Attention: The following info is pretty ancient, but I’ve left it available on the site for those of you that wish to wax nostalgic or are perhaps running an old version of WoW.
The following list contains all of the best enchants, arcanums, inscriptions and various other item enhancements for hunters. The guide includes recommended enchants for both PvE and PvP, as well as profession-specific enhancements.
For information on gemming your hunter, please see my other guide – GarsNotes: Hunter Gems.
Head Arcanums
Arcanum of Torment – This can be purchased from the Knights of the Ebon Blade at Revered reputation, at the cost of 127G 50S. This is the best DPS head enchant available for hunters.
Arcanum of Triumph (PvP) – This arcanum can be purchased from the Wintergrasp Quartermaster for the low price of 40 Stone Keeper’s Shards. This arcanum is better itemized for PvP use due to the resilience, but the 50AP makes it a worthwhile enchant for PvE if one lacks the necessary KotB reputation for the Arcanum of Torment.
Shoulder Inscriptions
Greater Inscription of the Axe – This enchant can be purchased from the Sons of Hodir at exalted reputation, at the cost of 80G. Lesser Inscription of the Axe, which has slightly fewer stats, can be obtained at honored reputation.
Inscription of Triumph (PvP) – This inscription is available from the Wintergrasp Quartermaster for 30 Stone Keeper’s Shards. Like the Arcanum of Triumph, this shoulder enchant is for PvP.
Master’s Inscription of the Axe (Inscription Only) – If you have Inscription as one of your professions, then this is the shoulder enchant to use.
Chest Enchants
Powerful Stats – This enchant adds 10 to all stats. This is the best chest enchant for hunters, period. Super Stats, which provides +8 to all stats, is the cheaper alternative for leveling hunters or the hunter on a budget. 😉
Cloak Enchants
Major Agility – This enchant adds 22 agility. This is the best cloak enchant for a hunter unless you’re an Engineer – in that case it’s…
Flexweave Underlay (Engineers only) – This enhancement adds 23 agility to your cloak, plus it also turns your cloak into a parachute. Awesome… simply awesome.
Bracer Enchants
Greater Assault – This enchant adds 50 attack power to bracers. For the hunter on a budget, Striking is the cheaper alternative, but provides only 38 attack power.
Fur Lining – Attack Power (Leatherworkers only) – This Leatherworker-exclusive enchant provides 130 attack power to bracers.
Glove Enchants
Major Agility – This enchant provides 20 agility to gloves. The best enchant for Marksmanship and Survival hunters.
Crusher – 44 attack power to gloves. This is the best glove enchant for Beast Mastery hunters.
Precision – Adds 20 hit rating to gloves for hunters that need hit.
Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket (Engineers only) – Enables engineers to fire a rocket, which can crit, every 45 seconds. The best all-around glove enchant if you’re a hunter engineer. For PvP, it’s best to use when needed, but for PvE it can be macro’d into all shots for added DPS because it’s not on the Global Cooldown. Just add /use 10, which is the glove slot item, to any shot macro.
Example:
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast [pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/use 10
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
Belt Enhancements
Eternal Belt Buckle – This adds a gem socket to a belt.
Leg Armor Kits
Icescale Leg Armor – This armor kit provides 75 attack power and 22 critical strike rating. This is the best DPS leg enchant available for hunters. Nerubian Leg Armor is the cheaper alternative, providing 55 attack power and 15 critical strike rating.
Frosthide Leg Armor (PvP and soloing) – This leg armor adds 55 stamina and 22 agility. It adds a bit of added DPS by way of the 22 agility, but it also provides some extra survivability for PvP and soloing situations. Jormungar Leg Armor is the lesser and cheaper alternative, which is good while leveling.
Boot Enchants
Superior Agility – Adds 16 agility to boots. Best DPS enchant for MM and SV hunters not in need of additional hit rating.
Greater Assault – Adds 32 attack power to boots. Best DPS enchant for Beast Mastery hunters not in need of hit.
Icewalker – Adds 12 critical strike rating and 12 hit rating to boots. Best enchant for all hunters in need of hit rating.
Tuskarr’s Vitality (PvP) – This adds 15 stamina and an 8% movement speed increase to boots. This is the best PvP boot enchant for Marksmanship and Survival hunters unless you’re an engineer, then in that case it’s…
Nitro Boosts – These add 24 critical strike rating to boots, plus they have an on-use effect that increases run speed by 150% for 5 seconds. This is the best PvE and PvP (sorry, but not in arena) boot enchant for engineers.
Note: Nitro Boosts cannot be used in arena.
One Hand Weapon Enchants
Exceptional Agility – 26 agility to melee weapons. Good for dual wielding Marksmanship and Survival hunters.
Superior Potency – 65 attack power to melee weapons. Good for dual wielding Beast Masters.
Accuracy – This enchant adds 25 critical strike and hit rating. For hunters in need of hit rating.
Titanium Weapon Chain (PvP) – This item reduces disarm effects by 50% and adds 28 hit rating. While not the best choice for PvE, this enhancement is invaluable for PvP due to the reduced time on disarm effects. This item should be on one of your 1h weapons if you PvP.
Two Hand Weapon Enchants
Massacre – 110 attack power to a 2H weapon. This is the best 2H weapon enchant for hunters.
Titanium Weapon Chain – 50% reduced disarm effects and 28 hit rating. For PvP only.
Ranged Weapon Scopes
Heartseeker Scope – This scope adds 40 critical strike rating to a bow or gun. This is the only scope a hunter should ever use, period.
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Hi, nice list, very nice list! Just wondering – what about ring enchants?
Hey, Gar! I just stumbled onto your site a couple days ago and would like to point out that LWers get the Nerubian Leg Reinforcements [LWing Only] for themselves before they get their Fur Lining patterns. It does the exact same leg enhance that the Icescale does, but only needs two Nerubian Chitin which is cheaper in the long run seeing as you can save those precious Arctic Furs for other things you really need to put them on, like the bracers!
What is your opinion on the +102 stam for LW’s bracer vs the +130 ap LW enchant?
I have the 102 stam on my PvP pair, and the 130AP on my PvE bracers.
I switch them out depending upon what sort of gear set I’m using. If I’m going for maximum survivability, I use the PvP bracers with the stam – for general PvP usage, I just use my PvE ones w/ the 130ap.
Gar, nice article, but I think you may have overlooked some enchants which, in my opinion, are the best of their kind for PVP.
1) Arcanum of the Savage Gladiator – gives +30 Sta, +25 Res. Need Exalted with Horde Expedition;
2) Exceptional Resilience Chest enchant – +20 Resilience, arguably better than Stats for your PVP chest;
3) Earthen Leg Armor – +40 Resilience +28 Stamina, is the best PVP Leg enchant
Also worth a mention is Bizznicks Accurascope from MC, it is the only scope in game with hit rating (30) but may be very hard to find.
Also note that once Cata released will no longer be able to get this recipe…
Please explain why this recipe will no longer be attainable? Blizz has never said that there will be a change or removal of current dungeons or raids from the game (as it currently stands) on release of cataclysm.
You should also include Sunscope, at a straight 40 haste rating it actually provides more DPS if you are not haste soft capped (523 haste rating) imo.
Umm, my hand mounted gyro rockets work fine in arena.
Good to know. I’ll update the Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket section to reflect that.
I had mistakenly thought they were not allowed arena, along with the rocket boots.
Thanks.
Rocket boots and belt bombs (i forget the official name) both do not work in arena but the hand rockets do.
Hey Gar, just wanted to say great guide. Since BRK faded away I hadn’t really found a forum I wanted to join, but I’ve been watching your website for about 6 months now and really like what I’ve seen.
So I have a note on the one handed weapon enchants. I noticed the seperation for the 65 AP one as good for BM hunters and the 26 agility one for MM and SV. I feel the 65 AP is the best enchant for dual weilding hunters of any spec as long as they are hit capped. If my memory serves me correct the mechanics behind it are that the 26 agility one is still limited to one point of ap per one point of agility. So together that’s 52 AP which is lower than a 65 AP enchant to just one dual weilded weapon. even if it were two points of AP per one of point of agility it would still come out at 104 AP as compared to the 130 AP from the combined AP enchants.
Just my thoughts but I think the DPS difference should be noticeable.
Glad you like the site Helz, and thank you for the compliments. 🙂
On the enchants topic… although you lose some attack power with 2×26 agil, you also gain 1.13 crit strike. Furthermore, the 52 added agility scales with Kings, where as raw AP does not. Also, you’re typically giving up some agility by using 2x 1h’ers over a 2h.
I like agility better for both MM and SV because it’s just a better all around stat. It scales better with buffs, plus it enhances talents that proc off of crits.
For MM, I’d say it’d be advisable to plug the enchants into a spreadsheet and see what works best for your character.
For SV however, I’d definitely recommend the 2x agility. This is due to the bonus it receives from Lightning Reflexes along with the mechanics of Expose Weakness.
I feel that for most hunters, the 2x 26 agil is where it’s at. There may be cases where a hunter is so near the crit cap that going with straight AP would be more of a benefit, but that’s only going to apply to some of the top geared end-game hunters.
Update: I plugged Frostheim’s toon (he’s pretty geared, so I figured he’d be a good test bed) into Zehera’s and equipped him with Bloodvenom Blade and H Frost Giant’s Cleaver, along with a 10agil/10hit gem.
I compared using 2x 26 agil and 2×65 AP. The difference was negligible, with 2x 26 agil being only 1.37 DPS more in the spreadsheet. This number would be higher for SV hunters.
I still say you can’t go wrong with agility. 😉
There I go only thinking about one side of things again. That does make since Gar, it’s been so long since I’ve really thought about needing the crit that I haven’t really considered testing out the agility enchants over the AP ones. Thanks for looking into and the great inputs.
This may be situational, but I’m thinking that for the moment, ICC is THE raid instance. Would Scourgebane be more useful? Perhaps having it on “ICC only” weapon or weapons? Or do I get a beating because it’s a melee bonus?
Well… hmmm…
These guides are not intended to be min/max theorycrafting guides per sé. My take on Scourgebane is that it’s mainly for fanatics, which these guides don’t cater to.
Here are my thoughts on this enchant…
It may prove to be a slight DPS boost on some fights in ICC for SV and MM hunters. It won’t work as well for BM hunters because the 140AP from this enchant does not translate to pets.
Now… it’s also not going to be a bonus for all fights in ICC. For example, it won’t work vs. Fanatics, Adherents, Blood Beasts or for the Dreamwalker fight. It also won’t benefit the Gunship battle, but I won’t count that. You’d have to pack this, and another 2h or pair of 1hs, then switch between them the entire instance in order to gain the slightest advantage over using just Massacre.
To me, that’s just ricoculous.
Gar,
Thanks for the information! That the scourgebane attack power doesn’t translate to to the pet..HUGE! I would never have guessed. Appreciate the great advice as always.
As for packing more than one weapon….you mean people don’t?? 🙂
Looking forward to Cataclysm’s hunter zoo collection….
Hey Gar,
Thanks for all those great guides. However, you forgot the “Master’s Inscription of the Axe” in your Shoulder Inscription section. Although it’s inscription only it gives 3 times the AP of the “Greater Inscription of the Axe”.
Good catch Balto! I’ll add that.
Thanks. 🙂
Hey Gar, i generally only run ICC anymore on my hunter, and use scourgebane on my 2h polearm (+140 attk power vs. undead) single all ( or nearly all) of ICC is undead, it comes out to be a lil squeak in a dps gain
I could see that, but it’s gotta only be a c-hair of a difference. Even though you gain 30 AP, your pet loses the entire scaling bonus. Also, there’s a decent amount of mobs that it won’t work against, including the Dreamwalker fight.
Seems like it’d only be a benefit if you had gear coming out your ass and could afford to pack another 2h or pair of adequate 1hs w/ alternate enchants.
PROS – 30AP vs undead
CONS – Pet gains no AP whatsoever, won’t work vs. adherents, fanatics, blood beasts, nor in the Gunship or Dreamwalker fights.
I’m a stick with Massacre 😉
Hey Gar, I am new to the hunter class but I have to say that this site is awesome!!! Thanks for all that you do and all the information you provide. It is truly priceless!! Thanks my friend!
You’re most welcome Talon. 😀
Just wanted to take a sec to say thanks for starting the GarsNotes articles. I looked EVERYWHERE for something like this when I first started playing a hunter (concise, to the point, information) and unfortunately was unable to find a source this perfect. Yes, there were many that helped – but none as simple and useful as this. Again – thank you. I refer all of my up-and-coming hunter friends to this series.
Woo-hoo! Always glad to be of help, and thanks for the recommendations and referrals. 🙂
Hello,
I’d like to suggest the inclusion of Cat’s Swiftness in boot enchants.
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=34007/enchant-boots-cats-swiftness
I think it combines +agi (good for DPS) with +movement speed (good for pretty much all raids).
Also, thanks for the site as a whole – I’ve been pouring over it since I discovered you!
I’d say it’s not a bad enchant for those on a budget and/or are leveling enchanting on an alt, but the only DPS gain is via the 6 agility. The speed bonus is nice for certain encounters, but in fights w/out the need for it, it’s simply 10 less agility or 26 less attack power.
Another great guide, thanks. I especially like the fact that you cover both PVP and PVE
you failed to mention berserking for two handed weapons. I used Massacre for a long time but find berserking to be superior. Although on a spread sheet they will average out about the same, in real time I see a DPS boost with berserking.
Berserking requires melee to proc, therefore it’s not a hunter enchant.
If you can convince me that running or Disengaging into melee range, blowing cooldowns on melee abilities to achieve the proc, then getting to range again is a good idea and a DPS gain… I’ll consider adding it.
Until then, call me a skeptic.