Spell Hit

 

Contents

1Hit Rating 1.1Rating Conversion 1.2Hit Capping 1.3Talents 1.4Mob Level 1.5Group Buffs 1.6Resists and Spell Penetration

[top]Hit Rating

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. Hit rating is typically easy to acquire, so stacking the right amount of hit can drastically improve your dps against raid bosses. Keep in mind, though, hit is a weighted stat just like any other, and while powerful, there is no special significance to reaching your maximum effective hit. In some rare cases it can be optimal to ignore hit in favor of other stats.

[top]Rating Conversion

For all casters, 26.2 spell hit rating is equivalent to 1% increased chance to hit at level 80.

[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 100%. 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 17% (446 rating). However, raid debuffs and talents will usually lower the effective cap for your class/spec. A typical dps caster will gain 3% hit from debuffs and 3% from talents, so 11% (295 rating) is usually enough for a 25-man raid group.

[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:

80: 96%
81: 95%
82: 94%
83: 83%

All skull level bosses are level 83. However, many fights have adds that are level 82 or below. Because there is a steep drop off in hit cap against anything less than 83, 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. Moonkin or Shadow Priests can provide a debuff that increases chance to hit against the target 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 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.