I really think this discussion page needs to get cleaned up a bit. Also, if there's any consensus on a formula for determining the occurance and severity of glancing blows, it should get edited into the main article. As it stands, any data about glancing blows on Wowwiki is fairly useless due to the posted articles being inconsistant with the data farmed by people (as listed below).
-- Zambioga 10:48, 22 August 2006 (PDT)
-- 13:47, 3 August 2006 (EDT)2 things that aren't accurate in the Wiki article:
"A glancing blow only occurs on white damage, can not crit and has a damage reduction proportional to the difference between the attacker's weapon skill and the target's defense."
That's not confirmed. All we know is that we have 40% chance of getting a glancing blow on non-special attacks; and that the damage reduction becomes ~0% when you reach 310 weapon skill. If you say proportional, that would mean you're saying raid bosses (who we all suppose are level 63) have 310 defense. That is NOT the case.
Second:
"With no +skill/+hit gear on, a dual wielder vs a level 63 mob will have the following damage table from the front: 5.6% dodge, 5.6% parry, 24.6% miss, 5.6% block, 40% glancing blow, 18.6% combined hit + crit. Attacking from the back prevents block and parry giving 29.8% combined hit + crit. Attacks from the back can still be dodged."
Is flat out wrong. The numbers come from thinking "since it's a raidboss lvl 63, he has 315 defense". If that was all he had, and no additional modifiers, +6 toHit in form of talents and/or gear would be enough to never miss a special attack. It is not.
That is a screenshot with 5/5 precision, and +1 to hit gear vs. Onyxia lvl 63. Note the 4 Sinister Strike misses in recap. Also note that recap does not count dodges or parries from onyxia as misses - the /combatlog from that fight confirms the 4 misses. That proves that 315 defense - 5,6% miss chance is not all there is against raidbosses.
Collected numbers seem to point at +8 to Hit with gear or talents to be enough to never miss a special against a boss. Numbers i collected show no misses in over 20 million points of damage over several weeks. While that doesn't prove +8 is all you need (it could be a statistical fluke making me not miss, although there is a 0,6% misschance (random number, only for the example), what is proven is that raidbosses do not have 315 defense only with no additional things being factored in.
That leaves at least 2 choices: 1) raidbosses have 300 defense, and cause an artificial 3% misschance. (having 315 defense +3% would very likely have shown a miss until now) 2) Raidbosses come with a bonus 60 defense, raising it to 375 - which leads to the observed needed +8 toHit to never miss, and is in a way supported by the high parry and dodge chances bosses seem to have (although that is as of now an impression, and not backed up by numbers)
Unless there is feedback or comments soon, I'll implement my findings into the Wiki page, because right now it's spreading disinformation. Also: "nice findings" is cute and all, but I'd prefer a proof that i am wrong if i am.
Small note: this information does not invalidate the findings about crit/hit vs glancing blows.
--- Assassinette
Agreed on point 1. Though I believe the percentage is dependant on the level of the opponent, and 40% is just the proportion against level 63 mobs. It also seems to go up when you've less than the maximum skill -- I certainly glance more often unarmed than otherwise.
Concerning point 2, however, you appear to have a sample size of 97 or 98 Sinister Strikes. While I can't claim to be in a position to collect more accurate data, that's really a rather small sample size for such calculations as this. I'd personally hold off on editing the article until I had more data -- sharing data with the rest of the rogues and warriors on the raid, with a knowledge of their gear and +skill, would really help. Or just collecting a lot of Ony data over multiple attempts.
I personally know of very little testing regarding these values -- I gather that we've hypothesized they're the base statistics. I have heard of preliminary tests regarding the nonhostile Silithus hive bugs having more defense than "base," and if true we can take that as evidence that the values are specifically set for each mob (and hopefully for each raid boss) independently, which may then be revealed by extensive testing.
I would personally guess, given the information available, that chance to hit scales with the level of the opponent, in a manner similar to the spell hit tables ( http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=blizzard-archive&t=37&p=1&tmp=1#post37 for the blue post, or http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Spell_hit_chance for the WoWWiki article). I can find no specific information regarding this, which I find somewhat incredible. Someone must have done testing on this already.
(I'd happily help in collecting further data, but I'm a priest.)
-- Gilmoshar
On the contrary, a sample of that size is perfectly adequate to prove point 2. While the sample size is small, the intent is only to prove that the miss rate is larger than zero (and that therefore the total miss rate against bosses is greater than 6%). If the 315 defense theory is correct, it should be impossible to miss a special with 6% to hit or more, so only one recorded miss is needed to prove it false. The probability that a miss rate of 1% would produce 4 misses in the sample of 98 attacks is 1.4%, unless I've botched my calculation, so while not a certainty the sample already implies with a 98.6% CL that the miss rate is greater than 7%.
-- Viz.
Glancing Blows are for any mob higher level than you.
Well, ok, at least for elites, I've not checked against non-elites yet.
Basically I've gone and looked at my combat logs since I started on Molten Core (3 months worth of solid raiding). Against "Core Hound"s (not "Ancient Core Hound"s) (level 61 in MobInfo2) I'm seeing ~20% Glancing Blows, against Molten Giants (level 62 according to MobInfo2) I'm seeing ~30% Glancing Blows, against Molten Destroyers (level 63 in MI2) I'm seeing ~40% Glancing Blows, and indeed against MC bosses, thus level 63 I'm seeing ~40% Glancing Blows.
So it's not just "3 levels above you" or "2 or more levels above you", which is what I've seen cited elsewhere.
I've not yet had chance to analyse the damage mitigation in each case to see if that's the same or is scaled in some scheme versus the mob level.
--Athan 05:42, 20 July 2006 (EDT)
And now some data on the damage mitigation. This is from all my swings on the mobs again. Note that I'm using the crits to get more of an idea of average normal damage by averaging them, then halving the damage, and finally averaging that with the average normal hit damage. That's the "Average Hits + Half Crits" bit, which is used in the final "Glancing Dmg/Avg Hit+Crit" line.
Core Hound (61 elite): Glancing (Hits) 20.48% of 2798 swings Average Glancing Damage: 148 Average Hit Damage: 153 Average Crit Damage: 322 Average Hits + Half Crits Damage: 157 Glancing Dmg/Average Hit Damage: 0.969 Glancing Dmg/Avg Hit+Crit Damage: 0.944
Molten Giant (62 elite): Glancing (Hits) 30.85% of 8834 swings Average Glancing Damage: 151 Average Hit Damage: 176 Average Crit Damage: 362 Average Hits + Half Crits Damage: 178 Glancing Dmg/Average Hit Damage: 0.856 Glancing Dmg/Avg Hit+Crit Damage: 0.844
Molten Destroyer (63 elite): Glancing (Hits) 41.58% of 4938 swings Average Glancing Damage: 118 Average Hit Damage: 180 Average Crit Damage: 376 Average Hits + Half Crits Damage: 184 Glancing Dmg/Average Hit Damage: 0.656 Glancing Dmg/Avg Hit+Crit Damage: 0.642
So, it looks like the damage mitigation of Glancing Blows does also scale with the level difference, along with the chance to get one scaling.
Hmm, I'm also seeing more than the -30% damage at +3 levels, that -35% damage is pretty constant, even if I only use the latest log (which has more or less static equipment, the most I gained during it was Nightslayer Belt over the Belt of Preserved Heads).
--Athan 06:34, 20 July 2006 (EDT)
Just confirmed with my level 41 Warrior that I do get glancing blows against both level 42 and 43 mobs. This is all patch 1.11.2 btw.
--Athan 17:20, 20 July 2006 (EDT)
Good to see some more numbers & the discussion kicked up a bit :o)
While i agree that the sample size is *very* small, what it does show is a miss with +6 to Hit vs. supposedly 5,6% misschance; which should be impossible. I can't prove +8 is enough by never missing with +8 (sample size is in over 30 million points of damage by now, still counting); but i can prove +6 isn't enough by missing one single time. All it does is show that there's something else at work, either higher defense, or an artificial miss modifier.
For that matter +7 isn't enough to not miss vs. the supposed 5,6% misschance either: +7 to hit vs. 5.6% misschance video (xVid, ~100mb) Video of a fight vs. Golemagg with +7 to hit, and 1 SS miss. Again, the sample is quite small, but it's reproduceable quite easily.
On glancing hit %age: i had a glancing hit against a lvl 60 Fire spawn (the ones spawned by the firelords), and screenshotted if needed. My weaponskill is of course 300. So glancing hits do not only happen against higher level mobs, but also on equal level mobs - though the chance seems to be quite low, it's not a single occurance.
--Assassinette 19:39, 22 July 2006 (EDT)
Speculation: Same-level mobs have 10% chance of Glancing Blows. It would follow the pattern anyway.
--Athan 04:12, 23 July 2006 (EDT)
Is there any mod i can use to record glancing blows on a large scale? Going through the /combatlog makes my eyes hurt, as my screen is getting old and doesn't have the sharpest image anymore :(
--Assassinette 01:01, 24 July 2006 (EDT)
I'm not using an Addon, but I'm also not looking through them manually. I use a perl script. I should perhaps get around to writing an Addon for it (maybe patching Recap, although I've never used that, but if that's only per last fight it won't do as we really need something to just accumulate data).
Anysuch addon would need to record not only the number of miss, dodge, parry, block, glancing, hit and crit, but do it against the level of the mob, i.e. one set of data per player-mob level difference.
--Athan 09:26, 24 July 2006 (EDT)
Oh, and note that if it's at all possible to record if you're behind a mob, the Addon should do that too, as behind means no parry or block. This could be fudged by requiring any recorded fight be at least 20 swings, and have at least 1 parry or block to be counted as in front. 20 Swings gets you 1 swing = 5%, and I see ~5% Parry and ~3% Blocks in my latest data against Annihilators (which are damned near impossible to stay behind unless your warriors get a nice Taunt/Mocking Blow rotation going to keep them still). So, for 20 Swings from in front we should see at least one Parry or Block. I still see 1.84% Parry and 3.68% Block against Twilight's Hammer mobs in Silithus, which are level 57/58/59/60.
--Athan 05:22, 27 July 2006 (EDT)
The page has a formula for Glancing Blow chance and damage. I'm fairly sure the chance formula is wrong and should be: (NPCLvl - YourLvl + 1) * 10. To compare:
Level Glancing Blow Chance My Version 63 40% 40% 62 25% 30% 61 10% 20% 60 -5% 10%
My version really does more closely match observed data for levels 63/62/61, although I'm still speculating about same level == 10%.
The Glancing Blow damage reduction formula given has to be wrong as well, as it says no damage reduction against +1 level mobs, and I am seeing Glancing Blows against Core Hounds, at ~20% rate, for around 5-6% damage reduction. That formula says 0% reduction for +1 levels.
My data suggest (NPCLvl - YourLvl) * 10 as the %age reduction, approx., but that's really not a very good fit.
--Athan 05:22, 27 July 2006 (EDT)
I use this formula for calculating reduction for glancing blows (based on the empirical data gathered above)
5 * 2^(Mob level - Your skill/5) - 1 [%]
+0 skill:
61: 5%
62: 15%
63: 35%
+5 skill:
62: 5%
63: 15%
+10 skill:
63: 5%
--Jottor 13:49, 3 August 2006 (EDT)
I guess the reduction formula as (also based on the empirical data gathered by Athan, sorry :P):
5 * (D^2 - D + 1) [%], D = Skill Difference/5 = (MobDefenseSkill - YourWeaponSkill)/5
I made a table to compare the difference between the two formula, and the different reduction with different +Skill:
See the results by my formula when Skill Difference comes to 0. They're so strange... So my formula may be wrong. However, the results of +Skill is useful, while cutting the rows refer to my formula.
It's clear that +Skill is diminishing returns! The first several points of +skill is efficient.
--Hermit 02:40, 1 August 2006 (EDT)
The article, and the comments thus far, all seem to be claiming that the chance of a glancing blow is based solely on the LEVEL difference between the player and his target.
This is clearly not the entire picture. It is frighteningly obvious that the player's Weapon Skill also plays into the Glancing Blow Chance. Anyone who has ever had to "train up" a new weapon skill by attacking mobs at or below his own level knows that, with very low weapon skill, Glancing Blows are a common occurrence regardless of your target's level.
Is the Glancing Blow chance, perhaps, based on your unmodified weapon skill (i.e. with no +weapon skill enhancements from gear factored in) rather than your level?
-- tracer
I'm pretty sure that when they refer to your level, they mean the weapon skill at it's max for your level (yourLVL *5). It's not explicitly stated, but I think it's assumed. *edit* Didn't read the article completely. I would think that's what they meant though, had they not stated explicitly that weapon skill only reduces damage reduction. I'm pretty sure that's what it SHOULD be OTOH. Pzychotix 11:58, 1 August 2006 (EDT)
@Tracer: That the chance to Glance is a function of unbuffed skill, rather than a function of lvl makes good sense. Good observation with the skill-training!!
I have tried to incorporate all the relevant formula in this spreadsheet http://rus.oaf.dk/diverse/Jottors%202H%20MS-calculator.xls
It is designed to calculate dmg from a Mortal Strike-specced Warrior, but adapting it to other playstyles should be possible. (and probably less demanding to make for Rogues, where you don't need to struggle against the mechanics of rage.)
And I probably would try to adapt it to Fury-Warriors and Rogues, if I knew a flying fart about how those craaaaazeh dual-wielders fight ;-)
--Jottor 13:47, 3 August 2006 (EDT)
Looking at the +to hit discussion and the equivilent one for spells above, I would have guessed that it was the same as for spells
vs +3 lvl mob extra +4 miss chance
vs +4 lvl mob extra +8 miss chance
vs +5 lvl mob extra +12 miss chance
Imples vs +6 mob extra +16 miss chance etc.
This applies only against monsters not against players. Something like this must exist as from my experiences in AV it is possible to damage lvl 60 players at lvl 51, but you do nothing at all against lvl 60 NPCS. I am sure blizzard would have kept the same sort of penalties for magic and for melee damage. That would give a 9.6% miss chance though, which is much higher than 8 though, so with a 1.6% miss chance you would have seen some misses in a long run.
Note that the normal progression of +to hit with spells gets worse much faster than we think it does for melee
Same level 96% hit
+1 level 95% hit
+2 levels 94% hit
+3 levels 87% hit
+4 levels 80% hit
+5 levels 73% hit
So it is also possible what we are seeing is the breakdown of the 0.04 per change in weaponskill formula for orange etc mobs. There is an extra 6% miss chance with spells more than we would expect from comparing even levels, +1 level and +2 level for every level after +3.
One other thought is that maybe we have half the penalties for melee than for spells, which would give you a 7.6% miss chance vs lvl 63 monsters and fits the result above that +8 to hit means you will never miss with a special attack vs a lvl 63.
You would expect that spell to hit gets worse faster than melee to hit, as the difference is made up in glancing blows, increased block, parry, dodge chance and reduction in critical hits. As a spellcaster you have 13% lower dps fighting a lvl +3 mob compared to a even level mob. I would expect something similar with melee.
I would also expect an extra 4% dps difference between attacking players and mobs. Is it possible that 2% is put in increasing the miss chance, and 2% taken off the crit chance as well? Has anyone tested crit chance vs lvl 63 mobs? comparing it with the one in the skills book?It is also possible that the glancing blow formulas are different between attacking monsters and players.
-- Jon Aug 10
Has their been a consensus yet on the formulas for determining the chances of getting a glancing blow and the accompanying damage reduction? This is pretty useful information for people trying to devise an endgame gear strategy, but there's a lot of dispute on this talk page making it difficult to acquire a solid set of numbers.
Anyone?
--Zambioga 10:42, 22 August 2006 (PDT)
Concerning glancing blows from same level mobs I believe these occur. Yesterday I paid attention to the types of blows my level 36 human rogue was recieving when attacking level 37 Shadowmaw Panthers in STV with dual swords. My weapon skill with swords was maxed out at 185, which should equal their defense due to the racial bonus. With weapon skill equal to presumed defense skill I recieved glancing blows. There did not seem to be any significant damage loss, but I did not record that in detail. -- Beornwyn September 1st 2006
- I, too, have seen glancing blows delivered against same-level mobs, even when my weapon skill is trained to max. I had a level 14 human rogue wielding swords, whose sword skill was 75 due to her racial bonus (the normal maximum for any weapon skill at level 14, without racial bonuses, is 70). I had her attack a level 14 Goretusk in Westfall. Two of the white-damage blows that landed on that Goretusk were (Glancing). This is way too small of a sample size to extrapolate the odds of such glancing blows occurring, but clearly the chance isn't 0%. -- Tracer 11:45, 1 September 2006 (EDT)
- I have an even more interesting discovery: I got a glancing blow today on a mob 1 level lower than my rogue. I have a 44 rogue, using daggers, no +skill. I was fighting a 43 Vicious Owlbeast in the Hinterlands and out of 24 swings, 1 was a glancing blow. Perhaps there is a min 1% chance for glancing blows? That is total speculation, as this is (again) a tiny sample. But it shows a non-zero chance for mobs lower level that the character. Steve 18:01, 6 October 2006 (EDT)