DK Tanking. Hit and Expertise rating!!

[Fanth]

Allright guys there has been alot of confusion related to hit and expertise ratings. This confusion includes me and a bunch of other tanks around my server that arent too sure on what to strive after when tanking.

I have read that the hit soft cap is 8%, also heard its 9%, I also read that the expertise soft cap is 26 and no idea about the hard cap.

Well first off all, to be honest I've never known whats the difference between soft and hard cap, not sure what any of those are, all I know is I got my hit rating to 264, to about 8% and I havent missed once since I got those stats. I still get dodged and parried but my expertise is only at 21 atm.

Mainly what am asking is if those are the right caps and what is the difference between soft and hard cap?

[Feanorr]

Hit "soft" cap is 8% (actually 8,02 I think I read somewhere); my understanding is that the "hard" cap concern only dual weilder. Anyway the soft cap is what you need as a DK (unless you dual weild of course, then it something like 26%, for white swing).

Expertise "soft" cap or dodge cap is 26, or 6,5% and make you ignore all dodge (from bosses) but not all parry; the parry cap is unknow because it depend on the boss (I think it vary from 10 to 15%)

If want more informations you can check either here: Combat rating system - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft
or here: [FAQ]Working theories of raiding at level 80 - Elitist Jerks

[Satorri]

DKs have 3 hit 'caps' really:
Melee special moves = 8% (this includes all 'strikes' and a few others, like BB, Pest)
Melee auto-attacks = 8% with 2h, 27% with 2x1h's
Spell specials = 17% (this actually only applies to DC, IT, and HB that I've seen, DnD and UB have an odd lower miss chance, higher than the melee special, lower than the spell chance)

Expertise removes your chance to be dodged or parried, the 'soft' cap refers to the maximum dodge chance which is a bit less than half the max parry chance:
Dodge = 6.4% = 26 Exp (technically removes 6.5% but it goes in 0.25 steps)
Parry = ~12-14% = 48-56 Exp (this is pretty expensive general concensus is it's of limited value to stack past 26 though you do still get value out of it).


Note: these caps are based on the worst case scenario, being Boss mobs (effectively level 83), anything lower level has a significantly decreased hit chance. A level 82 mob, for example, tops out at 5.4% melee miss, 6% spell miss, and ~5% dodge, ~5% parry. Also remember you get more spell miss % from the same rating (32.79 hit rating = 1% melee miss reduction, 26.23 hit rating = 1% spell miss reduction).