Post by taallonn on Feb 12, 2008 12:39:05 GMT -5
Hunter Hit Rating Guide, by Olgas of Earthen Ring
PLEASE NOTE: Patch 2.3 changes this somewhat. Blizzard is introducing a new statstic called 'Expertise'. Expertise rating converts to expertise at the same rate that weapon skill rating formerly converted at. Each point of expertise reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried by 0.25%. All items and abilities that granted weapon skill have been changed. In most cases, they were converted to expertise or expertise rating. Ranged attacks do not benefit from expertise, so ranged weapon skill has generally been replaced by critical strike bonuses or hit bonuses. In a few cases, talents have been changed to other effects to avoid granting players excessive amounts of expertise. So, for Dwarves, Gun Specialization now increases chance to critically hit with Guns by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill. And for Trolls, Bow and Thrown Specialization now increases chance to critically hit with those weapons by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill.
First, forget everything you thought about your chance to hit and miss from the pre-Burning Crusade era. There were fundamental mechanics changed with Burning Crusade, and the old information is no longer accurate.
Second, to jump ahead, let me first tell you the conclusions, and then explain how miss rates are calculated.
As a Level 70 character with 350 Weapon Skill, your base chance to miss against mobs is as follows:
v. Level 70 mob: 5.0%
v. Level 71 mob: 5.5%
v. Level 72 mob: 6.0%
v. Level 73 mob: 9.0%
Thus if you are a Level 70 character with a Weapon Skill of 350, you need a Hit Rating of 142 (9.00%) to never miss a shot against a Level 73 boss (or skull mob).
The first thing to keep in mind is that the "roll table" Blizzard uses doesn't really roll for "hits". Instead, it rolls to determine whether you have missed. There is a base miss percentage that you face against any mob. And you can reduce this base miss percentage by either equipping +hit gear or spec'ing into +hit talents (like Surefooted).
Also, understand that the information in this guide pertains to physical damage. So, as a Hunter it applies to all your ranged and melee attacks. It also applies to all melee damage done by your pet. It does NOT however apply to magical damage, which uses an entirely different system for determining misses and hits. (So, don't try to apply this info to your Mage alt!)
The information in this guide has been determined through extensive testing on the Elitist Jerks forum. The testing was very thorough, conducted by a number of people, and all tests were then submitted for peer review by the other participants in the process. So, I am very confident that the information presented in this guide is 100% accurate. If you will like to refer to the raw testing, the thread can be found at: elitistjerks.com/f31/t11885-rogue_warrior_weapon_skill_adjustment_discussion/ (a word of warning though - the thread is quite long and dense, well over 500 posts).
OK, now let me explain how your base miss rate is calculated. First, even though I've shown the conclusion above in terms of mob levels, the truth is, character level or mob level actually has nothing to do with calculating your base miss rates. Rather, miss rate is determined solely by the difference between your Weapon Skill and the mob's Defense Skill.
Here are the fundamental formulas:
If the difference between the mob's Defense Skill and your Weapon Skill is less than or equal to 10, the formula for calculating base miss rate is:
5% + (Defense Skill - Weapon Skill)*0.1%
If the difference between the mob's Defense Skill and your Weapon Skill is greater than 10, then the formula for calculating base miss rate is:
7% + (Defense Skill - Weapon Skill - 10)*0.4%
So, if you are a Level 70 character with 350 Weapon Skill, and you are fighting a Level 73 mob or a skull boss (which has a 365 Defense Skill), your base miss rate will be 9% (7% + 5*0.4%).
What this means is that there is a big +hit benefit to keeping your Weapon Skill within 10 levels of the mobs you are trying to fight. For example, by improving your Weapon Skill from 350 to 355, you effectively reduce your chance to miss against Level 73 mobs by 3%!
However, the impact of Weapon Skill is also not linear, so after getting to 355, increasing your Weapon Skill the next 5 levels, to 360, only reduces your chance to miss by an additional .5% (or 3.5% in total). Also, note that there is a huge jump in miss rate reduction by going from 354 to 355 Weapon Skill. This is the point where you switch from one formula to the other, and so this particular single point of Weapon Skill is worth a whopping +1.4% hit against a Level 73 mob/boss.
Also, for us Hunters, we see that the Racial Bonus of Dwarves and Trolls is pretty darn valuable. If you are a Dwarf using a Gun or a Troll using a Bow, your Racial Bonus will put your Weapon Skill at 355. With a 355 Weapon Skill, you base miss rate against a Level 73 mob (or skull boss) is only 6% instead of 9%. So, a Dwarf with a Gun or a Troll with a Bow only needs to equip a 95 Hit Rating to never miss against a boss.
In addition to Racial Bonuses, Weapon Skill can also be increased by gear that has +Weapon Skill rating. But remember that Weapon Skill Rating is not the same as Weapon Skill Level. At Level 70, it takes 3.94231 Rating to give 1 Level of Weapon Skill.
Also, believe it or not, fractional Weapon Skill levels are dropped, not rounded. So, say you have are a Level 70 character, and you equip a piece of gear that gives +15 Bow Skill Rating. In theory, this equates to 3.8 +Weapon Skill Level. And, in theory, Blizzard could have used the fractional .8 in its subsequent calculations of hit and miss, or, perhaps, rounded it to 4.0. But it doesn't work that way. Instead, the fractional .8 Weapon Skill is simply dropped altogether. You get 353 Weapon Skill for purposes of all hit and miss calculations.
Another interesting tidbit is that if you are able to stack your Weapon Skill above 365 (which is hard to do for us Hunters, but can be achieved by some Rogues), you will find that each additional point of Weapon Skill above 365 continues to decrease your chance to miss by .1% per Weapon Skill level. So if your, Weapon Skill is 366, your chance to miss is 4.9%, if 367, 4.8%, etc.
In addition to Weapon Skill, you can, of course, reduce your chance to miss against mobs by adding +Hit gear, or speccing into +Hit talents like Surefooted.
The conversion rate for translating Hit Rating into +Hit% is as follows:
15.76923 Hit Rating = +1% Hit (Most of the time you will see this rounded to 15.8, but the additional precision is required if you want to do exact calculations. The actual number is 10*82/52.)
And here is a table to help you determine how much +Hit Rating you need as a Level 70 character to never miss against a Level 73 mob/boss:
Weapon Skill 350: 9.0% miss rate, 142 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 351: 8.6% miss rate, 136 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 352: 8.2% miss rate, 130 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 353: 7.8% miss rate, 123 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 354: 7.4% miss rate, 117 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 355: 6.0% miss rate, 95 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 356: 5.9% miss rate, 94 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 357: 5.8% miss rate, 92 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 358: 5.7% miss rate, 90 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 359: 5.6% miss rate, 89 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 360: 5.5% miss rate, 87 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 361: 5.4% miss rate, 86 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 362: 5.3% miss rate, 84 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 363: 5.2% miss rate, 82 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 364: 5.1% miss rate, 81 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 365: 5.0% miss rate, 79 Hit Rating
Surefooted adds a direct +1% Hit per Talent point, up to a maximum of 3%. So, if you are Hunter with 3/3 points in this Talent and a 350 Weapon Skill, you only need to equip 95 Hit Rating to never miss. And if you are Dwarf using a Gun or a Troll using a Bow and you have 3/3 points in this Talent, you only need to equip 48 Hit Rating to never miss!
Final point. People often ask if you can really eliminate all misses. There seems to be a persistent myth out there that there is always some small residual chance to miss no matter how much +hit gear you equip. This myth is patently false. All testing to date has demonstrated that misses can be entirely eliminated by having sufficient +hit equipped. HOWEVER, bear in mind that there are certain debuffs and curses that WILL affect your miss rate and your chance to hit. (So, for example, Attumen has a curse the affects your hit rate. So, you will notice some misses while fighting Attumen if you get affected by the curse. Other bosses and mobs also have debuffs and curses. Nightbane is another example of a fight where a debuff can affect your miss rate.)
PLEASE NOTE: Patch 2.3 changes this somewhat. Blizzard is introducing a new statstic called 'Expertise'. Expertise rating converts to expertise at the same rate that weapon skill rating formerly converted at. Each point of expertise reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried by 0.25%. All items and abilities that granted weapon skill have been changed. In most cases, they were converted to expertise or expertise rating. Ranged attacks do not benefit from expertise, so ranged weapon skill has generally been replaced by critical strike bonuses or hit bonuses. In a few cases, talents have been changed to other effects to avoid granting players excessive amounts of expertise. So, for Dwarves, Gun Specialization now increases chance to critically hit with Guns by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill. And for Trolls, Bow and Thrown Specialization now increases chance to critically hit with those weapons by 1% rather than increasing weapon skill.
First, forget everything you thought about your chance to hit and miss from the pre-Burning Crusade era. There were fundamental mechanics changed with Burning Crusade, and the old information is no longer accurate.
Second, to jump ahead, let me first tell you the conclusions, and then explain how miss rates are calculated.
As a Level 70 character with 350 Weapon Skill, your base chance to miss against mobs is as follows:
v. Level 70 mob: 5.0%
v. Level 71 mob: 5.5%
v. Level 72 mob: 6.0%
v. Level 73 mob: 9.0%
Thus if you are a Level 70 character with a Weapon Skill of 350, you need a Hit Rating of 142 (9.00%) to never miss a shot against a Level 73 boss (or skull mob).
The first thing to keep in mind is that the "roll table" Blizzard uses doesn't really roll for "hits". Instead, it rolls to determine whether you have missed. There is a base miss percentage that you face against any mob. And you can reduce this base miss percentage by either equipping +hit gear or spec'ing into +hit talents (like Surefooted).
Also, understand that the information in this guide pertains to physical damage. So, as a Hunter it applies to all your ranged and melee attacks. It also applies to all melee damage done by your pet. It does NOT however apply to magical damage, which uses an entirely different system for determining misses and hits. (So, don't try to apply this info to your Mage alt!)
The information in this guide has been determined through extensive testing on the Elitist Jerks forum. The testing was very thorough, conducted by a number of people, and all tests were then submitted for peer review by the other participants in the process. So, I am very confident that the information presented in this guide is 100% accurate. If you will like to refer to the raw testing, the thread can be found at: elitistjerks.com/f31/t11885-rogue_warrior_weapon_skill_adjustment_discussion/ (a word of warning though - the thread is quite long and dense, well over 500 posts).
OK, now let me explain how your base miss rate is calculated. First, even though I've shown the conclusion above in terms of mob levels, the truth is, character level or mob level actually has nothing to do with calculating your base miss rates. Rather, miss rate is determined solely by the difference between your Weapon Skill and the mob's Defense Skill.
Here are the fundamental formulas:
If the difference between the mob's Defense Skill and your Weapon Skill is less than or equal to 10, the formula for calculating base miss rate is:
5% + (Defense Skill - Weapon Skill)*0.1%
If the difference between the mob's Defense Skill and your Weapon Skill is greater than 10, then the formula for calculating base miss rate is:
7% + (Defense Skill - Weapon Skill - 10)*0.4%
So, if you are a Level 70 character with 350 Weapon Skill, and you are fighting a Level 73 mob or a skull boss (which has a 365 Defense Skill), your base miss rate will be 9% (7% + 5*0.4%).
What this means is that there is a big +hit benefit to keeping your Weapon Skill within 10 levels of the mobs you are trying to fight. For example, by improving your Weapon Skill from 350 to 355, you effectively reduce your chance to miss against Level 73 mobs by 3%!
However, the impact of Weapon Skill is also not linear, so after getting to 355, increasing your Weapon Skill the next 5 levels, to 360, only reduces your chance to miss by an additional .5% (or 3.5% in total). Also, note that there is a huge jump in miss rate reduction by going from 354 to 355 Weapon Skill. This is the point where you switch from one formula to the other, and so this particular single point of Weapon Skill is worth a whopping +1.4% hit against a Level 73 mob/boss.
Also, for us Hunters, we see that the Racial Bonus of Dwarves and Trolls is pretty darn valuable. If you are a Dwarf using a Gun or a Troll using a Bow, your Racial Bonus will put your Weapon Skill at 355. With a 355 Weapon Skill, you base miss rate against a Level 73 mob (or skull boss) is only 6% instead of 9%. So, a Dwarf with a Gun or a Troll with a Bow only needs to equip a 95 Hit Rating to never miss against a boss.
In addition to Racial Bonuses, Weapon Skill can also be increased by gear that has +Weapon Skill rating. But remember that Weapon Skill Rating is not the same as Weapon Skill Level. At Level 70, it takes 3.94231 Rating to give 1 Level of Weapon Skill.
Also, believe it or not, fractional Weapon Skill levels are dropped, not rounded. So, say you have are a Level 70 character, and you equip a piece of gear that gives +15 Bow Skill Rating. In theory, this equates to 3.8 +Weapon Skill Level. And, in theory, Blizzard could have used the fractional .8 in its subsequent calculations of hit and miss, or, perhaps, rounded it to 4.0. But it doesn't work that way. Instead, the fractional .8 Weapon Skill is simply dropped altogether. You get 353 Weapon Skill for purposes of all hit and miss calculations.
Another interesting tidbit is that if you are able to stack your Weapon Skill above 365 (which is hard to do for us Hunters, but can be achieved by some Rogues), you will find that each additional point of Weapon Skill above 365 continues to decrease your chance to miss by .1% per Weapon Skill level. So if your, Weapon Skill is 366, your chance to miss is 4.9%, if 367, 4.8%, etc.
In addition to Weapon Skill, you can, of course, reduce your chance to miss against mobs by adding +Hit gear, or speccing into +Hit talents like Surefooted.
The conversion rate for translating Hit Rating into +Hit% is as follows:
15.76923 Hit Rating = +1% Hit (Most of the time you will see this rounded to 15.8, but the additional precision is required if you want to do exact calculations. The actual number is 10*82/52.)
And here is a table to help you determine how much +Hit Rating you need as a Level 70 character to never miss against a Level 73 mob/boss:
Weapon Skill 350: 9.0% miss rate, 142 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 351: 8.6% miss rate, 136 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 352: 8.2% miss rate, 130 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 353: 7.8% miss rate, 123 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 354: 7.4% miss rate, 117 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 355: 6.0% miss rate, 95 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 356: 5.9% miss rate, 94 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 357: 5.8% miss rate, 92 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 358: 5.7% miss rate, 90 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 359: 5.6% miss rate, 89 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 360: 5.5% miss rate, 87 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 361: 5.4% miss rate, 86 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 362: 5.3% miss rate, 84 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 363: 5.2% miss rate, 82 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 364: 5.1% miss rate, 81 Hit Rating
Weapon Skill 365: 5.0% miss rate, 79 Hit Rating
Surefooted adds a direct +1% Hit per Talent point, up to a maximum of 3%. So, if you are Hunter with 3/3 points in this Talent and a 350 Weapon Skill, you only need to equip 95 Hit Rating to never miss. And if you are Dwarf using a Gun or a Troll using a Bow and you have 3/3 points in this Talent, you only need to equip 48 Hit Rating to never miss!
Final point. People often ask if you can really eliminate all misses. There seems to be a persistent myth out there that there is always some small residual chance to miss no matter how much +hit gear you equip. This myth is patently false. All testing to date has demonstrated that misses can be entirely eliminated by having sufficient +hit equipped. HOWEVER, bear in mind that there are certain debuffs and curses that WILL affect your miss rate and your chance to hit. (So, for example, Attumen has a curse the affects your hit rate. So, you will notice some misses while fighting Attumen if you get affected by the curse. Other bosses and mobs also have debuffs and curses. Nightbane is another example of a fight where a debuff can affect your miss rate.)
