I think it's a good way to scale warrior tank threat vs. melee therat, while providing a way to paritally remove the glaring issue with a boss parrying.

From a DPS perspective, they stopped the foolishness that was specific weapon skill, and bundled it all together. It will scale better than the hit that was gained from weapon skill, as there was always 5% raid DPS that was lost for melee attacking from behind. Now, it's theoretically possible to remove that. Yeah, the hit cap is raised, but that can be fixed with gear.

I've been reading some rogues saying that this change will increase the hit cap. Can anyone verify this? Is it true?

And if so, what is the new cap? I read 363, but would like to hear it from here, not the WoW Rogue Forums.

EDIT: Thanks for response. I did read the thread I just must have overlooked it.

Then read the Thread you post in before you post.

You can take out the "5 from human racial" from the above equation because it's been changed to 1% flat crit instead.

While attacking from the front will be a DPS loss, it won't be a tank killer any more. With capped expertise rating, you won't get parried and cause hasted boss melee attacks.

Has anyone seen any reports as to what the change to items that currently have +weapon skill rating is? I have been unable to get on the PTR to check them out. Of particular interest are the pieces of armor that currently provide weapon skill rating for certain weapon types, but not others: Are they just getting general +expertise, or is it some sort of "+expertise rating with swords"?

I don't understand how the poster you quoted came to this figure.

Unless I missed something, the hit cap @70 is still going to be 25.5 * 15.77 = 402. Precision is still worth 78.85 hit rating. Wouldn't that make the standard hit cap 324?

Maybe the original poster didn't have precision, and was including some of the other equipment from his table, but that's not the sort of "new hit cap" number most people will find helpful.

Your weapon Skill to Boss Defense changed the chance to miss on the Boss mob.

Boss(365)-You 350(no + WS) = Diff of 15

Basically there was a none linear relationship between the Boss Defense(BD) and Your WS for the first 5 ponts.

Diff of (BD-WS) > 10 = A big jump in Miss chance

Diff of (BD-WS)< 10 = Becomes linear .1 miss reduced per WS

the first 5 ws (So having 355WS)= 3%reduced chance to miss

So the assumed max miss is 28%

Plz correct me if i am wrong but going from my memory of the explanation.

D'oh! That's right. The model of base miss chance against a boss was changed to 28% * 15.77 = 441.56 base hit cap, less 78.55 from precision = 363 new hit cap.

Sorry for the mis-info above.

If weapon expertise doesn't convert dodge/parry into hit, but instead miss, it's becomes an utter waste of stat points on an item. Especially for a tank (from a TPS perspective).

Actually, this would make expertise on items (rather than talents) WORSE than simply getting crit or hit rating for dps too, if you're already hit capped on specials. Why?

If 1% crit = 1% damage, you need ~22 crit rating to get 1% more damage.
If 1% hit on specials + white = 1% damage, you need ~16 hit rating AND ~16 expertise rating to equal 1% more damage (32 rating points total!).

If expertise merely reduces dodge/parry, it makes it virtually worthless for a tanking warrior trying to max his TPS, as well. I'll take my 6 points that come along with defiance for free, and try to reach the new, higher hit cap if this is the case (10.1%?). Nearly impossible to do in any decent tank gear.

In conclusion: lets hope that it converts dodge/parry directly into hit rather than miss, otherwise it's going to be worse to have on your gear than any other stat from a DPS or TPS perspective.

I think we need some ptr testing.

So, we have to figure out if the base miss chance for boss mobs is still 4% higher than on even level mobs.
I think it is a good chance, at least they are now TELLING us what the stat actually does.

Well, attacking from the front will often get you killed, and boss mobs have around 15% chance to parry. Good luck capping this, you'd need 60 expertise or 237 expertise rating.

Well, it makes perfect sense, in multiple ways.
1) 4 points of expertise match exactly 1 point of hit rating and offers the same benefit for melee DPS and even twice for tanks.
With exactly I mean: 2.5*82/52 (the rating -> point conversion for 'old' weapon skill) * 4 - 10*82/52 (the rating -> % conversion for hit) = 0. Zero. They match exactly.
2) If they'd converted expertise to have the same ratio as hit (15.769) there would be some items with an 'uneven' distribution of expertise rating (i.e. 3.75 for [Grips of Deftness]. Also you most likely wouldn't see much more than 12% expertise ever, and bigger numbers are better numbers, aren't they?
3) Blizzard doesn't have to go over every item with weapon skill. They can leave most as they are and just change the global variable for weapon skill == expertise.

To verify, from the items as they're currently on the PTR:

Melee-related skill rating effects were directly converted to Expertise rating.








Ranged skill rating effects (Gun, Bow, Crossbow) were mainly converted to hit rating; a handful were instead converted to crit rating.




From the conversions, this certainly makes the stat more accessible; Rogues leveling up will now highly prize the Clefthoof Hide Leggings as druids have, Druids will now rate the Shoulderpads of the Stranger higher than before, etc. Hopefully some of the new items will be itemized further with Expertise, as well.

With the change to Rogue Mace Spec, does warrior mace spec get a similar change?

I'm extremely concerned that my soon-to-be-crafted Stormherald (no vortices in a month, wtf!) will be more-or-less obselete by the nerf to Warrior mace spec. It's already terrible in PvE...

No, warrior mace spec got 1 extra rage per proc.

Least. impressive. change. ever.

The bonus rage gained from having mace spec stays roughly the same, while the actual utility dies.

I think the real benefit of expertise, or at least what I immediately noticed upon reading the patch notes, is the benefit to hit capped physical dps classes. Hit cap has been raised, yes, but keep in mind there is Zul'aman and (maybe/who knows when) Sunwell Plateau, so chances are that dual wielders won't have too much trouble reaching the cap again. However with hit cap and 22.4 expertise (not expertise rating, but the actual stat) melee dps will be in a situation where they will never miss any attack when attacking away from parry range (behind and sides on some bosses). This is an obvious benefit, and I personally enjoy the transparency of the new system (especially if you read all 600 or such posts in the weapon skill adjustment thread =D).
-Golijov

well that is unfortunate. Weapon skill was added in a patch at some point right? Anyone know what the human racial was before weapon skill came along?

Okay, I see why it's a 16ish:1 ratio, which explains one half of it... my second conudrum is why rather than directly 16ish:1, it's 4:1 followed by another 4:1. I think you tried to explain that in point 2) above, but I'm not quite following your logic. A rating is a rating, grips of deftness will have 15 (or whatever) expertise rating regardless of how much expertise percent that ends up becoming. And I would really hope that transparency of effect trumps zomg BIG numbers.
At this point I'm running under the assumption that they didn't think it out very well. One expertise means what one weapon skill used to (kinda), but since expertise replaces weapon skill there's no need to make its progression match 'legacy' stats.

People from the test realm: where does expertise show up in your display, if at all? Is it a new melee stat, or part of your weapon skill mouseover? Or is it just kinda squirreled away somewhere, like how caster stats used to be before they revamped the character pane?

It is in the list of melee stats, right below Hit.

It's exactly the same logic as having crit rating and crit percent.

Talents give crit% (or expertise) directly, and thus will remain the same in effectiveness as you level up. Items give crit rating (or expertise rating). As you level up, the conversion factor for rating -> crit% (or expertise) goes down, so that items become less desirable relative to newer shinier gear.

Now I'm not following yours.
If they change the conversion ratio, of course they also have to change the rating on the items accordingly. And changing the conversion by multiplying with 4 (which would bring it on par with hit rating) means dividing the weapon rating by 4 to get the expertise rating.
Which is not quite so good with ratings such like 15, 25, 10, etc.
They would have changed almost every item with weapon skill on it currently, and would have had to decide whether they make it worse or better.