Introduction:
There have been a number of questions regarding the crit softcap on the forum recently. Instead of addressing each question individually, I figured I'd just create an omnibus that describes why the crit cap is what it is, and what happens when you actually do hit the crit softcap.
Melee Attack Outcomes
Let's discuss the different kinds of things that can happen when you're attacking with a melee attack.
- Attck misses
7.5% miss chance for 2H Auto Attacks
26.5% miss chance for DW Auto Attacks
7.5% miss chance for Special Attacks
Missed attacks do no damage.
Special attacks are basically any damage you do that isn't from Auto Attack. Things like Jab, BoK, Keg Smash, and RSK are a few special attacks that monks have.- Attack is parried
15% chance for Attacks to be Parried. By attacking the boss from behind, you cannot be parried.
Parried attacks are effectively misses. They do no damage.- Attack is dodged
7.5% chance for Attacks to be Dodged
Dodged attacks are effectively misses. They do no damage.- Attack is a Glancing Blow
Fixed 24% chance for successful Auto Attacks to do 75% damage and cannot crit. Chance cannot be reduced by any means.- Attack is blocked
Fixed 5% chance for attacks to deal 70% of normal damage. By attacking the boss from behind, you cannot be blocked.
I believe it uses player type mechanics for blocks. Meaning, the boss has a 5% base chance to block, and blocks mitigate 30% of incoming damage. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.- Attack is a critical strike
Chance to do 200% damage on a successful attack
For every level an enemy is above you, your chance to crit is reduced by 1% from what it is on your character sheet. A boss is 3 levels above you, thus, you have a 3% lower chance to crit a boss than what it shows on your character sheet.- Attack hits for regular damage
Melee Combat Table
Now that we've covered everything that can happen when you attempt a melee attack, let's talk about how it all fits together. WoW uses a roll system to determine what happens when you attack. This roll system is called the Combat Table.
Here's how it works:
Each time you perform an attack, the game rolls a random number from 0 to 100.
Each attack has a chance to be one of 7 outcomes that are rolled in the order below.
Those outcomes are:
- Attck misses
- Attack is parried
- Attack is dodged
- Attack is a Glancing Blow
- Attack is blocked
- Attack is a critical strike
- Attack hits for regular damage
Each outcome has a higher priority than the outcome following it.
This all might sound confusing, but like most things in life, it can be made much simpler with a spreadsheet.
You'll notice in the following examples, there are blank cells. Those blank cells mean that nothing it being rolled for that. Once the roll gets to 100, nothing past that point can be rolled.
Here are some screenshots of common combat table examples:
Auto Attacks from a DW WW behind boss
This image shows a WW with two 1H weapons just auto attacking. As you can see, regular hits have been pushed off the table. In fact, they'll be pushed off the table at 60% buffed crit.
Auto Attacks from a 2H WW behind boss
In this image, we see a WW with a 2H weapon just auto attacking. Even at 70% buffed crit, there's still a 9% chance to perform a normal hit.
Special Attacks from a WW behind boss
Here's how special attacks function for hitting behind the boss. You could pack over 30% more crit and still not knock non-crits off the table.
Auto Attacks from a DW BrM in front of boss
The only way that DW BrM differs from DW WW is the 5% block chance from attacking in front of the boss. No normal hits.
Auto Attacks from a 2H BrM in front of boss
Same as above. 2H has the 5% block penalty, but otherwise, it's the same as WW.
Special Attacks from a BrM in front of boss
5% block, but otherwise, same as special attacks from a WW.
Tying it all together
If you've made it this far, I hope you'll stick around for just a bit longer. We're almost done.
As you can see from above, there is a cutoff point for WW at 60% crit where more crit adds nothing to DW auto attacks against a raid boss. For DW BrM, that number is closer to 55%. Also, for 2H, there is no reachable crit cap for 2H auto attacks.
For special attacks, the effective cap is 103% for WW and 98% for BrM. Neither of those number is attainable, so there is no effective crit cap for special attacks.
Now, how do all these caps work?
At 70% buffed crit (that's much more crit than most players will get this expansion), we have 67% crit against a raid boss.
- For both BrM and WW, 15-20% of our damage is auto attacks against a single target raid boss.
- From what we saw above, we're wasting 10% crit on DW auto attacks.
- This means we're wasting about 2% of our damage from our auto attacks.
- Just by dual wielding instead of using a 2H weapon of similar ilvl, we gain 5% damage, so that's making up that damage 2% loss right there.
- Add to that the other 80% of our damage that is modified by crit past the DW crit soft cap, and you can see that there is no reason that we should ever completely negate the value of crit past the softcap.
- For WWs, crit over the crit soft cap is a bit better than haste over the haste soft cap.
- For BrMs, get mastery to where your healers can keep you alive, then pump everything into crit
TLDR
Prefer DW over 2H when the weapons are of similar ilvl.
The value of crit over the soft cap isn't reduced by much.
For WWs, crit is still a bit better than haste over the haste soft cap, so don't stop stacking it.
For BrMs, stack mastery until your healers stop complaining about how squishy you are, then go full out on crit.
Resources
Here's the spreadsheet I made: LINK
I have it write protected, but you can save a copy for yourself and play around with the numbers. Everything automatically scales when you change the % chance for each type of combat outcome.