One thing we really don't know is the comparative longevity and throughput of healers, both for conservation rotations and for "flash heal" spam. It won't become important till someone makes it to Cath, though, especially if people go forward with two healer strategies.
It sounds like gnomer is 10-mannable, which is good news. With the end boss at only lv 29, most classes ought to be able to participate in a raid on that zone.
I'd like to do some extremely rough theorycrafting for the purpose of lv 20 raids, anyone who wants to look over this feel free.
From wowpedia:
- with single-wielding: 5% + (Mob Level - Your Level) * 0.5%
- with dual-wielding: 24% + (Mob Level - Your Level) * 0.5%
...would suggest 9.5% miss for all yellow and 2h white, and 28.5% miss for DW white.
(this goes to 15%/35% against the bosses in cath).
For glancing blows, the formula isn't explicitly stated anywhere I can find, but it is made up of the glancing hit chance and the glancing damage reduction. Assuming both scale linearly (and we have no info to suggest this), the glancing hit
chance should be 60% vs lv 29 down to 100% at 36. Due to the way the combat table works, this would cause all hits to glance where glance% plus miss% is 100% or higher, counting the extra miss chance from level. This will vary a bit based on hit gear, level difference, and dual/single wield, but for the most part
melee will be scoring nothing but yellow hits and glancing blows on mobs over lv 30.
Having determined that essentially all white hits are going to glance, the damage
reduction appears to be proportional to level difference and -25% at +3. Assuming this is linear (again, no idea), all landed white attacks will be -75% against +9 mobs, and floored at 1 damage for mobs +12 and higher. This seems consistent with the amount (essentially zero) of white damage our two rogues were doing against the lv 31-33 trash in Lib.
In other words, all melee is pretty much down to their yellow attacks only for f2p raiding. Hunters can't glance ranged abilities, and will continue to get full damage from all white hits.
The spell hit formula is also not posted anywhere I can find, but based on
the table on wowwiki appears to be linear at 11%/level after +2. This would suggest that 0% hit occurs at lv 29, but that's not a value I'm confident of at all. Any +hit at all pushes regular spell hits back onto the table, so someone with 10% spell hit should have a 10% hit chance on mobs from lv 30 to lv 85 (also, all of these should crit if the player's crit is 10% or higher). I stress that I have no idea how these formulas actually behave at such a high level difference, I'm just making assumptions here.
tl;dr:
Melee should be able to (nearly) hit cap yellow hits, but white hits will do 25% or less damage against f2p "raid bosses".
Casters have a hit chance equal to their +hit chance from hit rating, and therefore do essentially no damage against "raid bosses".
Hunters should be able to (nearly) hit cap both yellow and white abiities, although pet white melee will be zeroed.
If anyone knows where to get the actual formulas for spell hit and glancing blows, I could do some real calculations. This would be a whole lot better than pulling formulas out of my ass based on probably-outdated wowpedia info that was never meant to apply to mobs higher than +3/boss. If any casters want to take off their hit gear and toss a few tens of attacks against an exactly lv 29 mob, we could confirm/deny the spell hit part experimentally.
Edit: Dragon posted this screenshot in the UI thread, and it shows the meter from SM GY (lv 31 boss) in the upper right. Shows what we've been saying about melee damage and hit stuff. Note that the tank is above the rogues because he's not dual wileding. Believe me when I say I do not outgear or outskill these players in the slightest, either.
http://www.twinkinfo...38;attach_id=31