4.2 Hunter Gear

I'm hearing rumors that the patch is about two weeks away so I did a little Wowhead digging and work slacking and here's my look at the coming hunter gear.

Easiest place to start is the T12 gear.  Please note that unlike the past history of XXStalker gear this is not Walker gear is Waker.  Flamewaker's Battlegear.  The two piece bonus is very sexy yes.  The four piece bonus is really only lighting up your life if you are MM. 

Head

• Flamewaker's Headguard
• Scalp of the Bandit Prince

The  T12 set piece has the the +30 agility bonus that Bandit Prince does not.  Plus no ew factor.

Neck

• Necklace of Smoke Signals

Shoulders

• Flamewaker's Spaulders
• Flickering Shoulders

Both shoulder options are near identical. While some hunters may prefer the Flickering Shoulders crit to the haste provided by the Flamewaker's many will probably just end up with the set piece.

Back

• Dreadfire Drape
• Sleek Flamewrath Cloak

The Sleek Flamewrath Cloak comes from friendly rep with the new Avengers of Hyjal faction and is really just a placeholder.   The Dreadfire Drape with its two red sockets is clearly far superior.

Chest

• Flamewaker's Tunic
• Flaming Core Chestguard

In the chest slot, the non-set item offers us a large hit number along with crit but our set piece chest has an agility socket bonus. Its up to you but you can reforge for hit.

Wrist

• Hide-Bound Chains
• Bracer's of Forked Lightning

The choice between these two bracers pretty much comes down to whether or not you'll want the hit rating of the Hide-Bound Chains.

Hands

• Flamewaker's Gloves
• Dragonfire Gloves
• Grips of Unerring Precision

The new Dragonfire Gloves will be craftable with leatherworking but they have no gem slot. The Grips of Unerring Precision come out on top of the gloves DPS race with a red socket.
Waist

• Firearrow Belt

Legs

• Flamewaker's Legguards
• Moltenfeather Leggings

Both of our leg options have hit rating identical sockets and socket bonuses. The Flamewaker's Legguards are going to be the better option for most hunters, offering haste instead of mastery.

Feet

• Earthen Scale Sabatons

Fingers

• Splintered Brimstone Seal
• Widow's Kiss

Trinkets

• Matrix Restabilizer
• The Hungerer
• Ancient Petrified Seed

The Ancient Petrified Seed is a rep reward for being revered with the Avengers of Hyjal faction, and it is the least appealing trinkets.

From what I have read, Fluid Death has held its own against these trinkets until you hit the heroic versions.  Then it falls far behind. 
 

Melee weapon

• Fandral's Flaming Spire
• Ranseur of Hatred

On the stat hanger front, the Ranseur of Hatred is a better option since crit/haste is usually a better combination than crit/mastery.

Ranged weapon

• Arbalest of Erupting Fury
• Lava Bore Blunderbuss
• Arathar, the Wings of Flame

Arathar is a half an ilevel higher.  My guess is that Rag drops that bow. 

Scope

• Flinklocke's Woodchucker

For the love of all that is good and decent please let this have an animation worthy of  its name.

EZ Mode

So my guild is level 25 and I went up to winterspring to peek at maybe, sort of, kind of looking at the frostsaber reputation grind.   How was I to know it was now a 20 day daily quest.  Okay so it was 20 days and not a horrific grind of blood and tears.   I've done enough stuff in this game the hard way,  I feel the appropriate amount of guilt.  Really.  I swear.

By fire be....tamed?

As per the updated 4.2 patch notes

8 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth'tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges.

I am officially going BM for my off spec now.