Hit Caps (according to elitistjerks)

17% - 446 Hit rating
14% - 368 Hit rating
11% - 289 Hit rating
8% - 210 Hit rating
1% of Hit is equal to 26.232 hit rating


FB(18/53/0) and Arcane(57/3/11) are very close in dps theory wise, although heavy on mana use and FB can vary a bit based on the randomness of crits and hotstreaks. On shorter fights arcane tends to have a bit of an advantage. FFB(0/53/18) is about 5-6% behind but a lot easier on mana although varies wildy on DPS due to the huge crit multiplier combined with hotstreaks. Frost(18/0/53) is behind FFB and not really competitive at the moment.

FB requires the most hit from gear with none from talents.
FFB is next along with Frost getting 3% hit from talents.
Arcane requires the least hit from gear getting 6% from talents.


Mage Gearing and Hit Cap at Level 80
Your first prority is getting spell damage. Your second second priority is also spell damage.
Even in crit heavy Fire and Frostfire specs, spell damage will be your best stat to stack via gems for a long while.

You also want to cap spell hit, but not at the cost of using inferior gear just because it has more hit.
When you get decked out in wisely chosen Naxxramas gear, you should easily reach the hit cap. Gem for it if you're close.

You need 17% spell hit t remove all misses. You can gain 1% from a Draenei in your group, 3% from a raid debuff, 0%-6% from talents.
The rest has to be obtained by gear, you need 26.232 hit rating for 1% spell hit at level 80.

That means if you have no spell buffs or talents, you need 446 hit rating for 17% spell hit chance.
Your Water Elemental and Mirror Image pets get the spell hit from your gear, but not from your talents.

Crit and Haste then are your secondary DPS stats. They are worse than spell power until you get around 4k spell power or more.
1 haste rating: Is worth about 0.7-0.8 spell power in full Naxxramas gear for most specs.
1 crit rating: Is worth 0.8 spell power for Frostfire, 0.7 for Fire, 0.5 for Frost, 0.4 for Arcane.

Intellect is on par with crit for Arcane and is has 1/3 of the strength of crit for the other specs. Spirit is mostly useless.

Mana is also very important, make sure you never run out of it.
If you use everything at your disposal and still run out of mana, check your spec and buffs.
If that still doesn't help then drop some haste, get some intellect, use Mage Armour. But don't stack spirit ever.

The percentage conversion for all ratings and stats at level 80 can be found in Combat Ratings at level 80

As for meta gems, the only acceptable choice is one of the +3% crit damage meta gems due to how it actually works.
It is worth about 150-200 DPS, which makes any headpieces without a meta socket a very bad choice.