Today we’re going over hit rating. You are all aware that there’s something magically special about hit, I’m sure, due to the ambient information on the internet. What you may not know is exactly why people are always worried about getting hit capped! Well, I’m going to de-mystify this today.
First thing: why is hit so important? Why does all advice given on forums begin and end with instructions to get hit capped at any cost? Well, the answer is deceptively simple. Hit rating increases your DPS because missed shots decrease it. Also, we know that on boss encounters (what we design our whole setup for), we have a baked in chance of 8% to miss before hit rating. What happens if through a combination of hit rating, talents, and racial abilities, we end up with +9% to hit? All the gear, talent points, and racial buffs that went into pushing us past 8% is wasted. Not one effect if it were to disappear. Thus, the hit cap. Every point of hit rating after 8% is a write-off.
Now before I answer the question about how much DPS you lose per chance to miss, lets go over how much DPS you gain by avoiding misses. Load up your friendly DPS spreadsheet, import your character, and look at the bottom right of the overview page. There’s a handy little grid that tells you how much DPS a point in any stat is worth. For example, in my survival build, a point of agility is worth 1.6 DPS, and a point in hit is worth 2.6 DPS.
Now, armed with the knowledge of how much DPS we gain by adding a point of hit, let’s work logically backwards and figure out how much we lose by losing hit: that’s right, exactly the number above. But wait, what about being hit capped? All the napkin math I’ve seen indicates that missing a single shot can wipe the raid, cost me my firstborn, and make god kill a kitten. It has something to do with the fact that we can miss crits… No. While that may have been true at some point, it’s certainly not now. The only reason we look at the hit rating on a piece of gear first is because it gives us the most bang for our buck. Being under 8% to hit just means you will lose the DPS you could have gained by adding it. There is no reason to be hit capped other than the fact that until you’re at 8%, it’s the fastest way to increase your DPS.
If this means that you’re 3 points away from being hit capped, you do not need to go and add 8 hit rating at the expense of 8 agility. This will result in a net DPS loss. It also means that you should never ever put on a piece of sub-standard gear (for example a hit and spell power trinket) just because it has hit.
Now, in patch 3.2, hit rating also gives our pets expertise, reducing their chance to be dodged and whatnot. Unfortunately, focused aim and the Draenei hit aura are not working properly. The hit aura provides absolutely no expertise, and focused aim seems to be about half as effective as an equivalent amount of hit from gear. This change largely magnifies the DPS per point of hit, so factor that into your calculation when trying to decide if you’re going to be 1 point over or under hit cap.
Maybe not breaking news but a great reference article.
I saw a hunter roll on the +hit/spelldamage trinket in Violet Hold. After the mage nearly exploded in group-chat he cried that he “neeeeds to be hit capped”.
Well it’s not some mystical thing you “neeeed”, it’s a dps stat. Thanks for making that clear!
Exactly. I updated the first post on the EJ hit thread a while ago, but I still read much nonsense about napkin math and missed crits somehow making hit have some mystical, unexplainable property that requires it to be capped at the expense of anything else.
Spells do work on a “two-roll” system, so if you cast 100 spells, with 20% crit and -10% hit, you average 18 crits (with 72 hits and 10 misses) instead of the 20 crits (and 80 hits) you’d average if hit-capped. That’s not the case for melee/guns (which are “single roll”). If you have 100 melee swings with 20% crit and -10%hit, you’d average 20 crits, 70 hits, and 10 misses.
The other mathematical reason hit is the best stat is that each 1% hit is more than 1% DPS boost. Let’s imagine you hit 90% of the time and do 2000 DPS. Adding 5% hit gives you a DPS of 2111, a 5.6% boost (1.12% DPS per percent). The most valuable point of hit (the first 1% while dual-wielding against a boss) gives you a 1.37% DPS boost. The least valuable point of hit (99%->100% hit) is still a gain of 1.01% DPS.
By contrast, if you do 2000 DPS and move from 20% crit to 25% crit*, you gain only 83 DPS, which is a 4.15% boost (.83% DPS per crit%). The most valuable point of crit (0% -> 1%) is exactly a 1% DPS gain, and all future crit is a lower DPS gain.
1% Haste would be a 1% DPS if every ability scaled with haste. Since many of the highest-damage abilities for all classes are CD-limited instead of GCD-limited, it does nothing for those abilities. It also is more resource-intensive – sure, you can cast 10% more fireballs, but you also go through mana 10% faster.
I’m not saying stack hit above all else, I’m explaining mathematically why 1% hit is better than 1% crit or 1% haste.
* – Assuming all your abilities crit at 200%
Napkin math! Yay!
I understand that hit is indeed better point for point than anything else in the game until you’re capped. What I am arguing with is that people will get hit capped by wearing gear that actually lowers their overall DPS, just so they’re hit capped. That’s plainly silly, as the only reason to add hit rating is to increase your DPS.
Oh, I’m not disagreeing with you. People take “point for point, hit is the best DPS stat” and misapply that rule. They’ll always misapply any rule.
I just wanted to flesh out your nice blog post with “why is hit the best DPS stat”.
True, I may have glossed over that a little bit. And in general, please feel free to disagree with me- this blog’s staying power is in the fact that I enjoy a good argument :)
I have read that despite the theoretical 8% hit cap, few bosses will actually make you miss at that rate, so that the actual hit cap for most bosses is somewhere between 6.5-7.5%. Do you know how this works?
The only boss that I know that makes you miss is archivon, and that’s only if you’re standing in the cloud. Other than that, I can’t think of any reason to miss if you’re hit capped. That said, if you’re alliance and have a draenei in the group (or are a draenei yourself), you get a 1% to hit aura.
When the faction change implements, the whole horde side will be switching to alliance for Dranei Hit Racial!!! WOOOOOOO!!!
heh, I doubt it. Actually, I kinda wish I had rolled some other race because I am always trying to figure out how to stay under cap, and have had to pass on some gear that would have been an upgrade if only I could get back below 8%.
After picking up some upgraded shoulders from Iron Council (heroic) last night, my Hit Rating is 9%. Interestingly, this is ALL from gear. I have no enchants, gems, trinkets or points in FA to boost my Hit. I thought that was pretty amazing – the Ulduar Heroic gear seems to really boost a hunter’s hit over 8% with ease. I’ll look and see if I can swap a piece of gear for a different stat…
it’s hard- I can’t wear several pieces I have because they would waste too much on hit :(
Yeah, I’m getting tired of carrying around an extra half-set of gear to switch in and out to balance +hit. I’ve never been one to gem for it, and now the +hit on items is way too much that *nobody* with Ulduar (and even Naxx) gear would want to gem for it.
Just one tidbit on this, at last check, pets only inherit hit rounded down per percentage point, which means if you’re at 7.99% hit, your pet only gains 7% hit. So in some cases it will actually be a dps gain to go slightly over the hit cap because losing a full percent of hit on your pet is a noticable amount of dps. This may become even more important in 3.2 when pets also gain expertise from hit, although it’s not clear if the rounding down factor will apply to expertise as well.
Absolutely. I should probably clarify that my position is that the higher DPS setup should be taken, regardless of whether you’re at the hit cap.
In addition to being the best dps stas, hit reduce your chance to be unlucky : once hit capped, you can’t get one of those nasty misses strings during burst phases, or when pulling with misdirection etc., witch means that your dps will be more linear and your pulls more reliable.
I also think – though i’m not sure – that hit reduces your FD resists, and so your repair bills. Hit = money !
Linear low DPS is worse than sometimes erratic high DPS. I always get hit capped because of the increase to my DPS, but if Blizzard released a trinket that forces your hit to 50%, but multiplies all your stats by 20, I would take it. Reliability be damned, all anyone needs to care about is the overall DPS.
That’s true for Hunters, but much less true for most other classes. For a rogue, misses mean lost combo-points or lost poison applications. For a DK, misses could mean lost RP, diseases falling off, and Runes not turning into Death Runes. Many other classes have similar mechanics that favor 100 damage 100% of the time over 200 damage 50% of the time.
I can buy that. This post was meant to rebutt the attitude that 100 damage 100% of the time is better than any amount of damage 99% of the time.
FWIW, even hunters have things like that- our chimera shot missing could mean having to reapply a sting manually, etc. It’s just that the measurements of DPS per hit bake all that stuff into it to get the high valuation of hit. Thus, if the EJ DPS spreadsheet (or it’s new website version) says that getting two of something else is more DPS than getting one hit, that’s already including the “soft costs”.
Hi I had a question not sure if you will answer it though but at least I can try. Could one of you give me some advice for gemming or gear that may be helping me out.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Boulderfist&cn=Podd&gn=Submission
As you can see i’m A Marksman hunter so it’s pretty hard to combine Hit rating with Armor penetration. Well my quation was what should I do getting more hit caped, leave it with this or getting more armor penetration.
Kind Regards,
I suggest that you load your character into http://www.femaledwarf.com, and compare which stat gives you more DPS. Typically, however, hit > ArP until you’re hit capped.
i saw on my character page (c)
under hit rating … it shown 8% means im hit cap ?
or actually it mean im over hit cap if i got some talent point and racial pasive on boosting hit ?
did the number in the character page count that in ?
how i going to count on it and know im already 8% ?
Thats a good question. i know when i put 1& into focused aim my hit % did not show up physically for my character. I think spreadsheets take this into consideration, even thought i heard never waste a talent point for hit when gemming should make up for it. This question should be answered shortly.
Focused aim is a perfectly good option if you have no other high DPS talents available. Like MM hunters who can count on always having replenishment and judgment of wisdom- their only options for points at the end of their build are mana efficiency points, so if they can use focused aim for hit and gem agility (or ArP), they might get more DPS that way :)
stll havent got an answer: when you spec into focused aim how come it does not show in your character sheet for hit rating that it did not go up example: 6% Hit rating without focused aimed it shows. i Spec 2/3 into it and it does NOT Show on my character sheet that my hit% whent up 2 %. Nelson was asking DOES it show for racial abilities such as Draenei in your character profile.
Misunderstood your question- it doesn’t show up on the tooltip because of a bug. If you test it, however, it works as documented (including sillyness like passing only whole numbers of hit to your pet, so 7.99% means 7%).
I’ve reading through most of your guides and they have helped me out alot, I got the rotation for my survival spec from here and I got to say I got an instant boost in dps. I was doing almost 8k dps on lord jaraxus on ToTc 25…Anyway my question to you is what happens if your way past the hit cap?
8% or 267 hit is the cap, but im at like 10.40% with 348 hit…That’s all gear not a single hit gem :(…So yeah having that much is a dps gain or dps loss?
Thank you in advance :D…
Theoretically, you are not losing dps or gaining dps by extra hit points. However if there is gear out there that has better stats for you without the hit, it may be a better option to switch to that peice of gear then sticking with gear that has alot of hit. Another thing when over hit capped is to avoid enchantments, and gems that have hit on them.Once you get better gear or upgradeable gear, some of the peice wont have Hit rating on it, wich will lower your Hit rating. If you go below hit cap, gem/enchant for it.
If you’re 100 hit rating over the cap, that’s 100 agility or crit you could have had. I don’t know how much DPS that is for you, but it’s not insignificant. Generally, when you get an upgrade with a lot of hit and you are already capped, if you test your DPS (or use the calculator) with the new gear, all the lost hit will have to be outweighed by other upgrades. So, for example, if going from a ToC 245 iLvl piece to a ICC 264 iLvl piece would gain you 10 agility and trade 50 crit for 50 hit, if you’re over cap, even though the 264 is a better piece of gear, you’ll do less DPS with it on. Until you can get another upgrade that swaps out a nice chunk of hit for something else.
Ah ok so basically being over the cap is no good.
So if I replace a piece of my gear to something that has no hit on it, I would be doing more dps with the new item?
Eurupide, thank you for updating this on what i told you on Class races such as Draenei hit aura and Foucused Aim talent point.
Ok so here is the link to my armory, can you look at my gear and tell me which of my items is the one that needs to go first?
In my opinion, I think I should lose the cloak, then work my way up…thanks again…
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Silver+Hand&cn=Dadigster
Hi there,
been reading the thread and thought i’d share my experience with Hunter gear and my hit cap rating. Prior to ICC and the new dungeons. My gear was respectable before the patch with most of it being lvl 245 and the lowest being lvl 213. My DPS was good for the time and a lot of peeps commenting saying ‘wow, nice dps!’ Hit rating was around 264, which i thought was perfect. I’ve never really chased haste on anything…….until now…..
With the new dungeons and ICC i’ve managed to upgrade a lot of gear easily with my lowest gear now 232 items. But during this upgrade phase with new gear drops my hit rating went through the roof without even trying. At one point my hit rating was 412…!! In raids, with other hunters, they would easily out dps me with far lower gear than me and i was pulling my hair out in frustration. With better gear surely i should be hitting far higher dps than them….?? The more i read the more i realised i needed to get the hit back down and try to get stuff with haste in its place…..well i’ve now managed to replace more gear with less hit but no haste….and my dps seems to be soaring up again….The moral of the story for me? well…..its very hard to resist gear drops for your char just cause you want to stay at the hit cap rating and maintain a balance of stats, but i cant stress enough that its important to consider what stats will change with your new gear and try to always mantain a balance on the stats. The whole hit rating situation seems to have sorted itself out with me as i have picked up more gear…but a phase i’m glad to come out of none the less….i’m now hitting easily 7k in a raid and i just picked another new item wich has dropped me to 281 hit and i cant wait to see what i will gain in dps when i get into the next raid….
If anyone wants to check out my gear on wow heroes…its Huttser…on the Khadgar Eu relm….phew….!!..now…where’s my wine…?…. :)
Take a look at this- http://outdps.com/2010/01/26/how-to-manage-hit-rating/
I talk about this exact problem. Haste is the worst replacement, btw- crit or arp would be better.
Yeah, thanks…i’ve managed to balance the hit out but the haste is still to low at 123….? I read somewhere haste should be around 350-400 for a hunter?? Would that be right..? Other than that, i’m now being a lot more careful on how my stats change with new gear….and i appeciate that with the new patch and gear upgrades in future will no doubt mess up my stats to some degree. However, i’ll be better prepared for it next time… :) Thanks….
Well sean im having the same exact problem as you, my hit rating was at 400+, but I managed to lower it down to 330…I maintain a steady 7.5k dps depending on the fight and how much movement is involved.
I was in a VoA 25 last night with 3 other hunters, 2 were not geared that well, the 3rd hunter and me were both geared alike, when we downed koralon the dps meter showed he had done 8.5k on him, while I did 7.5k. When I asked him
what his hit rating was at, he said 244. So with a shammy in the group giving the hit rating buff, he rocked the charts :(…So yeah like eurip told me, having that extra 100 hit rating is bad, that extra 100 hit could of easily been agility or crit.