One of the trickiest things for new raiders to get to know is how much hit rating to run with. This is because hit rating has a huge impact on your raid DPS.
   We here do not talk about why your hit rating is important but how much hit rating you should have. Note that we are only concerned with raid bosses here.
   If you're a Mage who's just getting into raiding and you're trying to decide between the fancy spell-weave set and the less-fancy ebon-weave set, then hopefully you'll find this helpful.
   If you've got zero hit rating on your armor and none from talents, you have a base 83% chance to hit a raid boss, meaning that nearly one out of five times, your spells will miss. This is not good - you want 100%! Luckily, there are plenty of ways to increase your chance to hit before you even touch your armor. Let's take a look at talents first:
   Deep fire Mages get no hit rating help from talents, the Arcane Focus talent only affects arcane spells, which fire Mages of course do not cast.
Frostfire Mages get 3% increased hit from the Precision talent in the frost tree.
Arcane Mages get the most help - 3% hit from Arcane Focus and 3% from Precision for a total of 6% bonus hit.
If you are a deep fire Mage, you have a base 83% chance to hit a raid boss; if you're a frostfire Mage, you have a base 86% chance to hit a raid boss; and if you're an arcane Mage, you have a base 89% chance to hit a raid boss.
That's still a lot of hit chance to make up, but if you are fighting with a raid boss, then chances are you're in a raid. That means that you need get more help.
   Shadow Priests and moonkin Druids have debuffs they place on bosses that increase players' chance to hit them by 3%. These debuffs do not stack and hopefully you can count of having one of them in a 25-man environment.
   Assuming that you're raiding with a shadow Priest or boomkin, your updated chances to hit are as follows: deep fire Mages have an 86% chance to hit, frostfire Mages have an 89% chance to hit, and arcane Mages have a 92% chance to hit.
   If you're a Draenei or have one in your party, then you get their Heroic Presence 1% increased chance to hit. This should be pretty easy to arrange if you're an alliance Mage. 
   So for Alliance Mages, deep fire Mages have an 87% chance to hit, frostfire Mages have a 90% chance to hit and arcane Mages have a 93% chance to hit.
   Unfortunately, that's all the help you can possibly get - the rest will have to come from your gear. Note that if you are not running with a moonkin or shadow Priest, then you'll have to add 78 to all these totals.
   Deep fire Mages need 342 hit rating to make up the 13% hit if they are alliance, and 368 if they are horde.
Frostfire Mages need 263 hit rating to make up the 10% hit if they are alliance, and 289 if they are horde.
Arcane Mages need 184 hit rating to make up the 7% hit if they are alliance, and 210 if they are horde.
   These numbers assume ideal conditions. If your guild does not run regularly with a moonkin or shadow Priest, then you'll need 78 more hit rating.
   Note that arcane Mages might find them with excess hit rating, especially with the hit-heavy Ulduar gear, in which case you consider dropping a point or two from the Arcane Focus talent.

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