An Alternative to Sonic Spear?

Posted on May 27, 2008 by Kestrel in World of Warcraft
5 Conversations--What's on your mind?

Sonic Spear, courtesy of WoWHeadRecently, I reached Exalted status with the Shattered Sun Offensive (SSO)—you know, those people headquartered on Quel’Danas, for whom we do ridiculously easy daily quests for rewards and fame. Okay, maybe just rewards.

When I got that final green flash, I visited the SSO Quartermaster. Some pretty nice things there, including The Sunbreaker, Bombardier’s Blade, and Truestrike Crossbow. I was intrigued: How would these items measure up to my current Valanos’ Longbow and Terokk’s Quill?

So I headed over to Warcrafter to find out. Playing in the sandbox, I put the same +12 Damage scope on Truestrike that I have on Valanos’. Since one can’t apply Savagery to 1H weapons, I put the +20 Agility enchant on each blade. (Incidentally, these blades are not Unique-equipped; I could have used two daggers or two swords.) Then I thought to myself, "Self? How do you think these weapons compare to the Sonic Spear?"

Now as any blog-reading Hunter should know, the Sonic Spear is the Holy Grail of hunterdom, pre-Legacy. Of course, it’s at least as elusive, too. So I dug around in the Warcrafter sandbox some more and tossed Savagery on the SS and equipped it along with the Truestrike (and Valanos’, for good measure).

The results of my sand-castle-building are shown below: 

Table 1: Valanos’ vs. Truestrike; Sonic Spear vs. SSO
Bow * Main Hand ** Off-Hand *** RAP + Hit Hit % Agility
Valanos’ Longbow Terokk’s Quill
1380 78 95.9 534
Valanos’ Longbow Sonic Spear
1423 102 97.5 515
Truestrike Crossbow Terokk’s Quill
1388 78 95.9 544
Truestrike Crossbow Sonic Spear
1431 102 97.5 525
Truestrike Crossbow The Sunbreaker Bombardier’s Blade 1384 100 97.3 558







* All bows have Khorium Scope (+12 Damage)

 


** 2H Weapons have Savagery Enchant



*** 1H Weapons have +20 Agility Enchant



In summary, the Truestrike Crossbow is a cheap and reasonable upgrade to Valanos’. While the idea of buying a new scope (probably for more than the cost of the bow) may be off-putting, a day’s worth of SSO dailies should cover the cost of both.

Likewise, the SSO blades are a more-than-reasonable upgrade from Terokk’s Quill: If nothing else, look at the jump in Hit Rating, from 78 to the magic 100 mark! (Note the only buff I used for these measurements was Aspect of the Hawk: here is my current build.) For me, that’s a no-brainer, despite the drop in RAP by 4 points. I also like the gain of 14 Agility.

Are the SSO blades better than SS? Nope; no way, no how. But if you want to doggedly cling to Terokk’s until the Sonic Spear drops for you, be my guest. My bet is you’ll get Legacy first.

So do those dailies, and grab those weapons. Who knows? They just might make you good enough to impress Murmur enough to part with his precious spear. 

What's on your mind?
5 Conversations about An Alternative to Sonic Spear?
  1. Trackhoof
    May 27, 2008 | 15:37

    It’s the easy-peasy way of doing it. If you don’t mind a drop in Agility, and want some more AP, by all means, get the Blackened Spear from Thrallmar, or the Hellforged Halberd from Honor Hold.. Revered rep, awesome stuff.

    Also, Having Revered puts you within stabbing distance (no pun intended) of getting the Marksman’s Bow / Veteran’s Musket, which are some of the best pre-Kara hunter weapons you’ll be able to find.

  2. Loronar
    May 28, 2008 | 06:55

    In my opinion, by the time you’re exalted with Shattered Sun, you should’ve already gotten Sonic Spear. That was my case. It took me a month to hit exalted SSO, but that’s when the server was still progressing. It will probably take less time now since all the quests are available. During that time, you should be able to squeeze in multiple runs of SLabs.

    Loronars last blog post..Respect the Marksmen

  3. Aerislan
    May 28, 2008 | 15:24

    I can confirm the “Legacy before SS” comment lol…I ran Shadow Labs more times than I care to count trying to get the spear to drop and wound up getting Legacy first. The only time I ever saw the spear drop was when my wife ran slabs and there were no hunters present.

  4. Kestrel
    May 30, 2008 | 13:55

    @Trackhoof & Loronar: For players who (a) enjoy PUGs a lot; or (b) are in a guild large enough to do several runs through each Outland 5-man to gear their players, your suggestions are quite valid. However, for the casual player who doesn’t PUG much at all and whose guild is quite small, those options aren’t necessarily available. SSO, on the other hand, requires nothing but a little time.

    Interestingly, now that I have the SSO items, I’ve moved to a (slightly) more active guild, and the opportunities I didn’t have before, are now present.

    @ Aerislan: While most of the evidence is anecdotal, it certainly seems Legacy drops more often to Hunters than Sonic Spear.

  5. Ngita
    June 5, 2008 | 17:36

    Once your well past that exalted Lower city mark the desire to continue to pug Shadow labs diminishs. Its also not a instance people thats often run on heroic. In my case I went for the S3 hunter weapon. 4 weeks of fairly mediocre arena.