So, I was bored updating my spreadsheet that I use to keep organized and decided to put my TBC preraid bis on there. In doing so I have come across something a bit confusion.
Is there any reason at all why any Hunter would gem Delicate Living Ruby (+8 Agility… Which is 8 AP and 4.4 Crit) over either Deadly Fire Opal (8 AP and 5 Crit) or Glinting Fire Opal (5 Agi and 4 Hit)
Is there some type of limitation to Fire Opals because I’m not seeing it anywhere in my google search. Just that you have to get them yourself as opposed to buying off the AH.
I see that is the only thing I could come up with as well. I thought there would be something else as almost all the guides I’m seeing are recommending Delicate Living Ruby over the other two unless a socket bonus gives more agility.
The thing is they also mention hit being extremely hard to come by for the tradition hunter build (BM). Like to the point you potentially ignore otherwise major upgrades to keep hit capped.
Oh well, Things you learn by not blindly following guides.
If Hit is really in need, gemming for it is absolutely a possibility. But that really depends on what you have. Blindly following guides really doesn’t work, as it can’t really see what gear you have and instead relying on a spreadsheet/sim is your best bet.
It’s also made a lot harder since they changed from % to rating, so it’s more difficult to track specifically where your hit is at.
Fire Opals are the epic quality gems that drop randomly in Heroics, so while there are likely a few unique combinations that are strictly better than a pure Agility gem you can otherwise craft, actually farming those Heroic gems is a huge pain in the butt. Initially the epic quality gems only dropped from the final boss of a given Heroic, and was among several possibilities as well. Later they made those gems no longer unique-equipped and the rest of the Heroic bosses had a chance, albeit a small one, to also drop one of the gems.
I do think the gems are confined to particular dungeons (Deadly Fire Opal is Heroic Arcatraz, Glinting Fire Opal is Heroic Black Morass), but there are 3-4 total gem possibilities and you can only run those Heroics once a day and you also need multiple. I don’t think running Heroics will be as bad this time around and there should definitely be plenty of folks running all of them, but don’t expect many people to just jump right in to either of those particular dungeons very often as they’re both tedious, annoying, and their final boss loot isn’t necessarily super appealing to everyone. Paladins will want H-Arcatraz for the protadin bracers for sure, but nothing in H-Black Morass is super important. Both of those being lvl70 dungeons normally, the only loot changes you get for doing them on Heroic come from the final boss and it is a single item plus the gem, whereas all the blue quality loot remains the same as on Normal.
If you plan on stacking lots of Heroic epic gems, get to farming them daily and hope they drop.
Hit is actually REALLY easy to come by for BM. My current prebis list has me at 11.73% hit, which is almost 3% over cap. AND i’ve already cut a number of hit items in favor of better synergy stats. (Worse piece in a bubble but better with my gear)
I’d take the +8agi gem everytime, assuming i could acquire it. Or the deadly fire opal. Never the glinting.
Don’t sleep on this little gem from BF Heroic: tbc.wowhead .com/item=28121/icon-of-unyielding-courage#comments
Icon of Unyielding Courage
Trinket
Equip: Improves hit rating by 30.
Use: [Your attacks ignore 600 of your enemies’ armor for 20 sec.](tbc.wowhead .com/spell=34106) (2 Min Cooldown)
It’s a nice effect, but ArP isn’t good until you get a lot of it. I’d rather have Bloodlust Brooch and the hourglass, or several other options. Said trinket that was linked seems worse than the green Core of Ar’kelos trinket and the HFP Bladefist’s Breadth.
They’re likely not going to outside of the most sweaty. The variety of good pieces makes it a lot better than not being able to farm like Classic. Plus, the really good crafted gear.
I predict more people complaining at launch about the 30 instance lockout.
Those are the two Trinkets I’d go for, for pre bis. but that +30 Hit is going to be major for for when you are going from PreBiS to BiS. Both times I ended up have about 5-8 hit over the cap on gear so I needed every piece.
You’d want to sim it, but a small amount of +hit with a weak effect is going to be vastly weaker than solid stats that may not be wasted (as you’ll likely still be at hit cap) and a strong proc/on use.
You should be wearing 4p Beast Lord which is basically a constant 600 ArmPen so these together is 1200 and amazing. Also, the entire T6 for hunters only provides 648 ArmPen total. You can still take 1 of the other trinkets while still having this slotted. It also goes a long way towards hit cap freeing up gearing choices.
Going from 600 -> 1200 ArmPen takes you from 19.69% dr to 15.86% dr is a 4.8% increase in damage for 20 seconds. This is on par with either of those other trinkets in damage increase. All three are amazing choices, though you can pick up AP or crit from many other sources. This is one of the only pieces of ArmPen available until like phase 3-4.
What are you losing by using blue pieces compared to raid gear, though, in terms of raw stats? Is 4.8% increase in damage for 20 seconds better than higher DPS at all times outside (and likely inside) that window?
Also DST and BB almost certainly sim higher than +600 ArP, and this is just in T4.