Hi guys and gals.

For a long time, I've been meaning to determine the formula for % hit, and I just don't have the time right now.
I'm looking for some help in this matter, and if anyone has the answers or the time, I would be grateful.

I've read countless posts stating that 5% is the base %miss in equi-level fights. People have empirically determined that 9% hit on your gear will be the most you will need. However, as a troll, I really wonder just how much % hit the +5 to bows is equal to. I've only got +7% hit on my gear at the moment, and my dps hasn't increased noticably since I got my Smiting. I think the difference may be in the weapon skill (305 bows vs. 300 xbows).

Since blizard seems to like linear formulae, and ranged shots can't be parried, I would guess offhand that the formula would resemble the following:

%miss = 5% + L*(target level - your level) + D*(target defence - your weapon skill) - (points in Surefooted)

If anyone knows that my formula is wrong or you know the coefficents, please let me know! Otherwise, I propose experiments to collect data.

1)Determination of "D":

Find a willing opponent of EQUAL LEVEL to stand still in a dual while you fire at him/her. This Opponent should own some +DEFENSE gear. For this experiment you will want a very low dps ranged weapon to prolong the dual. You should remove all gear other than your ranged weapon as well, both to reduce your dps and to eliminate gear with %hit.

Part A:
Ask your opponent to vary his/her gear so that he/she has 10 defense more than you have weapon skill. Dual your opponent and record the number of shots and number of misses.

Part B:
Ask your opponent to vary his/her gear so that he/she has the same defense as you have weapon skill. Dual your opponent and record the number of shots and number of misses.

*Part A and B could really be of any 2 different defenses, but for data pooling, experiments should be uniform.*

2)Determination of "L"

Find a willing opponent of 3 LEVELS less than you (because it's impossible to find someone to dual who's a higher level than 60) to stand still in a dual while you fire at him/her. For this experiment you will want a very low dps ranged weapon to prolong the dual. You should remove all gear other than your ranged weapon as well, both to reduce your dps and to eliminate gear with %hit.

Ask your opponent to vary his/her gear so that he/she has the same defense as you have weapon skill. Dual your opponent and record the number of shots and number of misses.

*Of course your opponent could have any known defense, but for data pooling, experiments should be uniform.*

[Edit: yes, can't be parried. I was typing too quickly :/]

The main problem is that for many mechanics, the calculations in PvP are different than in PvE, so I don't know if it would be a terribly accurate test.

It's been some time since I've played my hunter but, as far as I remember, mobs and players alike can't parry shots. You can block them(which leads in total scattershot blocks with enough gear) but that's it. Ranged are either hit, miss, or block(with the occasional resist on arcane shot, which can't be a full resist, I suspect it works like weapons that add +frost or +fire dmg, it's a physical+arcane attack). Which is why it is easy to find what the % to never miss is.
At some point during the hunter review they decided to make ppl able to dodge/parry shots. It resulted in an uproar(justified one imo), because hunter dps went down like 50%.

As for the rest, I'd say the formula is probably the same as for melees, with +dagger helping a bit with hit% but actually being used for glancing blows. In most of the discussions I've read about +weap skill, it was all about glancing tho, +hit was discarded because it was too low.

Edit: Rereading that you probably meant CANT be parried, my bad.

Pyros: Ranged attacks can be blocked (usually by either 43 or 47 on raid mobs), but not dodged or parried. Arcane shot can also be blocked as a normal physical attack, and seems to use the physical ranged crit chance (rather than spell crit), but can also be resisted/amplified by anything that modifies arcane damage.

Curly:
According to the combat mechanics thread on this forum (http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=6726), the chance to hit is a base 5% (except for dual wield white damage). Subtract your weapon skill from the target's defense and multiply by 0.04% for the skill modifier. Subtract your level from the target's level and multiply by 1% for the level modifier.

Against a level 63, this would be 5% + (15)*0.04% + (3)*1% = 8.6% chance to miss.

According to the combat mechanics thread, weapon skill also affects crit, in exactly the same way it affects hit. Adding +5 skill to your weapon would increase your chance to hit by 0.2% and chance to crit by 0.2%. Assuming full points in mortal shots, this would be 0.43% more damage, hardly enough to account for you missing the significant DPS increase from Ashjre'Thul as calculated in the hunter damage cycles thread (http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=6798).

PvP mechanics are definitely very different from PvP, and should not be used to derive PvE formulas. For example, a level 52 is able to easily hit a level 60 in a battleground, whereas a level 52 player would have trouble even glancing a level 60 npc.

Edit: oops, I forgot a 0, it's 0.04% per point of skill.

I wish I understood how +skill contributes exactly to %hit. I am fairly certain it isn't the flat 0.04% per skill point that is always talked about, unless I've just been extremely lucky and not missed in 2 months with only 6.2% to hit (6% from gear, 0.2% from troll racial).

One thread I read on the WOW hunter forums was interesting; one hunter posted base miss rates, obtained empirically, for all the levels, and they were as follows:

Level 60: 5%
Level 61: 6%
Level 62: 7%
Level 63: 9%

I'm inclined to believe that +5 skill counts as an entire "level," meaning that the base miss rate versus level 63s becomes 7%, as if it were only a 2 level gap. That still wouldn't explain why I don't miss with 6% to hit, though.

Unfortunately, I haven't saved any recap data over my months of BWL farming, so I don't have any hard evidence. The best I can say is that I can't remember ever missing with 6% to hit.

Interesting, and thankyou.

I'm inclined to believe the later post, which indicates that I'll miss 2% more of the time on a level 63 mob. I'd read about the 0.4% for weaponskill/defense before, but given that the parses were done by melee classes, I questioned (and still question) its application to ranged physical.

If anyone has the link to the data of this guy's parse, I'd be glad to see it.

These numbers seems to agree most with other Hunter threads posted recently (specifically, the value of 8.6 at +3). There was a nice parse on one of those threads which agreed very well with a 0.6% to miss, wearing +8, against various BWL bosses.

They could be explained by an loss of 1% to hit per level, plus a "normal" skill term of 0.04% per skill. This is what I assumed in the combat mechanics thread--it seems most consistent with other behavior in the game.

They could also explained by an effect 0.24% per skill, with no dependence on level. The only evidence for this is some reports (but nothing very concrete yet) that a +5 skill bonus allows you to achieve 0% miss with +8 hit instead of +9.

(To be pedantic, it could also be any linear combination of those two, but that would be really odd).

Somebody bust out those Trueaims. Everyone wants to know what to think about the Eye of Nerub.

I have read some where, i think it was on the WoW hunters forum, that +1% crit = -1% hit

anyone can confirm this?

In a kind of twisted sense, yes. (At least, if it applies like melee miss/hit/crit.)

Any given attack can miss, hit or crit, with a fixed percentage across all attacks. So, if you miss, say, 5%, and crit, say, 25%, then you do normal hits for the other 70%.

Getting +1% hit from gear trades 1% miss for 1% hit. You'd crit 25%, hit 71%, and miss 4%.

Getting +1% crit from gear trades 1% hit for 1% crit. You'd crit 26%, hit 69%, and miss 5%. The extra crit comes out of hits, not misses, so there's a semantic sense in which you've lost 1% hit. You're not missing more often, though.

So having +9% hit will make me nevermiss,even on a lvl 63 mob, i'll just hit or crit? :D

Yes?

Cool thanks a lot for all these infos, i'll make good use of em ;)

Of course if you've got 5 points in mortal shots, then for dps (on average) 1%crit = 1.3%hit. However, there are times when you can't afford to miss, such as Distracting Shot or Tranq Shot.

I don't know if anyone's interested, but I'll be posting some of the data I've collected regarding +skill in regards to hit and crit.
I've got a lot screenshots and logs to sift through, and I might have to sleep, but it should be posted within a day or 2 at max.