Hit



Hit refers to physical damage that occurs as a result of an attack made with melee or ranged weapons. The term is also used to describe a character's chance of not missing. Characters have a 100% chance to hit when fighting creatures up to 3 levels higher (bosses included), but their hit chance decreases when fighting characters above that level.

Prior to Warlords of Draenor, players' chance to hit was lower; a secondary attribute called hit rating was used to ensure that the player would not miss against targets. The hit rating secondary attribute was removed with Patch 6.0.2 along with Expertise. The developers described the process of reaching the expertise and hit caps as a penalty rather than an augmentation, with players inevitably regarding the stats as mandatory rather than "fun". As a result, the stats were removed, with players effectively automatically capped in both expertise and hit.

Calculating miss rate
If the difference between the mob's level and your level is less than or equal to 2, then the formula for calculating your base miss rate against that mob is:


 * with single-wielding: 5% + (Mob Level - Your Level) * 0.5%
 * with dual-wielding: 24% + (Mob Level - Your Level) * 0.5%

If the difference between the mob's level and your level is greater than 2, then the formula for calculating your base miss rate against that mob is:


 * with single-wielding: 2% + (Mob Level - Your Level) * 2%
 * with dual-wielding: 21% + (Mob Level - Your Level) * 2%

Applying these formulas gives the following base miss rate for a Level 90 character:


 * v. Level 90 mob: 5.0% / dual-wield: 24%
 * v. Level 91 mob: 5.5% / dual-wield: 24.5%
 * v. Level 92 mob: 6.0% / dual-wield: 25% (level of most heroic bosses)
 * v. Level 93 mob: 8.0% / dual-wield: 27% (level of raid bosses)


 * 340 hit rating reduces your chance to miss by 1%

Thus, if you are a Level 90 character with no talents increasing your chance to hit, you need a Hit Rating of 2550 (7.50%) to never miss a shot against a Level 93 boss (or skull mob) with a special attack or single-wield auto-attack (see hit rating cap below).

Melee attacks divide into two categories: auto-attacks (white attack/damage) and special attacks (yellow attack/damage). Attacking a mob from behind removes parry and block from both tables, provided the attack is more than 0.5 yards away (measured from center to center rather than with the hitbox).

Auto attacks
Each melee auto attack made by characters against mobs will result in one of the following (in order of precedence):

Hit chance doesn't work by increasing the amount of "Hit" on these tables. Instead, it works by decreasing the amount of miss.

Critical strike chance "fills in" the hit chance portion of this table. Crit is "capped" when the crit chance exceeds the amount of hit chance on the table. Until we reach that cap, hit chance has NO effect on crit chance. For example: maximum dual wielding weapon skill, chance to hit 0% and chance to critical strike 50%. Dual wield auto-attacking a raid boss from behind results in a loss of 8.6% critical strike:
 * Example #1

Increase chance to hit to 10% and decrease chance to critical strike to 45% results in no loss of critical strike:
 * Example #2

It is actually quite difficult to be crit capped without trying. This is one reason why it's important to maintain a balance of stats, and not to "stack" any one stat indiscriminately.

Special attacks
Each melee special attack made by characters against mobs will result in one of the following (in order of precedence):

The system is exactly the same as normal attacks, except the miss chance is reduced to 8%, whether dual-wielding or not.

Enchantments

 * - Ranged only.
 * Enchant Weapon - Accuracy
 * Enchant Gloves - Precision
 * Enchant Gloves - Precise Strikes
 * Enchant Cloak - Accuracy
 * Enchant Bracer - Precision
 * Enchant Boots - Greater Precision
 * Enchant Boots - Precision
 * Enchant Boots - Icewalker
 * Enchant Boots - Surefooted
 * Enchant Boots - Lesser Accuracy - Added in patch 3.1.
 * Enchant Boots - Lesser Accuracy - Added in patch 3.1.

Cooking
adds 20 Hit rating for 30 minutes.

and add 40 Hit rating for 1 hour.