This is a copy and past. from the worldofwarcraft forum. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=7475660772&sid=1
And a big thanks to Tashre for this nice post.
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A mob that is a skull to you, that is level ?? (a raid boss, essentially), is considered to be 3 levels above you.

Your chance of missing a mob that is 3 levels above you is 17%.

Every ~26.23 points of hit you get, you increase your chance to hit a mob with your spells by 1%. This means that in order to hit a raid boss, you need 446 (rounding up) hit rating to reach your hit cap (the point at which you can no longer miss with any spells). That is a lot of hit, but luckily, there are a few talents and debuffs that will assist you in reaching your hit cap.

The two mage talents are Precision, in the Frost tree, and Arcane Focus, in the Arcane tree.

Precision increases your chance to hit with all spells by 1% per point, up to 3%.

Arcane Focus increases your chance to hit with just Arcane spells by 1% per point, up to 3%.

Arcane Focus and Precision DO stack, so Arcane mages are in luck and can get 6% hit from talents alone whereas Fire and Frost mages are only able to get 3%.

There are also two non-mage talents that apply debuffs to the boss that increases the chance for spells to land on them by an additional 3%.

Improved Faerie Fire, a Balance Druid talent, will apply the hit debuff to the boss whenever a druid debuffs the boss with Faerie Fire.

Misery, a Shadow Pirest talent, will apply the hit debuff to the boss whenever a shadow priest attacks basically.

Imp FF and Misery do not stack with each other but DO stack with both Precision and Arcane Focus, increasing the chance for Frost/Fire mages to hit by a total of 6% and an Arcane mage to hit by 9%.

For Alliance players, it should be noted that Draenei provide the Heroic Presence to their party (note: not entire raid) members within 30 yards, increasing their chances to hit with all spells and abilities by 1%. This aura does not stack.

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Arcane mages, employing the use of the standard 57/3/11 spec, will have will have 6% chance to hit from talents.

To reach the hit cap...

Without further aid, they will need 289 hit.

With Heroic Presence, they will need 263 hit.

With Imp FF/Misery, they will need 210 hit.

With both Imp FF/Misery and HP, they will need 184 hit.

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TtW/Fireball mages, employing the use of the standard 18/53/0 spec, will have 0% chance to hit from talents (for their fire spells at least).

To reach the hit cap...

Without further aid, they will need 446 hit.

With Heroic Presence, they will need 420 hit.

With Imp FF/Misery, they will need 368 hit.

With both Imp FF/Misery and HP, they will need 341 hit.

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Frost and Frostfire mages, employing the uses of the standard 18/0/53 and 0/53/18 specs (respectively), will have 3% chance to hit from talents (for both Frost and Fire spells, with the Brain Freeze talent in mind).

To reach the hit cap...

Without further aid, they will need 368 hit.

With Heroic Presence, they will need 341 hit.

With Imp FF/Misery, they will need 289 hit.

With both Imp FF/Misery and HP, they will need 263 hit.

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For Heroic 5 man instances, the bosses are only level 82, which means you'll have a 94% chance to hit them with your spells, further meaning you'll need 6% or 158 hit rating to reach the hit cap.

TtW/Fire mages will need 158 hit to cap.

Frost/FFB mages will need 79 hit to cap.

Arcane mages will need 0 hit to cap.

All unaided. With an Spriest or Boomkin you can cut those numbers in half, and with a draenei you can drop another ~26 hit off too, but it should be stressed that you shouldn't stress about hit so much in Heroic 5 man dungeons. You can go in with 0 hit and do fine; the dps requirements are extremely low since encounters are tailored to players in green/blue quest gear.

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Do note that, as long as you're under your hit cap, hit rating, point for point will increase your DPS more than any other stat. Be smart about gearing for hit however. Don't blindly go out of your way for it. If a piece of gear has 60 crit on it and another piece has 20 hit and you're under the cap, don't pick the 20 hit piece. Though hit is more valuable, there's still enough crit to compensate for it's diminished value.

If however you're under the cap and looking at either +30 hit food or +30 sp food, go for the hit food.

Remember, gear smart about it. Act responsibly with your hit rating.



As for the inevitable issue that'll be brought up...
Yes, you may post a parse of a mage who went into Naxx or wherever, 100 hit under the cap and not miss a single spell, but I can show you a parse of a mage with 60% crit only crit 30% of the time. The RNG is a fickle mistress and a very bad thing to try and balance your dps around. Sure, you may forsake hit rating for other stats, and on days where you miss very infrequently or not at all, your dps will be great, but on other days when you miss a ton of times, your dps will be awful. In neglecting your hit cap, you allow your dps to waver from highs to lows, whereas meeting your hit cap will normalize your dps and keep it in the good zone.





If you think I've left anything out, let me know. If any of my facts or numbers are off, please let me know.

http://elitistjerks.com/f75/
http://www.wowwiki.com/Spell_hit_rating
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10711273057#3
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10431194169
http://www.ensidia.com/home/mage-part-1-general/

All of those already explain the hit cap

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Q u o t e:
http://elitistjerks.com/f75/
http://www.wowwiki.com/Spell_hit_rating
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10711273057#3
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10431194169
http://www.ensidia.com/home/mage-part-1-general/

All of those already explain the hit cap

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aye that true. but
http://elitistjerks.com/f75/
is just dry number you will get insane by it. And take some time fore new come.
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http://www.wowwiki.com/Spell_hit_rating
Is not only for mage and can be a bit tricky to understand by new player.
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http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10711273057#3
Has a lot of stuff that don't have whit spell hit to do. And it is a bit hard to under stand what buff you need to lower down the hit cap.
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http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=10431194169
is okay. But again hit is just fast chapter.
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http://www.ensidia.com/home/mage-part-1-general/ Alot of stuff that don't have whit hit. And again hit is a fast chapter.
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This guide do explain what you need to get in hit to the build you will have.
And it do explain what you might wanna aim for when you do 5 man heroic.

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Q u o t e:
This guide do explain what you need to get in hit to the build you will have.
And it do explain what you might wanna aim for when you do 5 man heroic.

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People will have to read then.
We have more than enough stickies that cover the hit cap, adding one specific just for that is for the most a waste of time. A vast amount of people who wants to know the cap don't want to know why it's the cap, they just want numbers. And your post is still just a copy paste from the American section, so what prevented you from just linking that individual link in the sticky section?

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Q u o t e:
People will have to read then.
We have more than enough stickies that cover the hit cap, adding one specific just for that is for the most a waste of time. A vast amount of people who wants to know the cap don't want to know why it's the cap, they just want numbers. And your post is still just a copy paste from the American section, so what prevented you from just linking that individual link in the sticky section?

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But if there is so many sticky as you talk about. Why is there so many that ask for there hit rating?
Can it maybe be that is is a bit hard to find? when you just want to know what you need in hit rating if you spec arcane or wise versa?

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Q u o t e:
But if there is so many sticky as you talk about. Why is there so many that ask for there hit rating?

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People don't read the stickies because they are blind.

So will another thread help? The answer is no

Nice helpful thread see it getting asked alot :) reported for sticky!

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Q u o t e:
People don't read the stickies because they are blind.

So will another thread help? The answer is no

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i agree with xacez if your after the hit cap read stickies, theres more than enough guides there, hell even go on google it will take you to either EU, US or EJ forums telling you what hit rating you are after, doesnt need yet another guide, if people come on the forums and make a new thread about being after the hit cap it just means that they are lazy and want to be spoonfed.

A link to the US guide where this is from would have been sufficient, its where i read all my stuff on gear / specs / hit should i require them, because if its not here its there.

Nice i was discussing this with a fellow mage yesterday i really wanted to know which class gives me hit buffs etc, like specifically cos i been getting confused even tho i haz brain ;D now i know thx :D

Could that list please get a clean out, alot of the links dont exist anymore or are outdated.

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Q u o t e:

Archtype
i agree with xacez if your after the hit cap read stickies, theres more than enough guides there, hell even go on google it will take you to either EU, US or EJ forums telling you what hit rating you are after, doesnt need yet another guide, if people come on the forums and make a new thread about being after the hit cap it just means that they are lazy and want to be spoonfed.

A link to the US guide where this is from would have been sufficient, its where i read all my stuff on gear / specs / hit should i require them, because if its not here its there.

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There is and has always been a link to the side. Read the first line of the post. And then go down a bit. And you will see it has not been edit.

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Q u o t e:

Mageform
Could that list please get a clean out, a lot of the links don't exist anymore or are outdated.

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I have walk true all the links. And they work 100%

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Q u o t e:

Vaneras
This guide can also be found in the compilation of great guides atop the Mage forum:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=8864928100&sid=1

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I see that you have update the text on it from 3.1 to 3.2. :)

But i do still think that, there need to be a easy way to get to it. I know to hit the stickies guide as Vaneras talk about. is not that hard. And it is not hard to use the search button.
But i think people just walk true the two first page to see if there is a topic that answer there problem. And if we are lucky there is. If we is not lucky. Then we will see. a new post whit "What do i need in hit" "Why is my dps so low" "I just roll fire what do i need in hit" and so on.

thanks to the OP. im not much of a theorycrafter and hit was always a bit of a puzzle for me. was stacking 350 on my arcane mage and now i can up my dps a little

cheers

the reason why so many don't bother with the stickies that so many refer to is half of them are out of date the rest are filled with troll whines to go read the stickies so makes for frankly crap reading.

also the reason it is asked so often is because so many have different views on what the hit cap is rawr still gets it wrong for arcane, so the information though out there is packed to the brim with counter arguments like many on this thread already.

the other issue arrises in not understanding what classes they need in there group to get the hit buffs and the need for extra hit gear in there bags should those classes be absent.

frankly my veiw on hit is get hit capped yourself worry about buffs later if they are there drop some hit if not meh no harm done you can self cap.(note does require extra gear to achieve)

it only becomes a severe issue if your min-maxing for a hardmode encounter that requires your class to be pushed to the limits for a single encounter rather than a normal raid spec.

great guide on the subject and clearly writen.