Home » Itemization » The Hunter Hit Cap
It is often asked by hunters what it is that they need to work on to increase their DPS, and of course there are always multiple factors. DPS can be affected by haste, crit, attack power, pets, and most importantly the hit cap. Today we’ll be taking a look at the hit cap, how to reach it, and how to maintain it.
Hit rating is one of the most important factors for hunters. While most hunters think of only agility or armor penetration, they don’t realize that those stats only make a difference if they never miss a shot. That’s where the hit cap comes into play. For a hunter, the hit cap is 8%, or roughly 263 hit rating. Anything below 263 isn’t enough, and anything above is a wasted stat. Your goal is to hit 263 hit rating and stay there.
Reaching the Hit Cap
263 hit rating can seem like quite a lot when you start out as a fresh 80, but as you get Naxx 25man gear, the hit cap becomes something that you can reach without a problem. There are also talents, food, and several items that will help you considerably when trying to reach the hit cap.
Food
When it comes to food, you have Snapper Extreme. Snapper Extreme gives 40 hit rating and lasts for an hour unless you die. I used that food over any feast whenever I was short of the hit cap. Even if I only had 190 hit rating, having it boosted to 230 hit rating puts you that much closer to the hit cap than you would be without the Snapper Extreme. The best part is, Snapper Extreme is easy to make if you have your cooking at (or above) 400. You can buy the recipe for 3 Dalaran Cooking Awards and the recipe only requires 1 Northern Spices, which comes from the cooking dailies, and 3 Bonescale Snapper. If you raid and you can have 20 or so Snapper Extremes available for the evening, you should be fine.
Gear
On top of the Snapper Extreme cooking pattern, there are several items that are perfect for hunters who are near the hit cap or need a large boost to get closer to the cap. The items are accessible during 10 and 25 man raids, but they appear as early as Eye of Eternity so you don’t need to be on the newest content to be hit capped. Here is a list of great items for hunters who are trying to stay at or reach the hit cap:
Black Ice – 2.2% hit rating at level 80 and it drops off 10man Eye of Eternity. The other stats are decent and it’s a great start for any hunter.
Surge Needle Ring – Also earned from 10man Eye of Eternity and it has close to 1% hit on its own. To top it all off, it’s nearly a Best in Slot ring for hunters.
Frosted Androit Handguards – 25man Eye of Eternity with 1.77% hit rating. These gloves are extremely good as well, so don’t pass them up if they ever drop while you’re in a raid.
Grim Toll – 2.53% hit rating and it drops in 25man Naxxramas. Not a bad trinket considering you get around 50% armor penetration when it procs.
Pyrite Infuser – 2.9% hit rating with a Mirror of Truth style proc. This drops off of Flame Leviathan in 10man Ulduar. Really great, and I mean REALLY great, if you can sacrifice the crit from Mirror of Truth.
Twisted Visage – 2.13% hit rating and it drops off XT-002 in 25man Ulduar. Nice upgrade for hunters who aren’t hit capped. If you are, you can wait until Rune Edge or Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned.
Nymph Heart Charm – 1.1% hit and it’s a really good neck piece. Drops off of Freya in 25man Ulduar.
(These next few added thanks to a reminder from Santyn)
Sphere of Red Dragon’s Blood – 1.68% Hit and an on-use AP buff. Drops from Keristrasza in Heroic Nexus, which means it’s fairly easy to farm for a fresh 80.
Titanium Impact Band – While the ring itself has no hit rating, you can gem it with Rigid Autumn’s Glow to give yourself some extra hit. I did this for a while myself.
Fang of Truth – I don’t usually like the idea of a hunter dual wielding past level 60 or so when good 2-handed weapons become available, but the weapon has 1.17% hit rating which brings you to a total of 2.34% hit rating if you dual wield these swords. They are available from the Wyrmrest Accord when you hit Honored with them.
Enchants
Oh and don’t forget about enchants. Sometimes hit rating can be worth more than that 16 agility enchant you get. 16 agility is roughly 0.20% crit rating, so you have to factor that in to your decision. Two enchants that I personally use at the moment are listed below.
Enchant Boots – Icewalker – 12 crit, 12 hit. Pretty good combination if you ask me.
Enchant Gloves – Precision – 20 hit rating is hard to pass up.
You also have Scopes for gear.
Biznicks 247×128 Accurascope – While this is a low level enchant and isn’t from a raid, it’s still pretty nice. 30 hit rating for your weapon can push you over the hit cap.
Talents
And finally, let’s not forget about hunter talents. As a Marksmanship hunter, I use 1 point in Focused Aim. I can use up to 3, but pretty much anything above that first point is a waste. Of course, Focused Aim is also in the top tier of the Marksmanship hunter tree, so any Beast Mastery or Survival hunters also have access to it. If you’re stressed for hit then put a point into it, but typically I wouldn’t recommend the talent to any other spec other than Marksmanship. Let’s take a loot at the hit rating you would need with each point in Focused Aim.
0 points requires 8% hit rating from your gear, or 263 hit rating.
1 point means you already have 1% extra hit. To get to the 8% hit cap, you now only need 7%, or 230 hit rating.
2 points put you at 2% base hit, so now you need 6% from gear, or 197 hit rating.
3 points puts you at 3% base hit requiring 163 hit rating from your gear.
These values are rounded up because what you need actually involves a decimal amount of hit rating. As long as you hit the numbers listed above, you will be at the hit cap.
Remember, as long as you are hit capped, so is your pet, and as of patch 3.2, this includes hit rating from Focused Aim. You should ALWAYS be hit capped if you can be, and that means taking advantage of everything at your disposal. Agility, crit rating, and other stats are virtually useless if you miss half your shots, so take that into account whenever you upgrade gear and are torn between whether or not to drop some hit rating.
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Good write up, but a hunter struggling to reach the hit cap is very unlikely to find themselves in a (successful) group going for the bosses you mentioned. There are several pieces of easier to obtain gear that sports a nice amount of hit rating:
Sphere of Red Dragon’s Blood – drops from Keristasza in Heroic Nexus.
Fang of Truth – Available from the Wyrmrest Accord at honored, can be dual wielded.
Titanium Impact Band – Made by jewelcrafters, it can be socketed with a Rigid Autumn’s Glow for an extra 16 hit rating.
That is just a sampling of pre-raid gear that a hunter can use to stack hit rating.
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Dang, no wonder I’m always struggling to sit at hit cap. All those lovely hit pieces you mentioned are from raids I can’t access! =P /cry =P
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Is Elixir of Accuracy good to use too if I’m under the hit cap?
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The Hunter Hit Cap…
Good article on how to reach the hunter hit cap….
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@Santyn
D’oh I knew I missed some…I remember actually pushing to try and get the Sphere of Red Dragon’s Blood, but never did so it slipped my mind. I also remember using the Titanium Impact Band…good catch
@Hatfield
I’ve never actually thought about using a flask to reach the hit cap. It could probably be useful, but it depends on how close you are to the hit cap with everything else available to you. I always use the Flask of Endless Rage which gives me an extra 180 AP which, although it isn’t much, can boost my DPS quite a bit in a raid setting. That being said, reaching hit cap in a raid will also boost your DPS, so it’s more of a personal choice. If you’re only 15 points short of hit cap, then I wouldn’t use the Elixir of Accuracy, but if you are roughly 60+ points away after using foods and enchants and gems, then yeah use the Elixir.
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Also the Kalu’ak spear has a whole bunch of hit rating on it, and can be acquired very early. You can also get 28 hit rating (IIRC) from a Titanium weapon chain.
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Also (also), various epic pvp rings and trinkets have a bunch of hit rating on them, and should be better than random blues, and pretty easy to get on your own.
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Easy to overlook if you play horde, but for alliance hunters, if they will be raiding with a Draenei team-mate (or they ARE one), they’ve got a 1% hit edge built in, and only need to shoot for 7%, or 230 hit rating to hit the cap.
Nicely explained post, and useful to the pre-raid hunter.
Thanks!
Kulat of Bladefist
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@Kulat
I was going to mention this as well, but I think there’s some wort of funky mechanic involved. Right now I’m running with a hit or like 7.64% or so, and we have a large number of Draenei in the guild, and basically always hve one on runs. In looking back on my recrount reports I still find myself missing very occasionally (like maybe 4 shots overall in an OS run), but buy the numbers I should be pushed over the cap by the presence of a draenei.
@Atkallen
Just curious as to why you prefer a 2-hander over dual-weilding? Personally I’ve tended towards dual because it allows me to tweak enchants etc more as I’m having to adjust my hit rating as different pieces are being upgraded.
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@Ben
I almost mentioned the chain, but I thought about all of the other enchants available and figured most people would skip over it for AP or some other enchant anyway, even if they are close to the hit cap. It is a good point to bring up, but I thought it might be best left unsaid.
@Kulat
Another good point…and I’m horde so I don’t ever get that buff, but it’s always mentioned on other sites. Definitely something easily forgotten by someone like me who plays a Blood Elf.
@Galomesh
Most staves, polearms and swords in end-game raiding would end up giving more overall stats than dual wielding. Some weapons can come close, and I know weapons are just stat sticks for us anyway, so it’s mostly just a personal preference. I’ve only seen one end-game raiding hunter on my server that actually dual wields and he was actually trying to switch into 2-handers as well.
@Euripides
It really does depend on the trade-off. Most of the gear I see in Ulduar trades 1% hit for 1% crit. Not a huge gain by going under hit cap really seeing as crit has diminishing returns in a sense. The more you have, the less of a change you’ll see in your crit chance because you’ll already be pretty close to what you’ll be gaining. For example, the difference in having 1% crit and having 2% crit is 100%, that is that you would crit twice as often. If you have 30% crit and move up to 31% crit, the change is so minute that you wouldn’t even notice it.
What you said about huge DPS stats vs a little hit is definitely true. It’s a common sense thing that most people are able to figure out. If I have a choice between 5% armor penetration, 20 agility and 10 crit rating on one item (all gains), or an item with 20 more hit and no other noticeable gains, then I would take the first item.
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Oh the irony. I’m in Ulduar, got some nice boots and got put about 50 under hit cap. Such is the life of a Hunter
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So if you’re a draenei with 3/3 in Focused Aim, all you need is 132 hit to be hit capped! It’s good to have heels
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Great article. Decisions…decisions. I could get hit capped right now by using the DW method, I also have not done any heroics yet, so I will hold out until then. According to Zeherah’s analyzer I’m only 97 points away from the cap. Wow, I’m doing something right.
It also helps that I am a Draenei JC since I put 0 points in Focus Aim.
@ Pike
I have not been in a raid or heroic yet, but I am really close. It’s a lot about gearing and docketing for me. Plus the heroism buff I have helps a lot.
@ Atkallen
That’s just bittersweet.
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On the surface, what you advise is good. But I agree, new hunters shouldn’t think the agil, AP, crit items are junk by comparison.
Given that this is an introductory article, I think you should provide introductory gear that is more obtainable:
+ Sovereign’s Belt from H-UP
+ Massive Spaulders of the Jormungar from H-UP
+ King Dred’s Helm from H-Drak
+ Raging Construct Bands from H-HoS
+ Grips of the Beast God from H-Gundrak
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This is a great post, but I have a question. I’ve got 3 points in Focused Aim; will that show up on my character stats? Do I need to shoot for 8% on the character page, or does that just show my base and my gear together? I always figured it was everything, including talents, but now I’m wondering.
You say:
“0 points requires 8% hit rating from your gear, or 263 hit rating.
1 point means you already have 1% extra hit. To get to the 8% hit cap, you now only need 7%, or 230 hit rating.
2 points put you at 2% base hit, so now you need 6% from gear, or 197 hit rating.
3 points puts you at 3% base hit requiring 163 hit rating from your gear.”
So can I just look at my character page and add what I see there to my 3%, or do I need to reach 8% on my character page?
I’m not sure my question makes any sense; sorry!
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@Jessamyn
I don’t really pay attention on my own character that much, but I’m pretty sure that the points in Focused Aim are not shown on the character sheet when you hover over Hit. Just add the 3% to what you have and make sure it is at 8% or higher and you should be fine
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Good to know, I’m either over the cap or way under it, and I’d hate to think I was there and actually not be.
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@Jessamyn Zeherah’s Hunter DPS Analyzer can help you with the calculations. Really it does most of the work for you.
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Duh. Forgot to put in the link. http://www.femaledwarf.com/
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You may want to mention that Biznicks 247×128 Accurascope is actually pretty hard to find these days.
The schematic for it drops in Molten Core, as do all the materials to craft it. There are not a lot of engineers around with the pattern or the mats to make these, so expect to pay a premium for it, if you can find it at all.
Sad that Blizzard hasn’t produced an upgraded version of this scope through two expansions.
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