Every damage dealer and tank in WoW Forever runs into the same wall sooner or later: attacks and spells that simply miss. A missed Fireball, Sinister Strike or Taunt deals nothing and does nothing, and against raid bosses that happens far more often than against the mobs you quest on. Hit Chance is the stat that removes those misses, and the hit cap is the point where they stop completely.
Forever makes the stat easier than Classic did. There is one Hit Chance for melee, ranged and spells, it comes on gear as a flat percentage, and the character panel tells you exactly how much you still need. As of the October 15 beta build you need 8% Hit Chance for melee and 17% for spells to never miss a raid boss, and 5% and 4% against targets and players of your own level. Below you will find how each type of attack misses, why weapon skill and dual wielding change the math, what the PvP hit cap is, and which talents give Hit Chance for each of the nine classes.
Your chance to miss depends on two things: the type of attack and the level of the target compared to yours. Every level the enemy has over you adds to the miss chance, and raid bosses count as three levels above you, so they are the hardest targets to hit. Hit Chance subtracts directly from that miss chance: 3% Hit Chance means 3% fewer misses.
In Classic, melee hit and spell hit were separate stats, which made gear awkward for hybrids like Enhancement Shamans and Retribution Paladins. In WoW Forever they are one stat. A single Hit Chance bonus improves melee swings, ranged attacks, spells, poisons, traps and taunts all at once. The tooltip on the stat in the character panel shows it plainly: one value increases both Melee and Spell hit chance, and under it the game lists what you need against raid bosses and against targets of your level.
Healing spells cannot miss, so healers can ignore the stat unless they also want to deal damage. Tanks should not ignore it: a missed Taunt or opening attack is lost threat, and Blizzard named landing taunts as one of the reasons the stat was merged.
Spells miss less often than weapons against targets of your level, but the gap grows quickly with the target's level. You need 4% Hit Chance to never miss a target of your own level and 17% to never miss a raid boss. A spell that misses shows up as a resist and has no effect at all, which hurts most on long casts, crowd control and debuffs.
Casters also have the highest cap in the game and the most to gain from talents. Several classes have school-specific hit talents worth 5% to 18%, covered in the class section below.
Melee and ranged attacks need 5% Hit Chance against a target of your level and 8% against a raid boss, as long as your weapon skill is maxed. The 8% cap counts both white auto attacks and special attacks with a single weapon. Ranged attacks follow the melee numbers.
Dual wielding is the exception. Auto attacks with two weapons carry a large extra miss penalty, roughly 19% on top of the normal chance, which puts the dual wield cap at about 24% against same-level enemies and 27% to 29% against raid bosses. The character panel does not show a dual wield number, so treat these values as approximate. Special attacks like Sinister Strike or Bloodthirst do not suffer the dual wield penalty, so for Rogues and Fury Warriors the 8% cap is the important one and anything above it only trims white misses.
Two beta changes affect dual wielding Warriors. Dual Wield Specialization no longer gives any Hit Chance, and queueing Heroic Strike no longer raises off-hand hit chance as it did in Classic. The off-hand now gets its help from the new Fury talent Furious Precision.
Weapon skill is still in WoW Forever, and it is a separate stat from Hit Chance. Each point of skill you are missing below your maximum lowers your chance to hit and to avoid being dodged or parried, and it lowers your critical strike chance by the same amount. On the beta, every missing point costs about 0.04%: a brand-new weapon at 1 out of 40 skill was 1.56% behind against an equal-level enemy, while a weapon at 39 out of 40 was only 0.04% behind. The 8% and 5% caps assume your skill is maxed, so level a new weapon type before you count your hit.
Weapon skill also decides your glancing blows, the reduced-damage auto attacks you land against higher-level targets. Hit Chance does not touch them. Against raid bosses, a weapon at 1 out of 40 skill glanced on every swing for 90% less damage. At 39 out of 40, glancing blows dropped to 42% of swings for 29% less damage. Open the Skills tab of your character window and pick a weapon to see your exact numbers for both equal-level enemies and raid bosses.
WoW Forever Skills tab with Maces at 1 of 40 weapon skill, hit penalty and glancing blows
WoW Forever Skills tab with Two-Handed Swords at 39 of 40 weapon skill, hit penalty and glancing blows
Weapon skill is harder to stack than in Classic. Blizzard lowered how much of it a single item can give, and as of the October 15 build the Human, Orc and Dwarf weapon specialization racials are gone, replaced with critical strike bonuses. For most players the only weapon skill worth chasing is the free one from leveling the skill to its maximum.
The table sums up how much Hit Chance you need to never miss. The spell and melee values are the ones the character panel shows on the October 15 beta build, and they assume maxed weapon skill. A raid boss counts as a target three levels above you; for enemies one or two levels above you the cap sits between the two columns.
| Attack Type | Same-Level Target or Player | Raid Boss |
|---|---|---|
| Spells | 4% | 17% |
| Melee and ranged, one weapon or special attacks | 5% | 8% |
| Dual wield auto attacks | About 24% | About 27-29% |
The panel phrases each value as the Hit Chance you need to never miss, which suggests WoW Forever drops the old rule where 1% of spells always missed. Blizzard has not confirmed this in writing, so if you are a caster sitting exactly on 17%, expect the occasional resist until it is tested at level 60.
Hit Chance on WoW Forever gear is a percentage, not a rating, so there is nothing to convert. Stromgarde Hood from the quest Ground to Keep in the Arathi Highlands gives 0.5%, and Lionheart Helm gives 2% Hit Chance alongside 2% critical strike. Most items with Hit Chance only start to drop around level 50, so expect to lean on talents while leveling. We list the raid and crafted class sets in our WoW Forever tier sets guide.
Players count as targets of their own level, so the PvP hit cap is the same-level cap: 5% for melee and ranged attacks and 4% for spells against a player of your level. The character panel groups targets and players of your level in the same line, and it updates as you level, so a level 19 battleground character sees the same 5% and 4% as a level 60.
WoW Forever has no resilience, so there is no PvP stat that pushes the cap back up. A few talents and debuffs still make you miss more against certain opponents:
In PvP every miss tends to be a crowd control effect that does not land. A resisted Polymorph or Fear can decide a fight, which is why casters value the 4% cap more in PvP than the extra damage would suggest. Hunters get a PvP bonus of their own from Survival Tactics, which makes Freezing Trap and Feign Death far more reliable. For the battlegrounds, ranks and gear around this, see our WoW Forever Normal vs PvP ruleset guide.
Gear gives Hit Chance late, so talents carry most classes until level 50. The talents below are taken from the client data of the October 15 build. A talent in row 1 of a tree is available from level 10, and every next row opens 5 levels later at the earliest.
| Class | Talent | Tree and Row | Hit Chance at Max Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Druid | Nature's Reach | Balance, row 2 | 4% |
| Hunter | Surefooted | Survival, row 3 | 3% |
| Hunter | Survival Tactics | Survival, row 4 | 10% for traps and Feign Death |
| Mage | Arcane Focus | Arcane, row 1 | 5% for Arcane spells |
| Mage | Elemental Precision | Frost, row 1 | 5% for Fire and Frost spells |
| Paladin | Precision | Protection, row 2 | 3% |
| Paladin | Divine Precision | Holy, row 5 | 18% for Holy spells |
| Priest | Holy Precision | Discipline, row 2 | 18% for Holy spells |
| Priest | Shadow Focus | Shadow, row 1 | 5% for Shadow spells |
| Rogue | Precision | Combat, row 2 | 3% |
| Shaman | Tidal Focus | Restoration, row 1 | 5% |
| Warlock | Suppression | Affliction, row 1 | 5% |
| Warrior | Furious Precision | Fury, row 3 | 10% for off-hand attacks |
You can test every combination below in our WoW Forever talent calculator.
Balance Druids take Nature's Reach in row 2: two ranks for 4% Hit Chance and 20% more range on offensive Balance spells. That leaves 13% to find on gear for raid bosses. Feral Druids have no hit talent and rely on gear for their 8%. Every Druid talent change is listed in our WoW Forever Druid talents guide.
Surefooted in Survival gives 3% Hit Chance and shorter snares, so a Hunter with Surefooted needs 5% from gear for raid bosses. Survival Tactics adds 10% hit only to traps and Feign Death, which matters most in PvP. See what else changed in our WoW Forever Hunter talents guide.
Mages have one talent per school. Arcane Focus at the top of Arcane gives 5% to Arcane spells, and Elemental Precision at the top of Frost gives 5% to Fire and Frost spells. Both are row 1 talents, so even a Fire Mage can pick up Elemental Precision with five early points in Frost. With either talent you need 12% from gear for raid bosses. Our WoW Forever Mage talents guide covers the rest of the trees.
Precision sits in the Protection tree, not in Holy, and gives 3% Hit Chance to everything, which suits Protection and Retribution Paladins alike. Holy has Divine Precision in row 5: 18% Hit Chance for Holy spells, enough on its own to cap spells like Holy Shock and Exorcism against raid bosses. It sits too deep for other specs to reach cheaply. Read our WoW Forever Paladin talents guide for the full tree changes.
Priests have the strongest hit talent of any caster. Holy Precision in row 2 of Discipline gives 18% to Holy spells, which caps Smite and Holy Fire against raid bosses with no hit gear at all. Shadow Priests use Shadow Focus in row 1 of Shadow for 5% on Shadow spells and need 12% from gear. Our WoW Forever Priest talents guide explains every other change.
Precision in row 2 of Combat gives 3% Hit Chance, so a Rogue needs 5% from gear for the 8% raid cap on special attacks. Anything past that only helps the dual wield auto attacks. The full list of Rogue talent changes is in our WoW Forever Rogue talents guide.
Tidal Focus at the top of Restoration gives 5% Hit Chance and cheaper healing spells. Because Hit Chance now covers melee and spells, Enhancement and Elemental Shamans both get value from five early points there. The old Nature's Guidance talent from Classic is not in the Forever trees. More in our WoW Forever Shaman talents guide.
Warlocks had no hit talent in Classic. In WoW Forever Suppression in row 1 of Affliction gives 5% Hit Chance and lowers your threat by 20%, so every Warlock spec can take it early. That leaves 12% to find on gear for raid bosses. See every change in our WoW Forever Warlock talents guide.
Warriors have no talent that raises main-hand Hit Chance, so Arms, Fury and Protection all reach 8% through gear. Furious Precision in row 3 of Fury gives 4%, 7% and 10% hit to off-hand attacks only, which helps the dual wield penalty but does nothing for your main hand or for Taunt. Our WoW Forever Warrior talents guide lists the other Fury changes.
Tauren players: as of the October 15 build Endurance no longer gives 1% Hit Chance. It now increases critical strike damage and healing by 2%, so recount your hit if you planned around the old racial.
If you would rather start raiding with your Hit Chance already sorted, our WoW Forever pre-raid gear service gets your character ready for the first raids.
Quick answers to the questions players ask most about Hit Chance in WoW Forever.
8% for melee and ranged attacks and 17% for spells against raid bosses. Against targets and players of your level it is 5% for melee and 4% for spells.
No. Gear gives Hit Chance as a flat percentage, for example +0.5% or +2%, so there is no rating to convert.
No. WoW Forever merged melee, ranged and spell hit into one Hit Chance stat. Only some talents still work for a single spell school.
5% for melee and ranged and 4% for spells against players of your level. There is no resilience in WoW Forever to change it.
The character panel lists the caps as the Hit Chance needed to never miss, which points to no permanent 1% floor. Blizzard has not confirmed it yet, so watch your combat log at 17% spell hit.
About 24% against same-level enemies and 27-29% against raid bosses to remove every white miss. Most dual wielders stop at 8%, the cap for their special attacks.
Yes. Every point below your maximum skill costs about 0.04% hit and crit, and low skill causes far more glancing blows. Keep each weapon type you use at max skill.
No. Healing spells cannot miss. Hit Chance only matters for a healer's damage and crowd control spells.
These guides help you plan the talents and gear behind your hit cap.
