Item bonuses

[Professor Frink]

At least at the levels I've reached, most wearable items seem to take the form of a bonus to armor and a bonus on 1-3 of the primary stats (with an item's rarity being roughly related to the sum of the stat bonuses). Since there are no stat requirements in the game (right?), any useful stat increases your ability to take damage and/or increases your ability to deal it, so with enough knowledge of what exactly each stat does, it should be possible to boil down each item to two stats: how much it, on average, increases your final dps, and how many effective hit points it gives you in defense on average.

Is this information known? Assuming the character and ability sheets are accurate, I got a few statistics for my level 23 tauren shaman (in an attempt to compare stamina vs agility):

+1 stamina = +11 hp
+1 agility = +2 armor, +0.1% critical chance, +0.1% dodge chance
+1 armor = +0.02% damage reduction

effective dps = base dps * (1 + crit chance)
effective hp = character hp / ( (1 - dodge chance) * (1 - block chance) * (1 - damage reduction from armor) )

the result on my particular character was that adding 3 stamina gave me about 50 more ehp (about a 5% improvement), and adding 2 agility gave me about 5. the agility also gave me only 0.2% more damage from increased criticals; I assumed stamina was more useful than agility for my character, but I didn't expect it to be this extreme, so if my calculations are accurate, the assumption I was making at lower levels that "a stat is a stat" was very wrong.

And then there are questions:
Did I miss some benefit of stamina/agility/armor for a melee+shield character?

What do the various other stats do?

How much of a LCS does WoW have?

How generally applicable are these formulas? If the rules already availiable somewhere, a few people taking down their stats with and without a piece of armor and posting them in a reply would make it a lot easier to figure out.

What does the 'block value' on the shield do? It doesn't appear to change the chance to block.

Does anything change the chance to block?

I assume you qualify for dodge and block (and parry if you've got it) on every incoming attack -- is that true?

-- frink

[vor_lord]

Is this information known?  Assuming the character and ability sheets are accurate, I got a few statistics for my level 23 tauren shaman (in an attempt to compare stamina vs agility):

+1 stamina = +11 hp

This is actually 10 hp. In the case of a Tauren, you get a 5% racial bonus which means you should get 10.5 (which would show up as 11 on a simple test).

+1 agility = +2 armor, +0.1% critical chance, +0.1% dodge chance
+1 armor = +0.02% damage reduction

The damage reduction you get per point of armor changes as you level up (it also may change based on the attacker's level too, not sure). This would be another interesting formula to completely figure out. For example, at level 10 1000 armor is a pretty impressive damage reduction. At level 40, it isn't very much.

My guess is that 1 armor = .02% additional damage reduction just works for your level 23 char against mobs of equal level.

effective dps = base dps * (1 + crit chance)
effective hp = character hp / ( (1 - dodge chance) * (1 - block chance) * (1 - damage reduction from armor) )

Don't forget special triggers (for example Overpower can get you whacked when you dodge, not sure if there are others). Just something to keep in mind, not sure if any mobs use this kind of a skill anyway.

the result on my particular character was that adding 3 stamina gave me about 50 more ehp (about a 5% improvement), and adding 2 agility gave me about 5. the agility also gave me only 0.2% more damage from increased criticals; I assumed stamina was more useful than agility for my character, but I didn't expect it to be this extreme, so if my calculations are accurate, the assumption I was making at lower levels that "a stat is a stat" was very wrong.

I think crit chance based on agility is highly class dependent, so some classes might see a greater damage increase? There are so many questions...

And then there are questions:
Did I miss some benefit of stamina/agility/armor for a melee+shield character?

What do the various other stats do?

How much of a LCS does WoW have?


How generally applicable are these formulas?  If the rules already availiable somewhere, a few people taking down their stats with and without a piece of armor and posting them in a reply would make it a lot easier to figure out.

Like Diablo II, there are a lot of factors involved in these calculations and it takes a lot larger number of samples than I originally thought. They have to be done across a wide range of levels and classes, and fitting the data to an equation becomes trickier with each variable. When you don't even know for sure what all the variables even are, it is hard. I just wish some nice dev at Bliz would volunteer some of this basic information for us to digest.

As for the rest of your questions, I wish I knew ;)

What does the 'block value' on the shield do? It doesn't appear to change the chance to block.

Does anything change the chance to block?

I assume you qualify for dodge and block (and parry if you've got it) on every incoming attack -- is that true?

Block is not equivalent to a dodge or a parry. A dodge or a parry is 100% damage avoidance. I think the block value on a shield is relative to how much damage it can absorb. If you watch your combat log, you will see that a mob does x damage (y blocked) sometimes. Particularly at low levels you tend to block 100% of the damage, but this doesn't hold true for later on.

Sure wish we had the game code. Probably the best way to gather some of this data is through many repeated duels and a combat log parser.

edit: misplaced quote ender

[Kevin]

I see the one stamina = 11 HP all time. I guess a lot of people test on Taurens. For every other race and class I have played 1 stamina is 10 HP. Tauren however have that nice racial passive that gives them 5% more HP than everyone else. Generally it seems that on a Tauren 1 sta = 11 HP, but 2 sta = 21 HP because of rounding and such. At least that is what I have noticed with my Tauren.

[Xanthix]

This is good research. Unfortunately there are still lots we don't know, like how strength affects attack power and affects damage blocked.

But even if we get this information, remember that effective hp and effective dps will be physical melee oriented only. As far as I know, armor does not affect incoming spell damage. And for casters, effective dps is really only dependent on spell damage, mana pool, and mana regen.

[Concillian]

Here is what I know or have heard. Not all is 100% confirmed, but it is all at least very close:

+1 STA = 10 HP
+1 INT = 15 mana
+3 SPI = 1 mana per tick (It increases HP per tick too, but I've never seen any mention of how much)

+1 defense (the skill, not armor))= +0.04% chance to dodge, block, and parry (if you have the ability to block or parry)

Attack power:
Warrior/Paladin: Attack Power = clvl*3 + STR*2 - 20
Rogue/Hunter: Attack Power = clvl*2 + STR + AGI - 20
Shaman: Attack Power = clvl*2 + STR*2 - 20
Druid: Attack Power = str*2 - 20
Mage/Priest/Warlock: Attack Power = str-10

Attack Power / 14 = DPS added to weapon.
The damage from AP is distributed so that slower weapons get a larger bonus and faster weapons get a smaller bonus such that DPS is equal. As a result any instant attacks that use weapon damage (overpower, sinister strike, hemorrhage) get an extra bonus from using a slow, high damage weapon.


Off hand weapon damage is reduced 50% from what it would be in the main hand


Dodge chance is supposedly double for hunters and rogues what it is for other classes.


Crit chance:
For hunters +clvl AGI = +1% crit (such that at lvl 60 it takes +60 AGI to gain +1% crit chance)
For rogues +clvl/2 AGI = +1% crit (+30 AGI per +1% crit at clvl 60)
I don't know if there is a base crit chance, I would assume so. I would also assume that all other classes are the same as the hunter's, but have only seen data on rogue and hunter.


There is NO WAY to increase hit% except through talents and items that explicitly state +x% hit chance.


The defense reduction formula is supposedly (against an equal level mob):
Damage-Reduction = armor / ( armor + 85*level + 400 )
There is a chart here:
http://www.merciless-gilde.com/index.php...ols&tool=1
It's a sliding scale, so 100 armor added when you have 100 armor has a HUGE impact on damage reduction, but 100 armor added to 4000 armor has only a small impact. (It also means the bonus of +30% additional armor reduction from improved sunder armor has a larger effect than you might think at first glance)


It's hard to know how clvl vs. mlvl factors into any of these calculations, the game only gives indications againt equal level mobs.


I didn't come up with any of these, they were gathered through the various WoW forums. I only compiled the list. Unfortunately I do not have individual references.

[Lord BEEF]

You can also increase your chance to hit through items that gives bonuses to a weapon skill. These items however are extremely rare.