more around 100-150. :)

By: Bowya

Bowya — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:00:32 +0000

How do you never go into VIPER! Im finding it really hard not to go oom in about 2/3 mins its insane! The boost in IHM is quite nice tbh, I get more dps with it that on my old spec with TSA and imp arcane. TSA is really pointless in 25 man raids and most the time in 10 cus you always have shamans or DKs so one or the other will have it.

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:20:22 +0000

it’s worth it if you have 3 hunters, and maybe worth it if you have two. TSA is almost never worth it because if you have a shaman or DK, they almost always have a buff that will overwrite it. Another issue- I have trouble finding places to put points in that will increase my DPS at all. The last few points almost always go into mana, and if you’re already never in viper, there’s not much choice.

By: Gnorf

Gnorf — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:15:41 +0000

For a lone hunter, I doubt a static 150 (165, assuming multiplier buff) RAP is worth 3 talent points, for the end-game raids we’re talking about. Consider that TSA is a 10% AP multiplier for a single point, but IHM is more like 2% when you’re raid buffed.

The only way that’s a good deal is if you have multiple hunters in the raid, on the same target, who are expert enough (or lazy enough) to not overwrite. (Or if you’re a new level 80, just getting started raiding, and your RAP is still fairly low.)

By: Bowya

Bowya — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:14:45 +0000

I would say take the glyph of killshot everytime. Its ok having more dps throughout the fight but on bosses where its important to get that last few % out kill shot wins every time anub is a good expample of this.

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:05:55 +0000

That is a valid option that some people do, however they do it more to keep their rotation the same, since that change allows you to keep a pretty stagnant rotation.

By: Torlak

Torlak — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:36:29 +0000

I’m wondering, if you think about removing Arcane SHot from your rotation since you have more armor pen, should you take glyph of aimed shot over kill shot, to dps more 80% of the time

By: Zeherah

Zeherah — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:41:19 +0000

Currently there is a bug where you get the effects of the steady shot glyph when you have at least 1 talent point in marked for death even if you don’t have the glyph. This is assuming the target is marked. So right now they stack in the sense that you get both benefits, but you don’t need the glyph if you’re specced into it.

Reports from PTR indicate this is likely fixed in 3.3 but it’s been tested repeatedly on the live servers and as of recent test reports it’s still broken on live.

By: Muron

Muron — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:51:59 +0000

They do stack.

Also, marked for death increases the critical strike damage bonus by 10% where Steady shot glyph increase all of steadies damage by 10%.

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:05:03 +0000

Make sure nobody else in your raid has that improved mark- if they do, you could put the points into efficiency (or any unused DPS talents).

By: Bowya

Bowya — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:45:12 +0000

I got IHM and respecced to the gimp spec. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cxbZ0eAoRhzGIctuAox00b:IAaMz, with them glyphs and my dps was a little higher but not much but the other hunters in the raid last night were getting atleast 100 more dps from my IHM, and its not hard to say to the other hunter dont remark the target i have IHM and glyph spec.

By: Noah

Noah — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:32:09 +0000

I’m very wary of putting points into IHM as a Hunter without those points can overwrite your better HM with his lesser one. There is none of that “a more powerful spell is already active” feature here.

So if you are regularly the only Hunter in your raids, or you have been clearly and explicitly been assigned marking duty, it will be worth taking, but unless the above is true, chances are your IHM is going to be rendered useless.

Unless things have changed recently, that is.

As for the orginal post, I still show a dps decrease by taking out Arcane Shot and the Improved Arcane talents and redistributing them. I’m around 550-ish ArPen.
I had read that another good measure that you should switch to an ArPen build is when your Steady Shot consistently does more damage than your Arcane Shot.

By: azkas

azkas — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:55:49 +0000

OMG… it worked :D
i have 550 arp and have used the arcane shot happely in my rotation. and when i on femaledarwf replaced my 3 points in improved arcane shot and put 2 points in improved hunters mark and one in improved steadyshot i got nearly a 100dps gain :D

but… this is on papir. i will test it out the next couple of days

/azkas

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:07:36 +0000

There’s no minimum arp- MM starts to overtake SV based on overall gear level, not ArP. There are no marks macros that I know of- shot macros you use in SV will be find, just make sure to add one for chimera shot. You could macro silencing shot to everything if you like, but I don’t (just in case I ever need to conserve mana or silence something)

By: Petar

Petar — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:19:41 +0000

Hello m8 ,i have one question for you ,how much minimum Armor Penetration hunters need for MM spec ?and also do u have maybe some macros for MM ?

By: Bowya

Bowya — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:26:40 +0000

Ok thanks a lot. I forgot about the best ava buffs thing. Ill rerun it through and have a look, thanks alot.

You have made my short straw spec look good now, ty! :)

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:42:28 +0000

Improved hunter’s mark is actually an incredible DPS increase, but when you use the web based calculator (femaledwarf.com) and click “best available buffs”, you’ll get it from there, which assumes that someone else is doing it. In my case, we have another hunter who takes that talent (and glyphs for it as well).

As for the marked for death thing- I had heard that steady shot was bugged and you could get the bonus without the glyph, but it’s clearly an unintended change and I am always leery about using those for DPS increases.

By: Bowya

Bowya — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:18:04 +0000

Can i ask a question please its not really related but id like to get it cleared up. Does marked for death and steady shot glyph stack, ive been told it doesnt.

By: Bowya

Bowya — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:44:51 +0000

I had around 350 arp. On DPS spreadsheet i get about 30 more dps if i take arcane shot out the rotation and replace it with hunters mark 3/3. Ive done some more tests now though cus 30 dps didnt seem worth it and the best build I can get is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#cxbZ0eqoRhzGIsguAox00b. The 1 point from hunters mark is a filler you can move to anywhere you like.

By: euripidesoutdps

euripidesoutdps — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:25:00 +0000

That trick won’t work any more- not since the nerf. At least, according to my calculations.

By: Neelyung

Neelyung — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:34:53 +0000

My understanding was that, if you wanted to go the ArP route, you needed to have an ArP proc trinket, like Mjolnir’s Runestone, and then gem to get your ArP to cap when your trinket procs. Are you suggesting that you don’t need the trinket, just a ridiculous amount of ArP?