+Hit and +Spell Hit for PvP?

[LavCat]

How much +Hit and +Spell Hit are required to reach the hit cap in PvP?

Fortran, my shaman, does not see a lot of misses in melee, but more resists than she would like with shocks. Her Gladiator's Mail Gauntlets are probably worth a good enchant, and she was thinking of Spell Strike. Would a Great Dawnstone somewhere serve her just as well? She currently has no +Spell Hit at all.

Any thoughts are welcome.


Edit: Duh -- there is nothing merciless about her gloves! They are just plain old Gladiator's junk. That's what I get for copying from Thott.

[Taelas]

+spell hit is not a PvP stat.

What you want is Spell Penetration.

[Legedi]

For PvP I think there is a base chance to miss of 5% for everything except DW, which is 24%. If I'm wrong maybe someone else know. I don't know what your talent build is, but shamans have a few different talents that increase melee and spell chance to hit.

For PvP it's pretty important to get to the hit cap (except for the 24% of DW) IMO. Missing, or getting spells resisted, plain sucks. And the cap is lower than raid bosses, so it should be pretty easy to get to.

Now as a shaman if you are enhancement you would need physical hit, and spell hit. There it might just might be better to focus on physical hit, and not worry too much about spell. I'm not sure how exactly enhancement shamans want to gear for PvP.

[TheDragoon]

My understanding for PvP is that the base miss chance is 5% for most things (spells, special attacks, single weapon melee) and 24% for dual wield. That is modified by whatever resistances your target has, however (be it resistances for spells or defense for physical attacks). I am no expert, but I believe I have heard that you can recover 4% of the 5% base miss chance for spells via spell hit, so that's probably what you should shoot for. As Seiki notes, missing spells can suck, particularly in clutch situations (that spell that would have killed the focus target or a crucial sheep attempt). :)

[Delc]

You want 4% spell hit for PvP and you can get 3% from the resto talent. I would just ignore the last 1% as the lost physical dps stats will not be outweighed by the spell hit. For spell penetration I wouldn't bother with more than the 20 from the cloak enchant. No one will ever have more than 10nr that can't be purged.

[Xame]

See:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...=10271182&sid=1

for the Blizzard formula (its a 4% miss rate and you can never remove the last 1%). Thus all you need is +3% for PvP if you want to max the stat.

As far as +penetration in PvP, you are better off with +spell damage or +stam. Resilience is really removing some of the bang of the +spell crit. As far as I know, no one is wearing +resist gear for PvP with the possible exception of shadow (damn overpowered warlocks and shadow priests). Thus penetration is a waste of stats as a shaman.

My advice, cap the +spell hit stat (3% should be easy to do ~40 +spell hit or talents) and then gear for stam or damage to PvP.

[Taelas]

As I said, if you see excessive resists with spells on equal-level opponents, you want Spell Penetration. The only way for your spells to be resisted excessively is if they have some form of passive resists (paladin auras, buffs, gear), and the only thing that works against those is Spell Penetration. (Of course, in the case of buffs, you can purge them.)

Spellhit works on the base miss chance with spells (which is increased by level difference) and nothing else. That's +3% for equal-level opponents.

[Watto44]

Base chance to get a "white" resist* versus a level 70 mob/toon is 4%. There is always a 1% chance to get a white resist, so you want to grab 3% spell hit as quickly as you can. Note that spell penetraition has absolutely no effect on these "white" resists.

Base chance to miss an equal level mob/toon is 5% when you're not dual wielding. Unfortunately I have no idea if there is a cap on melee misses, but somewhere in the back of my head is the idea that there isn't. So I would be thinking of aiming for around 5% +hit.

On the same note, I'm not sure what the base miss chance is for special attacks while dual wielding. Is that still 5%?

* "White" resist is the common name. They are basically spell misses and affected by the +spell hit stat. They are called white resists because they used to be white in your combat log, where as resists that appeared yellow were due to the mob/player having resistance gear on. All resists are now the same colour in the combat log now.

edit: I did a quick search on wowwiki and found the following:

spell hit: http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Spell_hit_chance

melee +hit and +crit: http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Critical_hit_chance

[LavCat]

Base chance to get a "white" resist* versus a level 70 mob/toon is 4%. There is always a 1% chance to get a white resist, so you want to grab 3% spell hit as quickly as you can. Note that spell penetraition has absolutely no effect on these "white" resists.

Base chance to miss an equal level mob/toon is 5% when you're not dual wielding. Unfortunately I have no idea if there is a cap on melee misses, but somewhere in the back of my head is the idea that there isn't. So I would be thinking of aiming for around 5% +hit.

On the same note, I'm not sure what the base miss chance is for special attacks while dual wielding. Is that still 5%?

* "White" resist is the common name. They are basically spell misses and affected by the +spell hit stat. They are called white resists because they used to be white in your combat log, where as resists that appeared yellow were due to the mob/player having resistance gear on. All resists are now the same colour in the combat log now.

edit: I did a quick search on wowwiki and found the following:

spell hit: http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Spell_hit_chance

melee +hit and +crit: http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Critical_hit_chance

I had read those wowwiki articles before I posted my original question. The Spell Hit one in particular is confusing and I did not agree with the analysis: for one thing, if Tseric the Druid is wandering around on the battlefield with 250 Nature Resistance, Tseric deserves to resist my Frost Shock.

When I went back and read the discussion page, I noticed I was not the only one who had a problem with the wowwiki topic. In PvP, of course, all the shocks have special uses. Earth Shock interrupts, Frost Shock slows a runner, Flame Shock applies a DoT. The consequences of a missed shock can be the mage gets off a Pyroblast, the flag carrier gets away, and the rogue vanishes. After running in WSG all weekend I noticed the classes that resist shocks the most were rogues and mages. For mages I assume because of their shields. Rogues on the other hand (nasty little rogues) have a talent, Heightened Senses that can reduce the chance to be hit with spells by 4% (or they may just like to use CoS). Unfortunately with Fortran's build, Nature's Guidance is not an option. She could rearrange her talents, drop Unleashed Rage and put two points in Elemental Precision. Unleashed Rage is such a nice talent, she would hate to give it up, but at least on a Basin thread I read, Elemental Precision is well thought of. Besides, in PvP there are not a lot of procs of Unleashed Rage anyhow.

She would then have a build that would look like this:

Enhancement/Elemental


Two points in Elemental Precision give +4% chance to hit with spells. With Inspiring Presence that makes 5. Inspiring Prescence would be even more inspiring if the effect showed up on the lying character sheet. Does anyone know for sure if it actually affects the character herself or just affects other players in the party? According to Blizzard's description it's supposed to, and I found a blue post that said the buf was being applied to the character all the time.

The Spell Strike enchant would probably then be overkill, although (as I understand it) it would reduce the miss rate against rogues from 3% to 2%.

Then there is the question Alliera raised about Spell Penetration. Is there consensus that the cloak enchant is sufficient? Does +1 penetration cancel 1 resist?

[oldmandennis]

That's an interesting spec to say the least. Instant death to somebody, I guess. What's your reasoning for it?

In any event, you have a burst damage spec, but UR is based on staying in combat for a while. To me it would seem like an easy thing to ditch. Capping your spell hit seems like a much better use of points.

1 point in spell pen does negate 1 resist. It's probably not worth doing any thing about.

[Kevin]

I've been doing better than I thought in BG's with my enh/resto build (you can follow the sig to my armory profile). The spec (which actually needs some tweaks due to a misclick and just one bad idea) was set-up so that I could be very strong 5 man DPS and so that in my healing gear I would be fine healing 5 mans as well. It works for both of those. Nature's swiftness has a lot of very nice uses. If I wanted more PvP focus improved ghost wolf for sure, but on a PvE server and with a PvE focus'd spec it's mostly not needed at all.

But what I've noticed in BG's (and even in the 3v3 arena some) is that I can wear mostly melee DPS gear with the exception of caster shoulders and a caster weapon/shield (weapon swaps are so easy to do). I wear caster shoulders to give a false visual impression since the shoulders are the most obvious indicator of what gear the person is in and because for my shoulder choices, my melee DPS ones that I have right now are leather so I the extra armor of the caster ones helps.

But I tend to heal my team mates until I'm LoM then I go back to DW (you pre apply WF to the slow MH and frost brand to the fast offhand) and smash folks. 80% of my damage is mana free since it's autoattack and windfury procs. So healing till I'm OOM with a healing shield and healing weapon on then providing DPS helps a lot. In many BG's I'll be top 5 for healing done, but I'll also end up in the top 10 for damage done. This is combined stats, not just my faction. I can still run flags if needed as well (nature swiftness ghost wolf with this spec). My healing isn't uber since I'll only have about +400 healing mainly from the weapon and shield, but in AB, WSG, or EotS ANY healing can mean your side wins the skirmish and while a 1300 lesser healing wave non crit isn't huge it can certainly be enough.

Rogues tend to not know what to do when I survive their initial stunlock (because I have the shield on and over 9K armor) and NS heal myself then go DW and smash a few 1300 WF proc crits in their face. It's quite fun. NS chain lightning can be a lot of fun as well at times as I'm wading into battle LoM or OOM and expecting to die but buying time so burning the NS cooldown doesn't matter as a good minute of it will be back from the time it took me to die, the rez pulse to go off and then me getting back to the action, it not more.

On the arena team I provide enough healing punch to keep the priest up if they get focused first while the warrior puts out the damage. If the warrior gets focused first (I don't know why they do that, but they do sometimes) the priest can keep him up while I dish out damage. And Nature's Swiftness is HUGE value for saving someone from trinket power bursts.

I could pack more punch with some elemental talents, but really it's much harder for me to do damage as elemental and while the gear makes the heals bigger and the mana pool a bit bigger as well, I have to burn more of that mana to do real damage, since enh can do a lot of damage without mana, pretty much all my mana can go to healing and I can still put out the DPS.

I don't think my spec follows conventional wisdom for shaman PvP, but I think I've made it work quite well and if I get some more PvP gear to help back it up, I think it will just get better.

[oldmandennis]

That spec makes a lot more sense to me, and it's what I'm slowly building towards on my shaman. Though you should consider unleashed rage mandatory if you want to raid and I would strongly prefer to go full resto or elemental/resto for pvp.

[LavCat]

That's an interesting spec to say the least. Instant death to somebody, I guess. What's your reasoning for it?

In any event, you have a burst damage spec, but UR is based on staying in combat for a while. To me it would seem like an easy thing to ditch. Capping your spell hit seems like a much better use of points.

1 point in spell pen does negate 1 resist. It's probably not worth doing any thing about.

The whole reason for creating Fortran came about from an observation of Baguette, my Field Marshall priest, as she once lay in a small puddle by a farm flag, underneath a distempered bovine enveloped in some black, swirlly cloud.

When she first reached 70 Fortran had Dual Wield and not many points in Elemental. She soon saw the desirability of having a reduced cooldown on shocks, then later on the fun of Storm Reach for soloing. Besides, Dual Wield was boring. Her current build, which has Unleashed Rage, was a compromise for raiding. Since then She, I, and Divine Wrath have parted company, and anyhow the Karazhan belt she has is not nearly as nice as the Veteran's she is wearing.

As long as Windfury procs, things usually go well. Last week a hunter tried to take Snowfall from her. She dropped a Windwall, charged the hunter, and it looked like the hunter feigned death, except she could not attack that target. The log showed a shock and a Storm Strike followed by a Windfury. But the hunter could not have been that well geared.

On the other hand, if a warlock or a shadow priest gets the jump on her it often does not go well. Same with rogues, who will stun lock her. Recently though she did get the KB on a rogue in melee with a lightning bolt by accident (hit the wrong key). Warriors, I think it depends upon the skill and gear. One on one in a recent WSG she got a warrior and still had more than half her health. But the MS ones with what look like full Gladiator tear her up pretty good. Mages, depends on if she can catch them. Had to laugh recently, one on one she smashed a mage for the kill only to die from his arcane explosion. Druids are sometimes hard and sometimes easy. Bears go down, it just takes a lot of swings. Cats are much more troublesome. Paladins, just be patient till the bubble goes away.

Fortran still needs a lot more stamina and resiliance so she can last longer herself. The few time she has tried 5x5 it was a disaster, everyone picked upon her first.

As to Penetration, assuming a paladin aura and using the formula:

Average Resistance = (Target Resistance/(Caster's Level*5))*0.75

I concluded that with maxed +Spell Hit and no Penetration, the chance to miss with shocks would go from 1% to 10%. In the case of a 10% racial the miss chance would would go from 1% to worse than 3%. With just the Blood Elf racial, it would go from 1% to 2%. Looking at it another way, a bit of penetration would double the chance to hit, and sounds like a good deal to me.

Edit: Spelling.

[Zarathustra]

With just the Blood Elf racial, it would go from 1% to 2%. Looking at it another way, a bit of penetration would double the chance to hit, and sounds like a good deal to me.

Doubling chance to hit and halving chance to miss are slightly different concepts. ;)

[Arnulf]

With just the Blood Elf racial, it would go from 1% to 2%.

You probably mean the Draenei racial, Inspiring presence. I'm not sure but I think it only gives your party the buff and not to yourself. Would need another caster Draenei in your party for that.

[LavCat]

You probably mean the Draenei racial, Inspiring presence. I'm not sure but I think it only gives your party the buff and not to yourself. Would need another caster Draenei in your party for that.

I don't know how to test for the effect of Inspiring Presence, but the following is a link to a thread where a Blizzard QA person says he has tested and verified that Inspiring Presence effect is applied to the character at all times.

Blue Post

What I meant though was the Blood Elf racial, Magic Resistance, +5 to all resistances.

[LavCat]

A couple of specific build questions:

Would three filler points in Elemental better be put toward Convection or Eye of the Storm? I assume that if Bolty is correct that priest talents proc on resisted crits, shaman talents do as well. Of course I know better than to assume anything with Blizzard. Eye of the Storm might get off a heal or some lightning, but Fortran seldom uses non-instant spells in PvP (not counting Ghost Wolf). Come to think of it she hates being interrupted going into Ghost Wolf.

Would one filler point in Enhancement better be put in Enhancing Totems or Toughness?

[oldmandennis]

Baguette, my Field Marshall priest, as she once lay in a small puddle by a farm flag, underneath a distempered bovine enveloped in some black, swirlly cloud.

Ah, I believe the term for this is "Observational Bias". You remember the time you get a SS->WF double crit and get splattered, and you don't remember the times you survived because the shaman had a dry patch on WF.

Her current build, which has Unleashed Rage, was a compromise for raiding. Since then She, I, and Divine Wrath have parted company,

That's good, because it's a pretty poor compromise. 2h is just terrible for raiding - it does less sustained damage, and you can't even auto attack for quite a while due to the risk of a WF double crit pulling aggro. With fewer hits you will have a hard time sustaining UR, and with only 3 points in it you woln't make much of a difference anyways.

Warriors, I think it depends upon the skill and gear. One on one in a recent WSG she got a warrior and still had more than half her health. But the MS ones with what look like full Gladiator tear her up pretty good.

All you are going to be able to do is pray for incompetence. Any main warrior who pvp's even casually will be closing in on full gladiator, and the armor and resilience will cripple your burst. In a battle of attrition, without any real way to heal and inferior special attacks, you are going to lose, probably badly.

the fun of Storm Reach for soloing

What do you solo for? Your toon seems geared enough to solo decently even without storm reach. Alternatively, could you finish your shadow priest? Supposedly they are one of the premier soloing classes.

This is what I would do for a PvP suicide spec

As to Penetration, assuming a paladin aura and using the formula:

Competent paladins play with concentration aura up. If they are going to put up any resistance aura, it would be shadow.

[LavCat]

Ah, I believe the term for this is "Observational Bias". You remember the time you get a SS->WF double crit and get splattered, and you don't remember the times you survived because the shaman had a dry patch on WF.
That's good, because it's a pretty poor compromise. 2h is just terrible for raiding - it does less sustained damage, and you can't even auto attack for quite a while due to the risk of a WF double crit pulling aggro. With fewer hits you will have a hard time sustaining UR, and with only 3 points in it you woln't make much of a difference anyways.
All you are going to be able to do is pray for incompetence. Any main warrior who pvp's even casually will be closing in on full gladiator, and the armor and resilience will cripple your burst. In a battle of attrition, without any real way to heal and inferior special attacks, you are going to lose, probably badly.
What do you solo for? Your toon seems geared enough to solo decently even without storm reach. Alternatively, could you finish your shadow priest? Supposedly they are one of the premier soloing classes.

This is what I would do for a PvP suicide spec
Competent paladins play with concentration aura up. If they are going to put up any resistance aura, it would be shadow.

I think I see what you are saying but I don't believe that is Observational Bias. If nothing else, I am a scientist by training. And I've had a (not often played) horde shaman since WoW went retail. There was nothing meant to be scientific about Baguette's observation. Most of my characters have some specific reason for being. In Fafner's case it was a Prospector's Axe Tribade brought home from the Deadmines one night when she went in to rescue Zippyy. Fafner still has the axe. In Woad's case it was a Hurricane Tribade found at Sorrow Hill.

For raiding shaman do use two-handers, but I agree, in that case, Dual Wield is probably better for the reasons that you cited. I recently inspected a shaman with raid purples and a World Breaker. Of course it is possible once they get inside the instance the World Breaker goes in inventory. And even Fortran switches to a shield as necessary.

A paladin aura as an example for the resistance formula as it applies to chance to hit is no less meaningful than Tseric the Druid with 250 NR. My main is a paladin so I know something about the class. She does not do battlegrounds but if she did I think she would go in with a shadow aura, unless she had a priest buff.

Baguette my priest once had Shadowform, but she has been an Improved Mana Burn spec for a long time. She is 66 and I think I will try giving her Shadowform again when she hits 70.

The build you listed has 3 points in Elemental Precision. I know you spoke earlier about capping spell hit, but do you think three points in Elemental Prescision is worth it for PvP? That would give Fortran 7% +Spell Hit with no contribution from gear, enchants, or gems. I am thinking 5% would be enough, although I could be talked into 7.

[LavCat]

What I finally went with:

Enhancement/Elemental II


In the end I decided to max Elemental Precision and take Eye of the Storm. Spell Hit should be +7%. I now need to worry about Penetration (probably the cloak enchant) and +Hit.