WotLK Hit Caps
Back in the day, Blessing of Kings had this lovely overview of hit caps for TBC. Rohan didn’t update it, and so my one-page reference for all questions regarding hit to point guildies at was gone.
Which is as good a reason as any to start my own compilation. Here we go, your ultimate list for hit ratings. My thanks go to the editors of Wowwiki and various class forums to help fill my blanks.
Spell Hit:
The unmodified spell hit cap without any modifications is 446. Various talents will modify this value. In all cases, you can take off 1% (27 rating for spell casters) if a Draenei is present in your party, due to Heroic Presence. Furthermore, you can take off 3% (79 rating for spell casters) if a Shadow Priest provides the Misery debuff or a Balance Druid provides the Improved Faerie Fire debuff.
Modified values:
- Death Knight: 368 with Virulence
- Druids: 342 with Balance of Power, 263 with Balance of Power and Improved Faerie Fire
- Mages: 368 with Precision for fire and frost mages, or Arcane Focus for arcane mages; 289 for arcane mages with both Arcane Focus and Precision
- Priests: 368 hit rating with Misery, 289 hit rating with Misery and Shadow Focus
- Shamans: 368 with Elemental Precision
- Warlocks: 368 with Suppression
Physical Hit:
The unmodified physical hit caps without any modifications are
Dual-wield auto attack: 886
Special attacks and auto-attack: 263
Various talents will modify these values. In all cases, you can take off 1% (33 rating) if a Draenei is present in your party, due to Heroic Presence.
Modified values for special attacks:
- Death Knights: 164 dual-wielding 1H weapons with Nerves of Cold Steel
- Hunters: 164 with Focused Aim
- Rogues: 99 with Precision The poison hit cap is 315 with Precision and 446 without (based on spell hit).
- Shamans: 66 with Dual-Wield Specialization For Maelstrom Weapon, enh shamans will however have to gear for the spell hit cap 446.
- Warriors: 164 with Precision
I was unable to find any modifier for paladins and feral druids, so their cap for special attacks is 263.
Because it bears mentioning, two additional values:
26 expertise (about 214 expertise rating at level 80) to negate a boss’ dodge chance,
60 expertise (about 492 expertise rating at level 80) to prevent parries
Find any errors or inconsistencies? Speak up!
Might be worth mentioning that if you raid with a shadow priest you’ll most likely have the Misery debuff, since it’s applied as part of their max DPS rotation. It’s a 3% increased chance to hit for all spellcasters at max talented rank.
Balance druids have the same ability but most moonkin won’t bother casting Improved Faerie Fire because it’s generally a net personal DPS loss. Discuss with your raid before counting on either of these, though.
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admin Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Uh, I did mention the 3% misery debuff. Carefully re-read the first passage about spell hit. Misery only affects spells, that’s why it’s up there.
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Somewhere between paragraph 3 and “submit” I forgot what I was talking about. L2Proofread, self. My original point was that it’s possible you’ll get the the same debuff from a Balance druid.
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admin Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Aha, I get your point now. Modified the paragraph to include both Misery and IFF.
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Feral druids!!
http://thebigbearbutt.com/2008/11/19/feral-druid-level-80-hit-expertise-and-dodge/
Level 80 Feral Druid Hit Rating Cap: 295.2
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admin Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
BBB is not quite correct. Initial thoughts at WotLK release were that melee hit cap was 9%, but it’s actually turned out to be 8%. This means that feral druids have the same unmodified hit cap as all other melee classes: 263. As they have no talents that will modify their hit, I will add them to the line with paladins.
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Thanks for compiling this. I believe that a lot of Rohan’s information can now be found on his http://www.raider101.com website.
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*waves w/ a little interesting info*
You might want to put a little note for Enhance shammies that though the 66 hit for melee is easy to get, it’s important that they try to cap for spell hit now with the increase in spell use (Okay, just Lightning Bolt really) with the Maelstrom Weapon talent.
*flees back to her DK, bowing to awesome guild tank*
…I really should move a shaman over to Bronzebeard or just level one.
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admin Reply:
February 18th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Thanks for the pointer, I have included that tidbit.
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Just a particular note about hunters hit and how it relates to pets.
Focused Aim never applies to the pet.
Pets only recieve full % point increases (i.e. 5.5% would give the pet 5% hit. 5.5% with 3/3 Focused Aim would give the pet 2% hit)
Far more important for beastmaster hunters than any other due to the exceptional reliance on their pets.
I guess the recommendation should be (for beast masters) that Focused Aim is a filler talent while waiting for gear upgrades and to aim for as close to whole % as possible (8.01% is much better than 7.99%)
Otherwise thank you for the numbers!
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Quick correction under mages: You have the shaman talent Elemental Precision listed. Also, arcane mages can take both Precision and Arcane Focus for a hit cap of 289.
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admin Reply:
February 19th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Fixed, thank you!
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Hmm… Is the warrior hit cap the same for titans grip specced warriors? That value seems right for 1H wep though.
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admin Reply:
February 19th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Fixed to include Titan’s Grip hit cap for special attacks.
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Can you point me to a source for your expertise values? In particular the Parry cap being 60. Everything I’ve ever read since BC put the number at 57. Most recently for wrath I’ve been going off http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f97/42653-gearing-threat-wotlk-guide-hit-expertise.html which claims 57. Is the Parry expertise cap being 60 a new discovery?
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admin Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
One amongst many sources is Wowwiki, and the 60 expertise is based on 15% parry chance of bosses. I think the real parry chance of bosses is still disputed, between 12-15%, so expertise values might differ.
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They removed the extra hit penalty for TG warriors recently, so the bare minimum for a TG fury warrior is 164 as well, though most push much higher than that for smoother rage generation.
PTD´s last blog post..Time Versus Skill: My WoW Jealousy
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admin Reply:
February 21st, 2009 at 3:51 am
This is where I demonstrate my general lack of knowledge of fury warriors.
Fixed!
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Since you do have a blurb on Expertise, it’s probably worth including the Primal Precision talent a feral druid has.
That’s up to 10 Expertise (not Expertise rating) if both points are spent.
Char
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xcellent post, thank you for listing the exact hitratings, great help in settling an ongoing debate in my guild.
one thing i was wondering about, though: what good is expertise to an melee dd? attacking from behind, the mob (most importantly BOSS) shouldn’t be able to dodge or parry anyhows, no?
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admin Reply:
March 5th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
That’s correct, with proper melee DPS positioning that shouldn’t be a problem at all. However, for tanks, expertise is a huge threat advantage because you will always be at the front, and if the boss doesn’t dodge or parry the yellow attacks, that’s a huge boost. So I would say that melee DPS doesn’t really need to care about expertise, but tanks should strive to hit the dodge cap at least.
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Manuel Reply:
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:05 pm
what’s the dodge cap percentage?
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admin Reply:
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:18 pm
26 expertise (about 214 expertise rating at level 80) to negate a boss’ dodge chance.
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What? Mobs may not be able to parry, but they do dodge when you’re attacking from behind.
“Note that when a player attacks a mob from behind, the mob can still dodge. However, when a mob attacks a player from behind, the player cannot dodge. Therefore, it’s important that players always face mobs that are attacking them. “
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I love your site, I am a fellow tank as yourself. I been doing really well on raids but im wondering what stats should i worry the most.. i got all tank gear but i think i dont need it all i should worry about other stats, my warrior(Carloncho) is in queldorei realm see what can I do or worry about?
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admin Reply:
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Veneretio posted a great entry today about warrior stats, so if you haven’t been to tankingtips.comyet, you totally should go right this moment.
I’ll try to look over your Armory when I find time this weekend.
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So in order to dps in raid and think about gemming any + crit enhancement shaman MUST get hit rating at 446 ?? thats alot !
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Thanks for making such an easy to read site! Ive been to dozens of others and all of them have the info you need mixed in with either tonnes of rubbish they have been thinking that day or just wrong info!
My question is what cap is best to reach first for increased dps as a tank? Is it the expertise dodge cap or hit cap?
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Kadomi Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
26 expertise for the dodge cap will be a greater boon to your personal DPS than the hit cap. Veneretio has done the math, so I always gladly link to his post that explains why expertise is always greater than hit.
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Thanks for the overview
It’s not too detailed and involves everything you need to get started.
Whoops… was about to miss the expertise section – 5/5 (although I thank @Kadomi for the shared link on the numbers here!)
.-= warrior guide´s last blog ..Warrior Glyph Guide =-.
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