Is there a cap on spell crit

[opt]

Seeing im running 4 shamans and a druid, i have a very high base to crit. Now im looking at what gems i should start putting in my gear and i was wondering is it possible to have too much crit rating before you get a dismal return. For example +def gets to a point where you become uncrittable, but it still gives you a little bit of avoidance for every bit of extra def rating you add on after that. Is it the same with spell crit in any way?

[Emo?]

I did read a post on the wow forums, tho it was for mages it was kinda good. He described the best gem's to put in ur gear for maximal %dmg. There is a difference bitween pvp and pve tho, but his post was about pve. He recomended, put +spellhit gems untill u have around 16% spellhit with talents, after that +spelldmg. Critgems didnt boost ur dps as much as any of these two untill u had about 1200+ spelldmg and 16% hit.
Something like that, as i said, this was for pve. For pvp depending on ur gear, if u have full arena gear + weps + extra epics, ur reciliance and stamina should be so high that u dont really have to aim for +stamina gems, and can instead focus on +spelldmg and/or resiliance sins ur basecrit % will be high, i gues the druid is boomkin? :P

// Emo?

[Edit] Changed 17% -> 16%

[Mijn]

I'm assuming you're running with 4x Totem of Wrath, so your +hit is pretty good. 12%
You need 16% spell hit to reach the cap on level 73 mobs as 70.

/edit 17% hit? The hit rate on a +3 mob is 83% and you will always have 1% chance to get resisted. Meaning anything above 16% should be a waste.

Edited to remove wrong information

[Emo?]

Yah true, 16% it is.

[opt]

great thats the answer im after, thanks:) My history is only in melee and stuff never really played a caster and looked into micromechanics

[Ðeceased]

got to love ToW and moonkin aura :)

as said before 16% to spell hit is what you should aim for (having 12% already is a great start). I'd hesitate to say that you should try taking some of the talents giving you +hit as you are very likely to get those last 4% from gear. Also don't forget that +crit means mana efficiency on you shamans. If 50% crit rate is attainable then that means you'll be casting cheaper Lightning bolts nonstop.
as for optimising dps, I'd say it's likely with such high +hit and crit that Spelldamage is going to benefit the team more once you hit the 16% hit cap. It's rly up to you.. personally I just love the idea of criting like a maniac :) take a guess what i'll be going for :P

[Mijn]

Funny thing about full shaman teams with ToW.

Tow alone provides 15% hit and crit.

Then you have 6% crit from Call of Thunder 5/5
Along with 5% crit from Tidal Mastery 5/5 (this is for bolt and chain only, well... and heals)

So 26% crit from Talents.

1 Druid +4 Shamans will for the Shamans have 2% extra crit but 3% less hit, the Druid will have 12% ToW, 5% moonkin, 4% talents, for a total of 21%

Overview (counting talent totals only, not including base stats nor +int/crit rating gear)

Druid + 4 Shamans:
Druid: 21% crit 12% hit (add 4% hit with Balance of Power 2) (Wrath and Starfire) Moonfire will be 27% crit 12% hit (add 4% hit with Balance of Power 2)
Shamans: 28% Crit 12% hit (add 6% hit with Elemental Precision 3, or 3% with Natures Guidance)

5 Shamans:
Shamans: 26% Crit 15% hit (add 6% hit with Elemental Precision 3, or 3% with Natures Guidance)



/edited to remove wrong information.

[Zanjii]

If you want to shut off your brain and just get told what to do, try taking a look at www.maxdps.com

You really don't need a lot of spellhit as an elem shaman, you have tons from talents/totems, and will have maxed out hit on anything but bosses (instance bosses that shows as a skull).
Crit is lovely, so is damage, and it really depends on what kind of gear you have which will give you the most benefit. Maxdps.com is a calculator, you plot in your stats and it tells you what adding an item (including gems) to your gear would mean for your optimal dps. Lovely tool.

[xtobbenx]

Hi, as far as i know there is no max on crit, but if you want to go pvp. You have to considure that ppl have resilions. So what i normaly have been doing is to only push dmg untill i fell that i have the dmg i need to down someone with the time my resilions and hp gives me, without criting. And then start to push up crit. As now after s1 is bought for honor most ppl you will meet in arenas have 300+ resilions. So you better have a nice pure dps, And not relay on crits. Unless you really do the opposite of this and only push crit to the limits that you know you will crit so much that criting itself will get the job done.
Anyway. About the + hit, know that in pvp, there is a limit of +75 hit rating on both melee and spell hit rating.. All above that is not giving anything in pvp, but works in pve only.. So dont worry much about the +hit for pvp aslong as you are epic geared you should have that covered. And, you harld never miss unless they are using a counter ability vs you..

[Skuggomann]

Higest ive ever gotten unbuffed was aroudn 86% XD it was wack

[Stabface]

Hold up a sec - there's a 50% hard cap on spell critical chance ? Says who and since when ?

[roddo]

For pvp spell penetration helps against high resilience opponents.

[AZO]

For pvp spell penetration helps against high resilience opponents.got any source/explanation for that?
I don't see how reducing target's spell resistance will help on ppl with high resilience

[aetherg]

I didn't know there was a hard cap on crit. That's interesting if true. Even with terrible gear, and one shammy specced resto, the others are still at 40% crit with LB & CL. So if there is a cap, this might affect some gear decisions.

Aside from a possible cap, there is no diminishing returns to crit. However, you need to keep in mind that crit, damage and hit are all related. If you have zero damage, crit is worthless. On the other hand, crit has some benefits beyond just damage; those elemental focus procs are pretty awesome.

I think the best approach is not to worry about it too much. If you're raiding (not just heroics), the 16% hit is more valuable than anything else. But once you're at that point, just balance your damage and crit more or less equally. If two items are almost identical, go for the damage. But never give up a lot of crit for a little bit of damage, or vice-versa.

[BobGnarly]

Short answer: stack spell hit/dmg (depending on hit capped or not).

Long answer: I don't believe there is a crit cap. I've never seen any compelling evidence, and abilities like shatter and combustion seem to imply not.

However, when looking at spell crit rating compared to spell hit and dmg, you'll see that it "costs" a lot more that those other two. This means you'll be getting less rating per item allocation. Also, crit takes more rating to equal 1% (22.1 rating to be exact), so it's even more skewed (compare to 12.6 for hit rating, almost twice as good).

This is just a rule of thumb btw, as gear, spec, level, and even play style will affect it. To really know one way or the other, you need to do some math; however, unless you are really min-maxing your character, you're fine just doing this.

[Mijn]

Okay so I did some research on it, and it turns out theres no crit cap for spells.

Only melee will hit a cap on how much crit will help them since they have to work it up against mitigration and misses.

So it's stack on that crit, as long as you hit the 16% spell hit, balance on +dmg and +crit. mods like Dr.Damage helps a good bit with balancing stats ingame.

[BobGnarly]

If you want spell crit just because you want it, cool. However, again, if you are looking to min-max (or get the best bang for you buck), you are almost certainly better stacking +dmg over +crit. I explained why two posts above, or if you want to google there's tons of info on this subject. Bottom line is you'll get more damage/item, generally speaking, going for +dmg. Obviously just a rule-of-thumb.

Also, the 16% figure is for raiding (boss level mobs, or +3 level mobs). If you are running heroics and less, which I think describes a lot of boxers, you don't need nearly that much and it's just a waste to stack that much. This ('http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Spell_hit_chance') page has a chart showing you what miss chances you have based on the mobs level relative to your own. Highest mob level I've seen in a heroic is 71, so that means you need 4% to hit until you start raiding. First "raid" zone would be karazhan.

[Zoroaster]

The crit cap is 99% if you have +16% hit for spells.

Melee crit cap is 40.5% + hit %, if you have +9% hit for melee then your crit cap is 49.5%.