Before you go out and shoot your first monster you’ll need a basic understanding of what your various stats are and how they will affect you. Leveling up only raises your stats a little bit so you’ll need to increase them with equipment. It would be nice if you can raise them all evenly, but equipment doesn’t do that and individual pieces have two or three stats at best. So it is best to try to pick the stats that fit your play style (Survival, DPS ect) and load up on those. Stats can be broken into three groups. Stats, Attributes and Modifiers.
But before you learn about stats you need to learn about the battle engine in Warcraft. It is broken into two intermixed groups, percentage and damage. The percentage system is always consulted first because it determine chance to hit, dodge, parry and crit chance. Once those factors have been established the damage system takes over and determines how much damage is dealt. Think of it like a real life fighter. First they swing and may make contact or miss. If they make contact then the amount of strength they have determines how badly their opponent is injured.
Since computers have limited intelligence the only way they can adequately replicate “skill” and still have a semblance of randomness is with percents. For this example let’s look at your chance to hit a target. Against an enemy with an equal level you have a 95% chance to hit. When you swing your weapon the game picks a number between one and one hundred by rolling a one hundred sided dice and if it is less then ninety five you will connect. According to the law of percents this means that if you swing your weapon one hundred times ninety five of them will hit and five will miss. Now let’s look at your chance to get a critical strike with a critical strike percentage of 25%. If you have won a chance to actually hit, the computer rolls another one hundred sided dice and this time if the number is twenty five or less you will land a critical strike. This means that out of every one hundred attacks that land twenty five will be critical strikes.

After the percentage system has run its course its time to determine how much damage is dealt. This system has two stages, attacker damage dealt and enemy damage mitigated. Damage dealt can also be divided into two steps, white damage and green damage. White damage is your base damage from your weapon or base damage from

your spells. It gets this name because the base damage of weapons and spells is printed in white text. Weapons and spells have a minimum and maximum amount of damage they will do on an attack. Every swing or cast will pick a number between the two and that will be your base damage. The choice is completely random and can’t be influenced in any way, and in order to make it more understandable their average is displayed as damage per second or DPS. Green damage gets its name from the fact that all modifier stats have green text. This is your final damage because it takes your white damage and adds on the effect of stats like strength or attack power. In general it is what you will focus on the most when determining your damage output. Once you have unleashed your damage you are effectively done and now the focus shifts to your opponent. First the game determines whether or not the enemy will dodge or resist the damage. If they do then your attack has been neutralized and the process starts over again. If it connects with the enemy it then takes your green damage and subtracts some based on the enemy’s damage mitigation. This is determined primarily by the amount of armor they have, it is not a set amount but a percentage with a more detailed explanation in the armor section.
Now that you understand the battle system it’s time to learn about stats, attributes and modifiers. The five basic stats are simple because their main function is to increase your attributes or modifiers. Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intelligence and Spirit each have a specific role and if you load up on one more then the other it will influence what type of Hunter you will be. Since the primary purpose of stats is to increase the effectiveness of your attributes their explanations are rather straightforward.
Attributes are things like Defense, Armor and Attack Power. They are all Dependant on your stats and are a bridge between stats and the battle engine. Each of these are increased by your stats but they can also be increased directly by items as well.
Modifiers deal directly with the percentage system and determine your chance of hitting, dodging and landing a critical strike. Most of their values come directly from your stats, but there are also pieces of equipment ingame that will increase them as well. In the 2.0.1 patch this was changed from a straight percentage system to a rating system where a certain

number of rating would equal an extra one percent. As you increase in level your rating requirement will rise as well so you don’t hang onto items below your level.
Stats
Strength
The primary purpose of strength is to increase your melee damage. Each point will increase your attack power by one, which is then used to increase your green damage. Unlike other stats strength and attack power do not scale with level so items with large amounts will last longer then pieces with stats like crit rating or intellect. Strength is not important to a hunter though because it only affects melee damage, not ranged damage. You should load up on other stats like Agility instead.
Agility
Agility is one of the most important stats you can get. It has four purposes which all directly impact the percentage system. The primary purpose of Agility is to increase your ranged attack power. Every point of agility equals one extra point of ranged attack power.
The second use for agility is that it increases your chance of getting a critical strike. The amount is dependant on level but at level seventy you need 40 agility to get an extra 1% critical strike chance. Other classes need a lot less, but hunters have access to items with more agi than other classes.
The third use for agility is that it will increase your chance to dodge an attack. Just like a critical strike, at level seventy you will need 25 agility to get an extra 1% dodge chance. Dodge is not something you will need to stress as a hunter because ideally they shouldn't be taking melee damage often. And if you really need extra dodge you can increase it with an aspect.
The final use for agility is that it increases your armor. Every point of agility will give you two extra armor. Since the highest we can go is mail this is a welcome addition, but won't amount to a very significant amount.
Stamina

Stamina is a very simple stat. For each point of stamina you have you will gain an extra ten HP. It may not seem like much but with thirteen equipment slots it will add up significantly. Mail armor will usually have less stamina than plate because DPS classes

need more pure DPS stats. This is extra true when getting armor with stamina alone. “of stamina” armor will only have a few points more then “of the monkey” or “Of the bandit” and you will get some extra stats in the process. If you are a survivalist hunter or want to engage in PVP you will want lots of Stamina, but for regular play you will only need a moderate amount.
Intellect
Intellect is mainly used by spellcasters, but hunters can use it as well. It's first and primary purpose is to increase your mana pool. Every point of intellect will give you 15 extra mana (MP) and much like stamina it will increase dramatically if you spread it out over your equipment slots. Hunters use mana for most of their shots and stings and in long fights it's a good idea to have a large mana pool. Most hunter gear will restore a set amount of mana back to you every five seconds though, so you won't need as much mana as a pure caster. It’s second purpose it to increase your chance to get a critical strike with spells. Hunters don't have any spells though so this part is useless. Finally, the higher your intellect the quicker your skill with weapons will rise. This is less useful then you think and the intellect you have on you is more then enough for this.
Spirit
Spirit is a complicated stat. Its only purpose is to increase your health and mana regeneration, but it will not do it regularly. Every two seconds or “tick” you will gain a portion of your health or mana back depending on how much spirit you have. Health is 1/4 of your total spirit every two seconds. And mana is 1/5 your total mana with an extra fifteen tacked on. The tricky part is that whenever you use an ability that uses mana your mana regeneration is paused for five seconds. This is sometimes known as the five second rule and is a huge problem for mana users. A way of getting around this is to use mana per five gear. This returns a set amount of mana every five seconds regardless of combat or casting. But you won't see much of this gear till the higher levels. In regular play and PVP regeneration is not a big issue. But when raiding and instancing it can be very important.

Attributes
Armor
The primary purpose of armor is to reduce the damage you take from physical attacks by a percentage. The formula for how much is reduced is (your armor/(your armor + ((85*level) + 400))). The formula is rather complicated but at level one, one hundred armor will reduce the damage you take by twenty percent. At level seventy, one hundred armor will reduce the damage you take by 1.79 percent. Armor is a secondary attribute for a hunter so don't worry to much about it. Look for other stats like crit chance and attack power.
Defense
Defense is another stat used to reduce melee damage. One point will increase your chance to dodge, parry or block an attack with a shield by .04%. So you will need twenty five points in defense to get a 1% increase to your dodge, parry and block chance. Twenty five points will also reduce your enemies chance to hit, critically strike or deal a crushing blow. (beast version of critical strike.) You can probably see that while armor reduces the amount of damage you take, defense tries to prevent you from taking damage at all. The problem is that the amount of defense you will need in order to have a noticeable effect is very large and it means you will have to give up on other stats. Defense is primarily a stat for hardcore tanks anyway so don't even bother looking for it.
Attack power
Attack power is your most important stat when determining your damage. You may remember from above that your damage is first determined by your white damage, the maximum and minimum amount of damage your weapon will deal. Since it is so random the game provides you with an average of how much damage you will deal called Damage Per Second or DPS. The purpose of attack power is to increase your white DPS by 1.0 point for every 14 points of AP. However, much like spell damage the slower your weapon the larger the bonus you will receive from your AP. This is because slower weapons cause larger bursts of damage then faster ones, and the damage from AP will spread out more. The exact attack speed/AP ratio is only known by blizzard, but every full second seems to add about one forth more DPS. For a hunter your attack power is determined by this formula: AP = Level *2 +Str +Agi -20. And your ranged attack power

which is more important is determined by this formula: RAP = Level *2 + Agi -10. There are items that directly increase your attack power as well, but these are tacked on to your current attack power and don't need a formula.
+Magic damage
Magic damage is only needed by casting classes. Each point increases your damage with spells, but since hunters don't have any “spells” it is useless to them.
Magical resistances
Magic resistance doesn’t come into effect until level sixty and then it is only necessary if you plan on doing forty man raids. The main point of resistance is to reduce damage by elemental and magic attacks much like your armor and defense skill reduces physical damage. But instead of reducing by a set percentage, resistance gives you a chance to reduce a set percentage. Most players get their first taste of resistance when they go to the Molten Core so we will use that for an example. While in the core a Firelord hits you with a flame blast for one hundred damage (In reality they hit for much MUCH harder but this is just to simplify things.) With zero fire resistance you will always take one hundred points of damage. But with a higher rating you will have a chance of reducing either 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% of the damage you will take. Now let say that the fire lord hits you with his fire blast but you have 50 fire resist (A very small amount). This means that instead of a 100% chance of taking damage, you only have a 54% chance. Since this formula contains so many layers here is a table showing what you can expect for different levels of resistances.

Modifiers.
% chance to Hit with melee.
Every time you fight a mob you have a percentage to miss it depending on the difference between your level and the monsters level. So this stat will lower your chance to miss. For example, when fighting a mob equal to your level you have a 95% chance to hit the target. Adding an extra 1% to +hit will increase your hit rate to 96% and lower your miss rate to 4%. +Hit is very important to a hunter because your primary focus is ranged damage. There is such a thing as overkill though. A hit rate of 101% is the same as a hit rate of 100% So unless you are planning on doing a lot of raiding you won't need more than 5%. If you are going to raid you should aim for 16%. This is because most raid mobs are two or three levels above you and your natural hit rate is two or three percent lower. You will need 16 hit rating for an extra one percent hit.
% chance to hit with spells.
This works almost exactly like the chance to hit with melee. Each percentage will reduce your chance to miss with spells. But hunters don't have any spells so this is a pretty useless stat.

+Dodge
This increases your chance to dodge a melee attack by a percentage. Tanks and frontline melee are the primary users of dodge though and you won't need to load up on it. The exception is if you intend to be a Survival specced melee hunter. In that case some dodge might be useful, but it will be hard to find. You need 19 dodge rating for one extra percent at seventy.
+Parry
This works like Dodge except that it lets you parry an attack with your weapon. Just like Dodge it is only worthwhile for front line fighters, but it is less useful since it requires that you have your weapon drawn and some attacks can’t be deflected. However, if you are going to be a Survival specced melee hunter this is more useful than Dodge because of Counterattack. You need 31 parry rating for one extra percent at level seventy.
+Melee Crit
Whenever you swing or shoot your weapon you have a chance of landing a critical strike. In addition to your crit chance from agility you can also get crit chance from armor as well. In melee and ranged this is one of the best melee modifiers you can get and depending on your spec you will want to load up on as much of it as possible.
+Spell Crit

This works like Melee critical hits but with spells. Since hunters don't have any spells though it is useless.