Originally Posted by
gherkin
This goes for all casters too, and its relatively straight forward.
TLDR: Int > Hit > Everything else, spec dependant.
Hit is not the best dps stat any more. This is apparently hard for people to grasp, or maybe the information is just not out there enough, so here is the post you can refer all your friends and peers to.
The reason for this is rating conversion and itemization, not because some program worked it out and thinks its good. It's not because some yahoo who moderates a forum thought out that if has a fight where he never missed then hit rating was worthless. There is a reason, and here it is.
Lets start with a basic assumption: I think we can all agree that reducing your chance to miss by 1% results in an approximate 1% dps increase. Yes, I'm aware that there are numbers after the decimal place, but for simplicity's sake lets just say 1% is close enough.
At level 70, Blizzard created gear with the following rule: 1 Int = 1 Hit = 1.17 Spell Power
It took just under 15 Hit Rating to get 1% Hit.
15 Int OR 17.55 Spell Power did not result in a 1% dps increase. It was closer to 30 Spell Power to get 1% dps.
Therefore, at level 70, Hit Rating was a better stat because it increased your dps more than any other stat, point for point.
At level 80 (Patch 4.0.1), Blizzard created gear with the following rule: 1 Int = 1 Hit, and made 1 Int grant 1 Spell Power
It took just over 26 Hit Rating to get 1% Hit.
26 Int did not result in a 1% dps increase. (It was closer to 60 Int)
Therefore, at level 80, Hit Rating was a better stat because it increased your dps more than any other stat, point for point.
HOWEVER
At level 85, Blizzard created gear with the following rule: 1 Int = 1 Hit, and has 1 Int granting 1 Spell Power
It takes just over 102 Hit Rating to get 1% Hit.
102 Intellect does result in more than a 1% dps increase (70 Intellect grants around 1% dps)
Therefore, at level 85, INTELLECT is a better stat.
To explain further, even with base damage increases, spell coefficients did not change so drastically as to complete revamp the way we play. Intellect is still being given to us at a 1:1 ratio and it still scales just as good as it did in WOTLK. However, Hit Rating is now being given to us at a 1/4th its WOTLK value, which also reduces its dps value by 1/4th. This is enough to drop it below Intellect.
********************************************
It is ok to drop your maximum dps to be consistent in your numbers. It is ok for you to want to gem Hit instead of Int when its obviously a dps loss to do so. These are your personal choices and you're not screwing yourself out of so much dps that you're suddenly a terrible player. All I ask is that you stop regurgitating "HIT IS DA BEST U MUST BE DUM" all over the damn place - this proves that you are terrible rather than just having a personal preference.
While missing a spell is a bad thing, the chance should be low enough as to almost never happen. You can't NOT gear for hit, that's impossible. But rather, you should focus on Intellect gems and enchants before you think about your hit rating. If you happen to end up a whole percentage or two away from the hit cap (even after full reforging), this does not mean you should regem intellect to hit, as that would still be a dps loss. It means you need more hit gear and should actively pursue it before thinking about haste, crit, or mastery.
And lastly, yes you will have bad luck and chain misses on your Haunt/Conflagrate with 16.99% hit rating, but this will be so rare it doesn't matter. Based on probability Intellect will work out to be the stronger stat. Stop paying attention to your misses (human nature to focus on the bad and fix it, regardless of rarity).