Or wait, do we? The answer is, short and simple, "Yes, casters miss!" It's just not as evident, because instead of a neat little "Miss" message, we get "Resisted" which can also, more often, be caused by something completely different, such as, say, resistances. However, when Ragnaros starts resisting Frostbolts, it's evident something's wrong. The thing that's affecting here is our "miss-chance". This makes us waste a spell on nothing, thus 0 damage, so it should be evident to everyone that +hit suddenly has found a use. But how good is it? How does it work? Is there a limit on it's usefulness? This is what I'll be discussing here.
(1) How does hitting/missing work?
Taken from the US forums,
we know that you have a 96% chance to hit. As levels increase of the opponent you lose chance to hit accordingly:Same level as you: 4% to miss
+1 level compared to you: 5% to miss
+2 levels compared to you: 6% miss
+3 levels compare to you: 17% miss on mobs, 13% on players
It continues with 11% on mobs and 7% on players until you can't hit them anymore.
This means that at level 60 you will need 4% hit vs lvl 60 mobs and players to be sure you won't miss. However, as most high-lvl raiders, there's bosses. Raidbosses are concidered lvl 63 by the game, meaning you need a whopping 17% +hit if you wanna make sure you hit them every time!
A final note for this should be that, although there is no official response on this, it's rumoured that +hit is capped at 99%, thus no matetr how much you aquire, there's always 1% chance to miss. This has, however, not been stated by an official source, but I personally agree with the theory, evidence suggests it's correct.
(2) How good is +hit compared to other stats?
+hit is one of those stats that many people skip, because it's not visible. You don't get more crits with huge damage-points, nor does it increase your normal damage on spells like +dmg items do. The only thing it does is remove some of those nasty <resisted> messages. So, does that make it better or worse than other available stats? Well, let's look at it. Assuming you're a mage with talents to ensure your critical strikes do 100% damage (well, 110% for fire, but MEH!) we'll do the following math:
Over the course of 100 frostbolts vs Ragnaros you'll do:
With 20% crit-chance
83 frostbolts that do 457.5 damage on average
20% crits that do 457.5 damage on average if you're specced for it, 228.75 damage if you're not (this applies to spells that you aren't specced for as well). This means each frostbolt deals 549 dmg specced on average.
For every 1% +hit you get, you'll hit with another Frostbolt. That means another 457.5 damage. You'll also have a 20% chance to crit, thus, on average, do an additional 91.5damage specced and 45.75 damage unspecced. This means, in the end, that every 1% to hit does, average, 549 damage specced and 503.25 damage unspecced. In comparison to +crit, it's superior, because this is AN ADDITIONAL 549 damage specced/ 503.25 damage unspecced. 1% +crit would "only" provide 457.5/228.75 damage extra.
With +100dmg
83 Frostbolts do (457.5 + 81.4) 538.9 damage on average
For every 1% +hit you get, you thusly hit with 1 more frostbolt, dealing exactly the same damage, this being 538.9 damage. Thereby, 1%hit is 1% more damage, which means, in this case, 5.389 +dmg to your frostbolts. As Frost is affected by the +dmg modifier 81.4, we divide it by this, coming to the conclusion that it's equivalent to 5.389/0.814 = 6.62dmg. It should be obvious that, like crit, the mroe +dmg you have, the more you'll gain from 1% +hit. The formula is:
((Average damage dealt / 100) / modifier) x ((crit%/100) x (modifier for crits(this is 0.5 for non-talented schools, 1 for ice with 5/5 Ice Shards and 1.1 for 5/5 ignite) for the particular spell. The more +dmg you have, the more +dmg 1% +hit is.
So, what's the result? Well, it really depends on your gear and your spec. As you can see, if you're not specced for optimal dmg from crits, it's better than normally vs a +crit. However, no matter what, +hit is always better than +crit for your overall DPS and concistency. For comparison with your +dmg gear, use the above formula to calculate the need for +hit stats. Please bear in mind that you only need 4% (3% if you believe in the 99% cap) for PvP at lvl 60, and that it's mainly for PvE that this stat is extremely useful!
Please note that missing and getting resisted due to resistances are two completely different things! This causes confusion, as resistances can also cause opponents to resist fully instead of partially (always fully on binary spells like frost). The message displayed in these cases is the same: <resisted>. Why blizzard did this is unbeknownst to me, but hey- they did. Thus, things like Curse of Elements, Don Julio's Band, Rune of Perfection, Ring of Swarming Thought etc will NOT affect your chances to hit/miss. They WILL hoever lower your <resisted> messages, especially for frost-mages who have a bianry spell instead of normal like fire, that can "just" have 25%, 50% or 75% of the damage resisted as well as 100%.
shit...falsches forum >.>
