In Wrath of the Lich King Hunters were the beneficiaries of one the greatest pieces of loot all-time – The Darkmoon Card: Greatness. This little workhorse of a trinket lasted many a hunter into patch 3.2, and some still had it equipped when they entered Icecrown Citadel.
Now Cataclysm is here and along with it comes a new Darkmoon Card that looks deceptively enticing for hunters; the Darkmoon Card: Hurricane. Boasting 321 agility and a proc that looks like it’s a match made in heaven for Survival hunters. On the surface this looks like an outstanding trinket, but sadly it’s not.
I don’t have this trinket myself, but I’ve been considering hit. Here are some things that others are reporting about it (you can follow the discussion and see what other are reporting in this thread on Elitist Jerks.)
- The proc, called Lightning Strike, is on the spell hit and spell crit table. This means even with a 961 hit rating we can still miss with it and it’s crit rate will be lower.
- It does not proc off of Black Arrow, Explosive Shot or Serpent Sting. Only auto-shot, Arcane Shot and Cobra Shot.
- The proc damage scales with Survival’s Mastery.
- It has a very low proc rate for Survival Hunters (it’s unclear how it performs with other specs).
- In raid fights it appears to account for less than 2% overall damage and contributes about as much dps as Arcane Shot.
Costing anywhere from 15-30K gold this trinket is not cheap, and will likely be replaced by other trinkets such as Essence of the Cyclone and Prestor’s Talisman of Machination.
Now acquiring those trinkets requires you to kill raid bosses; one of them and end-boss. If you’re just starting to raid it could be some time before see either of those. Fluid Death is another option that can be purchased with Valor Points. It is however, loaded with hit that you may not need.
So depending on your trinket needs, and how deep your pockets are, Hurricane could suit you, but don’t expect to face Deathwing with it still equipped. It’s not terrible but it ain’t Greatness.
Happy Hunting!
Ok, so I have this. Bought it for only what the mats cost from a guild inscriptionist, so it was considerably under AH prices. Part of it was the proc, part of it the fond, fond memories of the Greatness trinket. So this is a bit disappointing, but not entirely so. I'm already clamoring to rid myself of hit in heroic/rep gear, so I can't imagine wanting hit trinkets.
And the odds of getting both of those boss trinkets, factoring in time it will take to down them, drop rates, other guildies needing them, etc. means that I feel safe with Hurricane for a while.
The proc alone has been doing about 3% of my overall damage on heroic bosses though (range I've seen is 2.4 to 4.7%), so it's still a great trinket, just not as great as expected. So thanks for the info, especially about the hit chance, which was mystifying to me.
I think the trinket distinguishes between shots and dots and does not proc off dots. This leaves SV at a disadvantage with the trinket because Explosive Shot is actually a dot.
Got mine today for whopping 35k gold, which cut my wealth almost in half, but I really don´t mind it since deep pockets deal no damage! Alas, one of those require me to kill a raid endboss (good olf Nefarian, that is) and on top of that I need DKP.
Therefore, I think it was a good choice, since 35k are about a month´s worth of work, even less if I try to.
I've passed on this trinket myself because I looked at that procc and felt it wasn't gonna be nearly as amazing as "Greatness" and was definitely not gonna last through more than one tier of raiding. And now it looks like it will be replaced even in the first tier of raiding… Well, this might be sad for us hunters.
But really, not ever upgrading one of your trinket slots isn't fun is it? I think this is a success for Blizzard in terms of item design. We should desire new trinkets with every new raid tier and in that sense, "Greatness" was a failure.
Cheers,
Gav
Based on Zeherah's analyzer on pure stat weights (and my characters stat weights which is MM biased) Fluid death is by far the best trinket for this tier. The proc alone provides as much dps as the Unsolvable riddle (Baradin rep trinket).
H Key to the Endless chamber is next best but is is a hit trinket too.
Of the non-hit trinkets Essence of the cyclone is the best follwed by H-Tia's grace>Prestor's talismon>DMC Hurricane>Norm Tia's>Unsolvable Riddle.
For SV
In my analysis I reforged 40% of reforgable stats into Crit. For the hit trinkets I also subtracted 20hit from the value after reforging to allow for the maximum amount I would be prepared to go over the hit cap.