Here’s Yer Stinkin’ Theorycraftin’
There are Misses and there are Misses. Do we need to say more?
We do? OK then.
Misses is the sum of all attacks that are neither Hits, nor Crits.
Lookie:
For our pet’s Swings, (regular white-damage attacks), he Missed eleven times: three Misses and eight Dodges.
Now it looks like we have four major categories of melee attack-results: Landed (Hits), Crits, Glancing, and Misses. But that’s not the case. If we look at Swing and add Landed, Crits, Glanging, and Miss percentages:
66 + 30 + 20 + 4.4 = 120.4%
Well that’s obviously not right, right? Right.
Glancing Blows are a subcategory of Hits. Thus, we only have three major category of attack-results: Landed (Hits and Glancing Blows), Crits, and Misses. Let’s add em up for Swing, shall we:
66 + 30 + 4.4 = 100.4%
which, when we account for the rounding that WWS does, is what we want to see.
Alright, let’s look at Misses.
We have six different subcategories of Misses:
- Miss (you aimed for the broadside of a barn and just airballed it)
- Resist (you hit the target but he said, “no way!” and no damage was done)
- Block (shield FTW, you hit him but he blocked the attack, causing no damage)
- Parry (sword FTW, you hit him but he parried the attack, causing no damage)
- Dodge (agility FTW, you got through his shield and sword and would’ve hit him, but he went all Ninja on you and avoided the attack completely)
- Other (anything else that causes your attack to not do damage, like Spell Reflect, etc.)
So we have all these ways our attacks can Miss, and we have ways to prevent these Misses as well.
When we increase our Hit Rating, we reduce the chance we’ll miss the barn. For raid-bosses, we need a Hit Rating of 263 to eliminate airballs. That’s 32.79 Hit Rating to eliminate the 8% chance to Miss level 83 bosses have. Auras and talents can reduce that 263, of course.
Hunter-pets do not get Hit Rating; they get Hit Percentage. How do our pets get Hit Percentage? They get it from their hunter-masters. Unlike other stats that scale but proportionally — a single point of a hunter’s RAP gives his pet 0.22 melee AP, not one-to-one — Hit Percentage is transferred almost point-for-point. Getting Hit-Capped isn’t just important for you, but it’s equally as important for your pet.
Actually, it’s even more so. Why? Because of two things:
First, it is the Hit Percentage that is transferred, not Hit Rating, and the game rounds down. If your Hit Rating and Hit Percentage from items equals 7.99%, your pet will only get 7% Hit Percentage. If your Hit Rating and Hit Percentage from items equals 8.01%, your pet will get 8% Hit Percentage.
And second, pets do not gain the Hit Percentage benefit from Focused Aim. If you’re exactly Hit-Capped because you have three points in Focused Aim, your pet will only get 5% Hit Percentage from you, not 8%. Getting Hit-Capped without the benefit of Focused Aim, for BM hunters, is pretty dang important, even more so than MM and SV hunters, as our BM-pets do much more damage than theirs.
Heroic Presence does affect our pets, but remember that it’s only good if your pet is within thirty yards of the Draenei providing it. If your pet is getting HP from an SV hunter who’s trying to stand more than thirty yards away from the boss, your pet could easily be outside of the range of HP. This is exactly what is happening to us on fights like Patchwerk.
But Hit Percentage only prevents Misses. What about other the other Miss-subcategories?
Expertise decreases the chance that melee attacks made by the player will be Dodged or Parried. The big deal here is that Expertise only affects melee attacks, not ranged. Expertise for hunters is Bad, but Expertise for hunter-pets is Good! Where can we get Expertise for our pets? Animal Handler, foshizzle.
Each point of Expertise reduces the chance an attack will be Dodged or Parried by 0.25%, so the ten points of Expertise in Animal Handler reduces the change our pet-attacks will be Dodged or Parried by 2.5%. That’s just a pure DPS-buff a BM hunter cannot go without.
So what’s the final word here?
Getting Hit Capped is important. Use Focused Aim if you must.
Getting rid of Focused Aim is important, more so for BM hunters than the other specs.
Getting an unbuffed Hit Rating of 263 will ensure your pet will never Miss. He can still be Dodged and Parried, but that 263 translates to 8.02% to Hit, rounded down to 8% for our pet will eliminate Misses.
Not having a way to increase our pet’s Expertise other than Animal Handler both sucks and blows. We personally do not have a Hit Rating of 263 — we are Hit Capped through Heroic Presence — and our pet is Dodged much more than he Misses.
WTB pet Expertise-food.
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34 Responses to “Here’s Yer Stinkin’ Theorycraftin’”
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Thank you, BRK. That was a very helpful breakdown.
What happens with ’swing at something and not hit because they died’ ?
You might have already covered this, but…. Does putting 3/3 in Focused Aim affect my pet’s chance to hit? Or does that mean I still need to work getting hit capped and just put those 3 points some place else? Unfortunately for me, I don’t/can’t have a pocket Dranei to help me out.
Ooops, also could not edit that comment because as soon as I hit it, I re-read the part about pets not getting a benefit from Focused Aim. Sorry. It’s Monday.
Excellent writeup! This is the current state of hit rating for hunters. Nothing missed, and explained in (mostly) plain English
Forgot to add- getting 1% DPS by stacking agility or attack power will take more gem / enchant slots than getting that 1% from hit rating. That’s the only reason you want to be hit capped. Nothing fancy or magical about it
“Block (shield FTW, you hit him but he blocked the attack, causing no damage) ”
Just a small correction, but if you block an attack, the damage is reduced by the defenders block value. You still take some damage.
For instance. BigBossOfDoom hits you for 10,000, but you have 2000 Block Value, so you only lose 8000 HP.
I’m a lesser class who worries more about attacks to me than attack by me so I’m not sure if a Boss can block.
Excelllent post, BRK. Thanks!
Back a little while when I was looking for the 80 hunter hit cap number, I was amazed by the number of dicussions of the issue that talked about percentage and focused aim and ways to get more hit without EVER mentioning the *^&$%#$%^ number 263……lol. Glad you did (and more).
Awesome post BRK!
Was wondering what was up w/ the podcast and WoW Insider? Haven’t heard from your beautiful voice in awhile, and we need more hunter discussion out there! Maybe you’re still in mourning over SV being superior to BM tho, so if you need some time it’s ok
I could have sworn that I read the hit cap was 296 for Raid Bosses. I’m a little bit over 300 at the moment, but I guess I can take that down a bit. I also guess that attack power would be the best choice when regemming.
Thanks Brk.
Z
recount says I was 5th
The SV hunters still in vogue
But let me tell ye
At least I beat out allbthe rogues!!
Hehe said that in/ trade( well I said the whole thing, that’s just my fave bit
))and got 200 g from from an SV hunter who loved it:)
They can, if attacking from the front (which I try to avoid for that reason).
And if the block value of the defender is larger than the incoming damage of the attacker, then it’s a total block and goes just like BRK said it does.
Question…
Can someone confirm that NONE of the hunter’s Item Expertise transfers to the pet?
“Getting rid of Focused Aim is important, more so for BM hunters than the other specs.”
Somewhat disagree on the second part. It really makes little importance if your pet does 15% of 50% of your damage because a DPS loss is still a DPS loss.
@Zwingli the 296 number was based on a 9% chance from BC. Turns out, at least with current raid bosses, it’s actually 8%
But the loss when it’s 50% is larger than if it’s 15%… thus, more important to avoid. Saying the difference is not important is like saying there’s no difference between your taxes being 5% of income and 35% of income, because it’s all a loss… proportions matter, especially for those of us who have to make choices and sacrifices on gear.
@TEJ – Correct me if I’m wrong. My hit is at 7.2% I always have at least 2 Dranei in my raids so I chose to gem mostly agi/crit (SV spec). My thinking is I gain more from those gems not being hit gems then I lose from the occasional pet misses. Wouldn’t a buff to 80% of my DPS be better then a buff to 20% of my DPS?
Sidenote – I’m a selfish raid leader I make sure the Draniei holy pally is always in my group since she is our MT healer and is always in range of my pet, and I tend to stick the Dranei elem shammy there too since hes back with me
)
@TEJ
of course you do
/target BRK
/bow
Let me say thnx for doing all the hard work for us!
The block thing was wrong as Honorshammer stated.
It’s a fixed number of your attack that will be blocked. Witch could well be all the dmg your pet try’s to inflict to the target this depending on your targets block value.
Atm I’m Using hit rating food to obtain my hit cap. And assuming for the time being my pet benefits from that as well?
And I did like the question about the hunter’s Item Expertise transferring to the pet?
If nothing else it would be fun to know.
@ Yeffertone
My advice is to get that missing 0.8% hit and put the squids to better use. I’m sure people with higher hitcaps will appreciate the auras more.
Have to pick a nit. 7.99% to 7% and 8.01% to 8% is not rounding, its truncation.
Keep the info flowing…
—des
Now, I had someone tell me who was looking at my spec that I shouldn’t be putting points into Animal Handler because my pet attacks from behind when it isn’t tanking and attacks from behind can not be blocked or parried. I’d love to get spirit bond back, but I’m trying to maximize my pet’s dps. Was this person right? Can I spec out of this talent?
No!
Your pet will still get dodged, and many bosses do instant attacks at random raiders, that means they often turn around for a split second, and that is enough for a parry/block to sneak in. Obviously block can’t be affected, but parries can. And Dodge is still around 5.5% and more on certain bosses. You WANT Animal Handler. It’s pretty big.
@desdanova
truncation is a type of… rounding
@Yeffertone
Sounds good to me what you have. You would have to drop a tonne of dps gems to get nothing out of it all for the sake of moving people around for less synergy than what you have. If you move things around you definately lose, someone else *might* gain. If you keep things the same then the raid is definately benefitting. The only thing I might consider is splitting those wiggy people into two parties if you’re talking 25man raids.
Then there’s always the advice you could reroll with the better faction
@Ovation
Gunslinger on wowhead made this comment:
Therefore, with 2/2 Animal Handler, when your pet attacks:
From behind (as when doing dungeons or raids): enemy has a 2.5% reduced chance to dodge your pet’s attacks.
From the front (as when soloing): enemy has a 2.5% reduced chance to dodge your pet’s attacks and a 2.5% reduced chance to parry.
I’m not sure I understand why you’d take Animal Handler for raiding. The pet will always be behind it’s target, therefore negating any chance to be blocked or parried.
Seems like more of a PvP skill IMO.
Its really not a pvp skill Garwulf, as players cannot dodge attacks made from behind them, whereas a boss CAN dodge. So Animal Handler really is a must for BM raiding.
I can confirm that expertise does not pass to your pet. Its only use if for your melee attacks. Which should be few and far between.
“It really makes little importance if your pet does 15% of 50% of your damage because a DPS loss is still a DPS loss.”
BM pet vs other pet does make a difference. Compared to BM pets, SV and MM pets have lower absolute potential DPS and thus a 1% miss rate represents a lower amount of lost DPS. Since itemization points are a limited commodity, an additional 1% of hit means other stats are lower than they could be otherwise. If a hunter is otherwise hit-capped (such as through Focused Aim), then 1% hit to benefit the pet DPS (which is relatively low) is sacrificing stats which would up the hunter’s personal DPS (which is relatively high). You’d have to run it through the spreadsheet (or empirical testing) to see how things play out.
It’s all about trade-offs, and cost-benefit analysis for pet-hit and pet-expertise are more favorable for BM hunters than other specs, and I think it’s feasible that for low DPS pet specs, letting the pet be under hit cap may be DPS maximizing.
@BRK : Not to be a little critical, but if hit rating is so critical why not just get a +Hit rating trinket to replace one of you’re “crit” trinkets…
Seems a waste to have 2 “crit” trinkets when you’re airballing it…
@Seanguy
The only two viable hit trinkets are Sphere and Grim Toll. Both have shitty on-use/procs.
Besides, sartharion trinket/Greatness is the best combo in the game hands down.
@The Elitist Jerk
You still look like an ass if you have 300 AGI and still miss +40% of the time during a raid…
I’d just like to add that for those of you who can’t afford either the deck or the cards, the Bandit’s Insignia from Sapphiron is a good substitute. The proc isn’t the greatest but it’s a nice static AP boost from the trinket itself.
TEJ-I’ll definitely agree that the Grim Toll proc effect is fail. What a waste of a trinket. (Unforunately, I haven’t managed to get anything better to drop and have it awarded by LC)
My reference to it being more of a PvP skill was because players will often be in front of your pet to try and avoid its attacks or nuke it down. Where as bosses will “always” be attacked from behind. No to mention the reduced cd on Master’s Call.
I did a little research though and saw that bosses do have x% chance to dodge from behind but not parry. So I do see the merit for raiding now. I learn something new all the time.
[...] BRK has a good post on this topic, which is what set me on this quest for the truth in the first place. At first I disagreed with his recommendation of this talent, but then eventually saw the error in my judgement. How dare I doubt the master. This entry was written by Garwulf, posted on February 17, 2009 at 3:29 pm, filed under Dungeon Discussion, Hunter Discussion and tagged animal handler, expertise, hunter, pet. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « Black Ice [...]