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Scattered Shots: Simply enchanting

brian wood
Updated ·5 min read

Welcome to Scattered Shots, written by Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the Hunting Party Podcast. Each week, Frostheim uses logic and science mixed with a few mugs of Dwarven Stout to look deep into the hunter class. Got hunter questions? Feel free to email Frostheim.

While compiling the master Scattered Shots Resource Guide, I spent a lot of time digging back through months (and years) of hunter columns here on WoW.com, and one of the things I realized was that some of the key guides were woefully out of date. The game keeps changing and information that was great one day becomes obsolete a few months later. So I'm going to try to fill in some of the more glaring gaps in the resource guide from time to time, starting today.

I have not forgotten Survival 101 -- the specter of that column still looms over my shoulder, haunting me -- and we won't be doing dull, boring basics guides every column. We'll continue to look at hunter news, end-game raiding strats, hunter loot, pets and why healers hate them, more ways to use your hunter that Blizzard never intended, and of course Grandpappy Frostheim will make an appearance from time to time.

But on the agenda today is a straightforward guide to the best level 80 hunter enchants. If your gear can have an enchant, it should have an enchant. While any single enchant doesn't make a huge difference to our total DPS, all those little things add up to the kind of DPS that has those wannabe DPS shadow priests crying in their decorative orbs.



A note on professions

Most crafting professions provide a custom enchant for a couple slots of gear that does not stack with the standard enchants available to everyone. In most cases, that profession's enchant is better than the standard one. This guide will cover the enchants available to everyone regardless of profession -- so be aware that you probably want to use your profession-specific enchant over these.

Head

Shoulders

  • Greater Inscription of the Axe: Requires Sons of Hodir exalted reputation, and sells for 100 gold. There's a lesser version available at honored reputation, but you really want the best. Fortunately the blinding, horrendous pain of grinding SoH rep has been replaced with much easier methods, including buying your way in. On that note, for everyone who gets to grind SoH rep nowadays: I hate you all. I want you to suffer as I suffered.

Back

  • Major Agility: Available from enchanters or on the AH. Agility uber alles.

Chest

  • Powerful Stats: Available from enchanters or on the AH. What we really care about here is the 10 agility and the 10 intellect, which translates into 10 attack power with our Careful Aim talent. For such an important slot, chest enchants are pretty sad (and always have been).

Wrists

Hands

  • Major Agility: Available from enchanters or on the AH. This is the most common hunter enchant for the hand slot, but we do have an alternative.

  • Precision: Available from enchanters or on the AH. The hit rating from Precision is useful for hunters who are having troubles reaching the hit cap. The only reason you want this enchant is if you're under the hit cap, and if you are, this is the best enchant for you.

Belt

  • Eternal Belt Buckle: Available from blacksmiths or on the AH. This gives you an extra colorless gem socket on your belt. So if your belt has two sockets, it will now have three. You can put any color gem here that you want, and it does not affect your socket bonus in any way.

Legs

Feet

  • Superior Agility: Available from enchanters or on the AH. The standard hunter foot enchant. One enchant good for both feet.

  • Icewalker: Available from enchanters or on the AH. Much like our hands slot, we have here a hit rating option for the hit-starved. And just like the hands slot, if you're under the hit cap, you want this enchant, and that's the only time you want it.

  • Tuskarr's Vitality: Available from enchanters or on the AH. This interesting enchant is desirable by many raiders for the 8% movement speed boost. The logic is that that faster you move, the fewer auto-shots you'll miss and the greater your margin of error when getting out of void zones. In fact, many top progression raiding guilds require this enchant of all raiders. However, if you're BM, you've already got a better version automatically with Kindred Spirits, and they don't stack.

Ranged weapon

  • Heartseeker Scope: Available from engineers or on the AH.

  • Biznick's 247 x 128 Accurascope: Available from select engineers or maybe on the AH. This badass scope was something that we engineers got from a drop in Molten Core back in vanilla. Back then it provided a flat 2% hit, which was incredible. Event now, two expansions and 20 levels later, this scope can still be useful. Again, if you're having problems reaching the hit cap, this scope may be for you. From a purely stat-weight perspective, 30 hit rating is better than 40 crit rating. That said, you'll prefer to get your hit elsewhere if you can. This scope can be a bit hard to find, and a bit costly as well, since it uses Molten Core mats (though you can just solo it to get them if you want).

1-handed melee

  • Superior Potency: Available from enchanters or on the AH.

  • Accuracy: Available from enchanters or on the AH. A fantastic way to get hit rating if you're below the cap.

2-handed melee

  • Massacre: Available from enchanters or on the AH.

You want to be a hunter, eh? You start with science, then you add some Dwarven Stout and round it off some elf bashing. The end result is massive DPS. Scattered Shots is the WoW.com column dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. See the Scattered Shots Resource Guide for a full listing of vital and entertaining hunter guides, including how to

improve your heroic DPS, understand the impact of skill vs. gear, get started with Beast Mastery 101 and Marksman 101, and even solo bosses with some Extreme Soloing.