I want you to Hit me as hard as you can: Part III
When I initially wrote the Wrath flavored version of why Hit Rating rocks at life and how to stack it, the generally accepted value for reaching hit caps on boss mobs was the tried and true 9%. Indeed, when I was in Naxx, my DPS climbed considerably when I fine-tuned my gear for approximately 9.1% hit; whenever I ventured below that number, I was registering “misses.”
A few days after I posted the article, Drashian over at the Elitist Jerks’ forums reported that he only needed 8% chance to hit on the boss level training dummy to eliminate any misses. To sum up the following discourse, it’s possible that the boss level training dummies aren’t perfectly emulating real raid bosses, but aside from WWS reports misleadingly labeling Dodges and Parries as “Misses,” the data thus far seems to support Drashian’s initial findings.
Intrigued, I decided to gather some sample data of my own. After 2000 swings, I registered zero misses (according to Recount) at 8.2% chance to hit, the lowest I could drop my rating without falling below 8%. Note that I wasn’t exactly following a precise rotation, but rather pushing a lot of buttons so that I could get a reasonable pool of sample data. Click the image below for the full screen (and excuse the terrible image quality; my computer has officially melted down and I’m using Lycentia’s old one).
Interesting. Everyone is still looking for more sample WWS reports from raids to “definitively” corroborate the 8% cap, but if the training dummies can be trusted, drop that extra 1% you might have kicking around by rechanting or regemming; you essentially gain nothing by being over the Hit cap. Have a piece of gear you were initially afraid to drop because of the high +Hit on it? Rejoice! This is your chance to pick up some armor that may have otherwise better stats.
2000 hits and not a single miss? I’m going for a hit rating of 263 then
Yeah, it’s pretty fantastic. I was running a hair over 9% with chants and gems, so I’m looking forward to shuffling some shit around.
I ran 10-man Naxx last night with a 265 hit rating (8.08% hit). Did not register a single miss in the WWS report.
One thing to keep in mind for WWS: They count absorb and immune as misses, so if you see a few misses show up on the summary then take a look at the log entries to make sure (Death Knight Cavaliers and Gargoyles can absorb/immune in naxx).
So I’ll be running with 8% hit from now on.
Yeah, as mentioned, it’s my fault for being too cursory with WWS reading. But thanks for the update; I’ll be in the process of flipping some chants/gems when I finally hop back Alliance-side.
I can’t take credit for the original discovery of the new 8% cap, of course (I probably wouldn’t have even run the test if I’d realized *how* much it’d been covered in other EJ subforums). But I’m glad my putting a test up in one of our feral threads helped spread the word. And 263 has been working great for me since then.
Also, I agree, hit rating does in fact rock at life.
One of the biggest complaints/requests that I receive from readers is to summarize what’s going on in the EJ forums without the massive equations. The easiest point of entry is generally the class subforums, and it’s quicker to refer them there.
To be perfectly honest, I’ve been completely absorbed in my re-roll process (hence the abysmally late post here), and I’m playing a little catch-up myself. Being able to knock off a full percentage point of hit really does free up space for DPS upgrades, and the more people who know, the better.
Thanks for commenting, yo. Oh, and if it makes you feel any better, you’ll note that I pointedly used the word “reported” rather than “discovered.”
So, if you always run with a Draenei might you be able to knock that down to 7% due to their hit aura? They do seem to be everywhere these days. You MIGHT be out of range sometimes, but that should be rare and perhaps not worth the itemization.
I wonder if something is going on akin to the Precision bug. Paladins who had specced Precision (3% hit) before 3.0 still had it after 3.0 even though the talent didn’t exist. This meant that ret pallies had a hit cap of only 6% for a while. They’re fixing it server side–or maybe just did–so they should need normal numbers now. Could be something similar going on.
Theoretically, if you always run with one of those crazy melee-type Draenei, you can probably drop your hit down to 7% reliably. Make sure your Draenei doesn’t like to die very often.
I did read about the ghost talents, and while it’s a pretty funny bug, Druids have never had any sort of similar talent that gives us extra hit (you may be thinking of Primal Precision, which is an Expertise booster). Where would a 1% Hit differential be coming from then? While you can’t ever say it’s an impossibility, I’d say that it’s highly improbable.
Ah yes, I forgot about the dying part. Being the MT for our group I rarely die when it’s not part of a wipe. I tend to forget that melee DPS is usually the first to go.
You also just notified me that the range is only 30 yards, which does limit the boost from casters.
Usually when these numbers aren’t matching up there is some sort of ghost bug going on. It would be odd for cats to only need 8% when the rest of the melee still need 9% (I believe there were more tests by pallies to show they needed 9% still). Some more tests might be in order, for example having a resto druid test it without feral talents to be sure it’s baked into cat form. Also, testing regular melee and bear melee (and maybe even seal melee
) could help narrow down what’s going on here.
Then again, people often don’t test the numbers they read and information can be slow to propagate, leading to various myths. Perhaps the devs decided to be nice and dropped ferals to 8% a while ago.
Well actually, we’re currently seeing Hit re-valuing across the boards right now.
Check out here and here.
Idk - I run at +5% hit rating in 25 man Naxx and usually top the Damage and DPS charts. I try not to worry so much about hit rating. My focus is all on bonus damage, and if I get some hit and crit stats along the way it’s frosting. Even the old days of BT I never concerned myself with hit rating. With the way wow set-up raid buffs now, +hit isn’t as crucial. I run about a %3 miss margin. To me, giving up +damage for
%3 is acceptable. Just my humble thoughts.
I’ll have to disagree with you on this one. Now, with the fragility of a successful DPS rotation, missing any of your specials is pretty damaging–and not in the good way. I’d love to see a WWS parse.
Hoots, I think people put too much into ‘topping’ DPS. Topping is relative. If you can pull 3k dps and top the charts, are you doing all that well? Not really; it just means the rest of the DPS kind of suck.
You can be fine with less hit. It’s just that more hit to max out your miss chance is optimal, and you’ll do more damage in the long run. This is especially true now that OoC is so important; in addition to doing essentially 1% more damage via hits, you get 1% more OoC procs and 1% more weapon procs. That’s pretty valuable.
You can also make the argument that Hit Rating is less valuable for all trash in an instance: this is true (trash is not boss level, duh). If you’re a big min/maxer, you’ll actually want to have two separate sets of DPS gear so that you’re pumping out as much extra damage as you can during trash and still ensuring that you’re reaching your maximum sustained damage on boss fights.
I like to use Patchwork as an example since there isn’t any running around to disrupt rotations. Just stand in one place an burn him down. 3400+ dps 3rd, top 5 total damage, 1% miss, 1 innervate for a healer, 1 BR for a melee. If I had more hit rating I prob would have run out of mana sooner. Oom is very bad for dps.
Moonkins have to do a lot in raids, but if your not at the top of the charts, then you’re letting all the rest of us down. We still aren’t out of the woods where people moan when a moonkin comes along. We should be #1 choice for everyone who wants a successful instance/raid run. But because so many of us are too low on the charts, folks usually want more true dps i.e mages, hunters. In my world, bring the mage in to drop a table, then kindly ask him to exit the building.
And if a Mage out dps’s you, please retire your moonkin and never embarass the rest of us ever again. :))
Hoots, this has been primarily a discussion of melee hit, not caster’s. The dynamics of keeping up all your debuffs and generating as many combo points as possible for max dps are quite different than a caster rotation. Missing a Wrath or Starfall here and there does hurt your numbers (by roughly the % of hit you are lack from the cap if the fight is long enough), but missing on a 5pt finishing move will really throw a wrench in your program as a kitty, and then you factor in white dmg (which you don’t have to worry about).
Also, you are a fool if you don’t have a mage in your raid tossing Improved Scorch spam. Boomkins need that extra crit for a lot of their core functions. Not to mention their buff that boosts several of a Boomkin’s necessary talents for spell dmg, crit and regen.
Even more importantly- the damage meters really aren’t an indicator of how successful you are. I would gladly take a player of any class that does 1600 dps, but knows how to avoid AoE, knows how to get away from other players when necessary, and is sharp enough to intercept a mob making a run at a healer - over someone who does 5000 dps but is so busy watching Recount and grinning at his numbers that he doesn’t see the fire he is standing in or mana bombs the healers on Kel’Thuzad.
Also, according to the Blizz devs, at equal gear and skill levels, a Mage is supposedly designed to out-damage a druid. It is the tradeoff we get for having battle rez and innervates, and such. So tuck in the waving Epeen.
Essentially, this ^.