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The basics - hit, crit, haste, and spell damage
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Post by
irharry
Updated for 3.1.3
As of August 2009 this thread will not be updated. Another user is welcome to plagiarise any useful bits of this and repost it as appropriate
Your main “dps stats,” hit, crit, dmg, and haste, all come to you the same way, but with different values, and with different rules.
The haste, crit, and hit that is on your gear applies to both physical and magical damage, but is claculated using different values. For that reason, take the values displayed by wowhead with a grain of salt.
First rule of warlocking
- +hit is your friend. Until you're capped, +Hit is the single biggest dps boost you will get, in terms of damage returned for stats invested. Put simply, 1 +hit rating is worth more to you than 1 of any other stat.
Second rule of warlocking
, While the amount of hit/crit/dmg/haste gained per rating point is linear, their relative worth is NOT linear. The
more you have of a given stat, the more any other stat is worth
. If you have 0 haste/crit/hit but 1000+dmg, and you gain 1 spell dmg, that +1dmg has no additional chance to hit/crit/cast faster. If you have +20% hit/crit/haste, that 1 spell damage casts faster, has more chance to hit, and more chance to crit. The point is that no matter what I say about the importance of these things, they are relative, and your own personal gear can, and will, affect the importance of each stat.
you generally want to stack stats in this order;
+hit (till capped) > +dmg > +haste > +crit > spirit.
The relative worth of stats looks something like this for an "entrance" raider;
crit_rating=0.66
haste_rating=0.98
hit_rating=1.56
intellect=0.32
spell_power=1.46
spirit=0.47
And the relative worth of stats looks something like this for an ulduar raider;
Intellect=0.26
Spirit=0.77
spell_power=1.21
hit_rating=2.3
crit_rating=0.70
haste_rating=1.31
Just bear in mind that these numbers are always going to depend on your own ratios as well, and they're never ever going to be exact. They also vary considerably with spec
. Most notably the values in general rise as you gear up, but intellects value actually decreases - thats replenishment kicking in.
+Hit.
The hit ratings displayed on items in the wowhead database are not all correct for casters. Casters need 26.2 hit rating for 1% of plus hit, considerably less than the ~33 hit rating needed by melee.
We have a 17% chance to miss against raid bosses, therefore to achieve a 100% hit chance we need 446 hit rating. This is the hard cap.
The majority of players won’t need to stack anywhere near the 446 hard cap, as spells and abilities modify how much +hit you need.
You get a 1% buff from the Drainei Racial
(alliance only, and only party wide, this is NOT a raid wide buff).
You get a 3% debuff on the mob from either spriest misery, or doomkin faerie fire (these do NOT stack).
You get +3% from talents (although you may drop the talents as you get the hit rating on gear).
So the “soft cap” for raiding locks with all available buffs are;
Alliance (talented) = 262 hit rating
Alliance (untalented) = 341 hit rating
Horde (talented) = 289 hit rating
Horde (untalented) = 368 hit rating
Lock hit rating now increases pet hit rating, this was not the case in TBC. This is yet another reason to stack +hit before any other stat. Suppression does NOT increase your demon's hit chance (thanks for pointing this out blightman).
your hit table looks like this...
Level Difference -- PvE -- PvP
- 4 -- 100% -- 100%
- 3 -- 99% -- 99%
- 2 -- 98% -- 98%
- 1 -- 97% -- 97%
0 -- 96% -- 96%
+ 1 --- 95% -- 95%
+ 2 -- 94% -- 94%
+ 3 -- 83% -- 87%
+ 4 -- 72% -- 80%
+ 5 -- 61% -- 73%
+Crit.
We need 45.8 crit rating per 1% crit.
Contrary to what I've stated in posts below, spell hit/crit is still on the two roll system. One RNG roll to see if you have hit your target, then another RNG roll to check if it crit.
Dots CANNOT crit, not even Curse of Doom's single tick, unless you have
pandemic
. If you do have pandemic,
corruption
and
Unstable Affliction
can crit.
Immolates initial damage can crit, but the dot portion follows dot rules, and won't.
Warlocks direct damage spells crit at 150% of regular damage. Ruin boosts Crit damage of destruction spells to 200%, but does NOT boost the crit damage of seed of corruption (which is an affliction spell). Pandemic allows corruption and unstable affliction to crit at 200%.
Contrary to popular belief, an additional 1% crit does not increase your dps by 1%, not even for direct damage spells with a 200% crit damage modifier. It actually increases dps by slightly less, as is explained
here at wowwiki
.
There is no realistic crit cap. When fighting Loatheb it is possible to hit 100% crit, or effectively crit cap, but this is a one off scenario.
+Haste.
We need 32.8 haste rating per 1% haste. Haste was widely regarded in TBC as the bees knees – it was the stat you stacked above all others. When haste started showing up in TBC, it was available on the top end of gear only. Anotherwords, by time you were able to start stacking it, you had a bucketload of the other dps stats. Remember what I said at the top – the more you have of every other stat, the more a stat is worth. Consequently it skewed the value of haste a lot, and left a lot of players valuing it more highly than it warranted.
In saying that, Haste is considerably better than crit, for any spec. As a side note, backdraft charges CAN reduce the GCD.
Haste does not increase dot tick speed.
Haste does decrease the GCD on all instant cast spells, including dots.
Haste does increase the speed channelled spells channel.
Haste does decrease the cast time on all cast time direct damage spells.
Haste cannot decrease the GCD beneath 1 second (except when combined with backdraft).
While there is no realistic haste hard cap, you will start nudging the 1 second GCD minimum during hero/bloodlust once you hit roughly 450 haste. Its worth stacking haste past this, but the cutoff where its no longer worth stacking is not clear. It will vary depending on what buffs you have, and what your spec is, but I would avoid stacking haste past ~800. Other experienced warlocks recommend going even slightly higher again. Personally, I run 700 and am happy with that number.
+Dmg.
Usually the stat you want to stack above all others, and completely self explanatory. It increases the damage done by all your spells,
this
is a link to the spell power coefficients of all our spells thanks to wowiki. BiS warlocks using a demonic pact build for raid buffing will want to prioritise +dmg even more than other specs, due to the feedback through demonic pact to the raid.
Post by
Zalambar
Useful data to have at 80, it's a shame more players don't know how these mechanics work.
I'll add that you should consider food buffs when calculating your hit cap. See if eating
Snapper Extreme
and favoring damage gear and gems a little bit will give you more total damage than finding hit gear and gems and eating
Firecracker Salmon
,
Imperial Manta Steak
,
Spicy Blue Nettlefish
, or any of the other high end food.
I also wrote some little tools for calculating
hit rating
,
crit rating
, and
haste rating
conversions in case you find those useful.
Post by
midnightzak
The explanations seem good but I'm still asking some questions...
1. Don't know if this is a typo, or what...
Your crit chance is independent of you hit chance – i.e., if you have a 10% hit chance, and a 5% crit chance, 5% of your shots will crit, meaning that 50% of the shots that connect with your target, result in crits.
This just plain doesn't make sense to me. How a 5% crit chance turns into 50% crits I have no idea.
2. In TBC for Destro Raiding it went - Hit (capped) > Crit > Dmg > Haste (only if you can stack it)
+Dmg.
Usually the stat you want to stack above all others, and completely self explanatory
But it looks like you are saying to max your +damage which at least used to be the most noob thing to do. I'm not saying you are wrong by any means, as ALOT has changed with the expansion but I'd like come clarification to the order you are suggesting to stack stats.
Also I see that you do not even consider stacking Spirit though it seems that all Wrath gear has Spirit on it now. Spirit plays into the bonus with Fel Armor, but I don't know if this change is good enough to start stacking a certain number of Spirit...
TL;DR - alot has changed with the expansion, what order do you suggest stacking stats?
Post by
irharry
Edit, the info in my following post regarding the one roll/two roll system is incorrect, but left in for anyone that wants to try and follow the conversation
1)
No this is not a typo. It means exactly what it say, your crit and hit chance are entirely independant. For example;
Lets say you are an entrance raider at level 80, and you have 0 hit, and 25% crit.
If you have 0 hit, you will have a 17% miss chance against "boss mobs" so your hit table will look like,
17% of your spells will miss
25% of your spells will crit
58% of your spells will hit
I might edit this for clarity.
2)
I've added guideline for what order to stack stats, Hit (capped) > DMG > crit > haste is your usual order. As for the "only take haste if you can stack it," that is absolutely and completely wrong. In reality, the opposite is true - the less you have of a stat, the more it is worth to you. Many players said this for the simple reason that if you didnt stack a lot of it, you didn't notice it and they thought it got lost in lag. Not true.
As for spirit...... it used to be worth 3/5 of FA to us. It's now worth 4/5. Look at what it gives you - 30% of the spirit you stack comes back in +dmg. Its not worth taking for that reason, the ratio is too poor to warrant stacking it. It does help Life Tap - Life tap returns mana based on spirit, with the formula being,
life tap
Basically life tap gives you 710 mana + 3x spirit.
So take spirit where you can, follow the same idea as you applied to intellect in TBC. Don't prioritise it, take it where you can. It wwill become more important later, but right now its just not worth it.
Post by
Blightman
+Crit.
Probably the most important thing about crit that most people don’t realize, is that the old adage of “stack hit first, if it doesn’t hit, it can’t crit,” is completely and utterly misleading. Your crit chance is independent of you hit chance – i.e., if you have a 10% hit chance, and a 5% crit chance, 5% of your shots will crit, meaning that 50% of the shots that connect with your target, result in crits.
Hmmm, everything I saw in tBC showed that for melee hit did not affect crit but for spells it did. That is to say your model fits the 1 roll system but it was generally thought that spells used a 2 roll system where first it is determined whether your spell hit or was resisted then crit was calculated.
Are you saying that with the merger of spell hit and melee hit they changed that mechanic as well?
It is possible, perhaps when they changed the spell misses to actually say "miss" rather than "resisted"
Post by
Philll
Your explanation on crit % just make no sense, as stated by midnightzak before.
Your crit chance is independent of you hit chance – i.e., if you have a 10% hit chance, and a 5% crit chance, 5% of your shots will crit, meaning that 50% of the shots that connect with your target, result in crits.
10% hit means you will hit 93% of the time. THEN the crit is calculated. 5% of 93% = 4.65%
Certainly not 50%.
Post by
120816
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ShiftError
Your explanation on crit % just make no sense, as stated by midnightzak before.
Your crit chance is independent of you hit chance – i.e., if you have a 10% hit chance, and a 5% crit chance, 5% of your shots will crit, meaning that 50% of the shots that connect with your target, result in crits.
10% hit means you will hit 93% of the time. THEN the crit is calculated. 5% of 93% = 4.65%
Certainly not 50%.
He probably meant that the spells had 10% chance to hit, and no more. Not 10% extra hit chance through hit rating and talents etc. And the crit chance percent shows how often your spells that hits would crit.
Post by
irharry
Edit- Again, the info in my following post regarding the one roll/two roll system is incorrect
Ok, firstly, one of the reasons I posted this is because of the confusion surrounding the one roll and two roll system, so i'll try and explain it.
Pre 3.0 melee and spell crit/hit were different, both in the way they were presented to players, and the way that they behaved functionally.
Melee hit/crit etc went on a one roll system, where blizzard took your chance to crit, miss, be parried/dodged/blocked, and hit, etc, and rolled for them all together.
If for example you had a 5% chance to be dodged, a 3% chance to blocked, an 8% chance to miss, and a 30% chance to crit, blizzard slapped them all together into one roll, and they each had a chance to happen based on the one roll. Your table would look like this;
5% of your shots will miss
3% will be blocked
8% will miss
30% will crit
54% will hit
Anotherwords, there was not one roll to see if you hit, then another to see what happened to that hit - it all got slapped to together.
Spells went on a different system, with two rolls. First, blizz took your hit chance, and rolled to see if you hit the target. If you did, it then rolled again to check for crits/partial resists, etc. This is where the saying "if it can't hit, it can't crit" came from.
Post 3.0 however, the two stats have been rolled together, and at this stage there is no definitive answer from blizzard as to which what has happened to the one roll and two roll system. However, I've done some pretty extensive testing on the test dummies, and I am almost completely certain that spell damage now follows the one roll system.
Post by
irharry
Your explanation on crit % just make no sense, as stated by midnightzak before.
Your crit chance is independent of you hit chance – i.e., if you have a 10% hit chance, and a 5% crit chance, 5% of your shots will crit, meaning that 50% of the shots that connect with your target, result in crits.
10% hit means you will hit 93% of the time. THEN the crit is calculated. 5% of 93% = 4.65%
Certainly not 50%.
He probably meant that the spells had 10% chance to hit, and no more. Not 10% extra hit chance through hit rating and talents etc. And the crit chance percent shows how often your spells that hits would crit.
EDIT - Again, the following statement regarding one roll/two roll is incorrect
ShiftError is correct, thats what I meant. This is the way that melee crit/hit has always worked (this is well documented and can be verified at wowiki etc), and I believe that since the roll together of melee and spell hit/crit, it now applies to spells as well.
edit - Blightman is quite correct regarding the fact that pre wrath melee damage ran the one roll system, and spell damage was widely assumed to run the two roll system
Post by
120816
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
DrDrako
excellent breakdown of stats, ty for putting this together :)
/sticky! this would answer many questions for a lot of starting warlocks who are wondering which stats to gether before raiding.
personally, i wasn't aware of the whole 2 roll system for casting, nor did i know that misery and imp FF didnt stack. much thanks. :)
Post by
Blightman
And as irlharry mention, on a rating point bases HIT is cheaper (26.2 hit rating = 1% hit vs 45.8 crit rating = 1% crit)
Even if they have moved to a single roll system for spells and cirt and hit cost the same, I would still say that percentage point for percentage point, until hit capped, HIT provides more DPS than CRIT
Why do I say that 1%HIT>1%CRIT?
Spell crits do 1.5x damage,untalented. Melee crits do 2x damage
With 5/5 ruin you DESTRO spells do 2x damage, your corruption/coa/cod/soc etc. do not benefit from ruin
With 5/5 cataclysm and 3/3 pandemic you ALMOST get 2x damage on all spells: soc/siphon life/drain llife being notably excluded
In simplest terms 1% true hit(hit increased for all spells) increases your average DPS 1%, a 1% increase in crit does not increase your average DPS by 1% for any spec.
Not saying crit is bad just that below the cap it provides more DPS than crit.
Post by
irharry
I largely agree with you Blightman
Entirely irrespective of the one roll/two roll system, an additional 1% hit will result in a true 1% dps increase. A additional 1% crit will not result in a true 1% dps increase, but will vary depending on your miss/resist/partial resist rates. It is worth noting that if you are hit capped, and do not get resists, it is possible to get a true 1% dps icrease from 1% crit, and in some cases even more if you take into account a mage critting at 250%, or things like ISB boosting all damage after a crit.
Have a read through
http://www.wowwiki.com/Critical_strike
, looking at the section 2.2, entitled "Effect of increased crit or hit chance"
Although this is aimed at melee hit/crit, its largely correct for spell as well, and if you can make your way through the math it explains why a 1% increase in crit doesn't actually render a 1% dps increase.
Post by
Blightman
It is worth noting that if you are hit capped, and do not get resists, it is possible to get a true 1% dps icrease from 1% crit, and in some cases even more if you take into account a mage critting at 250%, or things like ISB boosting all damage after a crit.
Have a read through
http://www.wowwiki.com/Critical_strike
, looking at the section 2.2, entitled "Effect of increased crit or hit chance"
Although this is aimed at melee hit/crit, its largely correct for spell as well, and if you can make your way through the math it explains why a 1% increase in crit doesn't actually render a 1% dps increase.
Summary:
For most spell casters: 1% hit = 1% DPS increase and 1% crit < 1% DPS increase
For melee and DKs: 1% hit = 1% DPS increase and 1% crit >= 1% DPS increase
WALL OF TEXT:
All melee CAN get at least a 1% increase in DPS because melee crits do 2x damage. If they get any talents that boost crit strike damage on even 1 ablity(rogues:
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=14128
warr:
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=16493
Dks:
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=50187
druid(feral):
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=33859
) then 1% of crit will boost DPS by more than 1%
DKS: YES
All DKs get 2x damage on spell crits with no talents.
With
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=49023
or
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=50187
,
crti can give > 1% DPS.
Moonkin: Likely
With
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=16913
+
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=48525
.
Yes insect swarm is left out but the boost from eclipse should make up for it..
Mages: Nope
can get 2.25x damage on frost spells(
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=35581
+
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=15047
) and 1.75x damage on all other spells
(
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=35581
) .
Unless they only ever crit when casting frost spells they can not get a
1% DPS boost from crit.
SPriest: Maybe
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=15473
+
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=33225
MIGHT make 1% crit deliver more than 1% DPS.
Locks: No
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=59741
+
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=58437
+
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=17803
still leave spells under 2x damage.
Corruption/SoC/CoA/COD are all affliction spells so ruin does not boost them and
pandemic does not boost them. SoC can crit while iSB is up giving1.65x damage .
The other 3 are stuck at most getting 1.1x damage when iSB is up.
For affliction, corruption get boosted by pandemic
but haunt and siphon life are not
Enough forum talk, off to play
Edited: corrected iSB buff
Post by
201008
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Grindalwald
Definantly a good post. I vote for a sticky, the info here clarifys alot of things, as well as provides good info for beginners.
Post by
154351
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
irharry
The only comment I'll make regarding your post blightman is that your data is old, and doesn't take into account the fact that ISB is now a personal buff rather than a debuff on the mob.
Other than that I think we largely agree, we look at it slightly differently, but we're saying virtually the same thing
Post by
Blightman
The only comment I'll make regarding your post blightman is that your data is old, and doesn't take into account the fact that ISB is now a personal buff rather than a debuff on the mob.
Other than that I think we largely agree, we look at it slightly differently, but we're saying virtually the same thing
Oops, corrected my post for iSB change, thanks
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