Armor:
GoV for hybrid and melee hunters (12% of applicable ToA bonuses), Dragon Slayer
Vest for bow hunters, any Dragon Slayer armor you can fit for the heal procs,
Winged Helm, Brutish Brawler Armguards, Scalars (rarely worth it
Weapons:
Artifacts, Champion Weapons and Dragon Weapons all have ToA bonuses. Champion
Weapons and Dragon Slayer Weapons are identical. If you choose 1 bow and 1
melee weapon from the Champion/Slayer weapon pools, take the Slayer bow for the
charge (see bellow) and the Champion Weapon as your melee option. If you’re
spear you may want to take a slash spear and a thrust spear from each category,
and go for an artifact or dragon-dropped bow.
Sun
weapons do energy damage and have good stats--great if you can fit the belt in
your template; though Legendary Weapons work just as well when you consider
their superior proc rate and crafting versatility.
The
dragon drops lovely but pricey loot, including a spear (Bloodfrost Battle
Spear), sword (Dragonfury, which is sweeeeeeeeeet and my main weapon) and bow
(Gjalinulva’s Frost)—an item or two to consider for every hunter.
Braggart’s bow is the superior of the two artifact bow options. Battler, Spear of Kings and Golden Spear are your melee artifact options, all of which have been surpassed by CWs (though carrying battler in your one hand sword spot is useful for the charge).
Legendary weapons should be used in conjunction with your favorite physical damage weapon. So, you might template loosely around dragonfury and keep LWs of as many kinds as you can with mirror stats so that you can switch damage types.
Jewelry:
Shades of Mist is your only must-have jewelry item. Dragonscale/tooth bracelets
should be included for the charges if you can get a hold of them. Look for
bounty point, circle of 5, darkspire, dragon, Leviathan, Kraken, and other ToA
items to make up your stats.
Mythirians: Several mythirians are useful. I run a greater evade mythirian. Health, safe fall, stat-boost and resist-boost mythirians are all good to have.
Shades of Mist: magical ablative charge - blocks 200 damage
every time it procs. (10 mins)
Winged Helm: Blocks 75% of your opponents style damage per swing. (5 mins)
Dragon Slayer bow: Adds 10% to your hit point and AF pool. (5 mins)
Dragonscale Bracelet: Increases your melee resists by 10%. (10 mins, Note: 5
min RUT)
Battler: ABS buff/debuff (1 min)
Random Ablatives (if you have gaps): ex. Soltinn's ring of spite - 1-time 200
point ablative. There's also a 350 HP ablative on the medal of honor; this has a longer reuse timer though.
Alchemy charges: keep end regeneration up at all times (blue invigoration in combo with LW1 is perma-sprint). Have heal and endurance refresh potions available at all times.
Keep celerity up at all times. If you want to dominate in melee you must run player-crafted celerity charges on top of your red haste (unless you have Bloodfrost Battle Spear). Even with an alloy dragonsworn sword you won’t quite hit swing speed cap with red haste buff and the green celerity charges up. Seriously, this is the most important thing you can do to separate yourself from all the average hunters out there. I tried those charges out the day they introduced them into the game, and then quit RvR for a week while I leveled up in alchemy. I can recharge my celerity proc whenever I want (you only need 886 alchemy to do this), but if you don’t want to skill up alch, you can buy multiple items and have someone else recharge all of them for you so you’re good to go for a while—just put the procs on MP items of any level so you get all 10 charges. You need a store-bought liquid arcanium renewal (40 gold) to recharge this player-crafted tincture.
Item Buffs: If you can’t get red haste from a friendly healer bot, use the Myrkyr’s Gem of Madness haste charge
Crafted Procs: Omni Procs--that's all.