Scopes and Crit and Pets and Everything

BRK » 23 July 2007 » In Gear »

“Dear BRK, recently you got a crossbow from Kara and I was curious as to why you put a +28 crit scope on it. Wouldn’t a +12 damage scope be more effective for a BM spec? In my opinion, you’d be better off going with the +12 scope and putting +8 crit gems in your yellow sockets. A fellow hunter missing out on 12dps for 1% crit is just craziness to me. Steviewonder & Wifeaggro”

A +12 damage scope does not add +12 DPS; it adds +12 damage to each shot. Remember that DPS is Damage per Second, a measurement of damage over time. Let’s assume a hunter does 400 damage per shot, and shoots every three seconds. The formula for calculation his DPS would be:Then our hunter adds the +12 damage scope. Our equation is modifed in this manner:In this instance, our +12 damage scope gave us a 4DPS increase. The faster the firing rate, the bigger the DPS increase. The slower the firing rate, the lesser the DPS increase.

But as for damage vs. crit question you mention, their is a Big Flaw in your recommended solution. In order to get +28 Crit from yellow gems, we’d have to put three +8 Crit gems in our gear to approach the +28 Crit we get from our spiffy scope. Those three gem-slots could be filled with +8 Agility gems. That’s 24 RAP and the associated crit we’d be losing by going the crit-gem route. We’d be losing agility, keeping the same crit, and receiving a small increase in our DPS. This poor tradeoff is the big reason as to why BRK does not recommend +Crit gems for BM hunters.

As for losing DPS with the +Crit scope versus a +Damage scope, remember that BM hunters also love our Kill Commands. KCs proc from our crits, so we want to crit as much as we can for the extra pet-damage. This will offset the white damage DPS loss we perceive.

Why else do we want to boost our crit? Go For The Throat. Every time we 41/20/0 hunters crit, our pet gains 50 Focus. More Focus equals more pet-damage equals more uberness and more dead enemies.

With KCs and GftTs, we cannot just write a “+Crit versus +Damage” post. These other variables matter a great deal. The type of pet will matter. Your firing rate matters. Your overall crit rate matters. The length of time of the observation period matters, (in short-fights, burst DPS is king whereas in long fights, sustained DPS rules). Now we as BM hunters as not trying to get crit percentages in the 30s, but Crit is very important as it increases both our and our pet’s DPS. Remember that Balance is our goal. Crit is part of the balance that we seek.

Is there an instance where the +28 Crit scope is not as desirable as the +12 Damage scope? Perhaps. Survivalist hunters believe that there is a Point of Diminishing Returns in regards to crit percentage, we want to say it’s around 33-35%. Any higher than that and they pull aggro more quickly than they can FD out of the top of a threat list. If you’re already in the low to mid 30s in terms of crit before you add a +Crit scope, they may recommend you get the +Damage scope. BRK is not a Survivalist Expert anymore so we could be wrong, (and will correct the post if we’re completely off our rocker).

But except for this isolated circumstance, the +Crit scope is worth every copper. It’s f-ing expensive, so don’t put one on your greenie bow, if for no other reason than as to avoid the appearance of fiduciary malpractice.

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