Spell Hit/ Hit Rating

Spell hit is a combat attribute that increases a caster's chance to hit with spells. Spell hit is primarily obtained from talents or gear that has spell hit rating. The more spell hit gear a caster has the lesser the chance an enemy will resist his spells. This chance to hit is capped at 99%, therefore there will always be at least 1% chance the enemy will resist spells. Base chance to hit is based only on level difference between the caster and the target. A spell that fails to hit is shown as a resist, though this is different than the spell resistance mechanic.

How spell hit chance is calculated
Base chance to hit is based on level difference between caster and target, starting at 96% for even levels, and going up or down from there, capping at a maximum 99%. Furthermore, the chance to hit is different for mobs (PvE) and player (PvP) targets.

Level Difference PvE PvP
- 3 99% 99%
- 2 98% 98%
- 1 97% 97%
0 96% 96%
+ 1 95% 95%
+ 2 94% 94%
+ 3 83% 87%
+ 4 72% 80%
+ 5 61% 73%

Getting 12.6 spell hit rating is 1% spell hit, and is directly translated to 1% damage in the long run. This can also increase your spell crit chance since a lack of spell hit actually reduces your spell crit by [83%(73 boss lvl mobs) + talents with spell hit% + spell hit% on gear =spell hit% on mob (capped to 99%) which I will name X. (X*spell crit%)=actual, or net spell crit chance. A level 70 caster gains 1% chance to hit for every 12.6 points of spell hit rating, making the effective cap 202.

Hit refers to physical damage that occurs as a result of an attack made with melee or ranged weapons. The chance to hit increases by 1% per 15.8 hit rating points at level 70. The base chance to miss with maximum weapon skill against an opponent of equal level is 5% for two handed and 24% for dual wield.

a Level 70 character with a Weapon Skill of 350, you need a Hit Rating of 142 (9.00%)/ 442.4 (28%) to never miss a shot against a Level 73 boss (or skull mob).
Furthermore you only need the 142 hit rating to not miss with your special/ yellow attacks.

Auto attacks (one roll table)

Each melee auto attack made by characters against mobs will result in one of the following in order of precedence:

Miss
Dodge
Parry
Glancing blow
Block
Critical strike
Hit

Increased hit rating can result in increased critical strike results from auto attacks. For example: maximum dual wielding weapon skill, chance to hit 0% and chance to critical strike 50%. Dual wield auto attacking a raid boss from behind results in a loss of 8.6% critical strike:

Miss 28%
Dodge 5.6%
Glancing blow 25%
Critical strike 41.4%
Hit 0%

Increase chance to hit to 10% and decrease chance to critical strike to 45% results in no loss of critical strike:

Miss 18%
Dodge 5.6%
Glancing blow 25%
Critical strike 45%
Hit 6.4%

Special attacks (two roll table)

Each melee special attack made by characters against mobs will result in one of the following in order of precedence:

Miss
Dodge
Parry
Block
Hit

If the result is block or hit, then a second roll occurs to determine critical strike as follows:

* Block: roll for blocked hit or blocked critical strike
* Hit: roll for hit or critical strike

Increased hit rating can result in increased critical strike results from special attacks upon exceeding the base 9% chance to miss. For example: maximum weapon skill (350 at level 70), chance to hit 0% and chance to critical strike 25%. Special attacking a raid boss (level 73 and 365 defense) from behind results 21.35% critical strike (25% of 85.4%). Increase chance to hit to 10% results in 23.6% critical strike (25% of 94.4%).

Note: It is possible and even likely that even yellow attacks use a one roll table, as the white attacks explain above.

Dagger rogues = hit > crit > ap
Aim for: +250 hit rating, +28% chance to crit, +1450 Attack Power.

Sword/mace rogues = hit > ap > crit
Aim for: +250 hit rating, +23% chance to crit, +1600 Attack Power.