Hit Caps for a Rogue in Cataclysm

Once you reach Level 85 you will have a new set of hit caps to maintain to get ready for raiding. With the new Level 85 Rating Conversions we will need much more hit rating then before in order to obtain our goal hit percentage.

The original boundaries are the same for each hit cap so let's work out what we need in order to be hit capped.

Special Attacks: 8% Hit
Poison Procs: 17% Spell Hit
Auto Attacks: 27% Hit

What is a Hit Cap?
Hit Caps are the minimum and maximum amount of hit you need to obtain in order to prevent attacks from ever missing your target. Rogues have three different hit caps because they use 3 different types of attack. These are Auto-Attacks, Poison Procs and Special Abilities.

Yellow Hit Cap
The yellow hit cap is the name given to the hit you need in order to prevent any special abilities from missing your target. It is also commonly referred to as the Special Hit Cap. The yellow hit cap uses Physical Hit rating conversions to calculate your hit percentage. All rogues should obtain the yellow hit cap before raiding.

Poison Hit Cap
The poison hit cap is the name given to the hit you need in order to prevent any poison procs from missing your target. It is also commonly referred to as the Spell Hit Cap or the Soft Hit Cap. The poison hit cap uses Spell Hit rating conversions to calculate your hit percentage. All rogues should obtain the poison hit cap before raiding.

White Hit Cap
The white hit cap is the name given to the hit you need in order to prevent any auto-attacks from missing your target. It is also commonly referred to as the Hard Hit Cap. The white hit cap uses Physical Hit rating conversions to calculate your hit percentage. You should never try to achieve the White Hit Cap for your rogue, but it is fine to be somewhere inbetween the Poison and White Caps.


How to Calcuate the Hit Caps
We know that at Level 85 we need 120.10 Hit Rating per 1% Hit Skill and 102.44 Spell Hit per 1% Skill. We also know the amount of hit in percentage values that we need in order to obtain each hit cap. So for example:

Special Hit Cap =  8% Physical Hit
1% Hit = 120.10 Hit Rating
8% Hit = 8 x 120.10 = 960.8 Hit Rating

Un-Buffed Hit Caps
Buffs Talent Builds can change your hit caps. However if completely unbuffed these will therefore be your hit caps as a rogue (rounded up to whole numbers):

Special Attacks: 961 Hit Rating
Poison Procs: 1742 Hit Rating
Auto Attacks: 3243 Hit Rating

Precision
Rogues have a talent called [Precision] which is found at the top of the Combat Talent Tree. Combat rogues and most likely Subtlety rogues will always have 3/3 points in Precision but Mutilate rogues will usually have only 2/3 points in Precision. Each point spent in Precision awards the rogue with 2% Hit for both Physical Hit and Spell Hit.  At Level 85 this is how much Hit Rating you will get for precision:

3 Talent Points in Precision
720.6 Physical Hit Rating and 614.64 Spell Hit Rating
New Hit Cap Values:
Yellow Hit Cap: 241 Poison Hit Cap: 1128 White Hit Cap: 2523

2 Talent Points in Precision
480.4 Physical Hit Rating and 409.76 Spell Hit Rating
New Hit Cap Values:
Yellow Hit Cap: 481 Poison Hit Cap: 1333 White Hit Cap: 2763

1 Talent Points in Precision
240.2 Physical Hit Rating and 204.88 Spell Hit Rating
New Hit Cap Values:
Yellow Hit Cap: 721 Poison Hit Cap: 1538 White Hit Cap: 3003

Questions About Hit

Q. What about Heroic Presence 1% Hit?
A. Heroic Presence now only affects the Draenei who has it. Since rogues cannot be Draenei, we will never be affected by Heroic Presence.

Q. Do I need to stack two different hit types: Physcial and Spell?
A. No. Poison hit calculations use spell hit conversion to calculate the hit percentage but it still uses the same Hit Rating on gear that you use for physcial hit.

Q. Are there any other buffs that could affect our hit cap?
A. No, hit buffs that could affect rogues were removed from the game in Patch 4.0.1 with the exception of Heroic Presence (see first question).

Q. That seems like an awful lot of hit...
A. Yes we think so too, but don't worry, all the stats on our gear will increase so dramaticaly that these values won't be as far off as you think. When you first start raiding in Cataclysm however, expect to need to juggle gear around and use reforging to reach the caps.