BRK Is Bang On, Baby
“Can you explain what “hit rating” is and how it factors into a player’s stats? …If I have the choice between an item that is +agility or +hit rating, which should I choose? … If my hit rating is zero does it mean I’m just a waste of good ammo?
“P.S. I took your advice and respec’d from MM to BM even though I was very skeptical. Boy what a pleasant surprise, you were “bang” on. Thanks.”
Beastmaster Converts! BRK giggles like a little girl with each email we receive announcing a new arrival to the club. WooT! But to answer our friend Kellibug’s question, let’s start by reviewing a little WoW history.
With the deployment of WoW 2.0, Blizz introduced the Combat Rating System. Previously percentage-based ratings were converted to a sliding-scale that is based upon your character’s level. Hit Rating is one of these items in the CRS.
Your Hit Rating is just an additional percentage chance to hit a target; please notice the word “additional”. At level 70, in order to increase your change to hit by 1%, you need your +Hit to be 15.77. Here’s a quick chart, courtesy the nice folks at Thottbot:
Looking at this chart, if you are a level 35 hunter, you need 5.19 to your hit rating to increase your chance to hit by 1%. What this also means that as you advance in level, if you don’t improve your gear, your Hit Rating effectiveness will go down, even as the actual number stays the same.
BRK does not advocate sacrificing agility for hit rating. When you start adding gems and enchants, consider anything with +hit as a bonus. Remember that you need almost +16 to your Hit Rating at level 70 to increase your change to hit by 1%.
If your Hit Rating is zero, you just don’t have any additional percentage to hit; your other stats are not affected, and you are not a waste of good ammo.
We do leave that category available to melee hunters, however.
Anonymous on 28 Apr 2007 at 6:29 pm #
Keep in mind that when fighting 70+ elites that your hit rating becomes more and more important. Missing frequently on a lvl 73 mob will begin to affect your dps, and can be a critical issue if for example your silencing shot or trap pull shot misses.
I’ve read that optimal +hit rating for anyone in Kara onwards should be between 90-130.
Borrodir on 30 Apr 2007 at 8:15 pm #
I agree that hit doesn’t matter much until you are already pretty geared up. At some point, though, changing your chance to miss from 5% to 4% (over 1% damage increase) will be a lot easier than getting enough additional attack power to get the same increase. I’m not even close that this range yet, but as my damage increases, the need for a better chance to actually hit my target will begin to outweigh other gearing option.
Alex on 01 May 2007 at 9:49 am #
We firmly but politely disagree that one should not sacrafice agility for HR
*pet says Oink!*
Over at TKA a brilliant ol hunter by the name of Arcazua has done some extensive theorycrafting on the subject of Agility and the relative value of all other hunter stats when compared to agility.
http://forums.tkasomething.com/viewtopic.php?t=3824
is the thread … he’s boiled down a system called AEP (agility equivalent points). For any given item each point of a stat can be given a relative point score - the total value relative value of the item can be determined by adding up the sum of its point values.
Agi - 10 points
AP - 6 points
CR - 8 points
HR - 13 points
MP5 - 20 points
Int - 5 points
Is his final score … another bright little hunter named Arcuss (must be stacking intellect over there) came out with an Addon that tallies up the AEP and puts it on your tooltip
http://wow-en.curse-gaming.com/downloads/details/7005/hunteraep/
On this AEP system until you have 136 hit rating, it is more valuable
than agility in terms of itemization. After 136 HR - additional HR is worth nothing.
*pet says Oink!*
Joe on 01 May 2007 at 12:21 pm #
I too have to disagree. I saw the number study done, but more importantly was experience. At lvl 70, with about < ~30 hit rating, I never ever pulled aggro off my pet. When I boosted to >~90 hit rating, I found that I was pulling aggro when I hit all my specials at the start of a fight. I hit ALOT more often. Actually, doing raiders in Netherstorm, I didn’t see 1 miss over about an hour of watching closely. I do not run meters or combat logs, so it was just something I was looking for.
Hit rating is important. IMHO
Anonymous on 02 May 2007 at 5:32 pm #
The first anonymous poster is right, not just right, but UBER right.
Every raid hunter needs to take their HR seriously and go by the numbers that they outlined.
Minimum for trash clears is 70. Minimum for bosses is 130 and should be as close to 136-137 as possible.
There is no sacrificing of Hit rating for agility. They are two different stats.
Missing your target = Does no dmg = Just a waste of good ammo
With all the plus hit gear that exist in this game my hunter can get up and over a 200 hit rating, I wouldn’t wear that much hit, my point is you can get the gear, OUTSIDE of raiding AND build up more than enough gear to choose from that you can customize gear sets to not maximize HR but to optimize it.
The numbers are not optional. In fact, I would say it’s the one thing in this game that’s static. Get your HR to these numbers, THEN work on your other stats.
For a raid hunters and especially MM hunters, there are only 3 stats.
Ranged Attack Power
Hit Rating
Crit Chance
Balance these three stats to be effective, but ALWAYS remember and NEVER forget that while RAP and Crit will change, at lvl 70, HR will ALWAYS be the same.
Now if your HR really is at zero and that bad, then by all means, spec BM, just because you can’t hit anything doesn’t mean your pet can’t and you will notice and immediate increase in your DPS cause suddenly you’re actually doing dmg.
I’m not trying to be mean, or pick on BM hunters, but lets be real here. If you spec BM and notice a DPS increase, it was probably because you weren’t doing something else right as a hunter (eg, running around the world at lvl70 with a HR less than 70).
Guy on 16 May 2007 at 11:13 pm #
Yes… I did post that last response to this thread and not leave a “-guy” at the bottom thinking I would NEVER come back to it.
But here I am.
And I return with this:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=102739549&sid=1&pageNo=1
for the readers that decided to delve this far back, kudos to you.
I have just linked a gem on the subject.
-guy
Anonymous on 07 Jul 2007 at 8:48 am #
One question remains in my mind, By the previous post stating any hit rating above 136 would just be beyond what you would need for Karazhan raid. why is it that Tier 4 hunter Raid Set have a base of only +15 hit rating. I believe that hit rating should be greater than 15 but what is the cap? where is the magic number?
PS Beast mastery Rocks
brianMan on 05 Aug 2007 at 9:56 pm #
Every hunter should get 79 Hit Rating (5.01%). This is the magic number that should ensure you always hit a target of the same level as yourself (numbers based on level 70).
I’m not entirely sure how the theorycrafters came up with the number 136-137 Hit Rating, but it is the magic number that should ensure you always hit a boss (bosses are apparently all level 73, again how they came to this conclusion I don’t know).
Summa summarum:
79 Hit Rating for the average PvP/PvE hunter.
137 Hit Rating for the raiding hunter.
Anonymous on 12 Sep 2007 at 7:41 pm #
The hit cap for hunters is 9%, or 142 hit rating. With 142 hit rating you will never miss a hit on a raid boss of level 73 (I’ve tested this) or below. Anyone who thinks that having below this amount will not decrease your dps much is incorrect.
As to the question about why teir 4 has only a base of +15 hit rating, the reason for this is, since we are hunters we do not have to worry about dodge and parries from raid bosses. Therefore the amount of +hit for us is much less than that of a rogue, fury warrior, or enhancement shaman. 142 hit rating is not a lot and should be easily available to us through weapons, rings, trinkets, necks, cloaks and gem slots (using +hit in gem slots becomes less necessary as you progress through end game, check out anyone raiding Hyjal or BT a majority of their hunters hit the cap and have no +hit gems), hence our gear does not have an excess of it like other classes might.
Onionpeels on 26 Sep 2007 at 11:57 am #
I agree but disagree. Agility shouldn’t be sacrificed but hit rating shouldn’t be forgotten about. Every shot you miss is that little bit of mana wasted, that second of time you spent literally doing nothing. Better to make all shots count, especially in raids.
As for hit rating, bosses in raids have a base %9 miss. You can only cover 8% of that and the %1 is just something you can’t cover because Blizz thought things would be cool like that.
Personally, I say, get your hit rating to where it needs to be, then worry about agi and crit and AP.
Anonymous on 10 Oct 2007 at 9:45 pm #
ok, so i read the whole dwarves should use a gun over a bow if the stats are similar. what about the difference between the alar gun and the vash bow? the vash bow has prettier stats and hits harder. my Hr isnt really too low (the ever elusive Aran cloak will/would fix that), so which would you suggest.
Anonymous on 15 Nov 2007 at 6:41 pm #
Ok…so far this has been the SINGLE most helpful resource guide for hunters I have EVERT seen….and as I have been playing since launch….thats saying a lot!
Here is where I am at though….I recently switched to BM to give it a fair shake after being Marksmana….er…Markswoman for years. I read somewhere on the actual WoW forums that hunters needed to hit some number like 229 or so hit rating…..so I busily went about looking up and finding all the +hit gear I could and training my pet to do maximum DPS. Here is my armory link as it stands right now (no laughing….I KNOW my swords are lvl 60, but they had the highest readily available +hit numbers I found):
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gilneas&n=Alinn%C3%A1
I went after the rifle on purpose, and am still working on a list of gear desire to have a high hit rating, but with a current hit rating of 164, should I switch over to get AP gear now to start hitting harder while still maintaining accuracy, or contimue on going after as higha hit rating as I can get, because my gear “wish list” from simple non-heroic & a few heroics yieling blue gear will pop me well over the 230+ number on my hit rating.
Any advice on this particular topic is extremely welcomed.