The importance of to hit

[Felix Niebuhr]

I`m new in the game of WoW, so first of all Hi to all fellow players. I have had my upbringing in DiabloII, and am now trying to make use of what I have accumulated in terms of what is important in these kind of games. I am playing a level 30 human warrior, and the thing I am not so sure about is the to hit factor. I know its in the game, but nowhere on the char stat screen it shows, as far as I know. It was pretty important back in DII to know if you could hit a monster or not, and seeing that i miss sometimes, I have come to wonder if the to hit chance is something I should be taking into account? And if so, where do I get info on it?

[Hunter Noventa]

I am not a pro at the statistics thing, but I think the to hit is much simpler than it was in Diablo 2.

I think there's a base chance to miss here, something like 5% really. This may be affectd by the level of the monster relative to you. There are also toher thigns that are not a hit, and not a miss, like having your attacks blocked or dodged, which depends more on the mob.

There are a few pieces of equipment that affect your chance to hit, but they are mid to high level at best, endgame at worst.

I'll now leave this for someone with more knowledge than I to check out.

[Athame]

First a blue post concerning +hit%.

If you need more info, you could read the elaborate and somewhat disputed explanation on WoWWiki.com.

Here's how Slant puts it in his rogue +hit% FAQ:
With a 300 weapon skill attacking a mob with a 300 defense (IE level 60) you will miss 5% of the time. With +5 tohit you will never, ever, ever miss. You can be parried/blocked/dodged but you will NEVER miss. As in 0 misses after days of play.

Dualwielding has a hard cap of 19% miss. Thus no matter how much tohit gear you get, you will always miss a minimum of 19%.

If you raid constantly, +6 could be worthwhile as you need +5.6% to hit a level 63 mob 100% of the time.

Assuming a maxed weapon skill to-hit past +6% is absolutely worthless under every circumstance.

(0.04% hitrate per defense * 15 defense for 3 levels = 0.6)

Yes, this means that the precision talent is not optimal with endgame equipment. Yes, you need precision for imp dualwielding. It's a problem.

The Numbers:
- 19% minimum missrate is added when you dualwield. These misses are static and cannot be mitigated through gear or talents.
- 5% missrate against a mob whose defense is equal to your weapon skill
- There is no minimum cap for single-attacking and special attacks (sinister strike, backstab, etc). These attacks can get to a 0% missrate.
- each point of weapon skill is +0.04% to-hit and crit
- I assume that each point of weapon skill is -0.04% to an opponent's dodge/block/parry but I haven't seen solid tests.
- each point of defense is -0.04% to-hit and crit
- each point of defense is +0.04% to dodge, block, parry
- defense does not affect crushing blows from mobs of +3 levels
- you will hit glancing blows against mobs of +3 levels. It isn't clear if weapon skill / mob defense skill affects this. I would assume it does but it has not been adequately tested yet. Crushing/glancing blows don't happen against PCs so it has to be tested against raid mobs.

[Kail]

I assume that FAQ was written before Blizz changed the system to allow +hit to mitigate the dual wield penalty?

Also, weapon skill above the normal max will not affect the frequency of glancing blows on higher level mobs, but it does reduce the damage penalty from them. Tests I've seen suggest +10 will effectively remove your glancing blows (you'll still get them, but they do about normal damage).

[AddictedFanatic]

Yes, try to get +6% to hit and +10 or better weapon skill to mitigate the problems with bosses. Both are helpful.

[OIEUFOIWUFJKU]

Who writes this stuff? The part about 5% tohit is correct unless you dual wield in which case it's 25%. The old 19% hardfloor on misses are gone as equipment can now bring you below it quite a bit. Weapon skill doesn't affect hitting to a significant degree however it gives you a rather large damage boost on level 63 mobs(By increasing the damage your glacing blows do.)