Hit Rating – My Bittersweet Relationship
Is it just me, or is everyone else beginning to dislike hit as much as I do? I obviously understand its without a question important to be at cap, and while I know this has been an ongoing problem, the sheer amount of +hit on every piece I find is annoying. At this point in time, I think you can pretty much find +hit on any item slot available; I’m suprised the T10 balance idol isn’t something along the lines of: “Chance to increase hit rating by 200 on Starfire critical strike” or something.
So, since T7, I’ve been dealing with hit, and at some point I liked it because it helped me make gearing decisions easier sometimes; I should wear pieces that kept me around the hit cap. If certain upgrades made me go significantly above the hit cap, then I was wasting the extra hit and could probably use another piece better itemized for me. In ToC, it has been a pain. I’ve been passing on upgrades simply because it would place me significantly over cap (plus I am trying to catch up on DKP), and trying to balance one’s hit cap with new upgrades is often difficult. Although I am an enchanter and love DE’ing things, I haven’t de’ed any gear that I’ve worn since T7. You never know what a future drop may hand you in terms of +hit.
Three of our set pieces alone (I believe: Helm, Chest, Legs), if you have the i258 version, will give you 282 hit rating alone, which is already more than you need. That means that for every other item slot, you need to find drops that don’t have hit, meaning you are also competing with healers for most of the drops you need. As a relatively new member to my guild, the only drops I seem to have access to are ones with +hit. So, for example, this week, I swapped out my Pennant Cloak for the Cloak of Displacement, and had to swap out my neck (Wyrmrest Necklace of Power) with the Wail of the Valk’yr, to balance my hit rating.
In all honesty, the upgrades I made this week were not that large of upgrades, even though I switched out two i226 items for a i245 and i258. What I really need is a new weapon and two trinkets (I need to start doing Vezax HM again…), but that’s besides the point.
Are any of you guys having trouble keeping your hit rating low? While I understand that some gear may still be an upgrade even if you can’t use any of the +hit on it, there is some part of me that doesn’t allow me to go absurdly above the hit cap. I am also not one to remove 1 point from Balance of Power so that I can use 2% more hit from gear.
Anyways, I hate to post sounding like I’m ranting — I really am not, and I really wanted to post to show you guys I’m still alive 
, I just haven’t been able to think of much to blog about x.x
Adios,
Macbook/Ballerkin
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Actually, no, I've not had a problem with hit rating. Your first mistake is going for the T9 pants. They're terribly itemised and the leather pants from Anub are infinitely better. The other 4 pieces are much better — the shoulders and gloves do not have hit, and the helm and chest are just amazing. I don't use hit in any of my craftable slots (since I have direct control over what I wear there) — I'm currently using crafted items in my boots, belt, and bracers slots. I think the only item I keep around for hit is the trinket from Naxx, and I haven't used that since we started Ulduar.
My current "BiS" list — I use quotes because it only includes non-HM gear — has 283 hit, which isn't obscenely over the cap. I'm sure I'll be dropping that when I switch out my two pieces of T8 for T9 gear (I think I currently use one hit gem in my T9.10 shoulders as part of my Vezax set).
But, yeah, I have my "BiS" list and I stick to it. I don't even look at items that aren't on it.
I should have clarified a bit in the post, but I was in a hurry (still at work). I'm not actually going for T9 pants, I actually really want the Heroic Anub25 pants and will get them as soon as they drop.
I think the point I was trying to make is that hit is just getting really overloaded on gear. If we got 5/5 i258 T9 (even just the three hit pieces), you don't need hit on any other source. Since I assume Blizz wants most classes to shoot for full tier sets, I can't see their logic.
Ever since T8, I haven't bothered keeping a BiS list. As I mentioned in my post, I am on the bottom of the list to receive any non-leather pieces, or items like rings, weapons, trinkets, etc. At the moment I am gearing myself, one slot at a time. I think I am going to pass on upgrades till I get a 621+ spell power weapon, as that is the largest upgrade for me at the moment.
I feel exactly the same way and have been struggling with this for some time. There is only so much crit/haste gear and it feels disappointing to wear so much spirit gear.
At the very least, I wish that additional hit rating could somehow translate into some % of additional damage, even if it was a small amount.
That would be awesome — I wouldn't feel so bad if I had to go over cap if this was the case, and would probably only take true 'DPS' gear (+hit gear, lol) and leave spirit gear for the healers.
I wouldn't even be angry if they sliced the value of hit and said, "hey, you need 400 hit to reach 10%". I seriously just hate being over cap.
i actually fell below the hit cap for the first time last week when I got new boots and wound up buying the badge shoulders to pick up some extra hit after going through 1k gold trying to fix the issue with gems. i didn’t think it would be a big deal until my first TOC below the hit cap and seeing a number of misses. It doesn’t seem like that long ago i had something like 350 hit. it’s nice that as moonkins we have multiple gear options, some of my clothy friends are always struggling with hit rating, so I think we should consider ourselves so lucky that our hit cap is so low.
I think it's more a problem of itemization. 400 hit rating is really hard to get at ilvl 200, and the hit rating you need in naxx10 is the same as in Ulduar. What I would prefer to see is a debuff like they did with dodge that you get whenever you get into ICC that drops your hit rating by 4% ish. This gear with tons of +hit is going to be great starter gear for cataclysm, I bet.
I got the problem as well, even though moonkin is my offspecc (2nd dualspecc).
I got 103 more hit rating then needed (comes primarily from freya staff and ulduar hitrating trinket), but haven't gotten any options to decrease this for the same reason as you, the healers. Our guild has a terrible problem with getting enough healers online for raids, and new ones are geared up, wich means I won't get the option of rolling/bidding for them. This makes my dps so low that I sometimes have to struggle to get to 3k dps…
When faced with an overabundance of hit that can't be gotten rid of, use it to your advantage. Most ToC gear available now is itemized as having either hit or spirit in very close amounts. When given the option between a belt with ~60 spirit or 50 hit, I take the hit and gain a talent point by reducing Balance of Power by 1(Biting Cold and Pale Thorns). When given the option between boots with either 60 spirit or 60 hit, I take the hit and gain a second talent point(Magus' Sandals and Harsh Winter). What have I lost? I don't need ANY mana regen so spirit is only valuable for it's SP percentage. 126 spirit=37.8 spellpower. This does not scale. 19sp will always equal 19sp. However the talent point it's tradable for becomes more and more valuable as you advance your toon. It's roughly the equivalent of trading a gem slot for a talent point. The only other drawback is 6% more damage from spells. There is currently no encounter where raid healing is an issue though for even moderately skilled/geared healers.
People cling to the 263 cap as if it's a rule. It's not. Gear to the 315(12%) or 367(14%) cap and get yourself some Frenzy, Typhoon or Gale Winds utility. Adapt to the loot table limitations Blizzard has bungled and find the advantage.
thank you for this info
This can rly be tomy advantage
Thing is, with my talent build, I already have 2/3 Frenzy and have no need, at all, in any fights in the game currently, for Typhoon or Gale Winds. I am not even allowed to AoE on Heroic Anub, so I really mean it when I say I never Hurricane.
Frenzy's proc amount is rediculously low (I setup my PowerAuras for a large warning when it procs — I've maybe seen it proc like twice), and Typhoon is a mana burn and not really a DPS increase.
So while I somewhat agree that it is not necessary to cling to the soft hit cap as if it were drawn in stone, but from a point investment strategy, 2/2 in BoP and using that itemization in other slots is more useful.
I think of it like this – before you are capped, hit is worth more than spell power, point for point. Imagine then, that 2/2 in BoP is worth 4% extra spell power, instead of +hit. You would take it, for sure, no, especially over the leftover talents in our tree.
Either way, I guess my main point was that I just wish hit wasn't overloaded on all the gear available.
Typhoon is a wonderful dps increase when used correctly. Use the minor glyph to remove it's pushback and you have an instant that is cast anytime you have to move. Sometimes refreshing your dots isn't efficient when moving – maybe they have too much duration left to be worth it. Typhoon will have a very high chance of proccing Nature's Grace for you and will always be extra damage that you wouldn't otherwise have while moving.
If it's more than a single target boss, then you are gaining significant numbers.
I understand your point about the vaulation of hit but it's incorrect. You don't have an option to turn hit into SP on a point for point basis. There is no gear where you have a choice between hit or more SP. You only have an option of hit or spirit which is a fraction of SP. You're falling for the same misconception of itemization that many do. You dont have a choice in what the gear looks like and imagine that 104 extra hit is 104 lost SP. It isn't.
However, if your raid group isn't comprised perfectly, you might be missing out on many buffs and regen talents/abilities that make Typhoon impossible for you to use without going oom. That is a personal situation though and not an indication of the talent's worthiness.
PS-the Gale Winds isn't for Hurricane, it's for the 30% increase on Typhoon. You'd be surprised at how much more damage you can do on a night when practiced with it. It's 2% of my damage and I average 7k on a full boss report WITHOUT enhanced dps bosses(hodir, XT, Twins, etc). That's 3 talent points for 2% damage, plus the utility of the spell, which is far greater value than frenzy or brambles combined. This is all high end, minor improvements though in the grand scheme of things. If one doesn't have the overall raid dps to free them from regen talents, none of these are options to begin with.
Good comment, some fair points in there.
I think what it comes down to is Typhoon. Raid viable? Maybe. But do I think its a required talent for progression? Nah.
While I don't even remember how much Typhoon will do on a single-target boss while talented, I still believe it is less damage than a Wrath cast, even a non-Eclipsed Wrath. I agree that it could be useful on single-targets if you are moving, but most of the time, and unless you strafe often, you won't be facing the boss while moving. So I'm not entirely convinced of its utility for single-target boss fights. Since my NG uptime is already 80-90% anyways, so the chance to have a slightly higher uptime is also not as valuable to me, personally.
For multiple targets, its definitely worth the cast, but in my case, how many times in ToGC am I going to have the opportunity to hit multiple targets?
- On the Northrend Beasts, (does Typhoon hit Snobolds? I know Starfall doesn't), on the Jormungar I think you could usually only hit one of them, and on Icehowl there are no adds.
- On Jaraxxus Heroic, I can see some use with Typhoon to hit the nether portal + mistress of pain + boss (or the infernals + volcano + boss).
- Faction Champions — I wouldn't use it. Too much is being cc'ed/stunned and I wouldn't mess with it.
- Valk'yr Twins – Maybe you could hit both, although I'm not sure its worth it.
- Anub Heroic – Great usage here if you are set to AoE adds. However, I'm not, so I'd only use it on the burrow parts of the fight.
I can see more use of it in T7/T8 content, but I haven't run any of that content since ToC came out.
I agree with your point that my comparison can't be as easy as a 1:1 swap. Still, based on the fact that I don't value Typhoon as a talent I would like to have, and using your numbers as an example, I would prefer 104 spirit over 104 extra hit, and keep my 2/2 in Balance of Power.
I think you aren't entirely correct here. While Typhoon may have been 2% of your total damage, it doesn't necessarily mean it increased your total damage by 2%.
A true 2% increase would be if you weren't losing anything by casting Typhoon. But, as casting Typhoon is replacing time you could have been spent casting something else, I suspect its less than a 2% increase.
At any rate, OF seems to be proccing more for me. Had an uptime of above 4% which is pretty crappy, however.
To each his own. But to clarify, Typhoon is never used in place of a higher damage rotation choice. It's while moving, making it purely additional damage unless there are 3 or more targets lined up in which case I'll do it on cooldown while refreshing DoTs. If you're not doing hardmodes, you're definitely not moving enough to justify it's single-target use.
It's also based on your tank placement strategies. Ours line up targets nicely. Burrowers and Anub are stacked to provide melee incidental damage, same as the Twins bosses. Snowbolds are definitely hit by it and we have anyone with one walk into melee group for quick deaths. Icehowl often has a long run to catch up to him after a massive crash in which two DoTs and a starfall still don't cover the run time. Jarraxxus and Anub submerge phases, as you imagined, are very easy choices for it. Ulduar offers many many more situations. Yogg portal phase, detonating lashers, ice-blocked NPCs, Mimiron P3, Heartbreaker, Razorscale, Auriaya guardian swarms, etc. I would never count its use on unnecessary targets – ignis constructs, pummelers, iron council, etc.
Again, it's all about hardmodes and squeezing in your maximum potential. This is not viable for your average moonkin that is just doing normal modes and struggling with doing 5-6k. I use a thumbball mouse which allows me to turn around in mid-jump and typhoon directionally before landing, never having to lose forward momentum on my way to a destination.
Fair enough. Surprisingly enough, I don't move very much, even on heroic. I may play around with it, however, since its not a big deal to drop some points from Frenzy to mess around with it.
Frenzy is as useless as Typhoon imho, Typhoon makes my life easier all around, and moving infernals from Healers on Jaraxxus is really a nice thing (which for me, is the other good use aside from Anub).
Back on "post", if things didnt go as well as they did this last Tuesday (got my last Trophy to try 4×245 and my Awakenings legs from Anub, normal ones still, but meh) i would be at around 500 hit rating, and i swear, it kept me awake at nights, crying
…, but swapping T8 Legs and Gloves (a HUGE hit source) really made it went down to 277, which is quite acceptable, AND, to go down on Haste (im at 490, crying again), ill NEED to pick up Darkbane Amulet from 10Heroic, which will bring me back to 300 hit again, so, im not happy either with hit ;(.
Glad i can post my comments with my twitter now, boy i was lazy to type in so many details.
I'm going to attempt to respond to this whole chain at once.
Okay, so let's assume that every decision came down to spirit versus hit. You could get 30% benefit for each point of spirit or chunks of hit that could free up other talents. So my first question is: what else do you have to put talents in? Aarondf listed a few:
Gale Winds – a decent talent, but really only necessary for a few select fights, particularly Heroic Anub. Other than those few fights, it's really not worth it.
Owlkin Frenzy – dreadful talent. When will we realise that, as raiding moonkin, Owlkin Frenzy simply doesn't proc. It doesn't have enough uptime to result in any real DPS increase. Let's assume you (somehow) manage 5% uptime. That's .5% DPS that you didn't have before. For the talent point investment, that's a VERY poor choice.
Typhoon – okay, so here's the story on Typhoon. It's not completely worthless — I've actually advocated (probably in response to some of Mac's other articles) using it how Aarondf suggests using it: it's a pretty good skill to use if you're going to be moving for one or more GCDs. All told, how often are you moving in any of the ToC fights? Beasts, when the worms submerge (there's nothing to attack) and when you're moving to Icehowl (if you're within range of Typhoon, you're within range for your nukes). Jaraxxus, when you have Legion Flame (you might be moving away from the mobs and thus out of range). Faction Champions, take reduced damage from AoE. Twins, avoiding orbs (shorter than a GCD) or switching colors (facing away from the boss). Anub, useful on the adds phase.
(A side note on Typhoon. Someone over at TMR — I think it was Smo — suggests using Typhoon during the Heroic Anub fight to proc NG and get those Hurricanes off faster. This is similar to Aarondf's suggestion and seems like a pretty good tactic to get that DPS a bit higher.)
You didn't list Brambles, but I'll include it, since it probably yields more DPS to an average fight than any of the three listed above.
Brambles – a decent talent, but only really effects a spell with a 3 minute cooldown. It's a substantial burst DPS increase, but doesn't do much over the length of a fight. You're looking at a roughly 2.5% DPS increase on whatever small percentage of your damage actually comes from trees… for 3 talent points. Not too great.
I went into that because you're sacrificing 2/4% hit for those meager benefits. 2% hit is roughly 53 hit rating. 53 spirit, on the other hand, is 16 SP. That's roughly 32 DPS that's always there, not just situational. You can't make that claim for a single point any of the talents listed above. 4% hit is roughly 31 SP from spirit, or 62 DPS. Can 2 talent points in any of those talents make up for that? I'm not convinced that 2 points in any of those talents is worth 31 SP.
More often, however, the comparison is not between hit and spirit. If you plan your best-in-slot list and stick to it, you can optimise your level of hit such that your other secondary DPS stats — crit and haste — are maximised. If it comes down to a hit or spirit decision, there's probably another slot that you took something with hit that you should not have.
Many people start their BiS lists by getting hit-capped. I take a different approach: I get as much crit/haste gear as I can and fill the gaps with crit/hit and haste/hit gear until I'm capped. At that point, a little bit of spirit isn't such a bad thing. I do believe that the extra crit and haste outweigh any selection of 2 talents that aren't already part of a typical moonkin build.
Good comment, covered pretty much everything.
My usage of Typhoon is actually even less than what you mentioned in ToC. I don't have to dodge balls for Twins (soakers), not AoEing for Anub, etc etc. I pretty much get yelled at if I AoE Anub (big exaggation, nobody really yells in my guild)
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But your last points are pretty much what I was trying to get at — I will take spirit over extra hit anyday, than to pull points out of BoP to get overstuffed on hit. While I will agree a lot of it is dependant on one's playstyle — its definitely not a 'must-have' or really much of a DPS increase.
So, since its rather useless to me, and Brambles is still pretty weak (2.5% increase on a 3 min CD that is a very low portion of my damage anyways), it looks like I'm going to continue using Frenzy for H ToC raiding. I'm averaging 4%-5% uptime, so while its a poor point to DPS investment, its the best I think that I can obtain at the moment.
Personally, I think that it doesn't matter if you go over the hit cap,if it increases your SP,haste int etc., why not get it?(correct me if I'm wrong, if there's something wrong with going over hit cap)