I recently started noticing that i was getting less critical strikes then my paper doll was indication i should.

I ran some test using recount, both in my gear, as well as naked with a low level bow.

In both instances, my auto shot and steady shot were criting 6 percent less then my paper doll indicated they should.


Naked, I had 6.24 crit rating (from skinning, base agility and lethal shots) and both only crit 1.2 percent of the time after 3000 shots fired.

Any one else notice this recently?

Unfortunately it just sounds like a bad case of RNG.

If anything, I crit more than I should some of the time, less than I should on other occasions.

I am maxed out in all 3 weapons, and it is not a case of RNG.

After 3000 shots, RNG normalizes and i never got out of the range of 5 - 7 percent less crit then my paper doll.

The crit reduction versus a level 83 mob is 1.2 percent crit.

I tested this on a heroic boss dummy, and auto shot for over 2 hours. I have run 3 seperate tests, and all 3 test showed the same thing.

Here is a screen shot of one test.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w...608_063223.jpg


I will note I only started noticing this after the last maintenance on Tuesday.

Heard something of the same for Warriors... And personally I have experienced similar, Naxx Friday saw me crit at around 18% while my crit on tooltip was 23-24%. I disregarded it as a fluke of course, RNG, but now that I hear of others it has surface in my mind again.

I think I will do a few tests tomorrow, first on boss dummies then on 80 dummies. If both show an unreasonable reduction then something isn't right mechanically, if it is only the heroic dummy then it is the bosslevel that does it somehow. If that is how it is supposed to be, if it is so, is hard to tell, but honestly that much of a loss isn't right.

We already did the difference between a level 80 avatar and a level 83 boss, and it's a 1.2 percent crit reduction. Since in my test I have 6.2 crit percent less, it is EXACTLY accounted for as 5 percent from talents, missing, and 1.2 percent from level difference.

I did the test that I posted before I did 3000 shots, and the same held true.



All this began when I was testing the 8 percent hit requirement, and I had a friend on a Death knight test it as well. While we proved the 8 percent hit rate right, I had him go back and look at his logs, and he was missing 5 percent crit from talents after over 2000 melee attacks as well. This may be a across the board problem.

Yes you proved that somewhere you miss 5% crit. But you are making the asumption it's Lethal Shots. Which looks obvious, but to be sure you need to test with and without Lethal Shots and compare.

Thayer, you aren't hit capped. Won't this skew your numbers? I see 6 misses in your Recount screenshot - if some of those were critical strikes that missed, that would give you a pretty significant reduction in tested crit, yes?

I went and tested (274 hit rating, no FA) and I'm getting perfect crit numbers across the board. My variance is less than 0.5%...

Something that I noticed, and I'm not sure if this makes a difference or not, if I took all my shots as a single set of data, my average crit between Steady and Auto balanced out to my tooltip 20%. However, separately, I was seeing some variation - higher crit chance on Steady and lower on Auto, and in subsequent tests, this sometimes flipflopped. You might have something here, but definitely need to get some larger chunks of data to support it.

Well, I am testing without lethal shots right now, and at over 2000 shots, I am still getting about 5 percent less crit then my tool tip says I should. I am testing auto shot only at this time. I did notice the fluctuation in crit and Hit on different abilities, as well as a variation in my pets crit, hit abilities. If the reduced crit is not tied into talents, as I seem to be finding, then can it be that they changed the crit reduction between levels to be a lot more drastic.

Once I get some 3000 shot test done, I will post screen shots of my returns, and we will see if anyone can duplicate them...

I ended up doing a 4000 shot test, since i saw some RNG fluctuations around 2000 shots. Here is a link.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w...NoLethal83.jpg

In this test, my tool tip said 23.45, but I only crit 18.7 percent, so that is a 4.75 percent crit reduction versus a level 83 boss dummy. This is without Lethal Shots or Focused Aim, as seen in the screen shot, and i will also do test with Lethal Shots and no Focused Aimed. This will be followed by a test with Lethal Shots, and Focused Aimed, with 5 percent hit from gear.



Next I will do a 2000 shot test on a level 80 dummy, to confirm equivalent mob level crit rates.

I did the level 80 dummy test and my crit returns were in line with the tool tip:

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w...NoLethal80.jpg

It seems that there is a larger crit penalty for the difference between player / target level differences.




From wowwiki:

Mobs which are the same level as you always have a 5% chance to crit. A mob's or player's crit chance is modified by the difference between the attacker's Attack Rating and the defender's Defense. The attack rating equals the skill with the currently equipped weapon (WS = Weapon Skill), being level * 5 for mobs and the same for player chars with maximum weapon skill. Each point of AR exceeding the target's Defense will increase chance to crit by 0.04%.

If we reverse this formula, the crit reduction should be only 0.6 percent [ (415-400) * 0.04 = 0.6 ].



It has a contradictory formula listed as well:

Mob Def > AR - 0.2% per point of difference [unsure, if correct]

Their example is based on a level 70 player attacking a level 73 mob, and it states that the reduction should be 3 percent crit.

Player's crit chance against mob: tool tip crit chance - 0.2%*(365-350) = tooltip crit chance - 3%





If the modifier on this formula has changed, it may be that the crit chance is further decreased when you have a level 80 player attacking a level 83 mob, or it may be that a level 83 boss mob actually has 425 defense (as opposed to a pure 415 based on level).


I think the formula for crit versus a level 83 boss mob may need possible re-evaluation. The combination of crit into one statistic may also be responsible for this. I believe the removal of the 1 percent chance to miss for casters, and then the combination of spell hit and physical hit into one statistic, may be responsible for the overall hit cap getting lowered.

Of course these are all assumptions, and I am still collecting data as I type this.

What is the agreed upon crit reduction on these forums for a level 80 player attacking a level 83 boss mob?

Lethal Shots was confirmed as not affecting Auto a while back, only specials... that should include Steady, to the best of my knowledge.

Whoa! Lightbulb flashing! Possible connection made...

Wasn't there someone commenting that glancing blows on a bosstarget was way overboard right now? Or am I reading that wrong? If there are indeed too many glancings, then perhaps target defense is indeed too high, or perhaps higher than we would have assumed (it could after all be intentional).
But doesn't defense also affect yellow attacks like Steadys Shot? I know that yellow melee can't be glancing, so perhaps works like that now?

Anyway, raiding tonight showed a similar too low crit on bosses again. Unfortunately RL forced me out of testing... Will try later if needed.

-Edit
Apparently the Rogues are also experiencing wonky crits on their melee swings. Retesting hit table assumptions