Tony's Law - Hit mechanics in lvl 1 dueling EXPLAINED

[Tinytony]

Update: This has finally been fixed some time after Shadowlands launch.

As far as I know this is a newly discovered game mechanic, so I'm naming it after myself. (lol)

Tony's law occurs when dueling at low levels. In this situation you will almost always experience a hit rate difference. This is caused by one player having a higher maximum possibly equipped ilvl score counting all items in their bags and bank. A lower total ilvl than your opponent means you'll never miss and you'll dodge a lot. A higher total ilvl than your opponent means you'll miss a lot and always get hit.

You can store your high ilvl soulbound items in void storage, or simply delete them and use the item restore tool once every 15 days to reduce your ilvl.

This works against characters up to at least level 11 from my experience. It might go slightly higher, maybe even further with a higher level twink.

I'm not sure if this affects pvp outside of dueling.

Casters seems to be affected more than melee by this.

I haven't found a way to reliably increase or decrease the amount of hit/dodge changed by these values. You either get it or you don't.

This whole mechanic kinda sucks because it means minimalist lvl 1 twinks beat out any twink you actually put effort into building, and the only way to get an even fight at level 1 is to either cooperate with your opponent to have the same max ilvl, or both go as low as possible and get rid of everything except weapons.

At least we know what's going on now. Here's hoping it gets fixed eventually!

Thanks to Modtang and ConfusingQT for helping me figure this out!

 

[FrozenWill]

I’m glad someone figured this out in depth. Me and Taeo tried figuring this out many months ago on our level 1s and just assumed if you dueled anyone who was your level or levels below you, the hit chance bug would occur. I suggested maybe it was an Ilvl problem back then too but never really tested that theory out completely.

I feel like it’s random depending on class too because my level 1 warrior and mage have trouble hitting other players of the same level.

 

[Tinytony]

I’m glad someone figured this out in depth. Me and Taeo tried figuring this out many months ago on our level 1s and just assumed if you dueled anyone who was your level or levels below you, the hit chance bug would occur. I suggested maybe it was an Ilvl problem back then too but never really tested that theory out completely.

I feel like it’s random depending on class too because my level 1 warrior and mage have trouble hitting other players of the same level.

I thought class may have played a part too initially. That and character age, race, and level. All debunked though as far as I'm aware. Just get your maximum possible item level lower and you'll divert your problems onto your opponents!

 

[Tinytony]

Bumping cause this got fixed last patch.

EDIT: NO IT DIDN'T I'M AN AWFUL TESTER.

 

[Blixtmen]

I'm still having this issue on both my lvl 1 (ilvl 12/25) and lvl 10 (ilvl 17/33)

 

[JeeroyLenkins]

Wasn't the issue linked to worgen/goblin level ones specifically? or am I thinking of another bug

 

[Tinytony]

Wasn't the issue linked to worgen/goblin level ones specifically? or am I thinking of another bug

This was happening regardless of race in my experience.

I'm still having this issue on both my lvl 1 (ilvl 12/25) and lvl 10 (ilvl 17/33)

Man that sucks to hear. I'll admit I've been inactive so didn't really test this much. It just seemed to be fixed. I'll have another look, cause if that's true and the bug lives on I'm angry as hell.

Edit: OKAY it's still broken. My bad guys. Tony's Law is still in effect unfortunately.

 

[Chubtohd]

So...my question is: Do you sacrifice ilvl on shoulders and pants for the enchants ... or would you still be better off to go lower? Maybe the better question is, at what ilvl did you notice the break point? i.e. My arena trinkets are ilvl 55 ... so would it be better to not equip them and sacrifice the 22 sta? Or wear a non-stat helm to get an ilvl 3 vs the heirloom ilvl 5?

I'd love to play around with this more with someone.
[doublepost=1546478819,1546474264][/doublepost]Handy macro for testing purposes fyi:

/run local t,c,u,k=0,0,UnitExists("target")and"target"or"player"for i=1,18 do k=GetInventoryItemLink(u,i)if i~=4 and k then t=t+select(4,GetItemInfo(k))c=c+1 end end c=c>0 and print(t/c)

 

[Tinytony]

So...my question is: Do you sacrifice ilvl on shoulders and pants for the enchants ... or would you still be better off to go lower? Maybe the better question is, at what ilvl did you notice the break point? i.e. My arena trinkets are ilvl 55 ... so would it be better to not equip them and sacrifice the 22 sta? Or wear a non-stat helm to get an ilvl 3 vs the heirloom ilvl 5?

I'd love to play around with this more with someone.
[doublepost=1546478819,1546474264][/doublepost]Handy macro for testing purposes fyi:

/run local t,c,u,k=0,0,UnitExists("target")and"target"or"player"for i=1,18 do k=GetInventoryItemLink(u,i)if i~=4 and k then t=t+select(4,GetItemInfo(k))c=c+1 end end c=c>0 and print(t/c)

The break point in ilvl difference seems to vary with levels, and ilvls.
no heirlooms vs 1 heirloom on level 1s shows very minimal results last I tested. Once you get 2 heirlooms though it's very easy for the 0 heirloom char to win. At higher ilvl sometimes there can be large differences such as 10 whole ilvls and the hitrate difference is still bad, but not THAT bad. And then you see stuff like ilvl 20 vs 21 and it's a total catastrophe.

Long story short I don't think it's possible to figure out exactly what an existing ilvl difference amounts to in hit rate disparity.

As for the AGMs, I keep mine in Void storage and I easily beat any lvl 1 that doesn't due to the huge hit rate difference. I have a minimalistic set of ilvl 1 gear with all the barebones enchants on them for fighting anyone without AGM's though.
I got a starter chest with stats, a string of alligator teeth neck with hidden Satyr, 2x simple dagger with ele force, grey boots with minor speed, cloak with shadow armor. Honestly I haven't tested this against a 0 gear lvl 1, so I'm not sure if it's beneficial to go any lower than that, but it basically kills any other lvl 1-10 most of the time unless lucky procs go off cause your HP is pretty low or you're fighting a healer with infinite mana. Again, actual dodge rate varies depending on who I'm fighting. Any between lvl 1 to 10 are seemingly inconsistent in variance and lvl 1s ilvls are even more nonsensical.

The whole thing has got me pretty depressed about WoW so I haven't been playing, otherwise I'd jump at the chance to join you for some testing. If you do discover anything new or inconsistent with what I've posted here though, please share it.

Also what does your Macro do?

 

[JeeroyLenkins]

The break point in ilvl difference seems to vary with levels, and ilvls.
no heirlooms vs 1 heirloom on level 1s shows very minimal results last I tested. Once you get 2 heirlooms though it's very easy for the 0 heirloom char to win. At higher ilvl sometimes there can be large differences such as 10 whole ilvls and the hitrate difference is still bad, but not THAT bad. And then you see stuff like ilvl 20 vs 21 and it's a total catastrophe.

Long story short I don't think it's possible to figure out exactly what an existing ilvl difference amounts to in hit rate disparity.

As for the AGMs, I keep mine in Void storage and I easily beat any lvl 1 that doesn't due to the huge hit rate difference. I have a minimalistic set of ilvl 1 gear with all the barebones enchants on them for fighting anyone without AGM's though.
I got a starter chest with stats, a string of alligator teeth neck with hidden Satyr, 2x simple dagger with ele force, grey boots with minor speed, cloak with shadow armor. Honestly I haven't tested this against a 0 gear lvl 1, so I'm not sure if it's beneficial to go any lower than that, but it basically kills any other lvl 1-10 most of the time unless lucky procs go off cause your HP is pretty low or you're fighting a healer with infinite mana. Again, actual dodge rate varies depending on who I'm fighting. Any between lvl 1 to 10 are seemingly inconsistent in variance and lvl 1s ilvls are even more nonsensical.

The whole thing has got me pretty depressed about WoW so I haven't been playing, otherwise I'd jump at the chance to join you for some testing. If you do discover anything new or inconsistent with what I've posted here though, please share it.

Also what does your Macro do?

Please lets do some test duels on our ones. I could have sworn goblins/worgens played a factor in this hit rating bug (and I believe you getting decimated by my goblin is how we first found out about this, the start to your depression lol)

 

[Chubtohd]

Also what does your Macro do?

It displays your actual ilvl since it's not part of the UI for lvl 1s. It's better than the UI anyway since it gives decimals.

So according to your theory, the closest you can get to ilvl 1 the better? If that's the case, then a BiS gear list for dueling should be pretty simple. Below is what I came up with that still allows you to enchant everything.

Chest - Gilnean Footpad's Tunic
Wrist - Scraggy Leather Bracers (ilvl 4)
Hands - Gilnean Footpad's Gloves
Waist - no ilvl 1 and no enchants ... so not necessary
Pants - Gilnean Footpad's Pants
Feet - Gilnean Footpad's Boots
Back - Cloak of the Darkmoon Faire

Neck - several ilvl 1
Ring - several ilvl 1

Head - BoA for stats? ilvl 5
Shoulders - BoA for stats? ilvl 5
Trinkets - BoA for stats? ilvl 5

Rogue Weapon MH and OH - Meat Cleaver

 

[Blazai]

i just wear fucking nothing and win. that's the BIS honestly wearing nothing but weps

 

[Tinytony]

I'd be happy to test stuff with you guys in the coming days so if you haven't already, add my btag and let's hang.

So according to your theory, the closest you can get to ilvl 1 the better?

Actually the closer you can get to ilvl 0 the better. Less fillable gear slots improves dodge.
Also, unrelated, but you can get ilvl 1 scaled greys for all armor slots usable at lvl 1 by farming mobs in lvl 15+ zones with a level 1 char.

i just wear fucking nothing and win. that's the BIS honestly wearing nothing but weps

This is essentially the way to go. Naked + enchanted weapon = win against any other level 1 that has higher possible ilvl.