Spell Hit

Vontre

[top]Spell Hit Rating

Spell Hit Rating is one of the most important stats to understand as a dps caster, because it can potentially do so much, or so little, for your overall dps. Spell hit rating is typically easy to acquire, so stacking the right amount of spell hit can drastically improve your dps against raid bosses. Keep in mind, though, spell hit is a weighted stat just like any other, and while powerful, there is no special significance to reaching your maximum effective spell hit. In some rare cases it can be optimal to ignore spell hit in favor of other stats.

[top]Rating Conversion

For all casters, 12.6 spell hit rating is equivalent to 1% increased chance to hit at level 70.

[top]Hit Capping

When you reach the maximum amount of spell hit that is effective for your class/spec, you are referred to as capped. All spells cap their chance to hit at 99%, meaning every offensive spell cast has an unavoidable 1% chance to resist. For a target 3 levels above your character (all raid bosses), spells have a native 83% chance to hit. That means the most effect a spell caster can ever get from spell hit rating is 16% (202 rating).

[top]Talents

All talents that are worded "reduces your target's chance to resist by" or "increase your chance to hit with spells by" are effectively the same as spell hit gear, and should be treated as such regarding the spells they affect. Thus you can reduce the amount of hit rating needed to cap through talents. See Spell Hit Rating and Talent Specs for more information on particular class talent specs and their respective hit caps.

[top]Mob Level

The level of a mob relative to your character directly impacts your native chance to hit. Assuming a level 70 caster, base hit chance is as follows:

70: 96%
71: 95%
72: 94%
73: 83%

All skull level bosses are level 73. However, many fights have adds that are level 72 or below. Because there is a steep drop off in hit cap against anything less than 73, it may be optimal to swap gear for stats other than hit rating for encounters with particularly unfriendly adds.

[top]Group Buffs

Depending on the composition of your raid, you may receive group buffs which lower the effective hit rating needed on your gear. Elemental Shaman's Totem of Wrath, which requires 41 points in elemental talents to use, increases spell hit chance by 3%. Draenei Mages, Priests, and Shaman have a group aura that increases spell hit chance by 1%.

[top]Resists and Spell Penetration

Spell Penetration and Spell Hit Rating serve entirely separate functions. What's important to note is that spell penetration is entirely useless for the vast majority of pve encounters. It's primary purpose is as a pvp stat. For more information see Spell Penetration.

◊ Lactose · 08/22/07, 9:54 AM

- For a level 73 target (most raid bosses)
- Almost all skull level bosses are level 73.

What do you mean by this?
I was under the impression that every skull mob (i.e. boss) was considered to be 3 levels above you for calculating hit, crit, miss, etc.

• Nite_Moogle · 08/22/07, 9:57 AM

Yeah, that is my understanding as well.

◊ Vontre · 08/22/07, 11:48 AM

Just making sure.

• songster · 08/22/07, 1:59 PM

I thought Draenei aura did affect the player, it just didn't show as a buff?

◊ Kalman · 08/22/07, 3:35 PM

Originally Posted by songster

I thought Draenei aura did affect the player, it just didn't show as a buff?

This was my understanding as well. Testing is probably needed.

◊ Vontre · 08/22/07, 4:58 PM

I didn't see the buff, but I really have no idea.

• Nite_Moogle · 08/22/07, 5:00 PM

It probably isn't a displayed buff, just like the 10% HP bonus Taurens get isn't displayed.

◊ Lactose · 08/22/07, 5:26 PM

Tsk, tsk. Tauren = +5% Health.

I am of the same belief as songster and Kalman, though.

• Nite_Moogle · 08/22/07, 5:50 PM

Gawd you are picky sometimes :P

The Tauren racial hp bonus then!

◊ Vontre · 08/22/07, 6:07 PM

Yar I changed it.

How is my formatting/layout/general idea? Grammar?

◊ Lactose · 08/22/07, 6:42 PM

There's a couple of capitalization things I think we should agree on for the various guides. Personally, I capitalize most stuff as I see it in-game - 'Chance to Crit', 'Level 70', 'Mage', 'DPS'. I know that some of this might seem a bit strange to some, so I'm not sure what the best solution would be.

Other than that, I don't want to be the person who signs off grammar (English isn't my first language, after all), but it seems fine to me.

When you reach the maximum amount of spell hit that is effective for your class/spec, you are referred to as capped.

'Effective' sounds a bit strange to my ears, without a definition. If, for example, after reaching 99% Hit, you now needed 5x more Spell Hit Rating per 1% Spell Hit, I wouldn't say that it was very effective, but it would still have an effect.

Something like ...that is effective (i.e. adding more Spell Hit has no effect)...?

This might be just lack of sleep talking, though.

◊ Rob · 08/26/07, 2:23 AM

I like how it's phrased now, actually.

◊ Malan · 08/27/07, 9:14 AM

I was reading this today and having no clue about spell hit stuff, the following occurred to me as I read it:

You have the statement about what the standard resist rate is for a raid boss, but you phrase it as a "level 73 mob". I thought it might be better if you just said "raid boss, which are always 3 levels above the player" - since that will hold true at lvl 60, 80, etc etc.

That in turn made me wonder what the inherent resist rates were for mobs that are 1 and 2 levels above the player, such as typical raid zone trash, or even mobs that you might be grinding while solo playing.

◊ manly · 08/27/07, 11:16 AM

this pretty much covers it, the table is at least worth copying
Spell hit rating - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki

• Arawethion · 09/13/07, 10:07 PM

For completeness, it decays by 11% per level after that.

Also, are we bothering to disclaim information that's not accurate for PvP?

• Melador · 09/13/07, 10:27 PM

Spell Penetration and Spell Hit Rating serve entirely separate functions.

How do they differ in PvP? If enemy resistance increases the 4% chance to miss a level 70 opponent, does hit reduce that chance? Or is resistance-based miss computed separately, and only affected by penetration?

◊ Vontre · 09/17/07, 1:31 AM

Penetration is computer first and only affects the amount of "active" magic resistance your target has (buffs, gear, etc).

MirithD · 11/10/07, 7:20 PM

Originally Posted by songster

I thought Draenei aura did affect the player, it just didn't show as a buff?

I can confirm that it helps the player, but is listed nowhere on the character sheet, for melee hit at least (on my draenei warrior), and my Draenei friend has results to say the same on his shadow priest.

Arthian · 04/07/08, 9:07 PM

Feedback: The link in talents to "Spell Hit Rating and Talent Specs" returns a page not available to me. If this is intented please delete this post.

◊ Shalas · 04/07/08, 10:37 PM

That's an article which hasn't been written yet.

kadgar · 04/21/08, 7:40 AM

Spell hit and binary spells is missing.

When you cast binary spells at a target which has resistances to your spell's school, your spell hit chance is actually lower than 83%. E.g. when you cast Frostbolts at Rage Winterchill, your spell hit chance will be 83% - ( (Winterchills frost resistance - CoE - casters spell penetration) translated in spell "miss" chance, let's say 20%) + casters spell hit items, buffs, talents.
So at Winterchill a Frostmage can easily equipp 30% spell hit and still be under the cap. In other words: When you cast binary spells against a resistant mob, you can increase your dmg with spell penetration, spell hit or a combination of both.

The 2nd. point I'm not sure if worth adding:
Spell hit chance is scaling non linear: When you have 10% spell hit chance at your target (e.g. lvl60 player against lvl70 mob, or really high binary resistance) and you equipp 1 extra % spell hit, this will increase your dps by 10%. The effect is not that extreme at 83% but still there. Also spell hit indirectly increases your crit chance because of the 2 roll system.

Also a source: WoW Forums -> +Spell Hit Chance - 10/5/2005

Erisi of Alleria · 04/30/08, 10:35 AM

Forgive me if I missed this, but I was reading on the WoW Mage forums, that if your a frost mage and you take Elemental precision, that your spell hit rating didn't have to be the 164 cap, and it could be lower than that. I ask, cause I have a 174 Spell hit, and while being mainly in the Arcane Tree, i still put the remainders into the Frost Tree with particular attention payed to getting Elemental Precision.

I was always under the impression that 164 spell hit was required, period. untill I hear otherwise I will continue to believe that, and will advise the mages in my guild to keep getting spell hit.

thank you for your time, and I appologize if my spelling is bad - im a horrible typist, and bandaged fingers doesn't help either

webmeister · 04/30/08, 9:50 PM

Remember that Elemental Precision only applies the +3% hit to fire and frost spells, so it does nothing for your Polymorph, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Spellsteal etc. There's a separate talent giving a +hit bonus to Arcane spells.

I think what you're referring to is a bug with Elemental Precision and Frostbolt. It was (and possibly still is) the case that the Elemental Precision bonus was being incorrectly applied twice to Frostbolt, and Frostbolt only. So you would only need +10% spell hit to reach the cap with Frostbolt. However, I don't know if this bug is still current (apparently it was slated to be fixed in 2.4).

Erisi of Alleria · 05/01/08, 11:35 AM

ahhh cool - im not sure if it is or not, was just something I read - and as CL for my guilds raiding mages, I just wanted to be sure I was passing correct (or as correct as possible) information to help us progress.

ty for the info

Spell Hit

Contents

[top]Spell Hit Rating

[top]Rating Conversion

[top]Hit Capping

[top]Talents

[top]Mob Level

[top]Group Buffs

[top]Resists and Spell Penetration