What does Weapon Skill do in vanilla?

[Keftenk]

Huh... 12 to Axe with Expert Goldminer's Helmet and Orc.
This...changes...things lol

[Armilus]

At +10 weapon skill you still get glancing blows 40% of the time but they do normal damage. Any weapon skill above that only reduces the enemies chance to dodge/block/parry/miss by 0.04% so beyond +10 is not very useful.

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?item=14551 are better because lionheart helm is really good so you're better off using a hand slot for the weapon skill.

[Keftenk]

Wait, so am I understanding this right?
I'm only gaining additional hit/crit only after 315 against a lv 63 creature? (Mob defense - Weapon Skill)

So, I'd still need the 8% hit regardless for a 2hander? Or is each point of weapon skill still adding to hit, crit, dodge, etc etc? Just after the 315 mark it starts to diminish greatly...?

I think I'm confusing myself...apologies -,-

EDIT: Never mind, I think I understand it now..
Shit was so much easier as a caster back in the day lol

[Armilus]

No, you always gain additional hit/crit/not-dodge/not-parry/not-block from weapon skill but it's a really small amount.

Between 300 and 310 weapon skill you reduce the damage reduction from glancing blows. At 310 weapon skill and above you still get a glancing blow on your white attacks 40% of the time but it hits the same as a normal hit, it just can't be a crit.

Weapon skill and hit/crit are effectively not related in any way.

Once you are at 5% hit with a 2hander you will not miss on your special attacks (yellow damage) but you will still miss on white attacks (auto attack) 3% of the time.

[Drain]

I'm editing all this out as the information isn't accurate. The newer posts made good clarifications, which I think can speak for themselves.

[Netherfrost]

No, you always gain additional hit/crit/not-dodge/not-parry/not-block from weapon skill but it's a really small amount.

Your opponent's chance to block your attack decreases by 0.04%.
Your opponent's chance to parry your attack decreases by 0.04%.
Your opponent's chance to dodge your attack decreases by 0.04%.

snip

1. The Attack Roll
The outcome of a melee swing is determined by a single roll. There is not, for example, a roll to see whether it crits, and then a separate roll to see whether it is blocked.

There are 8 possible outcomes of a swing, and the probability of each is represented by a letter:
1) Miss (M)
1b) Parry (P)
1c) Dodge (D)
2a) Block (B)
2b) Glance (G)
3) Crush (U)
4) Crit ©
5) Hit (H)

They do not combine in any way. There is no such thing as a "blocked crush," nor is there even an abstract concept like a "swing that was going to crit, but was parried"

Each of these things, except "Hit," has a fixed, independent chance of happening (each of these is computed individually in the following sections). "Chance to hit" is actually a fictional concept, and items which affect "chance to hit" are actually affecting M, the chance to Miss. All probabilities are measured out of the total number of swings.

The order and numbering of the above list are important. Each swing is a pie that totals 100%, and the game fills it up in the order I specified. If the first 7 slices do not total 100%, the leftovers slice is called "Hit." If the total is greater than 100%, the things at the bottom get pushed off the list entirely.

Hence, the sum of the 8 probabilities (possibly after truncation) is always 100%, and one roll is made to select the outcome.

For example:
If M+P+D+B+C+G+U = 70, then H = 30.
If M+P+D+B = 100, then C = G = U = H = 0.

a. Ranged Attacks
All computations for ranged attacks are identical to those presented for melee attacks, the only difference being that M, C, H, and B are the only terms which exist.


Unknown: player vs. mob blocked crits? Any detailed info known here?

2. Miscellaneous Terms
Throughout this section, "T" refers to the miscellaneous bonuses which you must always remember to add back in at the end. It is explicitly included in all formulae, just so you don't forget about them (I know it seems silly, but this is the most common cause of "the formula doesn't match my observed numbers").

These include:
Talents
"Equip:"
Bonuses
Racials
Stances
Buffs

3. Skill
Skill affects the probability of a Miss, Parry, Dodge, Block, and Crit.

The magnitude is the same in all of these cases, henceforth known as the Skill Term, S:

S(in %) = (TargetDefense - AttackerWepSkill)/25

For example, each point of defense you gain increases your chance to [be Missed], Dodge, and Parry by 1/25 = 0.04% each. So, 1 defense increases your overall chance to avoid by 0.12%.

The Weapon Skill of a Cat or Bear is always 300.

4. Miss % (M)
Melee attacks: M = B + S + T
B (base Miss chance) = 24% for white hits while Dual Wielding, and 5% for all other attacks (including incoming boss hits).

Ranged attacks: M = B + 6*S + L + T
L = (TargetLvl - AtkrLvl)
Ref: Lactose for increased dependence of ranged hit chance on skill.

5. Crit % ©
C = X + Agi/Y - S + T

Y = 53 for Hunters, 29 for Rogues, and 20 for all other classes.
X = 0 for Warriors, Rogues, and Hunters, 0.9 for Druids. It is higher (3-4%) for casters, so that they have nonvanishing melee crit chances. Someone remind me to check what is it for Paladins.

To compute your crit chance in the spellbook, it assumes the target has 5*level defense skill. This is why you appear to lose .2 to crit when you level; the tooltip is simply recalculated for a target with 5 more Defense.

6. Parry/Block % (P,B)
B = 5 + S + T
P = 5 + S + T
(Note these are not generally equal, as the T terms differ)

7. Dodge % (D)
For classes other than Rogues or Hunters:
D = X + Agi/Y + S + T
(X and Y are determined as in Crit%, II.A.5)

For Rogues and Hunters:
D = 2*(X + Agi/Y) + S + T

8. Crushing Blow % (U)
When a Level 63 mob attacks a player,
U = 15.
Otherwise,
U = 0.

9. Glancing Blow % (G)
G = {0, 10(?), 25(?), 40}, when a player attacks a level {60, 61, 62, 63} mob with a white hit.
A glancing hit will not be capable of critting, as theyre onerolled attack tables.(Theres no such as schrodinger's glancing hits and crits) One rolled attack tables are explained further below.

Elliot the Rogue is level 60, and is attacking a boss mob along with the rest of his raid group. He has stocked up on all sorts of +crit gear, so his crit chance against the boss mob is a whopping 30%. Since he is dual-wielding, he incurs an additional +19% miss chance on every autoattack swing; and although his +5 weapon skill gear does counter a little bit of this, he did not bring any +hit gear with him, so his miss chance against a boss mob is 24.4%. (+Hit gear doesn't directly increase your chance of a hit; instead, it reduces your chance of a miss.)
When he attacks the boss mob from the front,

Elliot's attack table looks like this:

Result Chance "Die Roll"
Miss 24.40% 0.01 - 24.40
Dodge 5.40% 24.41 - 29.80
Parry 5.40% 29.81 - 35.20
GB 40.00% 35.21 - 75.20
Block 5.40% 75.21 - 80.60
Critical 19.40% 80.61 - 100.00

Sources:
http://web.archive.org/web/200611152239 ... 1707&sid=1
http://web.archive.org/web/200712290134 ... pageNo=1#2
http://www.wowwiki.com/Attack_table?dir ... did=354949

Now.. can we please stop discussing this, post inaccurate gut information and stop citating from articles which are post 2.0.1?

[Ardeith]

Hit cap is actually 9% for every physical attacks against bosses ( if you dont have the dual wield malus ) after the hit modification from patch 1.10.

You can dig up elitist jerks' thread about it, beetwen 28 march 2006 ( patch 1.10 ) and 2 December 2006 ( patch 2.0.1 ).

You can have 0% miss with physicals attacks.
However it is not the case for magic spell as 1% cannot be removed from the table.
Base resist chance for magic spell against target of same level is 5%, up to around 16% against bosses ( dont recall the right number, it is either 16 or 17% ).

[Netherfrost]

8.6% hit cap if you want the correct numbers on the table)

[Ardeith]

Indeed it varies beetwen 8.4%,8.6% and 9% depending on vanilla theories.
But the 9% seems more accurate to me as it was unchanged for TBC ( or atleast didn't find any evidence of that ) and hit cap was 9% back then ( a lot of more data proving it than during the short vanilla period post 1.10 patch ).

And an indirect proof that weapon skill was actually increasing hit by 0.1% ( which is why 9% hit cap and not 8.4 or 8.6 ) per weapon skill for monster above your level :
Patch 2.0.1
Weapon Skill now does the following:
Weapon skill will no longer reduce the percentage damage lost due to glancing.
The player will gain 0.1% to their critical strike rating per weapon skill against monsters above their level.

It implies it was already the case for 0.1% hit per weaponskill.

Anyway the fact is :
If you have 315 weapon skill against a raid boss you only need 5% hit to be capped.
And this is the statement from any of thoses post 1.10 vanilla theories.

As a player i think the only thing you need to know is :
Versus bosses :
9% hit cap
8% hit cap if you have 302 weaponskill
7% hit cap if you have 304 weaponskill
6% hit cap if you have 305+ weaponskill
5% hit cap if you have 315 weaponskill
Because either it is the 8.4, 8.6 or 9% theory you still need 1% from gear to get rid of the 0.x% left ( if you cant afford to get to 315 weaponskill ).

[Hatson]

8.6% hit cap if you want the correct numbers on the table)

This is the cap I was talking about the whole time.
You must've misunderstood me because from what you've been telling me as if I had been wrong the whole time.
I was beginning to think all the people I had ever talked to from 2005-2015 had been wrong, and I even raided in top-end guilds.
Would've been a disaster of a realization and absurdity if I and everyone else I had ever talked to, including elitist jerks, had been wrong all this time.

It's still never above 5/24 if its scripted correctly. As I said, it is not blizzlike.

This did nothing but confuse me. And now you say the 8,6%, that I thought was the right one.

Everything Ardeith said is what I always believed to be the case. And it's pretty much what everyone else has said as well through all these years.