I've seen a lot of questions about how these work. First off, for those technically inclined, the long answer is here.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Weapon_Skill
For those who are not, let's have a go.
Things to understand @ 60.
- Against an equal level opponent with equal skill (ie 300 Daggers vs 300 Def) you have an innate chance to miss of 5% on all attacks, skills OR melee
- Equal level opponents have an innate chance to block/parry/dodge of 5%.
- Dual Wield has a 19% chance of missing and only affects melee attacks. So 2nders/1hnd + shield aren't affected.
- Attacks from the rear on NPCs cannot be blocked or parried, they can be dodged
- Attacks from the rear on PCs cannot be blocked, parried, or dodged
- Each point of difference between weapon skill and defense gives a 0.04% increase/decrease to MISS, DODGE, PARRY and BLOCK. Therefore, attacking a lvl 63 target increases your chance to miss and their chance to block/parry/dodge by 0.6% each.
- Each point of +Hit decreases your chance to miss. It does nothing else but this.
- Glancing blows only affect melee strikes, not skill attacks. vs a +1 Creature = 0%. vs a +2 creature = 25% for 15% damage reduction. vs a +3 creature = 40% for 30%. vs a +4 creature 55% for 45% and so on...This is due to weapon skill being low.
- Your Hit/Crit chance is soft capped based on your HIT table. If you have a 30% chance to Hit/Crit yet are capped at 18%, then you lose that extra 12%. This is why +Hit is so important.
- The HIT table affects all possible outcomes of an attack. A miss cannot be a crit. A dodge cannot be a crit and so on.
For 2handers/1hnd + shield increase increase the melee HIT/CRIT by 19%. The skill % are the same.
HIT TABLE vs lvl 60 Dual Wield
[table]
X|Melee(Front)|Melee(Back)|Skills(Front)|Skills(Back)
MISS|24%|24%|5%|5%
DODGE|5%|5%|5%|5%
BLOCK|5%|0%|5%|0%
PARRY|5%|0%|5%|0%
GLANCING|0%|0%|0%|0%
HIT/CRIT|61%|71%|80%|90%
[/table]
As you can see, the above table is nothing special. No one has an innate crit chance of 60% on melee, so no one is capped. Next table is vs lvl63 targets
HIT TABLE vs lvl 63 Dual Wield
[table]
X|Melee(Front)|Melee(Back)|Skills(Front)|Skills(Back)
MISS|24.6%|24.6%|5.6%|5.6%
DODGE|5.6%|5.6%|5.6%|5.6%
BLOCK|5.6%|0%|5.6%|0%
PARRY|5.6%|0%|5.6%|0%
GLANCING|40%@70%dmg|40%@70%dmg|0%|0%
HIT/CRIT|18.6%|29.8%|77.6%|88.8%
[/table]
Big difference here. A lot of people have > 18% crit melee chance or even over 30%. And glancing damage can take a very large chunk of damage out.
At 63, every point you increase Weapon Skill DECREASES the penalty that Glancing Blows gives by 3%, up to a maximum of 10pts of skill. IE +5WS reduces glancing blows' penalty to only 85% damage. It has a minor increased to MISS/DODGE/BLOCK/PARRY (0.3% in the case of +5WS). The following table is for +10WS.
HIT TABLE vs lvl 63 Dual Wield w/ +10 Weapon Skill
[table]
X|Melee(Front)|Melee(Back)|Skills(Front)|Skills(Back)
MISS|24%|24%|5%|5%
DODGE|5%|5%|5%|5%
BLOCK|5%|0%|5%|0%
PARRY|5%|0%|5%|0%
GLANCING|40%@100%dmg|40%@100%dmg|0%|0%
HIT/CRIT|21%|31%|80%|90%
[/table]
As you can clearly see, you're doing a lot more damage. 40% of your melee attacks are doing full damage and you've gained a small increased to the HIT/CRIT cap.
As stated before, each point of +Hit decreases your chance to miss, up to a natural cap of whatever your miss rate is. So ~5 for Skills and ~25 for melee attacks. Anything past this is pretty much lost.
HIT TABLE vs lvl 63 Dual Wield w/ +10 Hit
[table]
X|Melee(Front)|Melee(Back)|Skills(Front)|Skills(Back)
MISS|14.6%|14.6%|0|0%
DODGE|5.6%|5.6%|5.6%|5.6%
BLOCK|5.6%|0%|5.6%|0%
PARRY|5.6%|0%|5.6%|0%
GLANCING|40%@70%dmg|40%@70%dmg|0%|0%
HIT/CRIT|28.6%|39.8%|83.2%|94.4%
[/table]
This has a very large impact on melee attacks and a minor affect on skills. You've basically raised your HIT/CRIT cap by 10% for melee attacks, which is a great thing. A 30% base rate is now only losing ~1.5% instead of the ~13.5% they were with no bonuses at all.
HIT TABLE vs lvl 63 Dual Wield w/ +10 Weapon Skill and +10 Hit
[table]
X|Melee(Front)|Melee(Back)|Skills(Front)|Skills(Back)
MISS|14%|14%|0%|0%
DODGE|5%|5%|5%|5%
BLOCK|5%|0%|5%|0%
PARRY|5%|0%|5%|0%
GLANCING|40%@100%dmg|40%@100%dmg|0%|0%
HIT/CRIT|31%|41%|85%|95%
[/table]
Obviously the best scenario for damage output. You melee HIT/CRIT is over 30% from the front. >40% from the back. You can barely miss from skills, a fairly large improvement.
The next section will show actual damage numbers.
Linear Mode
