Hit Cap and stats

[Tifone]

Hello,
There seems to be a couple questions that we mages have all the time when working towards an optimum spec and gear combination. I thought I would put together a basic post with some of this information that is current as of now for patch 3.3.3 (just after ruby sanctum release).

HIT CAP - how much is enough?
This is the hardest thing for mages to manage IMO b/c so much of our t-10 gear is +Hit and will quickly put you way over the hit cap. So to back up and explain hit for those who are not sure what it does. Simply put hit makes it more likely for your spells to hit their target. You are said to be hit capped when your spells will always hit their target in raids on the boss. Right now the bosses in raids are level 83. This means to always hit you would need a + hit of 446. But this number does not take into account your talent build. The table below will take into account some talent builds but let me first say a quick thing about talent builds...for mages it is pretty excepted that arcane is the best raiding spec (deep fire is almost as good). You should definitely have arcane focus and precision in your talent spec.

Ok now on to the numbers:
Mage with +Hit
No talent bonus 446
Arcane focus or precision 368
Draenei mage with one of above 342
Arcane mage with Arcane Focus and Precision 289 - this is most of us
Draenei mage with both of above 263

To sum up...for a normal raiding spec at lvl 80 you need 289 +hit rating. You want to get over this number without going to far over (once you never miss it won't help anymore). This should always be your first goal when gearing then you can start to worry about spell power, intel and other stats.

Mage nuggets is an addon that will help you see your stats at a glance and overall should be one of the first addon's that mages use but I will cover addons in another post.

For the shadow priests out there you can use the above calcs with misery/shadow focus.

-Toomey