Hitting the spell hit cap at 80 for warlocks, using rep and crafted gear

I’ve recently been doing some looking at that delightful mechanic of spell hit (or as Wrath calls it, ‘hit rating’ – hoorah for homogenization of stats). For a warlock, in Burning Crusade, the magic number if you wanted to have a 99% chance of hitting a raid boss was 202. Doesn’t sound like much, but honestly, getting 202 spell hit prior to actually doing any raiding was a pain in the ass. There’s an occasional rep item like Ashyen’s Gift you can pick up, some main-hand or off-hand items, and even the occasional enchantment, but what it boils down to is that spell hit is a fairly annoying thing to stat for prior to actually raiding.

Hence, a catch 22: many raids want you to be hit capped to go on a raid, but you need to go on a raid (or gimp yourself in other areas) to hit the hit cap.

Well, friends, it looks like Wrath is set to fix a great deal of that.

Using data from MMO Champion and Wowhead, I’ve compiled a short list of items that (assuming all stays as-is), you can get simply by running heroic dungeons, regular dungeons, a little tailoring (optional), and a few rep grinds (most no higher than Honored, which is a piece of cake – as most of us know from TBC – and one at Revered, but it’s optional). Why these particular items? Because the spell hit cap at level 80, as I have it from a reliable source, is 464. The below list requires no gems, no enchantments, nothing apart from gear. Caveat: I’ll be using a MH/OH combo rather than a single 2-handed staff, because (1) I couldn’t find a staff with hit rating on it, only crit and haste, and (2) I prefer MH/OH personally.

Also this only applies to warlocks, but that’s because that’s all I know well enough to post.

• Main Hand: Cursed Lich Blade (heroic drop, location unknown) or Flameheart Spell Scalpel (requires revered with The Kirin Tor)
• Off Hand: Telestra’s Journal (drop in Heroic Nexus from Grand Magus Telestra)
• Ranged: Wand of the San’layn (heroic drop, location unknown)
• Head: your choice
• Neck: Necklace of Taldaram (heroic drop, location unknown)
• Chest: Turtle-Minders Robe (requires honored with The Kalu’ak) or Ebonweave Robe (requires Tailoring)
• Back: Dark Soldier Cape (requires honored with Knights of the Ebon Blade)
• Wrist: your choice
• Hands: Ebonweave Gloves (requires Tailoring) or Lava Burn Gloves (drops from normal Violet Hold, exact boss unknown)
• Waist: Girdle of Bane (drop in Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle from King Ymiron) or Flowing Sash of Order (heroic drop, location unknown) or Belt of Unified Souls (heroic drop, location unknown) or Sash of the Wizened Wyrm (requires Honored with the Wyrmrest Accord)
• Legs: your choice
• Feet: your choice
• Rings: The Prospector’s Prize (heroic drop, location unknown) and Voodoo Signet (quest reward from For Posterity)
  Trinkets: Mark of the War Prisoner (heroic drop, location unknown)

All told, that’ll put you anywhere from 407 to 474 hit rating (407 if you get nothing but the items with the lowest hit rating in the areas where there is more than option, 474 if you get the highest) – and remember, the cap is only 464! There’s also enchantments to take into account; while the head and shoulder enchants I can find seem to only add spellpower and critical strike, there’s bound to be a stronger version of Spell Strike. Plus you can gem out some of the pieces that are your choice, or gem other pieces until they’re suitable replacements for the above – the ones I listed don’t have gem slots, but plenty of others do. And who knows, maybe there’ll be more quest rewards with suitable amounts of hit rating besides just the ones I listed!

Personally, I’m just glad to see that it’ll be possible for me to be all I can be before I ever set foot in Naxx-10 or Naxx-25. I’m excited all over again.