Spell hit

Spell hit quick facts

Spell hit increases the chance spells will hit Base chance to hit is based on level difference 96% chance to hit an even level target 83% chance to hit mobs 3 levels higher 87% chance to hit players 3 levels higher Chance to hit caps at 100% 102.45 hit rating per 1% spell hit at level 85 1742 hit rating (17%) needed to hit the 100% cap against raid bosses 26.23 hit rating per 1% spell hit at level 80 446 hit rating (17%) needed to hit the 100% cap against raid bosses 12.62 hit rating per 1% spell hit at level 70 215 hit rating (17%) needed to hit the 100% cap against raid bosses 8.00 hit rating per 1% spell hit at level 60 136 hit rating (17%) needed to hit the 100% cap against raid bosses Useful for PvE spell casters, especially in raids Very useful for PvP spell casters and healers, though far less is required Of limited use for PvE Healers

Not to be confused with Hit.

Spell hit is an attribute that increases a caster's chance to hit with spells. Spell hit is primarily obtained from gear, gems or enchants that have hit rating. The more hit rating a caster has, the lower the chance the caster's spells will miss. Spell hit is capped at 100%: with enough spell hit, it is possible to reach a state where it is impossible for spells to miss. Healing spells always hit, thus healers do not need spell hit. A spell that fails to hit is shown as a "miss", and can be corrected by acquiring more hit rating, while misses as a result of a target's resistance are shown as a "resist" and can be somewhat corrected for with spell penetration, which is a different attribute.

Both physical hit and spell hit derive from the same basic hit rating stat within the combat rating system, although the similarity largely ends there—they are effectively distinct attributes derived from the same rating. Prior to Patch 3.0, hit rating only increased a player's chance to hit with melee and ranged attacks; a separate stat, called spell hit rating, increased the chance to hit with spells. 3.0 unified both ratings together, and now hit rating increases chance to hit with both spells and melee/ranged attacks. However, you still need different amounts of hit rating to cap spell hit versus melee hit.

Calculation

Level-based hit chances

Δlevel	PvE	PvP
-4	100%	100%
-3	99%	99%
-2	98%	98%
-1	97%	97%
0	96%	96%
+1	95%	95%
+2	94%	94%
+3	83%	87%
+4	72%	80%
+5	61%	73%

The spell hit mechanic was originally confirmed by Blizzard CM Eyonix back in 2005. Base chance to hit is based on level difference between caster and target, starting at 96% for equal levels, and going up or down from there, capping at a maximum of 100%. Furthermore, the chance to hit is different for mobs (PvE) and player (PvP) targets.

For example, a level 85 caster attacking a level 88 mob will have a 83% chance to hit with spells in PvE. Players many levels below their target will always have at least a 1% chance of landing a spell.

Increasing spell hit

Spell hit chance can be increased by talents or gear up to 100%. At level 85, the highest level mob currently present is level 88 (e.g. all Cataclysm raid bosses), so assuming no other sources of spell hit, a level 85 caster has an effective hit rating cap of 1742.

In patch 4.0.1, all talents and debuffs increasing spell hit chance for casters were removed. The draenei racial trait [Heroic Presence] was also changed from increasing the party's hit chance to only increasing the player's hit chance. Death knights also automatically possess +9% spell hit as a result of their [Runic Focus] passive. Rogues can also increase the hit chance of their poisons (which are considered to be spells) through the talent [Precision].

Balance druids, elemental shaman, and shadow priests now gain up to 100% of their spirit as spell hit rating with the talents [Balance of Power], [Elemental Precision], and [Twisted Faith] respectively.

With talents and gear combined, a player's chance to hit with spells can reach 100%. Casters should keep this cap in mind when considering their gear. For PvE raiding, bosses are considered to be 3 levels higher than the caster, meaning that +17% is the most that will be effective. For high level arena PvP sufficient +hit chance is very important as missed crowd control like [Polymorph], [Fear] and [Cyclone] can easily lose matches. The base miss chance versus any player target of the same level is 4%, however certain races have an increased 2% chance to be missed by certain spell schools (nature for tauren/night elves, shadow for draenei/undead, arcane for gnomes, frost for dwarves, and all spells for blood elves). For this reason, max hit can range from 4%-6% depending on what spells you intend to use.

Spell penetration can also be used to increase the chance that spells to land or to land unresisted in PvP, but resistance is a different attribute than spell hit chance. Note that some classes can spec to gain extra chance to have spells miss them, which CANNOT be mitigated by additional chance to hit. Also, some abilities (e.g. - [Cloak of Shadows]) give the player using the ability extra chance to have spells miss as well. Extra spell hit does in fact mitigate these spells' extra chance to miss, but is typically unnecessary.

Effect of resistance

Spell resistance has a separate effect that is considered in addition to spell hit chance, and is based on a resistance stat for a specific school. In general a certain amount of resistance will mitigate a certain percentage of damage from a magic school. For binary spells that do not partially resist, the resistance mitigation is combined with the spell hit chance to give an overall percentage for the spell to land or be resisted. The chance to hit is multiplied by the mitigation factor from the resistance to give an overall chance to hit. For the following formula, B is base chance to hit with spells, H is increased chance to hit from gear and talents, and R is the mitigation factor given from resistance.

(B + H) * R

For example, a caster with 6% increased chance to hit, attacking a mob 3 levels higher (83% base chance) that has enough resistance to mitigate 50% of spell damage, the overall chance to hit with a binary spell is 44.5%

(83% + 6%) * 50% = 44.5%

For non-binary spells, resistance is computed as a second calculation after the spell hit chance is rolled. After a spell hit is determined, a partial resist calculation based on resistance is done, which can also result in a full resist. These two resists once appeared identically in the combat log, and there was no known way to distinguish a spell miss from a full resist. However, as of patch 3.0.2 the combat log now distinguishes between a spell miss and a resist.

The effect of Hit chance on Critical Hit chance

Unlike the melee combat system, spell crit makes absolutely no difference to hit chance. All spells, regardless of whether they are treated as binary or not, roll hit and crit separately. Conceptually, the game rolls for your hit chance first, and if the spell hits you have a separate roll for whether it crits.

Overall chance to crit over all spells cast is thus affected by hit rate. To calculate overall crit rate, multiplying the two chances together:

crit rate over all spell casts = crit * hit

For example, a caster with no spell hit rating gear or talents, against a mob 3 levels higher (83% hit chance), and 30% crit rating from gear and talents:

crit rate over all spell casts = 30% * 83% = 24.9%

In addition, direct damage spells suffer from partial resistance, but again, that has no effect on whether a spell hits or not.

Hit rating chart

The following chart shows the total hit rating required to 2 decimal places for the range of spell hit % commonly desired. It is obviously not possible to achieve a fractional hit rating, and the decision to round up or down to an integer is left to the individual. See the hit rating caps for level 85 below for the rating required to reach 100% hits with spell casting.

Level	Hit Rating Required
	1%	2%	3%	4%	5%	6%	7%	8%	9%	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%
70	12.62	25.23	37.85	50.46	63.08	75.69	88.31	100.92	113.54	126.15	138.77	151.38	164.00	176.62	189.23	201.85	214.46
80	26.23	52.46	78.70	104.93	131.16	157.39	183.62	209.86	236.09	262.32	288.55	314.78	341.02	367.25	393.48	419.71	445.94
85	102.45	204.89	307.34	409.78	512.23	614.68	717.12	819.57	922.01	1024.46	1126.91	1229.35	1331.8	1434.24	1536.69	1639.14	1741.58

Hit rating caps for level 85

A common question among casters is how much hit rating is needed to hit the 100% chance to hit cap. As stated earlier, this depends on the level of the targets one expects to encounter, and any talents that add chance to hit with spells. The following table summarizes how much hit rating is needed for a certain level, after all talents and buffs are taken into consideration. To use the table, first add up how much hit you already have, then look up that row to find the hit rating cap for targets level 85 up to 88. End-game raiding casters generally use the level 88 column, as the effective level of bosses is 88 (level 85 content). However, some raid boss fights involve killing level 87 and below adds. While there are not a large number of these fights in current content (as of Patch 4.2), Lord Rhyolith, Beth'tilac, and Alysrazor can be fights where it can be argued that a 1742 hit rating against level 87 mobs is not an efficient allocation of stats.

Note: For casters doing heroics exclusively and not planning on raiding, you may use the 87 column instead, as that is the highest level of mobs found in heroics (i.e., bosses).

Bonus % Hit	Hit rating needed at 85 (per target lvl.)				Notes
	85	86	87	88
0%	410	513	615	1742	No talent bonuses or buffs. All non-Draenei casters.
1%	308	410	513	1640	All Draenei Casters [Heroic Presence]
2%	205	308	410	1537	Rogue poisons with [Precision] (1/3)
3%	103	205	308	1435
4%	0	103	205	1332	Rogue poisons with [Precision] (2/3)
5%	0	0	103	1230
6%	0	0	0	1127	Rogue poisons with [Precision] (3/3)
7%	0	0	0	1025
8%	0	0	0	923	Protection Paladin spells due to [Touched by the Light] Retribution Paladin spells due to [Sheath of Light]
9%	0	0	0	820	Death Knight spells due to [Runic Focus] Draenei Protection Paladin spells due to [Touched by the Light] and [Heroic Presence] Draenei Retribution Paladin spells due to [Sheath of Light] and [Heroic Presence]
10%	0	0	0	718	Draenei Death Knight spells due to [Runic Focus] and [Heroic Presence]

The hit rating numbers in the above table are all rounded up to the next integer number. E.g. 102.45 (1% at 85) becomes 103, 1536.69 (15% at 85) becomes 1537. While this may seem counter-intuitive at first, the intention is to provide the number which will give 100% spell hit (i.e. the "hit cap"). If they were rounded to the nearest integer, some would still leave a small chance to miss, e.g. rounding 1536.69 down to 1536 instead provides about 14.993% spell hit, leaving only a ~0.017% chance to miss. It is up to each individual to determine whether they are willing to tolerate that very small chance to miss, or if they wish to completely eliminate it. As the stats increase throughout expansions, the difference between decimal places of spell hit will decrease to such a point where rounding down will be an extremely tiny DPS increase. However, the assumption in the table is that it is desirable to guarantee that spells will not miss. The hit rating chart above provides the ratings to 2 decimal places for those that wish to consider the merits of rounding up or down in more detail.

As a rule of thumb, a level 85 player against a level 88 boss needs +102.44574*k hit rating, to achieve +k% chance to hit with spells. That means that on 85-vs-88 fights each point of +hit rating contributes about +0.0098% chance to hit with spells.

See also

• Resistance
• How to improve your spell hit rating