Whoever delved into Vanilla WoW probably knows some of the fighting behavior when encountering a higher level mob. Since patch 1.12 onward, the values for Dodge, Block, Parry and Miss haven’t been changed, including in the very core and first batch of the game, we believe. But, WoW Classic fans have been trying to experiment the hit tables on their own, and see if everything works as supposed to. Something came out strange, so they’ve shared their opinion on the forums.
The confirmation was given in the official Forums, in which Blizzard representative came out with an answer to the allegation that they’re wrong. This covers mobs and levels, classes and races, and as such, Blizzard has tried to replicate and designate if there were any misconceptions compared to Vanilla.
After making troll warriors, they had to experiment the matter and put the characters in a testing phase, which resulted in encountering higher level mobs. Higher in terms of level difference, so they could possibly determine if there’s something off.
Usually, if you encounter a higher level mob than yourself, it is quite common to miss him or get parried, blocked, or dodged. But for a more scientific approach to all of this, you can check the segment below, in which Blizzard representative explains how everything is just fine as before.
As I suggested in my first reply, we did a deep dive on this one to compare combat table values directly between our Reference client and WoW Classic. Apologies for the data dump, but because your observations were so detailed, we wanted to be equally detailed in our reply!
We created Troll Warriors in both games and watched the combat table values for auto-attacks.
- We checked three player levels – Levels 15, 40, and 60.
- At each level, our weapon skill was maxed, and we used the same weapon for all tests.
- All attacks were against enemy creatures, not other players, to remove any additional variables.
- We tested attacking creatures at -5, +0, +1, +2, +3, +5, and +15 levels relative to our level (so for the level 15 test, we attacked level 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, and 35 mobs).
- For our level 60 test, there were no normal mobs available at higher levels. We instead attacked elite raid creatures at +1, +2, and +3 levels.
- The exact same creature IDs were tested against on both clients.
In all cases, the Reference client combat table values matched the Classic combat table values:
- Creatures that are 3 levels above the player have a 14% Parry chance in our Reference client. This holds true for our Classic client as well.
- Creatures at your level have a 5% chance to Dodge your attacks. Each additional level the target has over the player grants them 0.5% additional chance to dodge. This is observed in Reference client and in Classic.
- Players have an 8% chance to miss a creature that is 3 levels above them in our Reference client. This holds true for our Classic client as well.
- Critical Strike chance is reduced by 1% per each additional level the target has over the player. (So if you have a 4% chance to crit an at-level target, you have a 1% chance to crit a +3-level target, in both clients.)
A briefer look at having non-maxed weapon skills also showed identical values between the Reference client and Classic. We also ran several tests while dual wielding, and the results from those tests was also identical between Reference and Classic.
Based on these results, we are confident that the combat behavior in Classic properly reflects the combat behavior of 1.12 WoW. However, we’re always grateful for players looking out for discrepancies, so keep your feedback coming!
As such, it is confirmed that players are being mistaken as they have either parted ways with WoW Vanilla long time ago or have never played it before. Even if they truly committed to WoW in the past, the retail version of the game may be the cause for this strange player feedback, which on the contrary is very much embraced by Blizzard.
