Reaching the Hit Cap

After a suggestion from one of the readers I have made a hit cap helper. I explain hit earlier in this blog's history so we are all aware of what our cap is (if not go read up on that first), but I didn't really enlighten on how to achieve those kind of hit numbers.

When you start out it will be hard to reach the cap. As you get better gear and start entering deeper endgame content you will find it becomes much easier to acquire hit and you will end up regulating hit rather than striving for it.

Trinkets:

The absolute best place to start is with your trinket. At every stage of progression there is a hit trinket available that carries large quantities that I recommend getting. In order of increasing difficulty to get, they are as follows:

• [Rune of Infinite Power] - From a pretty fun quest called Mystery of the Infinite, Redux where you help a version on yourself in the past. The original quest you get help from your future self, so you end up going full circle. Anyways, this is a good trinket to kick you off in the right direction hit-wise.
• [Figurine - Twilight Serpent] - This one is for the Jewelcrafters only. Requires JC lvl 400, its materials are here.
• [Mark of the War Prisoner] - This is the first hit trinket I used at 80, and it is a good one. In fact, I used this most of the way through Naxx 10 and well into Naxx 25. Drops from Cyanigosa in Heroic Violet Hold.
• [Dying Curse] - When you get into Naxx 25 regularly this becomes the upgrade from the War Prisoner. Has a shared loot table (it can drop off of multiple bosses) and has a very nice proc.
• [Elemental Focus Stone] - Drops off of Auriaya in 10-man Ulduar. Huge amounts of hit, but the proc is worse than Dying Curse for most casters.
• [Living Flame] - Drops off of Razorscale in Ulduar 25. A ton of hit and a usable proc that is much more competitive with Dying Curse than that of the Elemental Focus Stone.

Enchants:

There are a couple of enchants that give hit. I am only putting the best available versions of the enchantment (i.e. there are less effective versions of the ones given) but I am choosing not to include these. In order of increasing amount of hit:

• [Enchant Boots - Icewalker] - +12 Hit (as well as +12 Crit). Most casters tend to roll with this enchant because it is one of the only caster boot chants available (I opt for this one instead, but that discussion is for another post...)
• [Enchant Gloves - Precision] - +20 Hit. The other option for enchanting your gloves is +28 Spell Power, but for a cheap enchant the 20 hit is nice.
• [Enchant Weapon - Accuracy] - +25 Hit (as well as +25 Crit). This is an extremely expensive enchant that I would not recommend getting unless you plan on keeping the weapon a long time and are really struggling to reach your cap. You can also get a Titanium Weapon Chain put on your weapon; although the disarm resist won't help you the +3 hit will, and it is considerably cheaper.

Gems:

The most simple way to make small adjustments to your hit rating is via gemming. Here is a list of gems with hit that are available, as before there is lesser quality versions of those posted:

• [Rigid Autumn's Glow] - +16 hit. This is the only pure hit gem available (Jewelcrafters have [Rigid Dragon's Eye] available to them, but we will disregard it for our purposes).
• [Veiled Monarch Topaz] - +9 Spell Power, +8 Hit.
• [Vivid Forest Emerald] - +8 Hit Rating, +12 Stamina. In my opinion this is the best gem to put in a blue socket if you are under cap and looking to get a socket bonus or keep a meta socket running (this is applicable to elemental shaman only, other casters who may be reading this will tend to get more benefit from the 'Shining' equivalent below).
• [Tense Forest Emerald] - +8 Hit, +10 Spell Penetration.
• [Shining Forest Emerald] - +8 Hit Rating, +8 Spirit.
• [Lambent Forest Emerald] - +8 Hit Rating, +3 mana every 5 seconds.

Note: Make sure you keep an eye on sockets for any with hit rating also. These can be freebies for that extra little bit to keep you over cap. Although stacking Spell Power gems is the trend at endgame, being ignorant of socket bonuses can cause you to miss out on benefits. Being a smart raider is more than just moving out of void zones you know...

I hope these recommendations help you in reaching that elusive hit cap if you are just starting work on your gear, or shows you a way to get that little tweak to be able to stay capped with your recent upgrade.

- Puut

Understanding Stats

Elemental Shaman are casters. We cast spells that do damage to the enemy: Lightning Bolts and Lava Bursts and alike. It is the most important thing for us to make these spells as powerful as they can be and we achieve this by stats. All the gear you wear contributes to your stats.

The two tabs most that contain all the stats and numbers I am referring to are located under the Base Stats and Spell tabs on your armory page and in-game on your gear page.

Base Stats:
The majority of the gear we wear will have Armor, Stamina and Intellect and to a lesser extent Spirit. Armor and Stamina is not of much concern to us as they only affect how much of a beating we can take. In PvE we should not be tanking (shammy-tanking may be talked about later down the road but don't hold your breath) or taking much direct damage at all, so never aim to increase these stats. If you gear yourself reasonably these will always be at a healthy level.

Intellect (Int) is the only base stat that will directly affect your damage output. Firstly, and most importantly, Intellect will determine your mana pool. Mana is used to cast your spells and as such more mana = more spell casts available before you need to refresh. Every point of Intellect = 15 mana. Intellect also affects some of your spell stats: 1 Int = 0.00602% Crit Chance, or in a more user friendly form 166 Int = 1% Crit. Intellect also boosts your Mana Regeneration. Mana Regen. is commonly referred to as mp5 (Mana regenerated every 5 seconds), and is not really useful for us elementals as we generally have plenty of mana due to various abilities and features of our talent trees that provide us with abundant amounts of mana.

Finally, Spirit is sometimes attached to gear we will use. Spirit increases health and mana regeneration rates. This stat is awful for us in that, unlike almost every other caster class, we have absolutely no benefit from spirit. It should be avoided wherever possible; If you are wearing any gear with this keep your eyes peeled for comparable gear without this wasted stat as there is usually a better alternative out there.

Spell Stats:
Increasingly with top-end gear there will be 'green stats' or 'equip bonuses' on your gear (found under the base stats and all that other junk, preceded with the word Equip:). These will directly affect your spell stats.

Bonus Damage is the key stat that increases the amount of damage every spell does when it hits an enemy. It will be listed as spell power on your gear (ie. Equip: Increases spell power by x). This is a hugely important stat for us! As you become increasingly geared and we get to gemming and enchanting we will aim to increase this stat as much as possible. This spell power stat also increases your bonus healing which increases the amount every heal does, but this is only important for restos.

Hit Rating is the chance you will hit your target when you cast a spell. We can 'cap' this stat, meaning we have a 100% chance to hit our target. I will talk about this stat in the coming posts as I need a whole post to explain the calculations. Until we are capped this is by far our most important stat.

Crit chance, mentioned briefly earlier, is the chance we will deliver a critically damaging strike to our target. Critical Strikes (or simply 'crits') deal 150% damage. This stat is valuable to us as inherent talents in our tree make crits help conserve mana, and the bonus damage is pretty nice too!

Finally, haste rating increases the speed at which we can cast our spells. More spells = more damage, so this is pretty valuable to us. Back in the Burning Crusade expansion lots of top end elementals would stack this stat, although it is now not as beneficial.


So, in summary:

• Armor and Stamina increase survivability.
• Intellect increases mana pool; mp5 and crit to an extent.
• Spirit is bad!
• Spell power increases bonus damage, meaning more damage with every hit.
• Hit increases chance our spell will hit their target.
• Crit increases the chance we deal a critical strike.
• Haste increases the speed of our spell casting.

This concludes my basic overview of the stats you will see in your various elemental gear. These numbers will be used repeatedly in this blog as they control how good we can be.

For further info about these stats, check out WoWWiki (link in sidebar). They are a great resource for understanding all these numbers.
-Puut