Kazanir

So tanking Heroic Shadow Labyrinth (I almost typed Labs) tonight, I was crit. I found this somewhat unusual, since I haven't been crit in tanking gear...ever in my memory in TBC (once my uncrittable set was established.)

This is where the entire community here chimes in to tell me the multitude of ways in which I am a noob and have missed one of a million possible things that could result in me being crit. Done? Ok. Here's the details -- I think I've been thorough.

1. The mob was level 71, a Malicious Instructor in the 2nd room of SL. Against level 71 mobs, I have a base chance of 5.2% to be crit. We currently assume this is based on the default mob weapon skill of (5 * moblevel) = 5 * 71 = 355, which adds .2% to the base 5% for all mobs.
   
2. I have 132 Defense Rating, which means precisely (132 / 2.4) = +55 Defense, meaning I have a total of 405 Defense. That's (55 * -.04%) = -2.2% chance to be crit.
   
3. I also have 3/3 Survival of the Fittest, meaning a -3% chance to be crit in melee.
   
4. I *also* have 23 Resilience Rating, which means (23 / 39.4) = -.5838% chance to be crit.
   
5. The hit in question was a normal melee hit, not a special ability or anything else crazy.
   
6. I didn't have any unusual debuffs or anything that might reduce my defense skill somehow. The debuff in the combat log is Mark of Malice. I don't think I had it on me when I was crit, but even so, the spell applies no aura (despite the funky tooltip) to reduce defense skill or do anything else strange -- just the damage trigger.
   
7. Personally adding up my Defense Rating gives 132 as well: Neck 13, Shoulders 10, 28 Chest, 24 Weapon, 24 Boots, 17 Ring, 16 Ring. I just logged out in that set of gear so the Armory should have it for your inspection. I also have 16 Resi from shoulders, 3 from the shoulder socket bonus, and 4 from the leg socket bonus, for the listed 23.
   
8. Screenshot verifying this occurence is below. I took the whole thing because people on EJ have been damn picky lately, so you get to enjoy my widescreen. Combat log on the lower left, character sheet on the top left. I c/p'd a clip from another shot of the Resilience tooltip so that both tooltips appear at once, that's the only editing that's been done.
   
9. Random note I just noticed now -- the instructor crit me for approximately 4x what I was taking in damage from a normal melee swing. Strange.

Now, lest you chalk it up to the rumored 1 roll on the melee table reserved for even impossibilities, or to an act of the gods, or a computer error, something caused by the mobs (possibly) higher weapon skill, or as some other manner of fluke...

Later during the run it happened again.

This time it was a different mob, a Cabal Fanatic in Vorpil's room. He was also level 71, and all my gear was the same as before.



What in Zeus' beard is going on here? Someone tell me, because I've got nothin'.

 

Arduous

errr.

I was under the impression you needed FAR more +def to become uncrittable vs 71 than 400.

480 according to this table.

http://evilempireguild.org/guides/crittable.php

Unless the mechanics are VASTLY different for bears.

 

KamPa

Check point number 3, there's this "vast difference".

 

Thelyna

Survival of the Fittest, reduces chance to be crit in melee by 3%

So if the mobs start with 5.2% crit, SotF reduces that to 2.2%, his 405 def reduces that to 0%, and his resilience should theoretically be completely unneeded.

 

Phixus

Simple explanation; Resilience, talent and defence doesnt add up like you might expect. It's probably multiplicative or something in that order.

 

Muggins

In a couple of the tank mechanic threads we've had on the theorycrafting board it crops up that more than one person has had their first crit through from the Instructors (as well as Prince, Romulo, Deliah, etc) so it may be entirely possible that the mob has a higher crit rate than normal in which case you're not going to be immune with your normal set up or that dual-(or quad-)wielding mobs have a higher crit rate that was slipped in with the dual wield mechanic.

 

ikillyouheal

It was a mainhand swing that critted you, meanwhile you got hitted by the offhand swings.
As far as I know most dualwieling mobs hit for 100/50 with MH/OH, which would explain why the crit was 4x the hit.

I've tanked those mobs with my warrior at 491 defense, got critter 3 times on a pull. Those mobs are wierd.

[04:04:29] <Malan> Kaubel just laid the smack down in the the blizzcon thread
[04:05:07] <Kaubel> fucking idiots. i need to go on a banning rampage and put things right once and for all.
[04:05:20] <Kaubel> our forums are infested with pussy.

 

dukes

It's certainly been put forwards that dual wielding mobs have a higher crit rate than the "default" 5.6% (moroes, romeo are the ones that people have noticed it on).

 

Bender

I have also been crit by instructors a 499 defense. My assumption was that they have higher weapon skill, but that's just a guess.

I am Bender, please insert girder

 

Umph

I'm right on 5.6% crit reduction and have yet to be crit by Moroes, perhaps time will tell.

As far as what is going on, a rounding issue perhaps? Does the same thing happen if you increase either resilience or defense by say 1 point?

 

• frmorrison

This is why you got crit by the first mob. Since the DW mobs have the high miss rate (and don't have much hit gear , blizzard seemed to have added crit to them).

Other idea is resilience and Defense are not adding correctly.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Kapoue

I've seen the same discussion on the R&D forums and some people were saying the exact same thing. The only mobs that were critting them were Moroes and the Malicious Instructors. So I guess they have some sort of +crit stats manually implemented in them.

 

Vitae

I was levelling up my shaman as elemental this week, and in a fit of drunkenness I picked up both Eye of the Storm (gain a buff that grants uninterruptability when crit) and Elemental Shields (-6% chance to be crit by melee/ranged).

I've been crit (and thus gained Eye of the Storm, making it really obvious) once in three levels now - it was against one of the orcs in the Path of Glory after it enraged.

So my personal theory is that in addition to whatever other explanations there are, certain mob abilities grant a crit bonus. Of course, that's only one data point, but it's a thought.

 

ikillyouheal

Just for the record, I was farming Large Brilliant Shards in BRD with my warrior. The DW mobs at the bar (Either Ribblys Crones or the other guys crones) Were critting 50% of the attacks on me. My guess is that some mobs just have a fixed crit %.

::Edit:: I was in my tankgear with 491 defense. and the mobs were lvl53-55ish

[04:04:29] <Malan> Kaubel just laid the smack down in the the blizzcon thread
[04:05:07] <Kaubel> fucking idiots. i need to go on a banning rampage and put things right once and for all.
[04:05:20] <Kaubel> our forums are infested with pussy.

 

dukes

Didn't they change it a mini-patch or two ago to make it so any attack which WOULD have been a crit still procs things like blessed resillience/eye of the storm/etc even if its made a non-crit by resillience/talents? Either way, it's a pretty weird system.

 

Vitae

I believe just by resilience. That is literally the ONLY time I've had eye of the storm proc from levels 60 to 63 on that char. Also, I checked my combat log and saw the crit.

 

Kazanir

Ok, so the basic idea is that we are looking at mobs (the common element is dual wielding) that have either a boosted weapon skill or a boosted crit rating. That should be easy enough to test with a long Recap parse of tanking such a mob, I can get on that sometime when I'm bored. If it's a weapon skill difference, the dodge/miss/parry rates should also be affected, but if it's a flat crit rate bonus due to mobs that dual- or quad-wield, then only the crit-rate should be affected.

I tend to doubt that it's a rounding error since my defense rating is at exactly the number required for +55 Defense. If Resilience stacks (which it had damn well better) I'm well over the level 73 crit immunity threshold, much less the level 71 number. The one possibility I can think of is that the actual divisor (generated by some strange formula) is actually 2.4xxxx, such that 132 / (Rating to Skill ratio) is just a tad less than 55. If that's true then a tiny percentage of crit might be introduced, but it seems like a long shot.

'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. I told you. This is bigger than a war. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.

You can come with me. I can protect you.

 

Voley

Those instructors debuff with Mark of Malice. Maybe it reduces def by large amount or increases their chance to crit? Because it got no tooltip.

 

• Falk

I'm tempted to believe it's something to do with dual-wielding mobs as well, and something totally aside from ratings... for example those lv55 mobs would have been critting all over the place on lv60 characters if we followed a normal rating curve.

 

Kazanir

As I posted in the original thread, according to Thottbot the only spell effect attached to those is the one that deals damage after 5 attacks land on you. There is no associated debuff to defense, although they might have an increased chance to crit against someone with the debuff. However, that still wouldn't explain the second crit by a different mob.

'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. I told you. This is bigger than a war. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.

You can come with me. I can protect you.

 

Durus

I was crit by a priest in Gruul's Lair with 501 defense. It's not just dual wielding mobs.

 

PsiVen

These instructors are the only mobs that have crit me. I usually have 505-515 defense.
If it is something special with DW mobs, it must be a per-mob basis that tends to affect dual-wielders rather than a hard rule.

 

Zagzil

It's been pretty clear on the warrior forum after quite a bit of evidence that the Malicious Instructors have some sort of increased crit whether its from a debuff or just normally have a higher crit % than most mobs. Either way don't be surprised when they crit you, it's not broken mechanics it's just odd behavior from this particular mob (not every mob is the same - back in the day I was pretty convinced Teremus the Devourer and a few other skull-world boss mobs that were in on release had weird crushing rates, and there was evidence showing that).

This thread is interesting - but the mob that crit was far from impossible, as it happens on a regular basis to most warriors.

 

malthrin

Here's an odd one I saw on the official Paladin forums. Eye for an Eye is a talent that returns damage on spell criticals. According to the OP, he had 3 resilience.

Travian - Resto Druid
Malthrin - Priest

 

Mimirswell

The debuff Mark of Malice description denotes "Vulnerable to melee attacks" and the effect applies a server-side script effect. It's possible this vulnerability is or includes an increase in critical strike rating for the mob.