September News/Discussion

[Mirajj]

September 9 News

~~~
Boat crews have returned, for the time being. Hopefully, I want them to stick around this time. I always thought that they added a nice touch to the game. I don't care if they can or can't sell anything, but more that they are there.

In what I think is a good move, Blizzard has removed all their previous "Realm First" titles. Considering before the great pains Blizzard has gone to, to ensure that folks go through their content at their desired pace, giving an award for blowing through it as fast as possible seems counter-productive.

Some folks favorite whipping post, Racials, are also going to see some major changes come WotLK.

In an interesting change, the chance to miss at all is being removed. This is going to make some theorycrafters quite happy.

While Mages in the beta are currently quite happy (and who can blame them) I can't help but feel that this is going to be getting a wee visit from the nerfbat.

[Skandranon]

In an interesting change, the chance to miss at all is being removed. This is going to make some theorycrafters quite happy.

While Mages in the beta are currently quite happy (and who can blame them) I can't help but feel that this is going to be getting a wee visit from the nerfbat.

What you mean is that the minimum chance to miss is being removed. You still need +hit gear. It's just that now, you can assure yourself of hitting all the time with enough of it. I don't see why it should make theorycrafters happier than anyone else, though.

Also, I don't know what mages on beta you've been talking to, but the class as a whole is a mess on beta right now and Mirror Image's shoddy implementation doesn't help. It randomly teleports you between the images to make it hard to figure out who you are (good!) but this teleportation interrupts whatever spell you're casting (bad!). Not only that, it doesn't scale at all with gear, so what this means is that our effectiveness will slowly decay with better gear since this spell has to be balanced at some gear level, which we won't always be at. It's godawful for raid DPS and way too bursty for balanced PvP. Lastly, the mana pools and spell costs are implemented so badly that the images run out of mana and melee for pathetic amounts near the end of the spell duration.

[Artega]

Looks like orcs are finally getting beaten with the nerfbat. I think 15% is a little low, though; 15% off of a seven second stun (five point Kidney Shot) is only 1.05 seconds... hardly worth it. Maybe increase it to at least 30% and prevent similar effects from stacking? Dunno, just seems like they're going a little overboard with the nerf to Hardiness, though I agree that the move to duration-reduction instead of resistance is a good one overall, especially considering how much the PvP game is based on crowd control.

[Lissa]

What you mean is that the minimum chance to miss is being removed. You still need +hit gear. It's just that now, you can assure yourself of hitting all the time with enough of it. I don't see why it should make theorycrafters happier than anyone else, though.

It's about time they removed the 1% chance to miss for casters, I never understood why physical DPS could reach a state where they couldn't miss, yet casters always had a 1% miss chance no matter how much hit they had. It's a good change IMO.

[Taelas]

Because spells can't be dodged, parried or blocked, maybe?:PThey're two different systems.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy the minimum resist chance is going, but I can see why it'd be there.

[Kevin]

Because spells can't be dodged, parried or blocked, maybe?:PThey're two different systems.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy the minimum resist chance is going, but I can see why it'd be there.

Yeah, I used to assume that spells had the 1% chance to miss no matter what because there used to be nothing that melee could do about dodge (you could do stuff about parry and block, don't attack from behind, tanks excluded of course). But then that never explained hunters who could get enough hit to never miss, but then, most people know I've pretty much always felt that hunters were overpowered (and yes I have more time logged on hunters than any other classs). So I was OK with it.

As soon as they put expertise in the game so that you could get rid of dodge, the 1% chance to miss should have gone away. At least for the PvE game. Resist, which penetration could get rid of, could have been the dodge mechanic. I've been actively checking in beta to see if they were going to make that a more useful PvE stat. Give more mobs some level of spell resist and make spell penetration a bit more common.

That runs into scaling issues though. Since item level pretty much ups the DPS of a weapon, but doesn't give you as rapid of returns on spell damage for casters. As mentioned they are different systems.:)

Of course there are systems out there that would allow the DPS of a weapon to affect spell casting power, Mythos actually did that pretty well even though it was more a Diablo style game, but it doesn't look like Blizzard wants to deal with that which is fine.

[Lissa]

Because spells can't be dodged, parried or blocked, maybe?:PThey're two different systems.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy the minimum resist chance is going, but I can see why it'd be there.

Stand behind the mob, no parry, no dodge, no block.

edit: You also forget that mobs can have resistance, some higher than CoE removes.

[Frag]

Stand behind the mob, no parry, no dodge, no block.

edit: You also forget that mobs can have resistance, some higher than CoE removes.

Eh? Mobs have dodged attacks made to their flanks and rear as long as I've been playing.

~Frag

[Mordekhuul]

Eh? Mobs have dodged attacks made to their flanks and rear as long as I've been playing.

~Frag

Indeed. This would be why melee DPS value expertise at all. Further, the number of bosses with magic resistance worth mentioning is super small - probably even less than the number of bosses out there with high armor values, which is another factor melee DPS has to factor into their theoretical DPS output which casters can ignore.

Anyway, for caster DPS being able to overcome that extra 1% resist chance is nifty, but not a big deal. DPS levels of casters in raids will be tuned to the same target level, theoretically, if the 1% is there or if its not.

It will be kind of nice, though, for mages to be able to cap out and spellsteal-tank with 100% accuracy on fights like Illidari Council, I suppose =)

[Mirajj]

But then that never explained hunters who could get enough hit to never miss, but then, most people know I've pretty much always felt that hunters were overpowered (and yes I have more time logged on hunters than any other classs). So I was OK with it.

AFAIK, hunters can't get 100% hit. There is always that 1% chance to miss. For a PvE, raiding hunter, you are looking for 144HR. Which will take you as close to "can't miss" as you can get. But you can still miss. It's a once in a blue moon chance, but it's still there. I am hit capped, and have seen the occasional miss.

If you take a PvE geared hunter into PvP, they won't miss (other than the chance that you can't get rid of) because they have a lot higher HR than your average pvp geared hunter. Of course, they are going to run into a lot of other problems.;)

[Kevin]

AFAIK, hunters can't get 100% hit. There is always that 1% chance to miss. For a PvE, raiding hunter, you are looking for 144HR. Which will take you as close to "can't miss" as you can get. But you can still miss. It's a once in a blue moon chance, but it's still there. I am hit capped, and have seen the occasional miss.

If you take a PvE geared hunter into PvP, they won't miss (other than the chance that you can't get rid of) because they have a lot higher HR than your average pvp geared hunter. Of course, they are going to run into a lot of other problems.;)

I've got over 100,000 shots at 142+ hit rating in PvE content without a miss, sure it's possible to get that with a 1% miss rate, but very unlikely. You can get rid of the miss chance. So can melee toons. MS warriors using a 2 hander at 142 hit rating+ will never miss (they may see dodges). Dual wielders need more than that but it can be reached (it's generally not worth it, but you can).

I have experienced lag/server issues that have cause a "failed" shot that some damage meters and for a while WWS would report as a miss. But you can hit cap. You could hit cap pre-TBC as well.

If there were really a 1% miss rate you would see it more than once in a blue moon. What you see as once in a blue moon are what I'm pretty sure are communication bugs.

[Taelas]

It has been verified many times that miss chance does not have a minimum value; you can eliminate misses completely.

While mobs do have actual resistances, there's been a stat called 'Spell Penetration' designed to counteract this specifically for a very long time; Expertise only got implemented with patch 2.3.0. As has already been said, mobs can dodge attacks made from behind them. (Players, however, cannot.)


In other news...
PvE-to-PvP transfers are now allowed.

From www.worldofwarcraft.com:

Providing a smooth and enjoyable experience for all players is always a priority for us, and we are continually re-evaluating our policies and programs to do so. As the state of the game has matured substantially since the inception of Paid Character Transfers, we will now be allowing PvE-to-PvP transfers on a full-time basis to provide players with more mobility and freedom to easily play with their friends.

[Lissa]

It has been verified many times that miss chance does not have a minimum value; you can eliminate misses completely.

While mobs do have actual resistances, there's been a stat called 'Spell Penetration' designed to counteract this specifically for a very long time; Expertise only got implemented with patch 2.3.0. As has already been said, mobs can dodge attacks made from behind them. (Players, however, cannot.)
In other news...
PvE-to-PvP transfers are now allowed.

From www.worldofwarcraft.com:

There is a 1% miss for spells no matter how much spell hit you have. This is a known fact. You can achieve 100% hit with physical DPS, the best spell casters can reach is 99% no matter how much spell hit they stack.

[Taelas]

I am not sure what your point is. That's exactly what I said.

Spell "misses" are not called "misses", they're called "resists", even when it is the mechanic Spell Hit affects. Spell Penetration affects increased resistance. I specifically said that misses can be eliminated.

Regardless, prior to 2.3.0, you could not achieve 100% hit on raid bosses due to the dodge mechanic. As Gnollguy said, this is probably the reason why spells had a minimum 1% resist chance (and it is probably also why spells had a base miss chance of 17% on bosses).

[LavCat]

It has been verified many times that miss chance does not have a minimum value; you can eliminate misses completely.

Now I am confused. (Actually I am frequently confused, but now more so than normal.) I looked up miss chance on wowwiki. Unfortunately for some reason I can't insert the link, but the URL is:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Miss

According to the article: "Player/Mob vs Player When a player or mob attacks a player, the base miss rate is 5%. For each point of the defender's defense skill over the attacker's attack rating, the base miss rate increases by 0.04%. For each point of the attacker's attack rating over the defender's defense skill, the base miss rate decreases by 0.02%."

If the information is correct as well as my math, then assuming a defender's defense skill of 350, the attacker (using a single weapon) would need an attack rating of 700 to never miss: 350 + (5/0.02). How do hit rating and/or expertise or anything else affect attack rating?

[Lissa]

I am not sure what your point is. That's exactly what I said.

Spell "misses" are not called "misses", they're called "resists", even when it is the mechanic Spell Hit affects. Spell Penetration affects increased resistance. I specifically said that misses can be eliminated.

Regardless, prior to 2.3.0, you could not achieve 100% hit on raid bosses due to the dodge mechanic. As Gnollguy said, this is probably the reason why spells had a minimum 1% resist chance (and it is probably also why spells had a base miss chance of 17% on bosses).

No they can not with casting. There is always a chance to miss with a spell. Yes it's called resist, but neither CoE nor Penetration will do anything to make it so you will hit 100% of the time with a spell.

[Skandranon]

If the information is correct as well as my math, then assuming a defender's defense skill of 350, the attacker (using a single weapon) would need an attack rating of 700 to never miss: 350 + (5/0.02). How do hit rating and/or expertise or anything else affect attack rating?

You are confusing weapon skill with hit rating. Both affect your chance to hit. In this case, it's Defense skill 350 vs. the attacker's weapon skill, usually also 350. Since the skills are equal, the chance to miss is still 5%, which is counteracted by hit rating, since there are no longer ways to raise weaponskill.

[Klaus]

No they can not with casting. There is always a chance to miss with a spell. Yes it's called resist, but neither CoE nor Penetration will do anything to make it so you will hit 100% of the time with a spell.

To summarize what's been said, but has sometimes not always been clear:

Spells (currently) have a minimum 1% "miss" rate, which comes up as a "resist". Nothing you can do about this.

Melee can eliminate "miss" completely, but they will still see dodge.

Hunters can eliminate "miss" completely (this was where the discussion originally started).

So, since melee can always see a dodge, the argument was that 1% miss for casters was the equivalent. So, why can hunters guarantee 100% hit rate?

[Kevin]

Now I am confused. (Actually I am frequently confused, but now more so than normal.) I looked up miss chance on wowwiki. Unfortunately for some reason I can't insert the link, but the URL is:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Miss

According to the article: "Player/Mob vs Player When a player or mob attacks a player, the base miss rate is 5%. For each point of the defender's defense skill over the attacker's attack rating, the base miss rate increases by 0.04%. For each point of the attacker's attack rating over the defender's defense skill, the base miss rate decreases by 0.02%."

If the information is correct as well as my math, then assuming a defender's defense skill of 350, the attacker (using a single weapon) would need an attack rating of 700 to never miss: 350 + (5/0.02). How do hit rating and/or expertise or anything else affect attack rating?

Pre 2.3 the only classes that could make all hits actually land in PvE content was a hunter if they got to 142+ hit rating (pre TBC it was 9% hit as well but hit rating wasn't around). Melee could cap hit rating but would still have to deal with dodge/parry/block, it took 142+ hit rating to make sure special attacks never missed and for white hits for someone using a 2 hander or a 1H + shield. For DW toons you needed to overcome an additional 15% miss rate (you are 9% at 142 hit rating, but DW has a 24% miss rate for white attacks you you needed to get to 24% which is 15% more than 9%) You could remove block/parry by being on the back 180 degree arc of the mob.

Of course the mob would still dodge you, raid bosses at around 8%. 2.3 introduced expertise (or was it 2.2 and 2.3 just put in enough gear so you could get enough of the stat, anyway...). Since expertise reduces a mobs chance to dodge or parry you getting enough of that (I don't remember how much rating, just whatever it takes to get to 8% though I understand some mobs dodge better than others but most are 8%). So in 2.3 melee toons could also make all hits land if they had enough expertise to remove dodge and were attacking from behind. If they had enough to remove parries (16.5% I think) they could attack from the front but they would still have to deal with blocks.

Casters have always had a 1% base miss chance. They can get to 99% hit and they can remove resist via curse of shadow/elements (now rolled into one curse but it used to be two for the various schools) or spell penetration on the handful of mobs that have more resist than what the curses remove. So casters always had 1% chance to see "resist" pop up no matter what. Just like pre 2.3 melee had an 8% chance to see "dodge" pop up on an attack. As mentioned only hunters could see a damage number 100% of the time, though the pet would have the same miss/dodge issues so I guess if you count pets as part of the hunter they couldn't do it either, of course if you count the pet, this change to remove the 1% base miss means that hunters will become the only class that can't do it now. The pet will share the hunters hit chance but from what I can tell they do not share expertise from the hunter so dodges will still happen for the pet. :)

Spell misses count as misses in the last beta build now, FYI. There was a time pre TBC where they showed up different from an actual resist in the combat log as well. That was a while ago though. So we are back to casters being able to see if it was a miss or a resist again.



What you quoted was for Player vs Player or a Mob attacking a player. The rest of the thread has been talking about a player vs a mob, which follows slightly different rules than player vs player (actually it doesn't but some of the numbers are fixed whereas PvP or MvP you have more variables). Basically it's saying it's a 5% vs even level (which is the same for melee vs an even level mob) and that various skills change that. But a 350 weapon skill vs a 350 defense is 5% miss. You'll need enough hit rating to get to 5%. Attack rating in that article refers to weapon skill. Unless something else changed or I misread.

[Taelas]

No they can not with casting. There is always a chance to miss with a spell. Yes it's called resist, but neither CoE nor Penetration will do anything to make it so you will hit 100% of the time with a spell.

:huh:

I'm well aware there's a minimum resist chance (and that it's getting removed in WotLK). What I was talking about was that there's no minimum miss chance, which is why I clarified that I was talking about misses and not resists.

GG, 2.3 introduced Expertise, 2.4 introduced enough Expertise to remove Parry from the attack table for tanks (and the cap there is 13.75% according to reports from EJ).