More theorycrafting! YAY! OK, maybe I’m the only one getting excited. For all others, this should be a good post for a place to quickly refence the info. Might even be fun to read! (Can’t blame me for trying, I like this stuff)
Here we go with Hit, Crit, and Glancing!
Hit
This is considered by most classes as the single most important rating. This is your increased chance to hit a mob. First thing to understand is your inate chance to miss. This is based on your level, and the level of the mob you are trying to hit. So first lets get some base stats going here. The basic truths:
- ALL HIT RATING EFFECTS BOTH SPELL AND MELEE
- ALL “SKULL” BOSS LEVELS ARE 3 + PLAYER LEVEL, SO ASSUMED TO BE 83
Your base chance to miss with spells is a static percentage:
| Mob Level |
Chance to Miss |
| 80 |
4% |
| 81 |
5% |
| 82 |
6% |
| 83 |
17% |
Blizzard removed the 1% hard ceiling for misses making it possible to never miss. Your base chance to miss with melee attacks is based on a formula:
Main-hand = 4% + (Defense Skill – Weapon Skill)*.1%
Off-hand = 23% + (Defense Skill – Weapon Skill)*.1%
First note that main-hand vs. off-hand is based on your character sheet. A 2H weapon in for ret pallies will be equipped in the main-hand slot. Off-hand refers only to dual-wielding classes. Defense Skill is the defense of the mob and Weapon Skill is the player’s weapon skill of his equipped weapons. The defense of any mob is 5 x Level. In the event that the mobs defense skill is greater than 10 then the formulas change to:
Main-hand = 6% + (Defense Skill – Weapon Skill – 10)*.4%
Off-hand = 25% + (Defense Skill – Weapon Skill – 10)*.4%
Plug in the numbers and you get (assuming 400 weapon skill):
| Mob Level |
Chance to Miss |
| 80 |
4% |
| 81 |
4.5% |
| 82 |
5% |
| 83 |
8% |
I know every melee out there that has not looked at it in a while just lost it. “Wait a second, i was always told it was 9% for bosses!” This used to be the case, however after some testing by many many many people (myself included) it has been noted that the melee caps have been lowered by 1% in the base formulas. Also note that the formulas are there for those that want to see them (and anyone wondering how much hit rating is required to not miss when Fianna throws a shoe at Ahroun) but the tables will be what we deal with from here on out.
Now that we have a base chance to miss, on to jumping that hurdle. More basic truths:
- RATING IS A DIFFERENT CONVERSION FROM MELEE TO SPELL HIT PERCETAGES
- RANGED ATTACKS ARE CONSIDERED MAIN HAND ATTACKS
- TALENTS DO NOT SHOW UP ON THE CHARACTER SHEET
| Type |
Hit Rating Required to Equal 1% Hit |
| Melee |
32.79 |
| Spell |
26.23 |
Now lets talk “caps”. Everyone referes to getting their “cap” or being “hit capped”. First we have a couple of definitions. Please note all these as they can be quite confusing from previous uses.
- Hit Cap – This is your chance to never miss on any attack, spell or melee. Takes into account the caps listed next.
- Melee Cap – This is the chance you will never miss with your main-hand weapon
- Dual-Wield Cap – This is the chance you will never miss with your off-hand weapon
- Melee Soft Cap – This is the chance you will never miss with special attacks or “yellow damage” (This applies to dual wielding classes and changes based on class and requirements for special attacks)
- Spell Cap – This is the chance you will never miss with a spell or “non-physical damage”
Now that we have our definitions lets get some numbers for those and apply them to specific classes. This is a list the various caps as they apply to each class and caps them against a raid boss (level 83) with max weapon skill.
Melee Cap = 8% or 262.32 hit rating
Dual Wield Cap = 27% or 885.33 hit rating
Spell Cap = 17% or 445.91 hit rating
Now as a note, just because you are a melee class does not me you have to only worry about the “melee caps”. Remember that each of these is based on individual spells. For example, rogue’s poisons are subject to the spell hit table, as are druid’s growl and warrior’s taunt. Look at each ability your particular class uses to determine which numbers are most important for you.
Critical Strike
Crit has for a long time been the most sought after stat by most DPS. “I want to crit more and see big big numbers all the time!” As with any stat/rating there are targets to aim for and are different for each class. So let’s delve into the world of big numbers. Even you healers out there should understand this
The chance you will gain a critical strike with a melee or spell is based on your crit chance. Simple enough. While we all know by now that spell hit and melee hit are different rating amounts to equal 1% hit chance, the same is not true about spell crit vs. melee crit. It’s all the same. So from now on in this post….CRIT IS CRIT. All ratings can be derived from the following information with the exception of dodge. (I’ll cover the combat rating system in a later post)
| Base Combat Variable |
Base Value |
| Critical Strike Chance |
14 |
*This base value is for lvl 60. All values are derived from this one.*
(Base Value) * 82 / 52 * (131 / 63) ^(Your Level – 70 / 10) = Rating required for 1% —- So plugging in some numbers you get:
14 * 82 / 52 * (131 / 63) ^ ((80 – 70) / 10) = Rating required for 1%
14 * 82 / 52 * (2.079) ^ (10 / 10) = Rating required for 1%
14 * 82 / 52 * (2.079) ^ (1) = Rating required for 1%
14 * 82 / 52 * 2.079 = Rating required for 1%
45.91 = Rating required for 1%
Now we have our numbers for what makes 1% crit. “YAY!…wait, my chatacter sheet shows more than this crit i just calculated.” So true, but that is because our other stats also can contribute to crit rating. Ok, time for some more numbers and a bit of faith thrown in. Since crit is crit no matter who it is on it is important to understand where you get your personal crit from so you warlocks are not out running around with agility enchants. The first thing to understand is what stats have crit attatched to them, currently the only way to recieve crit on your gear is either from Crit Rating, Agility, or Intellect. Crit rating is now in the bag and easy enough to understand so we move on to Agility and Intellect.
As of right now there is no known formula that I have found or anyone I have read from so I will provide a table for conversions. (Told you there was some faith involved):
| Class |
Lvl 80 Crit per Agi |
Lvl 80 Agi needed for 1% Crit |
| Warrior |
0.016 |
62.5 |
| Paladin |
0.0192 |
52.1 |
| Hunter |
0.012 |
83.3 |
| Rogue |
0.012 |
83.3 |
| Priest |
0.0192 |
52.1 |
| Death Knight |
0.016 |
62.5 |
| Shaman |
0.012 |
83.3 |
| Mage |
0.0196 |
51.0 |
| Warlock |
0.0198 |
50.5 |
| Druid |
0.012 |
88.3 |
As you can see the numbers required to get substantial crit require serveral points of agility to obtain. Also note that agility will only increase your melee crit chance. This is why you will not see mages running around with Agility enchants to their weapons. As a side note, unless the agility stat offers something of great usefullness, many will not use agility as a way to stack crit. Intellect is even simpler as it is a straight conversion for all classes. (Again with lacking a known formula)
| Level |
Spell Crit Per Int |
Int required for 1% Spell Crit |
| 80 |
0.006 |
166.7 |
Like its melee counterpart, intellect only offers spell crit chance. As you can see from the numbers it is nearing double or more intellect needed for 1% crit over melee’s agility. I would not recomment using this stat as a means of increasing your crit chance.
Glancing Blows (melee only)
As a nice little side note added in here, I figured I could throw in a short bit on glancing blows. I was asked about them not long ago and thought I had the answer. I did know the numbers, but had forgotten the reason. So I went back through my notes and refenced them to the sources and got my refresher. Let me note right here that glancing blows cannot be changed or reduced. The only things that can effect glancing blows are level and weapon skill. Glancing blows occur:
- 24% of the time (static fixed amount)
- Only on white auto attacks
- On equal level or higher mobs
When you swing there is a chance to land a glancing blow of 24%, as stated. The amount of that hit or how hard you hit the mob for is based on a quick formula of the high and low range.
- RD = The difference in your weapon skill and defense rating of the mob
- High end = 1.2 – 0.03 x RD
- Low end = 1.3 – 0.05 x RD
- Reduction % = 100(High end + Low end)/2
If you plug in the numbers for a max skill rogue (400) and defense of a boss mob (415) you will get:
Reduction % = 100(High end + Low end)/2
100 [(1.2 - 0.03 x 15) + (1.3 - 0.05 x 15)]/2
100 [(0.75) + (0.55)]/2
100 (1.3)/2
65%
Therefore, against this boss, the rogue’s white damage will be rduced to 65% of normal damage when he glances.
Well there you have Hit, Crit and Glancing in a nutshell. I hope it is informative and answers any questions. If there are any further questions or you’d like to do some outside theorycrafting I am availible to discuss this either here or in mumble.
