Combat Mechanics, 3.0 - Page 9

Regis · 08/25/06, 10:04 PM

_____________________________________________________________________________________ _______________
Bumping the thread to get clarifications of a couple of points. I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I'll ask anyway;

Many of the high profile rogues like Chalon, and Kalman belong to, what wowwiki refers to as the 3 outcomes school; Meaning that the combat in wow is based on a /random 100 roll or in everyday terms; a table. Furthermore, the common sentiment is also that we have 3 "priorities".

We have dodge, miss, parry, block and glancing which is priority #1
We then have critical hits in priority #2
and finally hits in priority #3

priority #1 overrides everything else in the /random roll, if #1 doesn't take up all the "results", priority #2 can then get a slice of the cake, and if there's even more room #3 will get the remaining spots. Am I correct?

Now, this very day I was discussing glancing hits and crit vs hit with some of my fellow guild rogues and it ended with my promising to make a thread explaining it. However, before presenting anything whatsoever I had to atleast be somewhat sure I was right, so I borrowed a few of my guildies, had them turn on evasion and then I autoattacked them. The results differed a lot, sometimes I had as much hits as I had crits, and at other times I had like 70% crits and 30% normal hits. However, the thing that made me question the so called 3-outcome-school is the fact that I shouldn't be able to do a normal hit at all when my guildies had turned on evasion. With ~80% dodge there should really only be room for my crits.

Did I misunderstand a fundamental game mechanic here or did blizzard alter the calculations for player vs player combat?

• Poly · 08/25/06, 10:36 PM

I don't see any posts mentioning the change to threat reduction modifiers in 1.12. I am not sure of what the recalibrated values are for the modifiers that used to be additive, but I think I have seen them listed. Either way it would be nice to update that section to reflect the fact that all modifiers to threat are now multipliers.

• Hamlet · 08/26/06, 2:23 AM

Originally Posted by Poly

I don't see any posts mentioning the change to threat reduction modifiers in 1.12. I am not sure of what the recalibrated values are for the modifiers that used to be additive, but I think I have seen them listed. Either way it would be nice to update that section to reflect the fact that all modifiers to threat are now multipliers.

Yeah, I haven't been paying much attention to this thread for a little while. If people keep bumping it, then maybe I'll try to find time to clean it up.

Also, for any threat-related issues, there's now Kenco's work.

• Hamlet · 08/26/06, 2:26 AM

Originally Posted by Regis

_____________________________________________________________________________________ _______________
Bumping the thread to get clarifications of a couple of points. I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I'll ask anyway;

Many of the high profile rogues like Chalon, and Kalman belong to, what wowwiki refers to as the 3 outcomes school; Meaning that the combat in wow is based on a /random 100 roll or in everyday terms; a table. Furthermore, the common sentiment is also that we have 3 "priorities".

We have dodge, miss, parry, block and glancing which is priority #1
We then have critical hits in priority #2
and finally hits in priority #3

priority #1 overrides everything else in the /random roll, if #1 doesn't take up all the "results", priority #2 can then get a slice of the cake, and if there's even more room #3 will get the remaining spots. Am I correct?

Now, this very day I was discussing glancing hits and crit vs hit with some of my fellow guild rogues and it ended with my promising to make a thread explaining it. However, before presenting anything whatsoever I had to atleast be somewhat sure I was right, so I borrowed a few of my guildies, had them turn on evasion and then I autoattacked them. The results differed a lot, sometimes I had as much hits as I had crits, and at other times I had like 70% crits and 30% normal hits. However, the thing that made me question the so called 3-outcome-school is the fact that I shouldn't be able to do a normal hit at all when my guildies had turned on evasion. With ~80% dodge there should really only be room for my crits.

Did I misunderstand a fundamental game mechanic here or did blizzard alter the calculations for player vs player combat?

What you described is what I have written out in the post. I believe it's still accurate for offensive PvE purposes. I really have no idea about PvP though; I'm pretty sure things are not identical.

arch · 08/28/06, 1:01 PM

Ok, so I'm gonna check the impact of me dropping 2/3 meditation, cause I want 3/3 imp scorch again and 2/2 flamethrowing. And let's face it, I'm alliance - shouldn't matter that much.

Mage
Spi/4 + 12.5

My raidbuffed spirit: 244

244/4 + 12.5

61 + 12.5 = 73.5 so my ooc regen is 73.5 per tick I assume.

10% (meditation) of that is allowed to continue when casting

73.5 x 0.1 = 7.35 mana per tick, I think it's 3 seconds between each tick so that's 147 mana in one minute, multiply that by 10 and we get almost 1.5k mana in a 10 minute fight.

Is this correct?

Nolari · 08/28/06, 1:07 PM

Originally Posted by arch

10% (meditation) of that is allowed to continue when casting

73.5 x 0.1 = 7.35 mana per tick, I think it's 3 seconds between each tick so that's 147 mana in one minute, multiply that by 10 and we get almost 1.5k mana in a 10 minute fight.

Is this correct?

You're not using mage armor? Mage armor adds 30% in-combat regen, so a total of 40%. 73.5 x 0.4 = 29.4 mana per tick, and a tick is 2 seconds. So 882 mana in a minute, or 8.8k mana in a 10 minute fight.

Without that meditation, you'd get 73.5 x 0.3 = 22.05 mana per tick, 661.5 per minute, and 6.6k per 10 minutes.

See http://wowwiki.com/Spirit for details.

arch · 08/28/06, 1:08 PM

I didn't add mage armor since I tried to see the benefit of meditation alone.

Nolari · 08/28/06, 1:09 PM

Originally Posted by arch

I didn't add mage armor since I tried to see the benefit of meditation alone.

Doh, of course!

Apart from the time between ticks your math is correct AFAIK.

• Maestroquark · 08/29/06, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

Originally Posted by Regis

*snip*
Now, this very day I was discussing glancing hits and crit vs hit with some of my fellow guild rogues and it ended with my promising to make a thread explaining it. However, before presenting anything whatsoever I had to atleast be somewhat sure I was right, so I borrowed a few of my guildies, had them turn on evasion and then I autoattacked them. The results differed a lot, sometimes I had as much hits as I had crits, and at other times I had like 70% crits and 30% normal hits. However, the thing that made me question the so called 3-outcome-school is the fact that I shouldn't be able to do a normal hit at all when my guildies had turned on evasion. With ~80% dodge there should really only be room for my crits.

*snip*

What you described is what I have written out in the post. I believe it's still accurate for offensive PvE purposes. I really have no idea about PvP though; I'm pretty sure things are not identical.

Last night we had our first two looks at Instructor Razuvious. I stacked Dodge as a precaution. On the first attempt we had bad positioning, lost the MC, and I died before I knew it had happened - crit for > 30k.
The next attempt our MC broke real early, I got an Evasion off, and Razuvious hit me for ~11k, the first hit I remember seeing while under Evasion in a very long time.

I checked my fully buffed Dodge afterwards and it was listed at 39.46%. 7% parry (2 Deflection), 5% miss, and 50% dodge for evasion.
39.46 + 7 + 5 + 50 = 101.46

Assuming he's level 63, that means -.6% dodge/miss/parry, correct? So -1.8% mitigation overall, or 99.66% total mitigation. And he hit me on the first swing.

Is there something off, is Razuvious an exception, or am I just missing something?

• sp00n · 08/30/06, 5:22 AM

Maybe a crushing?

Andrise · 08/30/06, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Maestroquark

Originally Posted by Arawethion

Originally Posted by Regis

*snip*
Now, this very day I was discussing glancing hits and crit vs hit with some of my fellow guild rogues and it ended with my promising to make a thread explaining it. However, before presenting anything whatsoever I had to atleast be somewhat sure I was right, so I borrowed a few of my guildies, had them turn on evasion and then I autoattacked them. The results differed a lot, sometimes I had as much hits as I had crits, and at other times I had like 70% crits and 30% normal hits. However, the thing that made me question the so called 3-outcome-school is the fact that I shouldn't be able to do a normal hit at all when my guildies had turned on evasion. With ~80% dodge there should really only be room for my crits.

*snip*

What you described is what I have written out in the post. I believe it's still accurate for offensive PvE purposes. I really have no idea about PvP though; I'm pretty sure things are not identical.

Last night we had our first two looks at Instructor Razuvious. I stacked Dodge as a precaution. On the first attempt we had bad positioning, lost the MC, and I died before I knew it had happened - crit for > 30k.
The next attempt our MC broke real early, I got an Evasion off, and Razuvious hit me for ~11k, the first hit I remember seeing while under Evasion in a very long time.

I checked my fully buffed Dodge afterwards and it was listed at 39.46%. 7% parry (2 Deflection), 5% miss, and 50% dodge for evasion.
39.46 + 7 + 5 + 50 = 101.46

Assuming he's level 63, that means -.6% dodge/miss/parry, correct? So -1.8% mitigation overall, or 99.66% total mitigation. And he hit me on the first swing.

Is there something off, is Razuvious an exception, or am I just missing something?

Sounds like your luck just sucks.

• Maestroquark · 08/30/06, 2:44 PM

Originally Posted by Andrise

Sounds like your luck just sucks.

If it was just that, I should have been crit.

Kalman · 08/30/06, 2:49 PM

The combat log not always being accurate, it's entirely possible and likely that the server decided that his attack should be resolved before your Evasion went off.

I.E. subtract 50% dodge from the picture.

• Hamlet · 09/13/06, 11:59 AM

Updated OP.

2 questions:
1) Out of Dodge/Parry/Block, which can happen from behind?

2) When a Rogue is near 100% with Evasion, and gets unlucky, is the hit that gets through a crit or a crush?

Andrise · 09/13/06, 12:02 PM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

Updated OP.

2 questions:
1) Out of Dodge/Parry/Block, which can happen from behind?

2) When a Rogue is near 100% with Evasion, and gets unlucky, is the hit that gets through a crit or a crush?

The answer to #1 is Dodge.
I believe the answer to #2 is crushing, but not positive.

• frmorrison · 09/13/06, 12:06 PM

Since you feel like updating the OP, on the threat section, "Being a Rogue: -20%" is incorrect.

It is 29% since 1.12 and cat form also gets the 29% reduction.

Edit: Also if you use "B)" anywhere, it is changed to B) instead due to smilie code so looks out of place. You can click "Never show smilies as icons for this post" to counter this.

pf · 09/13/06, 12:26 PM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

Updated OP.

2 questions:
1) Out of Dodge/Parry/Block, which can happen from behind?

2) When a Rogue is near 100% with Evasion, and gets unlucky, is the hit that gets through a crit or a crush?

1) A mob can dodge attacks from behind, but a player cannot. Parry/block cannot happen from behind on a player or mob unless there is a lag issue causing server and client locations to disagree with eachother.

2) 9 time out of 10 when a rogue gets hit with evasion up in a raid, its because of not being able to dodge/parry from behind. To test if its a crush,crit or hit, you would need a rogue with about 30% dodge.

Althor · 09/18/06, 2:46 AM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

I. Magical Combat

The spell hit roll determines whether you hit, miss, or crit. The miss chance and crit chances computed below are measured out of the total number of casts, and to not overlap. The remaining probability defines the ordinary "hits."

Is there any data to back this up? I'm aware that there's plenty of data to back up the melee version but I haven't much (read any) data or clear examples to back up this for spells. We already know that there are at least 2 checks done. i.e. Partial resists and Vulnerabilities.
You can have both crit and non-crit partial resists and vulns (yes, vulns are most certainly still in the game. Fire mobs in MC are Frost vuln and Flamewalker Elites are vuln to Nature, Shadow and Arcane).

So partial resists at least are not in the same table as hit/miss/crit.

On vulnerable mobs you could also see instances of the vulnerability bonus seeming to only take into account pre-crit damage rather than post-crit (harder to notice when you're 2*normal dmg on crits, but easier when you're only doing 1.5*.

Now if there is some decent data to back up your claim then great. Could you post links to it please?

A. Base spell miss chance = {.04, .05, .06, .17} against level {60, 61, 62, 63} mobs.
+Hit gear can improve this, but not below .01.

Alas this is now true. Didn't use to be fully true (at least not in practise) before 1.11 came out. Before then talents could completely eliminate resists. Shadow Focus for one. With Shadow Focus I would *never* be resisted on level 60 to 62 mobs that didn't have actual Shadow Resistance (or similar effect like Ossirian and non-Shadow vuln mobs in BWL). Never. Not once in all the /played time I had at 60. It also meant that for Binary spells (like Mind Flay) that Shadow Focus helped against both level based resists *and* resist gear type resists at the same time.

C. Spell damage = TooltipDamage + (spelldmg)*X

X is a scaling factor for each spell, generally given by max(1,CastTime/3.5). Instant spells have a cast time of 1.5, and channeled spells and DoTs receive the full value, divided over all the ticks. For AoE spells, multiply by 1/3. Sometimes, multiply by yet another factor for spells with secondary abilities (for example, .95 for Frostbolt, .8 for Cone of Cold, and .2 for Frost Nova).

% increases from talents are added after damage bonuses from gear, except in the case of healing spells.

There are a number of spells that work differently with different talents to make such a generalised statement.

For example, Darkness applies before spelldmg on Mind Blast, but after on Mind Flay and Shadow Word: Pain.
Shadowweaving, Shadowform and Curse of Shadows all apply after spelldmg on all 3 spells.

Vosk · 09/18/06, 3:37 AM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

Updated OP.

2 questions:
1) Out of Dodge/Parry/Block, which can happen from behind?

2) When a Rogue is near 100% with Evasion, and gets unlucky, is the hit that gets through a crit or a crush?

Reportedly, when a bear tanks the twin emps, every melee after an unbalancing strike is a crushing blow, and never a crit.

I'd assume that means crushing is higher on the list than crits, for mob swings.

I can't confirm this, however, since I've never tanked the twin emps. Was posted by a bear tank who'd tanked twin emps quite a few times on this forum, though.

• Hamlet · 09/18/06, 7:26 AM

Originally Posted by Althor

There are a number of spells that work differently with different talents to make such a generalised statement.

For example, Darkness applies before spelldmg on Mind Blast, but after on Mind Flay and Shadow Word: Pain.
Shadowweaving, Shadowform and Curse of Shadows all apply after spelldmg on all 3 spells.

Right--it's not totoally consistent. I think Theorycraft (the mod) contains an accurate list.

Drauk · 10/11/06, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

Sure, but it would be pretty straightforward. The hit/miss/crit roll works exactly as it does for melee attacks. After the that, the damage is mitigated by resist roll, which reduced it, on average, by the given amount (for both binary and non-binary spells).

Sorry to bump this, but do we have any definitive proof of that ? Yeah, i know we have a blue post explaining melee mechanics, and its very reasonable assumption that spells works just like melee, but anything besides that ? Say a low-level mage with crit talents vs. very high level mob ?

• Hamlet · 10/11/06, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by Drauk

Sorry to bump this, but do we have any definitive proof of that ? Yeah, i know we have a blue post explaining melee mechanics, and its very reasonable assumption that spells works just like melee, but anything besides that ? Say a low-level mage with crit talents vs. very high level mob ?

I don't think so, no.

• sp00n · 10/13/06, 5:02 AM

There is some data to shield block/crushing blows which I haven't seen beeing referred to yet (or overlooked it).
Though I wouldn't exactly call it "new" (2 months), it shows that shield block really seems to completely negate crushing blows.
http://evilempireguild.org/guides/crushblock.php

So here you have it, at last. Actual parsed numbers showing that even by analysing the damage taken, no blocked attack could be hitting hard enough to be a crushing blow. For now, we're safe to say that you cannot take a crushing blow while Shield Block is active. I say "for now", because we all know that Blizzard can and does tinker with mechanics when they feel it's warranted, so someday we may see this changed. Or maybe not.

All of this does leave one question that is still unanswered: Does the Shield Block buff have to be up to push crushing blows off the combat table, or could you do it by naturally raising your dodge+parry+block+miss to be higher than 85%. It'll be a long while before we can answer that one I think, if ever.

draghkar · 10/13/06, 5:02 PM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

C. Spell damage = TooltipDamage + (spelldmg)*X

X is a scaling factor for each spell, generally given by max(1,CastTime/3.5).

I think you meant min(1, CastTime/3.5)

• sp00n · 10/15/06, 8:16 AM

So, what was the formula that calculates the crit chance from your agility as you level up?
I think I have read it somewhere in these forums, but I cannot find it anymore.
Was it simply 20*Level/60?
Or a more complex formula?

And will this formula still hold true in the expansion?
Meaning, a warrior will need 20*70/60= 23.3 agility per crit and a rogue 29*70/60= 33.8?