One of the most important aspects of World of Warcraft is the optimization of your character’s stats. By leveling up, you collect pieces of equipment whose bonuses are increasingly important. This is crucial in PvE where your performance will be reviewed by your raid leader. In the case of rogues, the primary stat to optimize is hit rating.

In this article, we’re going to focus on hit rating and expertise. We will discuss their function, the caps to reach, and the impact of these scores on your damage – particularly through the variation in the number of successful critical hits.

The Hit

Hit Rules

Let’s assume for a moment that you play with only one weapon instead of dual wield. In this case, on a target 3 levels higher than you such as a boss, you will have 9% of misses on your yellow hits and white hits.
If you equip a second weapon to play with ambidexterity then your hits will suffer a penalty: you will always have a 9% of missed yellow shots but also a 28% of missed white shots on a target 3 levels higher than you, such as a boss.

– The “soft cap”

Reaching a hit score of 9% is called the “soft cap”.
This score makes it possible to immunize the [MISS] both your yellow shots and part of the white shots, which affects your DPS as a whole. For a low cost in the “weight of stats” (+15/+16 hit rating being 1% and +22 critical strike rating being 1%) it has to be a priority.
Beyond 9%, your hit will have a diminished contribution to your DPS, as it will affect only your white hit which is about 55-60% of your total damage

– The hit cap

Hit cap is deemed to be a hit rating score of 28%.
Any hit rating invested in beyond that point does not improve your damage further while it’s done at the expense of other stats.

We specialize in the talent Combat Potency which gives your left hand a 20% chance of restoring +15 energy.
It follows that the less your attacks miss, the more chances there will be to proc this talent and, by extension, your jewelry and mongoose/executioner enchantments in particular.

The relation between Hit and Critical Rating

Did you know that the hit score increases the number of critical hits as opposed to the chance of critical hits?
By the same token, lacking hit rating reduces the number of critical strikes.

– Example 1:
A dual-wielding rogue with a 30% critical score and only the soft cap hit rating of 9%.

As specified in the rule above, a rogue has 28% of missed white hits by default.
So let’s imagine a table with 100 boxes (100 moves)

– Without hit rating, 28 boxes are marked as [MISS]
– With 9% of hit rating (soft cap), 9 additional boxes are marked as [HIT thanks to 9%]
– So there are more than 19 of boxes marked as [missed].
– Consequently, we can count 81 [HIT] boxes.

HIT TABLE - 9% HIT

HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT HIT HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9%
MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS HIT 9%
MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS

Since a [MISS] does no damage, it cannot be critical.
Now let’s apply the 30% of critical hits on the [HIT] spaces, (i.e 30% of the 81 spaces).
So if you round off, you get 24 boxes [CRITICAL].

HIT TABLE - 9% HIT / 30% CRIT

HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT 9% HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9% HIT 9%
MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS HIT 9%
MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS MISS

Final result :
Out of 100 hits, the rogue only dealt 24 critical hits. This does not take your [expertise] score into account, but we’ll return to that later.

– Example 2:
A dual-wielding rogue with a 30% critical score and a hit cap of 28%.

Imagine again the same table with 100 boxes,
Thanks to the 28% hit cap, there is no longer a [MISS] box in white hits.
Now you get 100 boxes as [HIT] including 30 [CRITICAL].

HIT TABLE - 28% HIT / 30% CRIT

HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT

This means that, without increasing your rogue critical hit score, for the same number of hits, we managed to deal 6 to 7 more critical hits!

Hit stat for PvP

This rule also applies to PVP.
In The Burning Crusade, we only face level 70 players.

– on a LVL 73: 9% misses on yellow hits, 28% misses on white hits
– on a LVL 72: 6% misses on yellow hits, 25% misses on white hits
– on a LVL 71: 5.5% misses on yellow hits, 24.5% misses on white hits
– on a LVL 70:5% misses on yellow hits,  24% misses on white hits

This means that there is a 5% chance of missing your yellow shots, including crowd control abilities such as Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, Blind). Having a 5% hit will allow you to miss much less. Nevertheless, hit rating does not cancel the chances of missing a stun on for example an orc or a blind on a rogue with Evasion.

Hit bonuses as member of a raid group

The Faerie Fire is a debuff brought by the Balance druids, bringing an additional 3% of Hit to all physical DPS classes which attack the target affected by that debuff.
This then allows you as a rogue to aim for only 25% hit so as not to suffer a [MISS] on your target. It can be practical in a raid to optimize your equipment and stats according to the group with which you play.

Note that you will get a 5% hit score via your PvE combat build.
You will, therefore, have to obtain only 20% from your equipment/consumables/gems which is equivalent to 316 hit score.

If you play for the alliance, being grouped with a Draenei, provides you with +1% additional hit with Heroic Presence. If we add them to the 3% provided by Faerie Fire, you will need a 300 hit rating score to reach the optimal Hit cap.
You will find that Hit is an easily obtainable stat with the correct PvE equipment adapted to the rogue class.

We summarize all this in the following table assuming a PvE combat spec and the base of 5% hit that comes with it… at 70.

Attack Type Boss (73) Lv 72 Lv 71 Lv 70
Yellow 64 16 8 0
White 363 316 308 300
White (with Draenei racial aura) 347 300 292 284
White (with Imp Faerie Fire) 316 269 261 253
White (with Draenei + Imp FF) 300 253 245 237

If we sum up: We must consider 1% of hit as:

– 1 extra [HIT] in place of a [MISS],
– A few additional yellow shots with Combat Potency talent
– More procs of sword specialization from the PvE combat build.

NB: Note that everything that is mentioned on Hit is also applicable at levels lower than 70.
This means that if you are at level 20, and that the mob you face is of level 23, you will have the same difficulties as fighting a 73 mob at 70.

The Expertise

If you thought that World Of Warcraft had made the rules of Hit that simple, you got pranked…because we are only at the beginning!
Before getting to the heart of the subject, let’s revisit the initial table as we had deliberately omitted one feature: expertise.

Expertise is used to reduce your enemy’s chances of dodging or parrying your shots.

Expertise Rules

On raid bosses in The Burning Crusade, there is a 6.5% chance to [DODGE] your yellow and white hit from behind. This means that you must aim for a 6.5% expertise score to counterbalance this.
Expertise is somewhat similar to Hit, in the sense that it prevents you from missing hits. Expertise, therefore, affects 100% of your DPS as it reduces the chances of your enemies dodging both yellow and white shots.

HIT TABLE - 28% HIT / 30% CRIT / 6.5% DODGE

HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT H or D
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT

How to increase your Expertise?

The rogue talent Weapon Expertise provides +10 expertise score. This value is equivalent to 2.5%.
This means that you only have 4% of expertise left to obtain, or +64 expertise score.
Note: it is not optimal to go over 6.5% because after this threshold it no longer affects your shots.

On The Burning Crusade, several races got expertise bonuses as a passive ability.
Humans = 1.25% expertise with swords and masses
Orcs = 1.25% expertise with axes (not relevant as Axes cannot be equipped by rogues in TBC)

If you play a human rogue, you can reach your expertise cap with only a score of 44 expertise.
For that purpose, you need to get the Shard of Contempt trinket in Magisters’ Terrace Heroic as it provides you with an exact score of 44 expertise. Crazy right? Unfortunately, this trinket becomes available in the final phases of the expansion. With a few exceptions, expertise pieces become available around T5 while there are no gems available.

To sum up, we must consider 1% expertise as :

– 1 extra [HIT] instead of a [DODGE]
– A few additional yellow hits with Combat Potency talent
– More chance to proc your sword specialization (PvE combat build)

The Glancing Blows

Glancing Blow, in PvE, is having a 25% chance of inflicting only 70% of a white hit’s damage. Glancing Blow cannot be a critical hit.
Since it is impossible to act on this random behavior as a player (there is no stat to make up for this deficit), I did not find it useful to talk about it in this article.
Therefore we could schematize this case in a more complete table.

NB : If you want more details about the Glancing Blow effect, please check the Glancing Blow definition by WoWWiki

HIT TABLE - 28% HIT / 30% CRIT / 6.5% DODGE / 25% GLANCING

HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING GLANCING DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT GLANCING DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT DODGE
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT H or D
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT
HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT/CRIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT HIT

Hopefully, the above guide justifies our suggestion that Hit should be the stat you primarily optimize, both when you reach level 70 and throughout the content, in both PvE and PvP.