Hunters and Spell Penetration for PvP

Cataclysm edition…

Green Arrow is spell pen cappedWhile working on my PvP guides, one thing I’ve been taking a hard look at is Spell Penetration. I’ve not really focused on it as a stat up until now, as I’ve been using my PvP gear to pull double-duty for me in BGs as well as dungeons. However, I’ve now amassed enough alternate pieces to be able to throw a decent PvP set together, optimized with PvP stats.

So onto the topic of Spell Penetration and Hunters…

Hunters are not casters, so wtf do we need spell pen for..?!

The reason hunters need spell penetration is because although we don’t cast spells per se, we do fire shots that do spell damage. A good portion of our DPS in PvP is supplied by way of spell damage – namely these three shots:

Because all hunters rely upon at least one of these shots, and because pretty much all of our PvP foes will have some form of resistance up, Spell Penetration is an important stat for PvP – especially in arena.

Read more