Hitting hi-level mobs

[solvogero]

While the hit formulas from wowwiki most certainly apply to level 20-23 opponents, they don't scale. THIS WHOLE POST WILL BE REDONE AFTER MOP HITS.

Some notes

• The first chart (Hit+Dodge+Parry) is the sum of the 3 other charts
• Sampled points are noted with circles. Each sampled point was the result of at least 1,000 hits (there's some other data points that aren't yet 1,000 hits that I haven't marked...still working on those).
• On the hit chart, every non-sampled point is calculated from the listed formulas. On Dodge and Parry charts, every non-sampled point is an average between known points.
• I'm not including Block in anything as only some mobs block (its pretty much at the bottom of my to-do list). Against a 24 mob, block is ~4%.
• These charts are very much a work in progress.

Also:

• For players, only frontal melee attacks can be Dodged or Parried.
• For Mobs, only frontal melee attacks can be Parried.
• Players and Mobs can't Dodge or Parry when casting or channeling.
• When MoP rolls out - melee, spell, and ranged attacks will all have the same chance to Hit, Dodge, and Parry. So on the first chart, the green and blue lines will be the same as the orange (although it will move a bit)...hence the Hunter nerf.

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[Imirak]

Great research!

However, for melee classes you should probably test in front of the dummy since you can't get behind the mob that's aggro'd to you.

Parries are easily the biggest problem with high-level mobs for melee, occur only from the front, and are not mitigated by +hit gear. Will target dummies parry?

 

[Shft]

Mobs can dodge from behind yes, that's why raiders must both hit cap and expertise cap

 

[DubbsBegins]

awesome! good work

 

[Lecavalier]

What's the point of this?

 

[babouchka]

blank attacks & special attacks have different hitpoints, you can easily check this as a rogue

 

[Krak]

I can share a trick. You can kill hi-level mobs even with no hit-rating.

Caster-mobs when they start casting spell will stop parry and dodge your attacks. You can't also miss them. Just check on Venture Co. Geologist or even Gordunni Ogre Mage (good mobs for grinding mageweave) or whatever.

For killing non-casters you must have any healer helping you. When you pull the mob your friend will get aggro on him if he heals you. So you have 2-3 hits while mob hitting him. Just stay behind the mob and calmly beat him to turn mob back on you. Then repeat this procedure till final victory. Just make sure your healer can withstand a few mob hits.

I started grinding Timbermaw rep this way dualboxing with non-BIS resto-shaman and I don't have any problem.

 

[Infernal13]

blank attacks & special attacks have different hitpoints, you can easily check this as a rogue

What are you trying to say? Attacks don't have hitpoints...

 

[solvogero]

What's the point of this?

curiosity more than anything. I'd guess its more useful for hunters than anyone else imo as they have a decent chance of soloing lvl 60 mobs because they have a nice ranged snare and they're ranged attacks are melee.

i'm going to revamp the first post tonight after i do more testing...ran out of time last night.

blank attacks & special attacks have different hitpoints, you can easily check this as a rogue

as in blank attacks and special attacks have different miss chances...i was wondering about that. I felt like my finishing moves were hitting more than the average. I'm not sure how i'd test it though. Recount gives an overall hit %...not broken out by attack type (at least i don't think it does). hmm, right now my toon automatically starts autoattacking after i use a special attack...i think i can turn that off somehow so i just hit with specials??

 

[Imirak]

What's the point of this?

Understanding how to best gear to kill high-level mobs?

 

[Imirak]

I can share a trick. You can kill hi-level mobs even with no hit-rating.

Caster-mobs when they start casting spell will stop parry and dodge your attacks. You can't also miss them. Just check on Venture Co. Geologist or even Gordunni Ogre Mage (good mobs for grinding mageweave) or whatever.

You can still miss caster mobs when they are casting, so you need hit rating. I just finished grinding the Geologists for rep and quickly learned to pool my energy as much as possible for when they were casting (and could not dodge or block).

 

[Imirak]

blank attacks & special attacks have different hitpoints, you can easily check this as a rogue

I think white attacks are affected by the level difference, while special attacks are not. My white auto-attacks on the 28-29 goblins were doing 1-5 points of damage each!

 

[Purse]

What are you trying to say? Attacks don't have hitpoints...

What he means is that White Attacks (Normal Attacks) and Special Attacks (Sinister Strike, Eviscerate, Crusader Strike, etc.) have a different hit-cap. The hit-cap for white attacks is much higher than special attacks.

 

[solvogero]

Mobs can dodge from behind yes, that's why raiders must both hit cap and expertise cap

ah yes. its only players that can't dodge attacks from the rear.

thanks.

 

[babouchka]

What are you trying to say? Attacks don't have hitpoints...

standard attack need more hits than special attacks, just roll a rogue and check the hit stats

 

[solvogero]

from a note on wowwiki, special attacks have an 8% higher chance of hitting (which is really skewing my results as i was using a mix of both attacks). i'm going to revamp the original post tonight with a more thorough test.

 

[babouchka]

i like this post, this is really interesting ;]

 

[solvogero]

Here's a question:

If I have a choice of 1% increase in hit or a 1% increase in expertise...is the 1% increase in expertise twice as good because it lowers my chances of being both dodged AND parried? (i think the answer is yes)

Hit is only used in one calculation, expertise is used in 2...therefore, the absolute % is twice as important for expertise. ...so really enough expertise to decrease your dodges/parries by 1% is actually increasing your damage by 2% (assuming of course you're always hitting your enemies from the front).

right?


if that's the case, the expertise gloves are huge...they'd be a 4.6% increase in damage. ...

...but then that also makes me wonder about the dodge results i had...pretty much 30% across the board. if the cap is 30%, the actual dodges were probably way higher than that...wondering if the expertise we have access to would make any difference on such higher-level mobs. its on my list to test.

 

[Imirak]

Here's a question:

If I have a choice of 1% increase in hit or a 1% increase in expertise...is the 1% increase in expertise twice as good because it lowers my chances of being both dodged AND parried? (i think the answer is yes)

Yes, if you are melee because parries are the biggest cause of missing.

Ranged attacks can't be parried, so hit is better to stack than expertise in those cases.

I did go get the Expertise gloves (dropped on the 2nd kill!) but I didn't do a detailed analysis to see if things were improved. If you are getting parried 25% of the time, for example, it's not that easy to tell if you are at 22% after equipping the gloves

Keep, in mind, however, that equipping the +expertise gloves means that you are not equipping +hit gloves (or +spirit gloves for balance druids), so you are getting a marginal improvement.

 

[Shft]

Yes, if you are melee because parries are the biggest cause of missing.

Ranged attacks can't be parried, so hit is better to stack than expertise in those cases.

I did go get the Expertise gloves (dropped on the 2nd kill!) but I didn't do a detailed analysis to see if things were improved. If you are getting parried 25% of the time, for example, it's not that easy to tell if you are at 22% after equipping the gloves

Keep, in mind, however, that equipping the +expertise gloves means that you are not equipping +hit gloves (or +spirit gloves for balance druids), so you are getting a marginal improvement.

I don't think there are caster hit gloves, possibly ones with marginal stats, and the agi hit gloves have either 2 or 3 hit, so the 5 expertise will still pull out ahead if we are assuming correctly, which I believe we are. Solvogero if you would like access to the 47 or w/e hit rating hunter you are welcome to the account info