Second, this is a listing of things people need to be aware of/consider when they are deciding if getting hit cap is good for them or not. There is a lot of information about this spread all over a billion threads and I thought it might be helpful to have a listing in one place a person can easily look at. This is not meant to be an endorsement of either method though. If you think I left something important off my list PLEASE post and let me know
Ok, now to the fun stuff. Also note... this list is in no particular order just as I thought of things/they were suggested. So don't assume that the first thing is the biggest deal thing and the last thing is moot.
What is Hit cap?
15% or 5100 hit/spirit (4760 for Draenei)
What hit rating equals 1% hit?
340 rating = 1% hit
34 rating = 0.1% hit
Also if you want an easy way in game to tell how much your will gain/drop in hit (and any other stat) without having to calculate the math RatingBuster is a great addon for that.
Hit cap is a hard cap.
Basically if you go over 15% you get no further benefit from hit. In some ways being at 15.01% is bad in the sense that you probably are not maximizing your stats somewhere. That extra 0.01% does absolutely nothing for you. Because of this some people prefer to be just under the cap instead of over it.
You still get spirit converted to hit.
All shadows get a passive skill called Spiritual Precision that converts all spirit gained from items or effects to be converted to hit.
If I am x amount under hit cap how often will I miss?
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At 14.99% hit you will miss 0.1 times out of every 1000 casts.
At 14.90% hit you will miss 1 time out of every 1000 casts.
At 14.80% hit you will miss 2 times out of every 1000 casts.
ect...
At 14.00% hit you will miss 10 times out of every 1000 casts.
At 13.50% hit you will miss 15 times out of every 1000 casts.
At 13.00% hit you will miss 20 times out of every 1000 casts.
That's the basic pattern. The thing to note though is that your chances of missing don't reset every fight. So some fights you might miss more or less than the point you are at (though generally speaking it will usually be pretty close).
If Mind Blast misses does it still generate an orb?
Yes. You still miss out on the damage that the MB would have done but you do still generate an orb, which means a miss on a MB wouldn't delay the cast of a 3 orb DP.
If Devouring Plague misses does it consume your orbs?
Nope. If you miss on DP you will retain your orbs and be able to recast as soon as the GCD is over. Furthermore, since you can only cast DP with orbs anyways it should be pretty easy to notice right away that you missed on your DP cast.
Misses are calculated on the cast not on the ticks.
Just wanted to mention this because I saw someone say that even if you hit with the spell the ticks could miss... which is completely not true.
Missing SW: Death is awful.
Yes, missing a SW:D is not good because it is a fair amount of damage in the execute range. One small upside is that same with MB, if you miss a SW:D you do still generate an orb (note this is only under 20% target health).
Missing VT you might not be able to recast immediately due to movement.
On some fights missing a VT absolutely can cause problems because there might be a second or two where you might not be able to recast it. Much like best case scenarios, worst case scenarios don't often happen. It is something to be aware of though.
How good are you at following mechanics, changing targets, and noticing misses?
There is a lot going on in raids at the same time. If you are going to drop below hit cap you are adding another thing to your plate here. It is quite possible that you just won't be able to react to misses quickly enough to make being under the hit cap work.
Addons that are used to track DoT durations can be fooled by a miss.
Sometimes when you cast a spell the addon you use might assume because you cast it that it hit and will show you that the DoT is on the target, only to randomly disappear a few seconds later. The upshot of this is if you are using an addon to track your misses it can slow down how soon you recast the spell and can result in a loss of dps.
Lower ilvl gear with hit is almost always a worse choice than higher ilvl gear without hit.
Often during raiding because loot is random, we are put in positions where we have to compare a higher ilvl piece without hit to a lower ilvl item with hit. The reason the higher ilvl piece will almost always be a better choice is that the higher ilvl piece will have more int. For this reason having the mentality of "I will never go below hit cap ever" can cost you.
The more under hit cap you are the more likely misses will happen.
Obvious, but doesn't hurt to say it
If I sim it and it says I should go haste over hit, but in game I do more dps with more hit I am doing it wrong?
Well no... not exactly. Basically, running a sim cannot account for all the things about you personally which might affect your personal relationship with hit. Sure it has different settings for different skill levels, but as in real life some people aren't good at honestly accessing their own skill level. If you run a sim and it tells you hit is not at all important, but when you do this in game and your dps goes down, then it would be sort of dumb to keep doing it. Sure it does probably mean you have some things you need to work on (like noticing misses, keeping dots up etc) and it sometimes takes awhile to get that worked out. You have to be honest with yourself and realize if you do or do not have the time/patience/forgiving raid leader to let you work that stuff out.
I am new to shadow, so I heard I don't need hit right?
Personally I would say get hit capped. It's better to learn and get comfortable with the class without further complicating the situation.
So I heard Expertise gives hit now?
Yes we can get hit from expertise now. For the most part this doesn't really matter much because expertise isn't on any cloth gear and anywhere you would enchant or gem expertise you could just get hit/spirit instead. Where it does matter some is for certain races that get expertise racials when using certain weapon types.*
Human - Mace Specialization
Dwarf - Mace Specialization
Gnome - Shortblade Specialization
*I have left out Troll and the Dwarf ranged weapon racial because it had seemed to previously not work with wands, but I want to make sure if it does or doesn't work before listing it.
