What is the exact deal with the hit and expertise caps?

[draq2009]

I have researched and studied all of what i can find and still don't know how to handle this. I am a very versitlie tank, absolutly loving it and don't mind doing it. My question is what is the hit and expertise numbers? I see tanks on the armory with 0-5% hit and low expertise but talking about the 8% and the 26 caps? Can some on clarify that for me please?

[Bigbad]

8% hit is the cap, 26 expertise is the softcap so you won't get dodged anymore but still have some chance to be parried. Look at the character sheet blizz implemented miss chance versus lvl 85-88.
Atm tanks don't need any hit/expertise to hold threat thanks to vengeance but it helps a little bit. In short go for mastery & avoidance.

[Theotherone]

The hit cap is 8% i.e. your white swings won't miss a mob upto and including level 88; the expertise soft cap is 26 i.e. a boss cannot dodge your melee swings, but you can still be parried (the old Parry gibe is gone so no big deal). I have no recollection of the hard cap for expertise.

There is some debate about whether or not you even need to concern yourself with these numbers for threat. Some top end tanks just tend to ignore these stats and reforge into more useful suvivability stats. Then there's another group that feels you need to be at least hit or experitese capped for threat.

Personally, I don't worry about these on my DK, he has what he has and I have no threat issues. On my Pally I find I need the expertise to be around 22 or 23 or I start losing mobs, but hit I don't worry about. I won't gem or enchant or reforge for it, but I will food buff and use Seal of Truth.

I'm sure others can give a much better explaination, but that's the nutshell version.

I heal tanks in my guild that believe that you need to be hit/exp capped and I must say, I prefer tanks that focus on suvivablity.

[Scotteq]

The deal is: In the current tier of content, capping hit and expertise is not necessary for threat due to the way vengeance works. Also, Parry~Haste has been removed from the game. Therefore many/most tanks do not gear for melee stats, preferring to stack mastery instead.

This response is evidence that Droid, indeed, Does.

[Loganisis]

Here's the reality of threat stats in Cata for Tanks.

The ONLY time threat stats are needed is if your raid DPS on the encounter is around the enrage timer. The reason for this is twofold:
1) More expertise and then more hit (expertise is 2x as valuable as hit for tanks until you hit 26 expertise) will allow you to build threat faster, allowing DPS to go all out sooner. This will help you beat the enrage timer.

2) More expertise and then more hit will allow you to deal slightly more damage, increasing raid DPS and allowing you to beat the enrage timer.

Currently - in normal mode progression, your DPS should be so overgeared with the abundance of gear (crafted prices dropped, BoE valor gear, troll heroics) that they can hold off at the beginning of the fight until you establish threat. If they don't, they are fail DPS for it being low and/or fail DPS for jumping the gun.

Now hardmodes, as your raid is crossing the boundary from 359 to 372, may be in this 'tank needs expertise (and maybe hit)' area. Though in 25m especially, a few hunters/rogues and actually, you just need tricks and MD.

So based on raid comp, raid gear, and raid skill (DPS = Gear *factor of how well the players use it), it might make sense to have some additional expertise, but you shouldn't need it outside of that specific range.

If you do, you probably have a sub-optimal rotation.

[Uranos7]

Like many things it depends on the class of tank and your style of play. On my dk I go for 5% hit and 22% exp which gives 0.00 miss on lvl 85s and makes tanking groups of mobs easier. If you are a raid MT and tank almost exclusively raid bosses then it is less important because you can easily hold threat on single target with spells and abilities which always hit Like Runestrike for DK's and hold AOE threat with D&D and tab targeting.

I know they are generally not talked about here for some reason but Bears are the exception. THEY MUST HIT to get or keep aggro so they will generally need more hit since they do not have a ground effect aoe like Consecrate or D&D. If you are a bear your soft cap for hit is about 6.5% and you need the 26% expertise.

[klausi]

All tanks needs to land some attacks or they can't hold aggro but for all blocking tanks it's a basically a decision of threat or survival. Up to 1600 rating "wasted" on expertise softcap and hit hardcap with no dps conquering for the threat lead after the 30 seconds mark (about that time a harder hitting boss should have ramped up your vengeance high enough) is a huge burden for your healers mana.

For deathknights it's different because their damage compensation tool is deathstrike. If that attack don't connect they might end up in trouble. But with the changes some patches ago aiming for high expertise values isn't that important as it was before. Druids are in a kind of similar boat, they got their savage defense mastery. Only regular attacks (read: no dots) that critical strike can procc the absorbing shield but if the attack won't connect in the first place it can't crit (dodge/parry/misses push crit of the table). But druid wear leather and have a high base critical strike chance, they don't aim for hit nor expertise and look for crit, mastery and dodge instead.

I know they are generally not talked about here for some reason but Bears are the exception. THEY MUST HIT to get or keep aggro so they will generally need more hit since they do not have a ground effect aoe like Consecrate or D&D.

If you could keep aggro with d&d/consecration alone on multi target fights then those tools would be too strong, simply as that. They help versus spawning adds and for the initial/snap aggro but nothing more. You still need to spread your dots and use heart strike's cleave as a deathknight and hammering with inquisition up as a paladin for the main part of your aggro. A bear got Swipe, which has been recently buffed greatly (cooldown reduction in half) in addition to Thrash (multi dotting tool), Maul (glyphed) hits a second target as well and you shouldn't forget about their ultimate aoe (and pulling) cooldown Berserk besides the option to buff themself with Thorns pre pull.

[Contravene]

I am so glad tank interrupts don't miss anymore so there is no need to stack Hit gear in my bank.. Having to gem it and etc too just so I could interrupt.. But as a Pally tank I worry not about Hit/Exp and I do awesome.

[draq2009]

awesome, thank you very much for the insight.