Post by Derricka on Apr 6, 2005 4:41:11 GMT -5
Q: Why is my dodge/crit chance going down as I level?
A: It is actually not going down as you level. The tooltip which shows your dodge/crit percent (press P and look at your attack/dodge abilities) shows your chance to crit versus an enemy that is your level. This chance to crit is solely based on your agility, talents, and +crit gear.
So, suppose you are level 1, and have a 15% chance to crit listed. This means that you have enough agility to crit 15% of the time versus level 1 enemies. When you level up to level 2, let's suppose it says your crit chance is 14.5%. Your crit chance versus level 1 enemies is still 15% (in fact, it is a little bit higher because your agility went up when you leveled). However, you only have enough agility to crit level 2 enemies 14.5% of the time.
The reason for this is basically that as you level, your agility goes up, and you also have better equipment which will raise it, as well. For the first few levels, though, your crit chance will spiral down as there really isn't much +agility gear you can get.
One thing to note here is that if your weapon skill is not capped out, it will adversely affect your crit chance with that weapon.
Q: How much agility do you need to add 1% to your crit or dodge chance?
A: This is based on your level. A rough guideline for agility needed for 1% crit chance is level / 2, and level / 4 for 1% dodge. At level 60, it's roughly 29 agility for each 1% crit, and 14.5 agility for 1% dodge.
Q: How does my strength/agility add to my melee attack power?
A: Your strength and agility both add directly to your attack power, in a 1:1 ratio. So 10 agility will add to 10 melee attack power, as will 10 strength.
Q: How does the attack power bonus work? Why is a slow weapon better in the main hand?
A: The attack power bonus is a pure DPS bonus. Roughly 14 points in attack power equals 1 point of DPS bonus...I don't believe it scales by level.
Since it is a DPS bonus, and not a damage bonus, it works in an interesting way. Suppose you have a 20 dps attack power bonus, so roughly 300 attack power. For argument's sake, lets suppose you have a main-hand weapon which is 1.00 speed with an average damage of 20. For this weapon, 20 dps means 20 damage per per hit. So your average damage in your main hand will go up 20 damage points due to the attack power bonus.
Weapon #1:
20 average damage, 1.00 speed = 20 dps
+20 average damage = 40 average damage, 40 dps
Now let's say you have another weapon which is 20 dps, but 2.00 speed. So, it's average damage per swing is 40. For this particular weapon, 20 dps = 40 damage per hit. So in this case, your average damage will go up 40 damage points due to your attack power bonus.
Weapon #2:
40 average damage, 2.00 speed = 20 dps
+40 average damage = 80 average damage, 40 dps.
Both weapon #1 and #2 have the same DPS, but weapon #2 is a much better mainhand weapon. Obviously there are no 1.00 speed weapons, but the point still holds.
All this explains why, for instance, the Toxic Revenger ends up having a slightly higher damage range than the Black Menace. Black Menace has an average damage of 44.5 @ 1.5s. Toxic Revenger, on the other hand, has an average damage of 39 @ 1.9s. The Black Menace has a much higher DPS, but since the average damages are so close, you'll notice that your tooltip damage range will be slightly higher with the Revenger, assuming you have a reasonable attack power.
This raises a very interesting dilemma when choosing a main-hand weapon. How much DPS are you willing to give up on the weapon for a higher damage range?
Q: Why is my Eviscerate not doing the damage as stated on the tooltip?
A: The tooltip damage does not take into account the armor of the enemy. Since most enemies have armor, your non-crit damage will rarely be as high as the tooltip states.
Q: Why does my Backstab/Ambush do less damage than the "+ X" damage on the tooltip?
A: Same answer as above.
Q: Why would I ever want to use Backstab instead of Ambush? Ambush does more damage!
A: The key difference here is that Ambush can only be used while in stealth, whereas Backstab has no such restriction.
Q: What is the dual-wield penalty?
A: The dual-wield penalty is that your base chance to miss for each weapon, on normal attacks, is 24%. Furthermore, your off-hand weapon does 50% damage (though it can be increased with talents). If you don¡¯t dual-wield, your base chance to miss on a normal attack is 5%. Your base miss chance on special attacks is always 5%, the dual-wield penalty does not apply to them.
Remember here that base chance is different from effective chance. There's several other factors which determine whether or not you hit the enemy, including their level versus yours and your weapon skill. Also, misses are different from dodges and parries.
However, in spite of this it is recommended you train dual-wield and use it, as your damage per second (DPS) will be increased by about 10-15%, assuming similar DPS weapons. Furthermore, it gives you another equippable weapon, which means you can have more stat boosts on your character.
Q: How does the off-hand damage penalty work? How is it affected by the dual wield spec talent?
A: The off-hand normally just does 50% of what it normally would do. So:
(Weapon DPS + Attack Power DPS Bonus) * 0.5
WIth the dual wield spec 5/5, the off-hand does 75% damage, so just subtitute 0.75 for 0.5.
The tooltip for the off-hand was previously bugged, causing numbers which did not make sense. If you had the talent, a weapon would be listed as doing more damage in your off-hand than in your main. Some data posted prior to the tooltip fix suggested that the tooltip was bugged. The change to the tooltip seems to confirm this.
Q: How does the stealth check work? Are there any differences in PvP?
A: The details of this are not entirely known. However, a few things are known. Whether or not you are detected by an enemy is based on the following factors: your subtlety skill, the level of your enemy, whether you are in the 180 degree arc in front of the enemy, and how close you are to the enemy. Your base subtlety is 5x your current level. So, at level 60 you have 300 subtlety.
Once you are within a certain radius of the enemy (based on your subtlety skill versus their level), and within the 180 degree arc in front of them, periodic stealth rolls are performed. If you lose the roll, you are detected and dropped out of stealth.
When you are behind the enemy, you will never be dropped out of stealth. However, if your level is substantially lower than the enemy, they will almost always turn around to face you.
The only difference I am aware of in PvP is that stealth checks may be performed with greater frequency. Also, I do not know how stealth detection items really factor in, but I would imagine the roll is your subtlety vs. (enemy level x 5 + stealth detection).
Q: What does the Master of Deception talent do?
A: It adds 3 points to your subtlety skill per point spent in the talent. So, at 5/5, you are effectively considered 3 levels higher for stealth checks.
Q: How does Shadowmeld affect stealth?
A: Though the exact numbers are not known, Shadowmeld does have a noticable affect on stealth. Karath performed some tests during the Beta, but unfortunately that thread is no longer accessible. According to his findings, it appears that Shadowmeld passively adds the equivalent of one Master of Deception point (so roughly +3 to Subtlety), when you are in stealth. The actual ability Shadowmeld should not be used, though, as you are harder to detect while in stealth mode.
Q: Why is Sinister Strike more effective with a sword/mace, instead of a dagger, when the DPS is almost the same?
A: This is because your Sinister Strike damage is not based on the DPS of the weapon, but rather its damage range. This is the case for all special attacks. Since swords and maces of the same DPS of a dagger generally have a much slower speed, their damage range is quite higher. It especially becomes apparent once you factor in the attack power bonus. This is also why say, the Barman Shanker, is a better main-hand dagger than daggers which have a DPS 4-5 points higher than it.
Q: How do weapon procs ("Chance on Hit") work?
A: This answer is somewhat speculation, but it's probably more accurate than what was previously written here. Basically the "Chance on Hit," is most likely a percent chance that's a function of the weapon speed.
What this maens basically is there's a set guideline for how many procs they want to occur. For argument's sake, suppose it's designed so you get roughly 2 proc per minute. So if your weapon is 1.00s, that means the "Chance on Hit" for this weapon is 1/30 or 3.2%. But for a weapon that's 2.00s, the "Chance on Hit" is 1/15 or 6.4%. It's designed like this so faster weapons don't get a serious proc advantage, but rather all weapons proc roughly the same amount during a set time period.
This is most likely a simplification of how it works, but probably a pretty good explanation. There definitely is not any sort of artificial thing prevent procs from going off after a certain duration, as sometimes weapons will proc two times consecutively.
Note that this does not apply to poisons. Poisons are, in fact, fixed percent chances on each hit. This means that faster weapons will have their poisons go off more often than slower ones.
Q: What is the normal rate of energy regeneration? Do any stats affect it?
A: You regen 20 energy per tick, and each tick is roughly 2 seconds. It is set in stone, and no stats affect it at all. However, the Adrenaline Rush talent will double the frequency of your energy regeneration ticks when it is activated.
A: It is actually not going down as you level. The tooltip which shows your dodge/crit percent (press P and look at your attack/dodge abilities) shows your chance to crit versus an enemy that is your level. This chance to crit is solely based on your agility, talents, and +crit gear.
So, suppose you are level 1, and have a 15% chance to crit listed. This means that you have enough agility to crit 15% of the time versus level 1 enemies. When you level up to level 2, let's suppose it says your crit chance is 14.5%. Your crit chance versus level 1 enemies is still 15% (in fact, it is a little bit higher because your agility went up when you leveled). However, you only have enough agility to crit level 2 enemies 14.5% of the time.
The reason for this is basically that as you level, your agility goes up, and you also have better equipment which will raise it, as well. For the first few levels, though, your crit chance will spiral down as there really isn't much +agility gear you can get.
One thing to note here is that if your weapon skill is not capped out, it will adversely affect your crit chance with that weapon.
Q: How much agility do you need to add 1% to your crit or dodge chance?
A: This is based on your level. A rough guideline for agility needed for 1% crit chance is level / 2, and level / 4 for 1% dodge. At level 60, it's roughly 29 agility for each 1% crit, and 14.5 agility for 1% dodge.
Q: How does my strength/agility add to my melee attack power?
A: Your strength and agility both add directly to your attack power, in a 1:1 ratio. So 10 agility will add to 10 melee attack power, as will 10 strength.
Q: How does the attack power bonus work? Why is a slow weapon better in the main hand?
A: The attack power bonus is a pure DPS bonus. Roughly 14 points in attack power equals 1 point of DPS bonus...I don't believe it scales by level.
Since it is a DPS bonus, and not a damage bonus, it works in an interesting way. Suppose you have a 20 dps attack power bonus, so roughly 300 attack power. For argument's sake, lets suppose you have a main-hand weapon which is 1.00 speed with an average damage of 20. For this weapon, 20 dps means 20 damage per per hit. So your average damage in your main hand will go up 20 damage points due to the attack power bonus.
Weapon #1:
20 average damage, 1.00 speed = 20 dps
+20 average damage = 40 average damage, 40 dps
Now let's say you have another weapon which is 20 dps, but 2.00 speed. So, it's average damage per swing is 40. For this particular weapon, 20 dps = 40 damage per hit. So in this case, your average damage will go up 40 damage points due to your attack power bonus.
Weapon #2:
40 average damage, 2.00 speed = 20 dps
+40 average damage = 80 average damage, 40 dps.
Both weapon #1 and #2 have the same DPS, but weapon #2 is a much better mainhand weapon. Obviously there are no 1.00 speed weapons, but the point still holds.
All this explains why, for instance, the Toxic Revenger ends up having a slightly higher damage range than the Black Menace. Black Menace has an average damage of 44.5 @ 1.5s. Toxic Revenger, on the other hand, has an average damage of 39 @ 1.9s. The Black Menace has a much higher DPS, but since the average damages are so close, you'll notice that your tooltip damage range will be slightly higher with the Revenger, assuming you have a reasonable attack power.
This raises a very interesting dilemma when choosing a main-hand weapon. How much DPS are you willing to give up on the weapon for a higher damage range?
Q: Why is my Eviscerate not doing the damage as stated on the tooltip?
A: The tooltip damage does not take into account the armor of the enemy. Since most enemies have armor, your non-crit damage will rarely be as high as the tooltip states.
Q: Why does my Backstab/Ambush do less damage than the "+ X" damage on the tooltip?
A: Same answer as above.
Q: Why would I ever want to use Backstab instead of Ambush? Ambush does more damage!
A: The key difference here is that Ambush can only be used while in stealth, whereas Backstab has no such restriction.
Q: What is the dual-wield penalty?
A: The dual-wield penalty is that your base chance to miss for each weapon, on normal attacks, is 24%. Furthermore, your off-hand weapon does 50% damage (though it can be increased with talents). If you don¡¯t dual-wield, your base chance to miss on a normal attack is 5%. Your base miss chance on special attacks is always 5%, the dual-wield penalty does not apply to them.
Remember here that base chance is different from effective chance. There's several other factors which determine whether or not you hit the enemy, including their level versus yours and your weapon skill. Also, misses are different from dodges and parries.
However, in spite of this it is recommended you train dual-wield and use it, as your damage per second (DPS) will be increased by about 10-15%, assuming similar DPS weapons. Furthermore, it gives you another equippable weapon, which means you can have more stat boosts on your character.
Q: How does the off-hand damage penalty work? How is it affected by the dual wield spec talent?
A: The off-hand normally just does 50% of what it normally would do. So:
(Weapon DPS + Attack Power DPS Bonus) * 0.5
WIth the dual wield spec 5/5, the off-hand does 75% damage, so just subtitute 0.75 for 0.5.
The tooltip for the off-hand was previously bugged, causing numbers which did not make sense. If you had the talent, a weapon would be listed as doing more damage in your off-hand than in your main. Some data posted prior to the tooltip fix suggested that the tooltip was bugged. The change to the tooltip seems to confirm this.
Q: How does the stealth check work? Are there any differences in PvP?
A: The details of this are not entirely known. However, a few things are known. Whether or not you are detected by an enemy is based on the following factors: your subtlety skill, the level of your enemy, whether you are in the 180 degree arc in front of the enemy, and how close you are to the enemy. Your base subtlety is 5x your current level. So, at level 60 you have 300 subtlety.
Once you are within a certain radius of the enemy (based on your subtlety skill versus their level), and within the 180 degree arc in front of them, periodic stealth rolls are performed. If you lose the roll, you are detected and dropped out of stealth.
When you are behind the enemy, you will never be dropped out of stealth. However, if your level is substantially lower than the enemy, they will almost always turn around to face you.
The only difference I am aware of in PvP is that stealth checks may be performed with greater frequency. Also, I do not know how stealth detection items really factor in, but I would imagine the roll is your subtlety vs. (enemy level x 5 + stealth detection).
Q: What does the Master of Deception talent do?
A: It adds 3 points to your subtlety skill per point spent in the talent. So, at 5/5, you are effectively considered 3 levels higher for stealth checks.
Q: How does Shadowmeld affect stealth?
A: Though the exact numbers are not known, Shadowmeld does have a noticable affect on stealth. Karath performed some tests during the Beta, but unfortunately that thread is no longer accessible. According to his findings, it appears that Shadowmeld passively adds the equivalent of one Master of Deception point (so roughly +3 to Subtlety), when you are in stealth. The actual ability Shadowmeld should not be used, though, as you are harder to detect while in stealth mode.
Q: Why is Sinister Strike more effective with a sword/mace, instead of a dagger, when the DPS is almost the same?
A: This is because your Sinister Strike damage is not based on the DPS of the weapon, but rather its damage range. This is the case for all special attacks. Since swords and maces of the same DPS of a dagger generally have a much slower speed, their damage range is quite higher. It especially becomes apparent once you factor in the attack power bonus. This is also why say, the Barman Shanker, is a better main-hand dagger than daggers which have a DPS 4-5 points higher than it.
Q: How do weapon procs ("Chance on Hit") work?
A: This answer is somewhat speculation, but it's probably more accurate than what was previously written here. Basically the "Chance on Hit," is most likely a percent chance that's a function of the weapon speed.
What this maens basically is there's a set guideline for how many procs they want to occur. For argument's sake, suppose it's designed so you get roughly 2 proc per minute. So if your weapon is 1.00s, that means the "Chance on Hit" for this weapon is 1/30 or 3.2%. But for a weapon that's 2.00s, the "Chance on Hit" is 1/15 or 6.4%. It's designed like this so faster weapons don't get a serious proc advantage, but rather all weapons proc roughly the same amount during a set time period.
This is most likely a simplification of how it works, but probably a pretty good explanation. There definitely is not any sort of artificial thing prevent procs from going off after a certain duration, as sometimes weapons will proc two times consecutively.
Note that this does not apply to poisons. Poisons are, in fact, fixed percent chances on each hit. This means that faster weapons will have their poisons go off more often than slower ones.
Q: What is the normal rate of energy regeneration? Do any stats affect it?
A: You regen 20 energy per tick, and each tick is roughly 2 seconds. It is set in stone, and no stats affect it at all. However, the Adrenaline Rush talent will double the frequency of your energy regeneration ticks when it is activated.
