Game Mechanics:

Meele:

Dual wielding:
Offhand attacks are affected by a 50% offhand penalty, raised to 75% (rogue) or 62.5% (warrior) with talents. They lower the damage of all successful hits to the values I just stated (for example, an offhand attack that should have hit for 100 will only with for 50 damage when used by someone without talents increasing the damage dealt by offhand attacks.

Combat events:
Heres a chart telling you some stuff that can happen when attacking higher level enemies along with the chance of said stuff to happen: Parry Dodge Block Miss Miss with dual wield Glancing Blow Glancing Blow damage reduction *Not entirely sure about this one. While http://www.wowwiki.com/Attack_table?oldid=1657201 suggests that its 9%, some guy in http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t15596-melee_combat_mechanics/ parsed it and got 12%. Obviously, his sample size wasnt large enough as he also believes that the dodge chance is 6% rather t han 6.5%. The patch 2.4.2 rogue spreadsheet suggests a parry chance of 14% against bosses. In http://web.archive.org/web/20071222195013/http://www.wowwiki.com/Research:Effects_of _Weapon_Skill a blue post is quoted, saying that 1 point of weapon skill is worth 0.6% parry, which would lead to 5%+0.6%*15=14% worth of parry on an enemy 3 levels above you. 14% is also the amount of parry bosses seemed to have in wotlk, see http://www.wowhead.com/forums&topic=108004.2/hit-vs-expertise. Ill go with it until someone comes up with a source to prove me wrong. Parries will only occur when you are standing in front of an enemy. They negate any damage your attack would have done and above that, they make your enemys swing timer behave differently. Heres a list of stuff that happens. I could rewrite it and make it seem like my work but Ill just admit that I ripped it straight off some tankspot thread: If the next attack would normally occur within 20% of your weapon speed after the parry, there is no effect. If the next attack would normally occur between 20% and 60% of your weapon speed later, it happens 20% of your weapon speed later instead. 71 5.5%? 5.5% 5.5% 5.5% 24.5% 15% 91%-99% 72 6%? 6% 6% 6% 25% 20% 80%-90% 73 Probably 14%* 6.5% 6.5% 9% 28% 25% 55%-75%

 If the next attack would normally occur more than 60% of your weapon speed later, the time until your next attack is reduced by 40% of your weapon speed Basically, you dont want the boss to parry or he slaps your tank more often and you dont want that to happen unless you like repair costs. Note that 1 expertise reduces the chance for parries to happen by 0.25%. Dodges are pretty boring. They happen from all sides and straight up negate your attacks damage. Note that 1 expertise reduces the chance for dodges to happen by 0.25%. Misses work the same way as dodges but they are the only form of avoidance that can be reduced with hit rating. Glancing blows just kinda happen. They only occur on white hits and the damage dealt by a glancing blow is pretty much just the damage of a white hit multiplied with some factor based on the enemys level. Blocks only happen when attacking from the front. They will reduce the damage dealt by a flat amount. You cant reduce the chance for them to occur.

Combat rating scaling:

Rating Requirement at 70 1 Expertise (=-0.25 Dodge/Parry) 3.94 expertise rating 1% Hit Chance 15.76 hit rating 1% Crit Chance 22.08 critical strike rating 1% Haste 15.76 haste rating Note: Hit and Expertise essentially scale at the same rate. The enemys dodge and parry chance will be reduced by 1% for every 15.76 expertise rating, just like your chance to hit increases by 1% for every 15.76 hit rating.

Attack Power scaling: Abilities that scale with attack power use one of the following formulas to calculate the weapon damage used in the calculation of the abilitys damage. Note that white hits will always use the first formula. 1. base_weapon_damage + (weapon_speed * Attack Power / 14) 2. base_weapon_damage + (X * Attack Power / 14) X replaces weapon speed in the damage formula when an ability affected by weapon speed normalization is used. It depends on the type of weapon used. Its 1.7 for daggers, 2.4 for all other one handed weapons, 2.8 for ranged weapons, 3.3 for two handed weapons. Heres a list of abilities that I totally did not rip off wowwiki: Normalized instant attacks:

Rogue
o

Shiv

Sinister Strike Ambush Backstab Mutilate Hemorrhage Warrior o Overpower o Mortal Strike o Whirlwind o Devastate Hunter o Multi-Shot
o o o o o

Non-normalized instant attacks:

Rogue
o o

Ghostly Strike Riposte Shaman o Stormstrike Warrior o Cleave o Heroic Strike o Retaliation o Slam Hunter o Wing Clip o Mongoose Bite o Scatter Shot

Instant attacks that aren't based on weapon damage and thus aren't normalized:

Rogue Gouge Kick finishing moves Warrior o Execute o Bloodthirst o Revenge o Rend o Hamstring o Shield Bash o Shield Slam o Mocking Blow o Intercept o Pummel Hunter o Arcane Shot o Concussive Shot o all stings o Counterattack
o o o

Armor:
The armor reduction against an enemy has against your physical hits can be calculated with the following formula: Reduction = Armor/(Armor+ 10557,5) To work with this formula, you obviously have to know the enemys armor. Here are a bunch of approximate armor values for various enemies:
8800 7685 TK - Void Reaver KZ - Attuman/Midnight, Romulo, Strawman, Nightbane, Prince SSC - Hydross, Lurker, Leotheras, Tidewalker; TK - Al'ar BT - Naj'entus, Supremus, Shade of Akama, Gurtogg Essence of Desire/Anger, Illidan; Doomwalker Sunwell - Brutallus; Gruul's Lair - High King; Gruul ZA - Nalorakk; Azil'zon; Jan'alai; Halazzi; Zul'jin High Armor Level 70 Trash KZ - Maiden, Julianne, Curator, Illhoof, Netherspite SSC - Fathom-Lord, Vashj; TK - Solarian, Kael'thas Hyjal - All Bosses; BT - Teron, Shahraz, Gathios Sunwell - Felmyst, Kalecgos, Eredar Twins; ZA - Hex Lord Mid-Armor Level 70 Trash KZ - Shade of Aran, Kil'rek BT - Essence of Suffering

6800 6200

5475 3800 0

Attack tables:
The outcome of a normal swing with your weapon is decided by a single dice roll. The possible outcomes are added to the table in the following order: Miss > Dodge > Parry > Glancing Blow > Block > Crit > Hit Heres an example of an attack table: 00-04 Miss (5%) 05-09 Dodge (5%) 10-14 Parry (5%) 15-24 Glancing Blow (10%) 25-29 Block (5%) 30-54 Crit (25%) 55-99 Hit (45%) This is what your attack table should just about look like when you attack a level 70 enemy without any hit rating or expertise and a critical hit chance of 25% while wielding a single weapon. When you decide that it might be a good time to attack said level 70 enemy, the game will generate a random number from 0-99 (commonly referred to as dice roll) which decides the outcome of your attack. When the numbers on higher spots of the attack table increase, the number with the lowest position on the attack table will be pushed off. Generally, the hit number is the one to suffer from this mechanic on most occasions, but its quite possible to push all hit off your attack table. When

there is no hit left on the attack table, getting more crit will have no effect this situation is called crit cap. When attacking a boss level enemy from the front while dual wielding without any +hit or expertise, your crit cap will only be 20%. Moving behind the boss or getting some +hit or expertise will increase your crit cap accordingly. Special attacks on the other hand most likely use a two roll hit table. Evidence of this is the fact that there are critical blocks blocks and crits only happen separately on a white hits attack table. Tanks: How Avoidance works: Dodge: Fully avoids an incoming attack, works for attacks from the front and from behind Parry: Fully avoids an incoming attack from the front

At level 70, 1 point of defense rating is worth 1/(2+41/112) defense skill Every point of defense skill you get increases your chance to dodge, parry, block and get missed when attacked by 0.04% as well as reducing the attackers chance to score a critical hit by 0.04% Defense skill softcap is 490 (+332 defense rating), removing (490-350)*0.04=5.6% crit from the boss attack table while increasing the tanks dodge, parry and block chance as well as the boss miss chance by 5.6% Healers (lol who cares): General: A boss level enemy will be treated as if he was 3 levels above you (i.e. level 73 if you are level 70). NPCs have their level*5 defense skill and weapon skill.

To do list: integer rounding, more caster stuff, more tank stuff