As I was standing in front of Gruul's Lair on Sunday waiting for the last couple of guildies to show up, I was asked to take a look at the gear of some of the people standing around to make sure that they could handle Gruul's Lair.
As it turns out, while most people were fine, some were not, and it inspired me to write a segment on what hit rating is, and why you need it.
So, Hit Rating... what is this mysterious number on my stat page?
Well, I'll tell you. The amount of hit rating your have determines, and subsequently lowers, your chance to miss the target.
At level 70, a Druid needs 15.8 Hit Rating "points" to lower their chance to miss their target by 1%. Furthermore, you have a 5% base chance to miss a target your level, and a 5% chance to have your attack dodged, parried, or blocked.
So, against a Level 73 (73 used for calculations) Boss, you have a base 9% chance to miss. If you have a hit rating of 142 you will completely push misses off the table.
However, getting 142 Hit Rating will cripple your AP/Crit so much that you would actually do less damage having your +Hit capped, than losing some Hit Rating and focusing more on AP/Crit.
As you can see by taking a look at my armory profile, I am about 20ish points away from the hit Cap by have a good AP and Crit Rating.
While the allocation of these points are of course dependent on the individual person, these are simply my recommendations.
Have fun!
You've been Hathorned.
Edit:
Jacemora makes a good point that
Spicy Hot Talbuk is a great alternative to having a low hit rating, eat some of this before every raid, and during to make sure your hit rating stays up while not sacrificing too many other stats.