Liand

It doesn't seem to change glancing blow damage at all as far as I can tell.

With level 60 Rogue at 305 Mace (+5) against level 63 Ango'rosh Ogre (222 total hits):
Normal: 51 hits ranging from 135 to 179; average damage is 157
Glancing: 82 hits (36.9% of total hits) ranging from 90 to 149; average damage is 119.5 (23.9% reduction from normal)

With level 63 Paladin at 315 Mace (+0) against level 66 Talbuk Thorngrazer (822 total hits):
Normal: 270 hits ranging from 82 to 111; average damage is 96.5
Glancing: 310 hits (37.7% of total hits) ranging from 55 to 93; average damage is 74 (23.3% reduction from normal)

With level 63 Paladin at 325 Mace (+10) against level 66 Talbuk Thorngrazer (555 total hits):
Normal: 174 hits ranging from 82 to 111; average damage is 96.5
Glancing: 221 hits (39.8% of total hits) ranging from 56 to 91; average damage is 73.5 (23.8% reduction from normal)

(Full /combatlog and accompanying Perl scripts that parse the log at http://www.gsf-guild.com/bc-bugs/weapon-expertise/)

Did I mess up somewhere? Can anyone verify?

 

Cesar2000

If this has really been changed, I would consider it a long-awaited fix. Need more info :)

 

Mist

What would be the point of weaponskill then?

 

LadyVex

Weaponskill as it is now has too much importance placed on it IMO. Teir3 rogues/dps warriors are running around in world BOE epic drops and MC gear just to make up that bit of dps from weaponskill.

Weapon skill does not just reduce glancing blows, it also has some hit and crit associated with it. A change would simply mean you could itemize gear differently, instead of +weapon skill being a driving power in your decision making.

 

• Wodin

^^^: There will always be people who can't do math. The only time you consider using +skill gear over a piece of Tier 3 is if you're using ACLGs over non-Bonescythe gloves. Anyone who is using Maladath over Iblis or stuff like that can be written off as unable to perform math.

Likewise Edgemasters falls prey to a similar deal - you can get close, but I'm pretty sure the Naxx gloves beat it.

...

You realize that if this is real, there's basically no point in bringing a rogue to a raid zone unless you need them to unlock a trap or something, right? Mages and rogues are balanced around spell hit and weapon skill respectively as means of reducing the penalty caused by fighting higher-level monsters. Remove half the equation, and you'll throw the entire delicate balance out of whack.

Just because it was poorly itemized pre-Naxx doesn't mean it's a bad statistic.

 

◊ Kalman

No, a change would mean that one of the talents we fought hardest for (Weapon Expertise) is now massively overpriced. At it's current rate of return per talent point invested, it's roughly appropriate for raiders - 5 skill for 2 points is roughly a 1.5% damage increase per talent point, which is consistent with most passive DPS boosting talents. But only vs. level 63s and mainly due to the current mechanics of glancing blows.

Invalidate those mechanics and you've made the talent worthless. Itemization is *not* a good excuse; the reason rogues wear MC gear and DPS warriors wear BoE epic world drops is because +skill itemization is so poor we're forced to, not because it's somehow overpowered.

 

◊ castille

instead of...? What? AP? Crit? Hit? I mean, we all make decisions about how we want to maximize our DPS -- I stack +hit a fair bit more than I do most other things to maximize my white damage as a sword rogue. Works out pretty well for me.

I mean, the real shame was people running around in blues, but it was just using game mechanics to your advantage, something that should happen. Having someone just go in in full drop gear is no better than someone who systematically improved their weapon skill to reduce their glancing blow damage.

23:40:55> [Illidan Stormrage's] [Shear] was blocked by [Castille].
^ Yes, this actually happened. Yes, Castille is a shaman.

 

Cesar2000

As it is now, weapon skill is a waaaaay too powerful stat. How can you say its fair that one stat makes such a massive difference at such a a cheap cost? +Skill still adds crit and hit btw.

The only 'problem' with this change, if its true, is the +skill talents that different classes have.

 

◊ Quigon

I always thought +skill was broken when I first heard about how it works... the returns per point are ridiculous. You don't see the same thing with +bows, or whatever. Maybe they intended this. Still they could fix rogue dps other ways still, or just adjust itemization.

 

LadyVex

I never said it was overpowered, but when you're getting to the point where the only real big increases in dps can basically come from weapon skill then I think something is a little bit off.

I still would like to see weapon skill around, but with better itemization and less importance placed on it.

Poor itemization doesn't account for the fact that if there were another way to increase dps so substantially you wouldn't be wearing BOE epics and MC gear. MC gaunts being a bigger boost than other higher ilvl gloves is just weird.

As far as the talents with everything being reworked or relooked at in TBC if the mechanics were changed your talents probably would be too. Probably less points and in a lower teir.

Hunters have items with weapon skill on it and we don't get glancing blows, but we still use them.

I don't think being able to reduce glancing blows should be done away with, but I don't think it was Blizzard intention (And I gotta say it's annoying) to be going all out for weapon skill because it does so much.

 

◊ Kalman

+skill adds 0.04% crit and 0.04% hit, and reduces dodge and parry and block by 0.04%.

Not 4%. 0.04%.

Without the glancing reduction, +skill is trash, and melee is crippled compared to ranged. You do know that +hit is the caster counterpart to +skill, right? Except +hit got proper itemization, which +skill never did.

If they want to remove +skill's effect on glancing from the game, glancing needs to go as well.

 

◊ castille

You don't see it because they don't suffer from it, at all. +skill for ranged adds more crit/hit but there is no glancing in ranged physical attacking.

23:40:55> [Illidan Stormrage's] [Shear] was blocked by [Castille].
^ Yes, this actually happened. Yes, Castille is a shaman.

 

Cesar2000

There is no rule that says casters and melee classes must have everything equal. +Skill is a very broken stat, and I do not think that it was ever intended to work the way it does - but, similar to many other things, when blizz realised this, it was too late.

 

Oth

Actually, +hit isn't the counterpart to +skill. +spell skill is.

Our 'glancing blows' (level-based resists) can't be worked around with any item currently in the game.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...h-cenarius.png

 

• Wodin

Kalman beat me to it.

I suspect there's probably just a bug with the way the new "skill rating" stat is being factored into the combat formulae. I guess I should have been doing parses instead of trying to level. :(

 

Antiarc

My math might be wrong, but...

Glancing on a +3 is 40% at a 30% damage reduction, yes?

White damage is currently about 60% of my overall damage. With glances, my white damage is reduced by 12% to 88% (0.6 + (0.4 * 0.3)). 60% of that is 7.2%.

A 7.2% damage loss is, uh, kinda significant.

 

◊ Kalman

Hi there, Mana Igniting Cord! How's life treating you as the second best caster DPS belt in the game? Onslaught Girdle, you doing okay over there too? Cape of the Black Baron, you still hanging out around my backside? Good, good, we're all good.

Don't talk stupid; we all know itemization creates oddities like that sometimes.

The point is: +skill, as the game is currently constructed, is powerful because we have no other way to counteract glancing blows. If casters had a grand total of 3 pieces of +hit gear in the game, they'd be wearing those too, even over higher ilevel gear, because it's also underpriced vs. its value when used against higher level targets.

 

• Maestroquark

Liand: Ranged has a different rate of return for weapon skill to either crit or hit (which is it?). One is .04, the other is .24. Melee is only .04 to both. Would it be possible to test and see if the melee crit/hit returns changed? Obviously testing scale would need to be much bigger to be accurate.

What are you waiting for, a certain shade of green?

 

Antiarc

I'd disagree with that - I'd say that the melee equivalent to level-based resists is increased dodge/parry/block, which we can't work around either.

 

Liand

I didn't post this at first, because I didn't think I had enough samples to be sure, but weapon skill may now be increasing melee hit rate more than it used to as well. At 315 mace skill for the 63 Paladin, I missed 45 times out of 822 hits (5.5% miss rate), but at 325, I missed 16 times out of 555 hits (2.9% miss rate). The expected rate increase is 0.4%, so maybe that's how they tried to compensate (which makes no sense for Rogues since they have +5% hit talent in the same tree as +weapon skill talent; same for Paladins).

Edit for Maestroquark: Now that you mention it, +0.24% to reduce miss rate per weapon skill would fit perfectly with what I see (0.24 * 10 = 2.4 ~ 5.5 - 2.9).

 

• Wodin

Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but you have a base 17% chance of resist on a +3 monster(e.g. any raid boss). Spell hit reduces the fizzles caused by that differential in level, so 6% spell hit means that you now have an 11% chance of resist on a +3.

That's analogous to what +weapon skill does, because the major changes from a 61 to a 63 are more glancing blows.

 

◊ Kalman

No, +hit is. Glancing blows are our level based damage reduction. A 17% spell miss rate is yours. Haven't you ever wondered about the commonality of certain numbers?

40% of swings, a 30% reduction on those swings. 12% lost from 60 to 63.

5% miss rate on equal level targets. 17% on +3s. 12% lost.

Funny, isn't it? Melee comes out ahead because glancing only affects white damage, but then again, casters don't have to deal with armor (the equivalent would be resist, if mobs actually had any real resist, which they don't).

 

◊ Kalman

nvm, misunderstood the post

 

LadyVex

Be that as it may, it doesn't mean it's any less wrong in this situation because you can list other instances. And those items you listed are simply just a good combination or raw amount of stats, instead of having specifically ONE stat on it that elevates it above all others. ACLG and EMHG wouldn't be such a big deal being the best *if* they were the best with all around stats but what makes them such is the +weapon skill.

+Weapon skill shouldn't function like it currently does, ESPECIALLY since some racials include this stat in them. With the realized emphasis +skill does, is there any reason to be a night elf warrior when you could have +sword skill? Same for being a human rogue etc.

As angry as you are about the change you also have to realize that it's Blizzard's way of things NOT to change itemization but to change the very mechanics of things that are "out of balance". They've normalized daggers, swords, bows etc. They've changed hunter rap ratios, fear resists, normalized rage.

If the change is significant (like I know it to be) or rather if it's true, I'm sure there will be some compensation.

 

• Wodin

There wasn't for previous changes like normalization.