Hunter weapon Term . The term Hunter Weapon is often used as a joke . The joke started from the initial explosive popularity of the Hunter class combined with Blizzard ' s poor itemization for hunters . Since hunter gear is often beneficial more from general equipment bonuses than their direct melee utility , this led to the seeming over - exuberance of some of its adherents to claim that nearly any weapon that seemed remotely useful to a hunter was a " hunter weapon " . This quickly escalated to calling any weapon or even non - weapons " hunter weapon " as sarcasm . You will likely do much to improve not only your individual reputation , but that of the Hunter class as a whole , if you refrain from rolling at all ( including Greed ) , unless the whole party is doing so on items that you do not intend to immediately use . Unless you are solo farming one that is much lower level of course , instances are not the places to be looking to make money . Real Hunter Weapons . There are in fact several melee weapons out there which are very good for Hunter s , especially when enchanted with + Agility or . The important thing to consider is the stat distribution rather than the listed weapon DPS . This allows the Hunter to focus on certain stats while also having a much larger spectrum of items to look through . This page should help you with that search . However , it is important to keep in mind that a good hunter should pass a melee weapon to a melee class if the item is an upgrade to them ; they would make 100 % use of the item , where a Hunter would only benefit from the stats . Broadly speaking , Daggers and Polearms are the two primary melee weapon classes of interest , with the occasional Axe . Although Swords can at times have stats which are beneficial to Hunters , you will nearly always be competing with another class for those , ( either the Rogue , Paladin , or Warrior generally ) and so you will generally find it better to wait until a suitable Polearm becomes available , since not only are the stats on it more likely to be specifically tailored to a Hunter , the other character classes usually have less interest in Polearms as well . Staves are also overwhelmingly a caster weapon , and in nearly all cases will have stats on them that would be of far more use to a caster class ( such as the Priest , Mage , Warlock , or the hybrids ) , however there are also quite a few higher level staves which are itemized for hunters and feral druids . with physical DPS stats such as agility , attack power and armor penetration rating . Keep in mind that druids gain feral attack power based on melee weapons ' DPS , while hunters generally gain little benefit from melee weapon damage . Most bows , crossbows and guns are itemized as hunter weapons , however there are a few exceptions , such as the , which is itemized as a StatStick for warrior tanks . Thrown of and above are itemized for rogues and / or warriors . Melee weapon uses . Before The Burning Crusade , raiding hunters generally preferred to dual wield weapons . Soloing or PvP hunters were more likely to end up taking a two - handed weapon because of the circumstances of Hunter melee : a Hunter should only melee once , while getting off a Wing Clip , and it is better to make that one hit as strong and heavy as possible . The Burning Crusade added a lot of hunter - friendly two - handed weapons . In addition , the enchantment further tilted the balance towards 2H weapons . The value of stat bonuses for hunters . Hunters benefit most from the following bonuses : The following stats are somewhat useful . The following stats have been deprecated since Cataclysm . " Haste rating " would also increase your damage up to a certain point , as increased haste means that you will attack more often per second , causing more overall damage . However , bonuses to haste rating are very rare on items that would otherwise be useful to hunters . Also , it is counterproductive if your base attack speed becomes too high , because it makes it impossible to run effective shot rotations ( involving Steady Shot ) . This is especially true for Beast Mastery hunters , because their Serpent ' s Swiftness talent provides 20 % bonus to attack speed already . " Spirit " had some value prior to Cataclym , since it increased your mana and health regeneration . The latter is insignificant since a hunter typically does not suffer a lot of physical damage under usual circumstances . Because of the mechanics of shot rotations and the , your mana regeneration was better served by increasing your " intellect " ( and using Aspect of the Viper ) or using gear that gives you " Mana per 5 seconds " . Since Cataclysm , mana generation is useless to hunter . " Strength " is almost completely useless , since on hunters it only increases your melee attack power , so any effects from " strength " are only visible while you are engaged in melee fighting , a situation that hunters should avoid as much as possible . Hunter AEP . AEP is a system developed for rogues to quickly compare the value of different melee weapons . It works by equating the different bonus types ( " AP " , " crit rating " and so forth ) with " agility " . A similar method has been developed for hunters and it has become known as " Hunter AEP " , " HAEP " or " HAP " . Regarding HAP , it is especially important to consider that the DPS value of many item bonuses scales with your damage potential . For example , crit rating becomes more important with increasing weapon DPS and attack power , because the ( absolute ) damage increase from critical strikes linearly depends on the amount of non - critical damage you would have caused . Therefore , any selection of HAP weights is only meaningful for a given set of talents , character level , shot rotation and equipment . For these reasons , the HAP values given in this table are to be taken merely as rough guidelines , as they result from one particular instance of HAP , while your current situation ( and evaluation of certain bonuses such as " Stamina " ) might differ considerably . The HAP values given here do have a certain application when comparing different weapons from a hunter perspective . Enchants . For optimal result , the following Enchantment s are available for melee weapons . 1H 2H Based on your preference for AP / Agility / Intellect , you may want to determine whether you prefer 1H or 2H weapons . Raiding marksman hunters will probably prefer to use 2x30 Intellect as this provides the best benefit in most cases . Note : Mongoose does not proc off ranged attacks . ( neither does Crusader , lifestealing , or fiery enchant )