Hit rating - Page 15

Har · 03/02/09, 7:30 AM

Originally Posted by Nooska

Spurred on by the spreadsheet thread I want to ask the 25-man, current endgame equipped hunters how they manage their hitrating.

Reason for the question is that I find it extremely difficult to mainting 263 hitrating, and find myself regemming and/or reenchanting for almost every piece of gear I pick up - even though my 2 currently wanted upgrades ([Journey's End] and [Blue Aspect Helm]) dont exchange for gear with hitrating on I would love to see if I have missed some obvious way of keeping hit capped.

I remember there being some discussion about [Grim Toll] not being a very good item due to the proc effect being arp, but with 84 hitrating I just can't get rid of it, even though I would love to have an actual dps increase trinket in that slot.

So, how do the rest of you balance your hit, without resorting to lowlevel items with hitrating on, or is that just the way to go?

It's simple- gem and enchant until you are capped. The only time I ever had so much hit I didn't need to worry about enchanting for it was when I just got started and was using a bunch of blues with hit. Ever since then, the contribution from gear has never been enough to remain capped, and when I get an upgrade with hit on it, I go and switch some of the enchants or gems around to agility.

Nooska · 03/02/09, 12:04 PM

Its good to hear I am not missing something - I hope we will see some more hit gear in Ulduar, having to "waste" sockets and enchants on getting the hit isn't my favorite thing - but if I get 33 RAP more on an item and have to socket it for hit rather than getting 16 hit and socketing for ap/agi I'll be happy in the end I guess.

It just seems from a lot of discussion that hit is a nonissue some times, so I thought I might have missed something crucial (it does happen, even to attentive people)

Brelkin · 03/02/09, 4:50 PM

Staying above the hit cap is an expensive and time-consuming process. Like you, every time I get a new piece of gear, I have to spend some time playing with enchants and gems to maintain my hit cap

When I got [Grim Toll] to replace my [Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood], the extra 28 Hit Rating was a godsend, because it allowed me to replace the [Rigid Autumn's Glow] in my belt's prismatic socket with a [Bright Scarlet Ruby], and also allowed me to replace the [Scroll of Enchant Boots - Icewalker] on my Boots with [Scroll of Enchant Boots - Greater Assault]. As a BM hunter, those two changes increased my DPS by a great deal.

Then I got a [Wraith Spear] to replace my [Whale-Stick Harpoon], and the resulting loss in Hit Rating forced me to re-jigger everything again, spending even more money. In the end my DPS improved even more, so each time it's worth it.

Making all of these changes cost money, obviously. But staying near the top of the DPS charts is all the reward I could ask for.

Brelkin · 03/02/09, 5:33 PM

With regard to your comment about some folks saying that [Grim Toll] isn't worth it due to the proc being ArP Rating, I must say I disagree with them. Armor Penetration is not completely worthless. Small amounts of it aren't much good, but when that trinket procs it gives you 612 Armor Penetration Rating. 612! From my limited research, that's far and away the largest ArP rating increase available in the game.

The conversion at level 80 is 15.39 Armor Penetration Rating per 1% Armor ignored. So 612 Armor Penetration Rating equates to 39.77% armor ignored.

When it procs you start ignoring nearly 40% of your target's armor. This affects Auto Shot, Steady Shot, and Kill Shot. It's worth noting that this 40% is calculated from what the target's armor currently is, not its starting armor. So if the target has been hit with Sunder Armor, the 40% isn't quite as much as it would have been if there was no Sunder.

Nevertheless, 40% is 40%. That's not a small number, and it makes a noticeable difference in the amount of damage i'm dealing. It procs about every 45 seconds, and lasts for 10 seconds. That's an uptime of roughly 2/9, or 22%. So 22% of my shots are benefiting from the increased ArP Rating.

I'll take my DPS increase and run happily to the bank, thank you.

Myul · 03/02/09, 6:42 PM

Only about ~ 45% of your damage against bosses is affected by armor reduction (your pet, serpent sting and explosive and damaging proccs from trinkets aren't).

Other trinkets like [Darkmoon Card: Greatness], [Bandit's Insignia] or [Fury of the Five Flights] benefit every portion of your damage. You should really have a look at the spreadsheets and don't throw numbers around without looking deeper into it.

sihyunie · 03/02/09, 7:19 PM

This is a post I made while back on marksman thread related to armor pen.

Originally Posted by sihyunie

I don't know if you can just say Ulduar bosses will have more armors (they'd have to nerf casters to match dps). I believe the boss with the most armor in TBC was Voidwalker (T5 content) at around 10k. Also, you are missing minor armor reduction buff, so bosses are at 7359 armor, which is 30.67% damage reduction. Let's say you have 1% armor pen, thus the boss is at 7285 armor. Now boss has 30.46% DR, and you gained .3% dps increase (.21/69.33=.003). Say you have 10% armor pen, 6623 armor on the boss, or 28.48% DR, or .31% dps increase per % of armor pen. Let's take more extreme example and have 25% armor pen, which gives only 24.91% DR for the boss. This still give only .33% dps increase per % of armor pen (This isn't really scaling very well).
Now that's all assuming that all your attacks are physical, except they are not. Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot aren't affected by armor pen, and neither are Chimera Shot for marks and Explosive Shot for SV. These add up to upwards of 45% of hunter's damage for marks and 50% for SV. For both specs, pet makes up for about 1/6 of total damage. So armor pen affects only about 40~45% of hunter's total damage. All these together (and assume like 6k dps), you get ~.5dps increase per armor pen rating. That's pretty awful itemization in my books.
For the sake of the argument, let's set boss armor at 20000, which give 47.11% DR after sunder and ff. With 25% armor pen (396 armor pen), you get .534% dps increase per % or armor pen. For hunters, that translates to ~.94 dps increase per armor pen rating at 6000 dps. Still lack luster, considering you probably won't get 25% armor pen in a reasonable gear. I'm sure there will be gears with armor pen that are good, but there's really no sense in stacking it. May be pure physical dps class like warrior or combat rogues might enjoy the benefit of armor pen.
Back in TBC, especially in Sunwell, gears just came with armor pen, with no real alternatives. Also, hunters had larger part of their damage affected by armor pen, so it was more valuable back then than now. In addition, when they converted Ignore Armor to rating, they converted at a bad ratio (so that same gear just became worse).

So the proc on [Grim Toll] is pretty awful compared to other trinkets (just a quick look at the spreadsheet, 1 agi = 1.165, 1 AP = 0.444, 1 ArP = 0.385dps, so the itemization is terrible), but I don't think that makes the trinket a worthless item. It does have 83 hit rating. If you can use the hit on it, it's the best trinket. If you can obtain all the best gear available, there are better itemized gears that offer hit, so in the end, you won't be using [Grim Toll], but it's definitely worth using when you are still gearing up. I keep around some hit items in case I don't get a draenei in my party (which is very unlikely in my guild) and items like [Grim Toll] helps to reach hit cap easily.

Nooska · 03/03/09, 11:18 AM

@ sihyunie

Remmeber that spreadsheet values aren't static;

To compare, for me, with almost fully BiS gear* (just missing Journeys End and the helm from malygos, plus maybe an upgrade to Loathebs shadow - but I do so like the on use effect for timing with bw+kc) Grim toll is by far the biggest dps upgrade trinket I can find because of the following stat values to dps with my gear;

+1 hunter hit = 0,761 dps
+1 pet hit = 0,561 dps

For the other values you mention, here is the comparison as a BM hunter;

+1 Agi = 0,750 dps
+2 AP = 0,797 dps
+1 ArP = 0,472 dps

Yes, Mirror of truth would be worth more pure dps wise as a proc, but the hitrating makes up for that - calling Grim toll a "gearing up trinket" is misleading according to the math Grim toll is the number 1 trinket untill you can gain the hit from other gear - without losing dps stats - thats the issue I've been struggling with because it has sounded like it was easy to stay at hitcap - if I should switch out grim toll, I would need to find 84 hit rating on other gear without losing more dps than I would be gaining from a new trinket - currently not viable for me - maybe with other drops during my gearing phase, yes - and if I was the only hunter in my raid group - yes, I could go for sidegrade items to change around my gear.
But to be honest, I have a hard time seeing where 84 hit rating should come from without losing equivalent dps points. Remember that even though ArP is a weak dps stat currently, it is still a dps stat, and 612 ArP = 289(~) dps with my gear - Mirror of Truth proc is only 398,5 dps for the duration leaving very little room to switch around gear when almost fully geared.

* - according to the gearplanner recalculating every piece of gear

edit: Bad sentence structure.

Brelkin · 03/03/09, 3:21 PM

Originally Posted by Myul

Only about ~ 45% of your damage against bosses is affected by armor reduction (your pet, serpent sting and explosive and damaging proccs from trinkets aren't).

Other trinkets like [Darkmoon Card: Greatness], [Bandit's Insignia] or [Fury of the Five Flights] benefit every portion of your damage. You should really have a look at the spreadsheets and don't throw numbers around without looking deeper into it.

I do use the spreadsheet. I do not have those other trinkets; I have never seen them drop and/or I can't afford it ([Darkmoon Card: Greatness], I'm looking at you). According to the spreadsheet, I see a DPS increase from using [Grim Toll]. It's partly due to the huge Hit Rating it gives me, which allows me to put more pure-DPS gems and enchants on the rest of my gear, but it's also partly due to that Armor Penetration.

My point isn't that Grim Toll is the best in slot. My point is that the Armor Penetration it gives Beast Mastery Hunters is not worthless, as some people have said. I note you say that Explosive Shot isn't affected; I am BM, I don't have ES. By way of example, using the spreadsheet, with my current gear, gems, and enchants (see my Armory profile), if I were to replace Grim Toll with a custom trinket that only has +83 Hit Rating and not the ArP proc, my DPS goes down by 55.65 DPS.

See? Not worthless.

And like Nooska says, it's difficult to find a way to replace that +83 Hit Rating with all of the Haste Rating on so much of our gear currently and so little Hit Rating available.

Savassan · 03/03/09, 6:16 PM

Wow, thanks so much, I have always just used the blizzard forums and 3/4 of that is... well lets say lackluster. I was sitting at like 9.6% which is a complete waste of DPS. I am now regemming 16 agi instead of hit. almost down to 8%, but thats with using Grim Toll and Black Ice.

Hmm as an edit to this becauce I just got to the page about how lack-luster Grim toll is, Would it be better for me to gem *i think i have 4 or 5 slots* with +16 hit instead of +16 agi and use my Mirror of truth instead? Honestly I quit wow for BC so the hunter mechanics have changed alot.

kpm1 · 03/03/09, 8:01 PM

Mirror of Truth is generally thought to be better than Grim Toll, given that you're not severely under the hit cap. But you should just run your gear through the spreadsheet and double check.

Savassan · 03/03/09, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by kpm1

Mirror of Truth is generally thought to be better than Grim Toll, given that you're not severely under the hit cap. But you should just run your gear through the spreadsheet and double check.

Does the spreadsheet from post #1 count hit cap as 8 or 9? cause I have some of the best gear and unbuffed i do like 3k dps which seems low as crap. Given i have yet to get a great belt/ring/2nd trinket I have mostly the 1st or 2nd best item per slot. I'm working on getting the last few. I changed a few things around and it wound up with having Greatness being less DPS then Grimtoll, yet i should have had the hit% the same. Ill change 1 more gem 2 +16 and see what happens.-- Yeah after changing most my agi slots 2 hit *sucks that it doesn't alot BS wrist/hand sockets* i dont go up much DPS at all, maybe 20. And thats 4k for the trinket. Also it shows on the spreadsheet from post #1 as SV pumping up 2 6.7k dps, yet all the items/spec is for BM, is there a selection 2 change what gear/spec is shown? *sorry im knew to these forums*

Nooska · 03/04/09, 7:03 AM

Questions about how the spreadsheet calculate sthings are better in that thread.

The spreadsheet counts hit as 8% - 263 hit rating - and you can see on the overview tab of the spreadsheet how much under or over the cap you are.
In general, when trying to value gemming for hit versus using grim toll (if you have it of course), try to check how mych dps gemming would lose you, as the ArP proc isn't useless and does add dps (and if my understanding of the changes to armor reduction debuffs is correct, its value will about double, as it seems all % reductions will work from the full amount of armor on the target from 3.1)

Very simplified answer;

If you loose more dps from regemming that your netgain from equipping Mirror of Truth over Grim Toll, Grim toll is the better trinket. If you can easily replace the hitrating lost (and needed) Mirror of truth is the better trinket.
In reality the answer will be: play around with the sreadsheet and see what nets you the greatest gain - especially as the value of ArP is dependant on AP, and AP is also worth more with more ArP (even though you shouldn't gem for ArP) - the same goes for crit and all offensive stats.
The harder you shoot, the bigger the gain from ignoring some more armor, and the bigger the gain from critting more or shooting faster.
The faster you shooot, the more armor you ignore, the more often you crit - the bigger the gain of hitting harder - they work in synergy.

On the overview tab of the spreadsheet you will also see a field with the value of attributes / stats - hit calc values and they will be changed to reflect your gear, and you can see the relative worth of all the stats - excellent for deciding gems or enchants for instance.

alarge · 03/04/09, 1:57 PM

Originally Posted by Savassan

Does the spreadsheet from post #1 count hit cap as 8 or 9? cause I have some of the best gear and unbuffed i do like 3k dps which seems low as crap. Given i have yet to get a great belt/ring/2nd trinket I have mostly the 1st or 2nd best item per slot. I'm working on getting the last few. I changed a few things around and it wound up with having Greatness being less DPS then Grimtoll, yet i should have had the hit% the same. Ill change 1 more gem 2 +16 and see what happens.-- Yeah after changing most my agi slots 2 hit *sucks that it doesn't alot BS wrist/hand sockets* i dont go up much DPS at all, maybe 20. And thats 4k for the trinket. Also it shows on the spreadsheet from post #1 as SV pumping up 2 6.7k dps, yet all the items/spec is for BM, is there a selection 2 change what gear/spec is shown? *sorry im knew to these forums*

The spreadsheet can take some time to learn to use properly. I've personally still never figured how to use the "profiles" thing, but it seems like I can safely ignore that feature. You'll likely need to load information from the Armory on at least two pages: your gear and your talents. Also, buffs make a huge difference. If you want to see what your rated dps should be _unbuffed_, you'll need to turn off all the buffs that are turned on by default.

FWIW, 3K totally unbuffed doesn't seem "low as crap" to me. With full raid buffs added, that is probably in the 6K+ range on a fight like Patch.

With respect to your gear, you might play around (in the spreadsheet, first) with some slight gemming/enchanting changes:

* Try putting a siren's tear in a blue slot, and then putting +16 agi gems in all your other blue/yellow slots. It might not be a win for you (because of the slot bonuses you'd be losing), but it's worth looking at.

* You've got Icewalker on your boots. That's giving you 12 crit and 12 hit. You are currently 21 points over the cap, so the 12 hit is totally wasted. I'd put an agility enchant on the boots instead.

Mattaos · 03/04/09, 4:02 PM

Originally Posted by Nooska

Spurred on by the spreadsheet thread I want to ask the 25-man, current endgame equipped hunters how they manage their hitrating.

Reason for the question is that I find it extremely difficult to mainting 263 hitrating, and find myself regemming and/or reenchanting for almost every piece of gear I pick up - even though my 2 currently wanted upgrades ([Journey's End] and [Blue Aspect Helm]) dont exchange for gear with hitrating on I would love to see if I have missed some obvious way of keeping hit capped.

I remember there being some discussion about [Grim Toll] not being a very good item due to the proc effect being arp, but with 84 hitrating I just can't get rid of it, even though I would love to have an actual dps increase trinket in that slot.

So, how do the rest of you balance your hit, without resorting to lowlevel items with hitrating on, or is that just the way to go?

The easiest way to manage your hit rating is to make adjustments based on percentages and know what enhancements you have access to boost hit rating. Example (alliance only), I always make sure I am in a group with a Dranei (spelling?) shaman. I also always have hit food on me. If you know that 8% is your target hit rating mark you can adjust backwards by adding more of another stat while taking away from your hit rating knowing that your hit will remain the same using one of the above mentioned resources.

davejustdave · 03/04/09, 4:32 PM

If you look at my gear I found the hit rating thing a task too. My solution is be about 40 below, use hit foot and AP/Agil when you get into a party with a draanei. That seems like the best strategic solution as we have a few dranei in our guild.

Another thing would be to find someone that makes the old hit scope from classic wow ( [Schematic: Biznicks 247x128 Accurascope] ) that gives you 30 hit which is far more useful than the haste or crit once you are in end game raiding IMO.