Weapon skill from 300 to 323 and the implications therein for warriors (and perhaps others too..)

[C0n0n 3]

Heya!

Yay, the forum is up! Sneak preview: get up to +7.48% hit on Orc with weapon skill pumping. What?! Read below, thanks for coming! Couldn't sleep so here is a calculation of different sweet spots for weapon skills. And because made this at work (biostatistician, heh, prolly explains a bit of the below), only for Horde, sorry for the Alliance players - tho the orc column should be rather interchangeable for you, just modify the weapons and calc from there. Though there's no awesome Goldminer (nomen est omen) synergy for you :(! The sources used were:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061115223930/http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=14381707&sid=1
http://web.archive.org/web/20071229013420/http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11381359&sid=1&pageNo=1#2
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Attack_table?direction=prev&oldid=354949
https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=39130
https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=559

especially glancing blow damage reduction mechanic:
http://web.archive.org/web/20061115223930/http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=14381707&sid=1
"Or alternatively strikes doing a reduced percentage damage of your normal hit damage. The calculation for this is...
Normal damage - ((Defense skill – Weapon skill - 5) * 3%)
So versus a 63 mob your strikes do 70% (85% versus 62) when they glance."

A big THANK YOU to the people who posted in the above threads (MrCer/Keftenk for starting, Undertanker for Mugger/Death's Sting -dagger point, Netherfrost for grand %&'s & mighty links, Vido, St0rfan, Hatson, Armilus, Moxey et cetera for contributing and all the people in ye olde wow forums back in 2006)!!! Comments and criticisms are welcome, as I am not wholly sure about the correctness of the equations (the time takes its toll), the different patch versions, or how they are implemented on the Elysium.

The different gear sets and the different weapon skills they contribute have been marked as E? (non-orc) / O? (orc) on the table below for ease of reading.
The contents of such sets can be found below the numerical table.
The priority of operations on the created hit table is the classic Miss, Dodge, Parry, Block, Glancing Blow, Crit, Hit (thx Netherfrost!)

I have put a crit chance of 10% to the table as a default. The actual crit% depends on the crit% of your character and can be found in the spellbook tab. If your crit is larger than 10% (and hopefully it is!! :D) every increase in crit% takes away a corresponding % from the normal hits, as per "crit cap" calculation.

The thing to notice here is:

Every +weapon skill lessens your chance to miss. It is known. (thx GRRM)
BUT:
In addition, every +weapon skill lessens the chance of the target to dodge / parry / block and increases the chance to crit. This is usually not taken into the account when factoring whether it is worthwhile to boost weapon skill. Every +weapon skill point lessens the chance of the target to dodge / parry / block by 0.04% and increases the crit chance by 0.04%.

Thus, every +weapon skill point contributes an additional 3 x 0.04% = 0.12% to you getting a hit (via it being a non-dodge/parry/block) on the target. This also means that the crit cap is raised the same amount, since the d/p/b-probabilities are converted to hit and thus can be converted to crits via the proper application of world buffs etc.

So to sum it up:
Beyond the normal "weapon skill reduces the chance to miss", every +weapon skill point gives directly +0.12% to hit the target, directly +0.04% to crit, and implicitly raises the crit cap by +0.12%. E.g. if you push your weapon skill to 315, you get -3,60% to miss chance, an additional +1,80% to hit the target (together they make +5,40% to hit, and the crit cap is raised the corresponding +5,40%), directly +0,60% to crit, and your DPS increases directly by 12,00%, because the glancing blows occurring 40% of the time do not any more reduce the damage dealt.

Now, I am a bit unsure about this, and it seems strange that there was not a consensus about this in the days of yore. It also seems strange that a whole lot of major raiders would not have known this. It is more probable that I am wrong. Or there is something that I am missing. Or perhaps the raiders were good enough anyway and bosses were downed, so nobody bothered to theorycraft weapon skill to the hilt, since profits were flooding in anyway. And the equations were hidden in 2005 & 2006. The most simple reason would be that in classic WoW, there is no implicit +hit chance in addition to the reduction in miss%, because the weapon skill does not contribute to the reduction of the dodge/parry/block percentage. But it would appear that it does. It is e.g. a beautiful explanation why the dodge chance of level 63 boss is 5.6% (5% normal + 3 level difference * 0.0004 * 5 increase in defense skill per level).

The bomb:

If you go orc and grab edgemaster's, goldminer's and 2 x zulian hacker, you can get 4.72% reduction to miss and 2.76% increase to non-dodge/parry/block -> total actual "+hit" = 7.48%. Please comment, this seems to be rather interesting. Data and other info below. Also consider buying stuff from AH before prices spike. Then equip +hit gear and blast every boss to bits. Yay!

I have used the following equations:

If weapon skill is 11 or lower than the defense skill (e.g. < 305 when fighting a boss)
Miss chance =  0.06+(Defense skill - Weapon skill -10) *0.004 + (Defense skill - Weapon skill) * 0.0004

If weapon skill is within 10 or less of the defense skill of the target (e.g. >= 305 when fighting a boss)
Miss chance =  0.05+(Defense skill - Weapon skill) *0.001 + (Defense skill - Weapon skill) * 0.0004

This means that when you upgrade your skill from 300 -> 305, there is a whopping +2.2% direct reduction to miss, in +0.44% increments per skill point.
After this, every skill point you get nets you only a +0.14% direct reduction to miss per skill point, e.g. when you go from 305 to 310, the chance to miss goes down only +0,7% on top of the +2,2% already gained.

Glancing blow damage reduction percentage:
1 - ((Defense skill – Weapon skill - 5) * 3%)

E.g. if you have weapon skill 300, the blow does only 70 % the damage, if 305, 85 % and so on. The profit from this thus caps at weapon skill 310.

 

Here it is - let us converse!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qHCTEr0it1wntducr6FpDt21rHZr5_RpQlv99T4ICKk/edit?usp=sharing

best regards
Cononchet, Tauren Warrior

[Yoga 3]

But you never hit boss anywhere else than behind so your attacks can't be parried or blocked :)

Edited January 13, 2017 by Yoga

[C0n0n 3]

Dear Sir that is absolutely true. Being a Tauren, I was too much in the tank mindset when writing the spreadsheet :P when I get home I will update it accordingly!! Thanks a million :)!

best

Cono

[Barcodebrah 0]

its all about raising dat critcap

[vido 1]

hit and miss chance refer to the same value on the attack table, you don't count it twice.

the actual retail glancing blow formula is different and more nuanced than the formula you've given. 70% glancing damage against a level 63 target is correct, but vs. a level 62 it's 80%, 61-90%.

i'll post the vanilla hit and glancing formulas if anyone is interested

Edited January 16, 2017 by vido

[C0n0n 3]

Hey!

A big thanks to Yoga for reminding me about stabbing bosses from behind - I made a new spreadsheet for all that jazz. Of course my original hype was too good to be true :D (or everyone else but tanks at least), sorry about that! For others, pumping weapon skill still has a substantial bonus and now we can calculate it to the max.

Vido, thanks for the comment - the miss chance on the table is not the same as the hit chance. The miss chance is the built-in chance in the system to miss a target, and that chance is 5 % between combatants of equal level and skill. The hit chance is what remains of 100 % after the % of all other events (miss, dodge, parry, block, glancing blow, crit) have been subtracted. Therefore I don't count it twice. The spreadsheet is meant only for fighting a level 63 target e.g. a boss. What would be the glancing blow formula you are referring to?

In addition, what's the vanilla hit formula you are referring to? Please post it here if you have it, I would like to know if my spreadsheet and logic can withstand some examination. In addition, the formula you are referring to - is it

1) a formula that was used in the Blizzard servers, but is not used on this server
2) a formula that was used in the Blizzard servers, and is also used on this server
3) something else entirely

and if possible, I would greatly appreciate a source, since without sources everything is just a guesstimation.

I've done the following calculations on the basis that the equations are correct or at least as close to the past truth as possible. If you obtain new information for us, I will update them accordingly. The spreadsheet for the DPS is now on sheet 1 and on the sheet 2, there are some numbers for tanks or others who like to stand in front of the boss.

The big question is: how much +hit (-miss) rating is useful from +weapon skill? As we can see, the -% to hit at skill 300 is 8.6%. If we lessen the chance to miss by percent-integer increments, we get an overflow of too much or too little hit, e.g. with +9% to hit, we have +0.4% of unused hit rating, which is simply wasted, and with +8%, we have -0.6% lack of hit. So our aim would preferentially be finding a sweet spot that enables us to get the decimal numbers of -miss as close to x.6% as possible.

From the spreadsheet, these spots would be the following:

303, quite far from the target, -1,32% to miss, leaving 0.28% missing from the mark.
304, not the best but doable, -1.76% to miss, 0.16% is wasted for going over the target.

307, very close to the target, -2,48% to miss. leaves out 0.12%. Easy (kinda :P) to achieve for non-orcs: simply equip edgemaster's.
308, almost there, -2.62% to miss, only 0.02% is wasted. Annoyingly enough there is no direct fit on the sheet. This for non-orc rogues, perhaps, with +5 daggers and +3 from Death's Sting? Warriors would have Mugger's Belt + Death's Sting, dagger fury oyeah! If there were a method for Orcs to get +3 to axe skill, this would be a nice go-to number.

315, perfect fit, -3.6% to miss. Hard to achieve without sacrificing some gear slots - Edgemaster's + Mugger's Belt + Death's Sting for non-orcs. Mugger's Belt is very easy to get, Edgemaster's a bit harder, but DS drops from AQ40 and is coveted by the aforementioned rogues.

Not counting the +hit at all, the DPS is directly increased as per the following (because the glancing blows do more damage):

303, +3.6%
304, +4.8%

307, +8.4%
308, +9.6%

315, +12.00%

This +% to DPS is independent of +hit, since this increase happens on the glancing blows that occur anyway on a solid 40% immutable probablility. The only thing we can do is to modify the damage that glancing blows do and +weapon skill is the only way to achieve that. By having +weapon skill, we both increase the chance to hit and also increase our DPS. Therefore, I'll do next a calculation about the Gauntlets of Annihilation and whether they are worthwhile to equip at all when compared to Edgemaster's :P!

best regards
Conon

[C0n0n 3]

Hey!

Non-orc tanks and Edgemaster's Handguards:

Skill increased from 300 to 307.

Glancing blows do +8.4 % more damage.

With Def stance and 5/5 defiance (1.3 * 1.15 = 1.495) modifiers, a tank wearing Edgemaster's and thus having a skill of 307 does +12.558% more threat when compared to a tank with skill 300. Of course, the choice of gloves replacing Edgemaster's will lessen this gap slightly. Even so, it would seem that wearing Edgemaster's is a huge bonus for white hit threat generation for tanks.

best regards

Cononchet

Edited January 27, 2017 by C0n0n
grammar

[Exeqtt 0]

So what is you result as the sweet spot? What is the perfect weapon skill? Is it worth as human to pick up edgemasters to get to weapon skill 312 with swords?

I would rly like to hear your opinion on edgemasters as human when you dont have maladath. You think they are worth with f.e. viskag+cts ( being on weapon skill 312 when 310 is point of diminishing returns ) or worth going for cruel+doom's edge with edge as human? If not how much of a difference you think is between the possible setups being: 1. no edgemasters no maladath ( Viskag+CTS) 2. edgemasters no maladath ( Viskag + CTS) 3. edgemasters with axes (Cruel+Doom's) as Human all

[Timergu 0]

Can windfuryprocs be glancing?

Heroic strike cant be glancing. So if a naxx geared worldbuffed bis war can generator enough rage to use HD on every strike +wep skill becomes really weak?

[Aderlass 1]

52 minutes ago, Timergu said:

So if a [...] war can generator enough rage to use HS on every strike +wep skill becomes really weak?

I simplified it a bit and the answer is: yes.

[Omakaroni 1]

Interested in theorycafting see: https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/47501-spreadsheet-warrior-aq-bis-and-wep-skill/

 

and join the discord link in main post