Is it ever worth dipping slightly below hitcap?

[Dreadnico]

Hi all, long time lurker first time poster.

Firstly I'm an experienced mage raiding icc25 in a guild working towards LK normal mode ..

In a couple of recent raids we have been missing our regular SP / Boomkin which has brought about a debate between me and another of our mages on hitcap..

I wanted to know what people's views were on dipping slightly below hitcap (say 15 hit) in order to keep ur best DPS gear equipped. My understanding is that is being hit capped is the most important however sometimes rawr does reccomend dipping slighty below to keep ur optimal gear setup.

I'm basically saying that he should equip slightly less optimal gear to make sure he's At/Over cap and he's saying he only missed with 5 spells all raid and that his poor hit gear wouldnt make up that diff in DPS...

Would appreciate your views ..

[Deleted]

It haven't hurt my shadow priest atleast.

[Glaid]

If you dont have an Sp/balance druid something is wrong and you and your guild really need to fix it and fast. however even tho if you lack just a little hit for the hit cap with Shadow priest. you should try socket 10hit 12sp gems however. but if you dont you will find it Fucking anyoing when you miss one of your abilitys.

[Momome]

Hit rating has an EP value just like every other stat. I don't remember off the top of my head what the actual EP values are for mages (and I imagine they're different for fire vs. arcane), but EJ or RAWR or whatever will tell you.

Let's say, for sake of example, that you're 15 hit rating below cap, and the only gear you have that would bring you above the cap would cause you to lose 30 spell power, and all other stats stay the same. That's obviously a simplistic example but you get the idea. Now, it's clear in this case that if the EP value of hit is at least twice that of spell power, then you should take the suboptimal item. If the EP value of hit is less than double that of spell power, it's better to sit below the hit cap. Simple as that.

Clearly, you'll need to look at your particular gear setup to get the exact number, and chances are it'll involve having to use the values for hit, sp, crit and haste, all together, but you get the idea. Hit rating isn't magic - it has a value just like everything else does, and it's not as high as you might think.

[treebus]

Being hit capped is not the goal. Getting the most DPS out of your ilvl is the goal, it just happens that hit is the best way to do this, until cap. (This is slightly less true for classes where a miss costs more than just the spell/ability you are casting)

Like the above posters said, a) Regemming is the simplest solution, b) If regemming won't get you there, compare the stats lost/gained modified by their EP value.

[jakj]

This is slightly less true for classes where a miss costs more than just the spell/ability you are casting

Such as for affliction warlocks. Imagine missing a Haunt: You lose the instant damage from the haunt, a global cooldown, four seconds of all your dots ticking unbuffed while Haunt drops off still on cooldown, and in a heavy movement fight where you're prioritizing haunt and instant dots, possibly even corruption falling off.

For some classes, being even one point below the hit cap is much worse than being twenty points over. For other classes, not so much.

(And don't forget, there's a food buff that gives you +hit.)

[Dreadnico]

Hit rating has an EP value just like every other stat. I don't remember off the top of my head what the actual EP values are for mages (and I imagine they're different for fire vs. arcane), but EJ or RAWR or whatever will tell you.

Let's say, for sake of example, that you're 15 hit rating below cap, and the only gear you have that would bring you above the cap would cause you to lose 30 spell power, and all other stats stay the same. That's obviously a simplistic example but you get the idea. Now, it's clear in this case that if the EP value of hit is at least twice that of spell power, then you should take the suboptimal item. If the EP value of hit is less than double that of spell power, it's better to sit below the hit cap. Simple as that.

Clearly, you'll need to look at your particular gear setup to get the exact number, and chances are it'll involve having to use the values for hit, sp, crit and haste, all together, but you get the idea. Hit rating isn't magic - it has a value just like everything else does, and it's not as high as you might think.

Thx mate, nailed it .. Sp and Boom arent often away but it was niggling me

[Trample]

15 hit below the cap is... nothing. You will miss really rarely. The real problem of not having the +3% hit buff is for dual wield mele classes. Since the +3% for them is something like 1 -> 1.5 % dmg buff (considering that white damage for rogues/enh shamans is between 30% and 50% of their total damage).

[arianea]

Depends what you mean by slightly.

in a raid situation, you should have 17% hit.
A boomy or spriest could give you 3%.
Your talents will give you 6% - Precision and Arcane Focus.
Your gear would then need to give you 8%.

You should be no less than 16% imo.

You will definitely miss the boss from time to time in a raid situation if you have anything less. It will hurt your dps.

[anthell]

to keep it simple

1% miss = 1% dps loss
10% miss = 10% dps loss

theoretically

if 1% miss is exactly 1% dps loss

that 20 hit gem (0.76% hit)> 23 sp gem
because
23 sp will never be 0.76% dps increase

[Momome]

to keep it simple

1% miss = 1% dps loss
10% miss = 10% dps loss

theoretically

if 1% miss is exactly 1% dps loss

that 20 hit gem (0.76% hit)> 23 sp gem
because
23 sp will never be 0.76% dps increase

It's actually more complicated than that. The benefit you get from hit depends on your hit chance. If you had 1% hit chance, getting another 1% would double your dps, so it'd be a 100% dps gain. If you had 50% hit chance, getting another 1% would increase your dps by 2%. So really gaining 1% hit is >1% dps gain. It also varies situationally by class (an above poster gave an example for aff locks), and for classes such as rogues or feral druids, it gets even better as you approach the crit cap.

You have to be sensible about it though. If gaining that small amount of hit would force you to lose a massive amount of another dps stat, it's better to sit under the cap in most cases.

Bear in mind though that in certain situations it might be better to force the hit cap regardless of how it affects your dps, for instance if you had to CS some critical boss mechanic. I don't imagine mages often have this job, but if for some reason you did, a single unlucky miss could cause a wipe.

[astrono2012]

Random napkin math.

Say you cast 100 spells over the course of a fight. Each spell hits for 8,000. You are hit capped.

100x8,000 = 800,000 damage done.

You swap out a piece that causes you to lose 1% hit for 50 extra spell damage. Your spells now hit for 8,040. You miss 1% of the time.

99x8,040 = 795,960 damage done.


So in terms of gems, 20 hit will almost always be better than 23 spell power if it causes you to reach the hit cap.

[Skarrd]

It's actually more complicated than that. The benefit you get from hit depends on your hit chance. If you had 1% hit chance, getting another 1% would double your dps, so it'd be a 100% dps gain. If you had 50% hit chance, getting another 1% would increase your dps by 2%. So really gaining 1% hit is >1% dps gain. It also varies situationally by class (an above poster gave an example for aff locks), and for classes such as rogues or feral druids, it gets even better as you approach the crit cap.

This would be true if we had a 100% base chance to miss. 1% hit is 1% more dps, period, until cap. Exception being chain missing AB casts that cause you to lose stacks, scorching, missing spells with a long cooldown like deep freeze.

[Ticktac]

I just ran into this problem last night. Can someone tell me how to setup rawr so that it will require me to be hit capped. I run 10 man content and can't always depend on having a shaman or shadow priest in the raid.

[CookieEater]

It's actually more complicated than that. The benefit you get from hit depends on your hit chance. If you had 1% hit chance, getting another 1% would double your dps, so it'd be a 100% dps gain. If you had 50% hit chance, getting another 1% would increase your dps by 2%. So really gaining 1% hit is >1% dps gain. It also varies situationally by class (an above poster gave an example for aff locks), and for classes such as rogues or feral druids, it gets even better as you approach the crit cap.

You have to be sensible about it though. If gaining that small amount of hit would force you to lose a massive amount of another dps stat, it's better to sit under the cap in most cases.

Bear in mind though that in certain situations it might be better to force the hit cap regardless of how it affects your dps, for instance if you had to CS some critical boss mechanic. I don't imagine mages often have this job, but if for some reason you did, a single unlucky miss could cause a wipe.

This. By far this. This is all complicated chance calculation that makes my head go pop, and I consider myself a good mathematician... as far as high school goes.
Lacking 1% hit does not mean 1% of all your attacks/spells will miss. Not with so much other stuff on the attack table, and the nature of RNG. This goes especially for melee, as their table is even more crowded.

That said, being hitcapped means being safe. As someone else said, missing on your #1 damage skill is not fun.

[MrWiggles]

15 hit below the cap is... nothing. You will miss really rarely. The real problem of not having the +3% hit buff is for dual wield mele classes. Since the +3% for them is something like 1 -> 1.5 % dmg buff (considering that white damage for rogues/enh shamans is between 30% and 50% of their total damage).

Melee attacks are unaffected by boomkin/sp hit debuff, it only affects spells

On topic
Being under by 10 or less, is not a huge issue for mages, anything more swap in a a sp/hit gem to help get close.

[Tiga]

Hit interacts with some talents, so it's not a pure damage increase/decrease:

- It probably interferes with fire mage Hot Streaks (a miss on a spell that would have otherwise been a crit).
- Frost mages don't lose fingers of frost charges on missed spells.
- Frost mage water elementals do not benefit from Precision, so they need an extra 3% hit (but the benefit is very, very low).

I'm not sure if there are any special cases for arcane?

I look for the highest DPS combination rather than the one that puts me closest to the hit cap. Sometimes it means being slightly under hit cap, sometimes it means being slightly over. Hit is pretty cheap, so for instance the value of the Draenei buff isn't 1% DPS, because I can't gain 1% DPS by reducing 1% hit in my gear.

[vesseblah]

Firstly I'm an experienced mage raiding icc25 in a guild working towards LK normal mode ..

There's also few other interesting side-effects of being under hit cap besides slightly lower dps.

- Because spell hit is essentially random, you will see lower procs of talents and items that go off when you hit or crit with spells.

- In fights like LK you really do not want to miss. If you have a bad streak of spell misses and missed procs, it can easily make the difference between life and death when DPS'ing down the Val'kyrs while learning the encounter. This again is a matter of rng, but luck has a bad habit of working against people ;)

[anthell]

It's actually more complicated than that. The benefit you get from hit depends on your hit chance. If you had 1% hit chance, getting another 1% would double your dps, so it'd be a 100% dps gain. If you had 50% hit chance, getting another 1% would increase your dps by 2%. So really gaining 1% hit is >1% dps gain. It also varies situationally by class (an above poster gave an example for aff locks), and for classes such as rogues or feral druids, it gets even better as you approach the crit cap.

You have to be sensible about it though. If gaining that small amount of hit would force you to lose a massive amount of another dps stat, it's better to sit under the cap in most cases.

Bear in mind though that in certain situations it might be better to force the hit cap regardless of how it affects your dps, for instance if you had to CS some critical boss mechanic. I don't imagine mages often have this job, but if for some reason you did, a single unlucky miss could cause a wipe.

thats why i said that 20 hits gem generally > 23 sp..
this is not comparing 1000 sp to 1% hit. your can hit the hit cap with gears of 1k sp each with 0 hit on them by purely gemming.
unless your are comparing 1k sp gem to 20 hit gem..

you see. the lost of dps due to misses scales with your current actual dps.
however, the lost of dps due to sp is addictive.

with that being said. 23 sp for arcane mage with around 1200 haste generates alot less dps than of 20 hit .
i forget how much exactly but i remember 1 sp for being around 1-2 dps increase at that point. so this is around 25 dps or so.
but 1% hit that increase your hit chance from 99% to 100% which is around 1.01% increase from say 11k dps mage is worth 100 dps.

100 dps > 25 dps

[Rafflesia]

I'm about 20 points above cap atm and I wouldn't mind dropping -22 but missing stuff is not fun 8)