+hit is much better than +crit. Up to the cap, +1%hit means allways 1% more damage but crits are usually only do 50% more damage, leading to 0,5% increase in damage without talents. Some talents give more bonus, but afaik no talent gives more than 100% more damage, or equal benefit. Those are also only affecting a limited number of spells, not every spell.

There are also things you need to consider, what are you using it for. +crit only increses damage, but +hit affects spells with other effects too. Especially in PVP you want to have +3hit(which leads to a maximum of 99% hit to a level 60 target) because a lot of strong spells are non-damage spells that can't crit, like fear, silence, polymorph, curses, dots, frost nova etc.

Same goes for comparing +dmg items. Those dont help with binary spells. One notable thing is that +hit gets more meaningful the more +dmg gear you have. It scales with gear. If you have +500spelldamage, then +hit gives a much bigger increase in total damage than if you have no spelldamage gear.

Take an example, a dot that makes 1000 damage over 15sec. With +hit you get 10 more damage on cast per average, equaly to +10dmg. But if you have +500spelldamage, it is 1500 damage over 15sec, so a +hit increases that with 15dmg, while +10spell damage is just 10spell damage.

One additional note is that crit% is not % of hits, but % of all casts. Making it a invalid point that +hit is also a new chance for crit. It's not that. You will get same amount of crits per spell cast, no matter what your +hit gear rate is.

So if you have no +hit gear and fight an equal level mob you have 4% chance to miss and 96% to hit. With 10% crit rate that makes 4% to miss, 10% to crit, and 86% to normal hit.

Lets take another example. you fight a level 63 mob, without +hit gear but with +10% crit gear, you get 17% miss, 73%normal hit and 10% crit.

If you increase your +crit% with 10, you get 17%miss, 63%normal hit and 20%crit. That means on 100 casts you get 17 misses, 63 normal hits and 20 crits. So of 83 spells that are not resisted 20 crit, making your crit rate of the hits higher than 20%, it's 20/83 = 24% of the spells that hit crit. That makes the +crit bonus look better than it really is. If look compare the rate of normal and crit spells. But you need to compare to how often you crit compared to how often you cast. Low hit rate makes it look like you crit more often, what you actually dont do.

That said, I think the bracers are really great. Good stats, dmg and hit owns!

For pure DPS these bracers are the best out there.
For those of us with 100% crit dmg +crit and +hit are close.

1000 Bolts With 90% hit rate and 10%crit
900 hits
90 crits 990

+1crit
900 hits
99 crits 999

+1 hit
910 hits
91 crits 1001
For raids
Currently (till next patch) +hit is better since we get the Neg resist bonus from warlock curses. Next patch we'll still get a bonus but not as big of one.

For those of us who already pull too much aggro +hit is far better. For pure damage + hit is better to slightly better.

For locks with the 20% dmg with crits talent +crit may edge up next patch depending how bad they nerf CoS.

At the very least casters should aim for +4 to hit. This make it so you will hit all lvl 60s. For mage/locks if the targte has a CoS/CoE you will never see a resist or miss. For the nature damage people stay near some one with Thunderfury.

1% to hit >>>>> 1% to crit

If your spell was resistet, who cares if were a crit? ;]

Good bye arcanist :D

more +crit? no that stuff is everywhere ;p This would ultimately do more damage, as any spell that this prevents from resisting also has the bonus of criting. Theres already crit epic bracers in BWL, i believe.

Not to mention the godly +damage for bracers.

And yea this is PVE, if you don't do a lot of pve, you'll probably never see em anyway!

Significantly better than netherwind... Can't wait to get a chance at them.

you realize u'r fighting mobs 3 levels higher than you so this is an INCREDIBLE advantage to hit more often

Umm - Wow! I like these - Only way they could be better is more stamina or Instead of hit (1% better chance to not get resisted) it would be 1% Spell Crit chance.

--Plack