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Not to be confused with Spell hit.


Hit refers to physical damage that occurs as a result of an attack made with melee or ranged weapons. The chance to hit increases by 1% per 32.79 hit rating points at level 80, 15.77 hit rating points at level 70, and 10 hit rating points at level 60. The base chance to miss with maximum weapon skill against an opponent of equal level is 5% for two handed and 24% for dual wield. With Patch 3.0, both hit and spell hit use the same basic hit rating attribute within the combat rating system, although the similarity largely ends there — they are effectively distinct attributes derived from the same rating.

Calculating miss rate

If the difference between the mob's Defense Skill and your Weapon Skill is less than or equal to 10, then the formula for calculating your base miss rate against that mob is:

  • with two-hander: 5% + (Defense Skill - Weapon Skill)*.1%
  • with dual-wielding: 24% + (Defense Skill - Weapon Skill)*.1%

If the difference between the mob's Defense Skill and your Weapon Skill is greater than 10, then the formula for calculating your base miss rate against that mob is:

  • with two-hander: 7% + (Defense Skill - Weapon Skill - 10)*.4%
  • with dual-wielding: 26% + (Defense Skill - Weapon Skill - 10)*.4%

Applying these formulas gives the following base miss rate for a Level 80 character with a 400 Weapon Skill:

  • v. Level 80 mob: 5.0% / dual-wield: 24%
  • v. Level 81 mob: 5.5% / dual-wield: 24.5%
  • v. Level 82 mob: 6.0% / dual-wield: 25%
  • v. Level 83 mob: 9.0% / dual-wield: 28%
  • v. 32.79 hit rating reduces your chance to miss by 1%

Thus, if you are a Level 80 character with a Weapon Skill of 400, you need a Hit Rating of 295 (9.00%) to never miss a shot against a Level 83 boss (or skull mob) with a special attack or single-wield auto-attack. What this means is that there is a big +hit benefit to keeping your Weapon Skill within 10 levels of the mobs you are trying to fight. For example, by improving your Weapon Skill from 390 to 395, you effectively reduce your chance to miss against Level 81 mobs by 3%! However, after getting to 395, increasing your Weapon Skill the next 5 levels, to 400, only reduces your chance to miss by an additional 0.5% (or 3.5% in total). Also, note that there is a huge jump in miss rate reduction by going from 394 to 395 Weapon Skill. This is the point where you switch from one formula to the other, and so this particular single point of Weapon Skill is worth a dramatic +1.4% hit against a Level 83 mob/boss.

Melee attacks divide into two categories: auto-attacks (white) and special attacks (yellow). Auto-attacks use a one roll table and special attacks use a two roll table. Base chance to miss is the same for both auto-attacks and special attacks. Attacking a mob from behind removes parry and block from both tables, provided the attack is more than 0.5 yards away.

Hit rating cap

In the context of stats, the term "cap" refers to the point at which equipping more of a particular stat will have no additional value. For hit rating the cap usually discussed is in regards to raid bosses. For example, once you reach or surpass the hit cap, you will never miss an attack against a raid boss unless you are under the effect of some debuff that reduces your hit chance (for example, Attumen the Huntsman's curse).

As shown above, your base chance to miss a raid boss while dual wielding is 28% with auto-attack on both hands. Your base chance to miss a special attack is 9%. For each 15.77 hit rating at level 70 or 32.79 hit rating at level 80, you reduce your chance to miss by 1%. Thus we can calculate hit caps for auto-attack and special attacks:

All melee

  • Dual-wield auto-attack: 918 hit rating
  • Special attack or Single-wield auto-attack: 295 hit rating
Hit Rating Required Per 1%
Level 60 Level 70 Level 80
10 15.77 32.79

Hit Rating Chart

Required Hit Rating
Level 3% 4% 5% 6% 7% 8% 9%
70 47.31 63.08 78.85 94.62 110.39 126.16 141.93
80 98.37 131.16 163.95 196.74 229.53 262.32 295.11
Level 22% 23% 24% 25% 26% 27% 28%
70 346.94 362.71 378.48 394.25 410.01 425.79 441.56
80 721.38 754.17 786.96 819.75 852.54 885.33 918.12

Reaching the Hit Cap for Special Attacks

Hit Rating Needed to Cap Special Attacks ( vs Raid Bosses )
Increased Hit Chance Rating Needed at Level Needed by
70 80
1% 15.77 32.79
2% 31.54 65.58
3% 47.31 98.37 Shaman dual wielding with 3/3 Dual Wield Specialization
4% 63.08 131.16 Rogues with 5/5 Precision
5% 78.85 163.95
6% 94.62 196.74 Death Knights dual-wielding one handed weapons and 3/3 Ability dualwield [Nerves of Cold Steel]
Hunters with 3/3 Ability hunter mastermarksman [Focused Aim]
Warriors with 3/3 Precision
7% 110.39 229.53
8% 126.16 262.32
9% 141.93 295.11 All special attacks not affected by talents which modify chance to hit
Note: Characters in a group containing a Draenei gain an additional +1% hit chance from Inv helmet 21 [Heroic Presence] and can reduce their required hit rating accordingly.
Red exclamation mark iconRecent (dec 2008) studies seem to indicate that the cap against a +3 may possibly be 8.2% rather than 9%. See e.g. http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t37714-hit_rating/p2/

Heroic Presence

Inv helmet 21 [Heroic Presence] is a Draenei passive ability that give Draenei a 1% reduction in hit rating requirement.

When raiding, remember to take into account:

  • The presence of a Draenei in your party (not just raid; it is still party-only). Their Inv helmet 21 [Heroic Presence] racial ability gives +1% chance to hit with attacks thus enabling you to swap 32.79 points of hit rating for more useful stats.

Auto attacks (one roll table)

Each melee auto attack made by characters against mobs will result in one of the following in order of precedence:

Result
Miss
Dodge
Parry
Glancing blow
Block
Critical strike
Hit

Hit chance doesn't work by increasing the amount of "Hit" on this table. Instead, it works by decreasing the amount of miss.

Critical strike chance "fills in" the hit chance portion of this table. Crit is "capped" when the crit chance exceeds the amount of hit chance on the table. Until we reach that cap, hit chance has NO affect on crit chance. For example: maximum dual wielding weapon skill, chance to hit 0% and chance to critical strike 50%. Dual wield auto attacking a raid boss from behind results in a loss of 8.6% critical strike:

Result Chance
Miss 28%
Dodge 5.6%
Glancing blow 25%
Critical strike 41.4%
Hit 0%

Increase chance to hit to 10% and decrease chance to critical strike to 45% results in no loss of critical strike:

Result Chance
Miss 18%
Dodge 5.6%
Glancing blow 25%
Critical strike 45%
Hit 6.4%

It is actually quite difficult to be crit capped without trying. This is one reason why it's important to maintain a balance of stats, and not to "stack" any one stat indiscriminately.

Special attacks (two roll table)

Each melee special attack made by characters against mobs will result in one of the following in order of precedence:

Result
Miss
Dodge
Parry
Block
Hit

If the result is block or hit, then a second roll occurs to determine critical strike as follows:

  • Block: roll for blocked hit or blocked critical strike
  • Hit: roll for hit or critical strike

Increased hit rating can result in increased critical strike results from special attacks upon exceeding the base 9% chance to miss. For example: maximum weapon skill (350 at level 70), chance to hit 0% and chance to critical strike 25%. Special attacking a raid boss (level 73 and 365 defense) from behind results 21.35% critical strike (25% of 85.4%). Increase chance to hit to 10% results in 23.6% critical strike (25% of 94.4%).

Note: It is possible and even likely that even yellow attacks use a one roll table, as the white attacks explain above.

Enhancers

Enchantments

Gems

Hit rating gems

Cooking

[Spicy Hot Talbuk] adds 20 Hit for 30 minutes.
[Snapper Extreme] adds 40 Hit rating for 1 hour.

See also

External links


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