Ghost Hit and the Hit Cap

A lot of paladins 'round Azeroth have been reporting weird phenomena regarding their miss rates and their hit rating. With hit rates as low as 5%, some ret paladins are reporting zero misses against raid-level bosses.

Now, the theoretical "hit cap" for a 2-handed weapon wielder is 9%, or ~295 hit rating. How is it that DPS'ers sporting as low as 5% hit are recording zero misses? Some theorize that anyone who had the Precision talent pre-3.0 retained the 3% hit boost it granted, despite the disappearance of the talent.

How does this alter your approach? Well, it means that when you're gearing up, you can aim for a total hit boost of ~197 from gear and still not worry about misses. If you frequently party-up with a Draenei, then you can drop it even lower to ~164 hit. That's really really ridiculously lower than the actual cap! And just another reason why you should aim for strength in gems/enchants rather than hit.

Us paranoid people, though, are preparing for the moment when Blizzard discovers this little snag in the coding and elminates this "ghost hit" that some paladins are benefiting from. If you're rollin' in gold and don't care about the possibility of re-gemming or re-enchanting your gear if/when the ghost hit disappears, then by all means gear for 197. However, it'd be in your best interest to be ready with some backup gear/enchants to get up to 295.

I'll likely be switching some of my hit stuff over to expertise since I'm really light in the expertise department, but beware fair reader, this ghost hit might not last. I anticipate Blizzard ninja-editing it via hotfix or patch sometime in the next few months.