gnomeDK – Your Pink Haired Guide to All Things Death Knight

It appears that melee hit cap for single weapons and special attacks is currently at 8% (use to be 9% against mobs +3 levels, i.e. bosses). It is uncertain whether this was a deliberate change with the expansion or a bug that will eventually get fixed. There is a thread on Elitist Jerks going over this matter and the testing done seems to be pretty consistent. Paladins are having some odd results and Titan’s Grip for warriors uses it’s own caps, but for single weapon users (feral druids, hunters, and of course two-handed death knights) the results all point to an 8% hit cap.

I did my own testing on a boss level target dummy and got similar results.

Hit Rating 264 (8.05%)

Melee – 1000

• Hit & Crit: 708
• Glancing: 243
• Dodge: 49 (4.9%)
• Miss: 0

Specials – 500

• Hit & Crit: 471
• Dodge: 29 (5.8%)
• Miss: 0

Hit Rating 255 (7.78%)

Got a miss after 200-250 swings.

So what does this mean for death knights? For two-handed weapons the melee hit cap is 263 hit rating. For dual wielding it seems 28% is still the untalented hit cap for the offhand, but the main hand is affected by the new 8% cap. With the appropriate talents dual wield requires 164 hit rating for main hand/specials cap, 820 hit rating for off hand cap (obviously not worth going for but shows extra hit is useful).

Spell hit is unaffected directly by this, however how a death knight goes for spell hit cap is affected. Spell hit only affects Icy Touch, Howling Blast, and Death Coil, so unless you are Frost spec the hit cap isn’t as big of a deal (personally I’m finding Unholy Blight is as good as or better than Death Coil for raid DPS). Spell hit cap is 17%, but you also need less hit rating to get 1% of spell hit than you do 1% of melee hit. With the 9% melee hit cap and Virulence talent you would instantly gain spell hit cap provided there was a shadow priest (Misery) in your raid. With an 8% melee cap the numbers aren’t as nice. With Virulence and a shadow priest you need 289 hit rating to spell hit cap, and if you are only going for the melee hit cap you’ll come up 26 hit rating short.

Bottom Line:

Melee and special hit cap has been tested and retested as being at 8% for many classes (including death knights), but we don’t know if this is deliberate or not.

Blood & Unholy Death Knights w/Two-Handed Weapon: Want 263 hit rating for melee cap. Going up to 289 hit rating caps Death Coil (assuming Virulence and shadow priest). Anything more is a waste.

Frost Death Knights w/Two-Handed Weapon: Want 289 hit rating for melee and spell hit cap (assuming Virulence and shadow priest). If you don’t always have a shadow priest in raid then you want to go higher, however anything beyond 368 hit rating is a waste, even w/o a shadow priest.

Dual Wielding Death Knights: Want 164 hit rating for main hand/specials hit cap (assuming Nerves of Cold Steel). Anything past that only helps off hand and should not be stacked at the cost of other vital stats (mainly strength and crit).