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Stuff from T:Formulas:Defense Edit

Does anyone know what the damage reduction from armor is? I know it changes across levels but someone must know the formula... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by WoWWiki-Orb (talk · contr).

Damage-Reduction = armor / (armor + 85*level + 400)
Taken from —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Feysharnalie (talk · contr).

On the main page I submitted a more precise number for defense skill-per-rating; here, I offer the data from which I derived that number. The first column is taken directly from the character sheet with different gear combinations; the second column is taken from the "GetCombatRatingBonus(2)" API function in-game. The output of this function appears to be floating point, which only allows for a certain number of significant digits; this is why the decimal precision drops as the number of non-decimal digits increases.
Please note that WoW only considers Weapon and Defense Skills as integers, which are rounded down, which means there is no change to miss, dodge, etc from 12 to 14 Rating (for example), since both give only 5 Skill.

Rating		Bonus Defense		Skill/Rating		Rating/Skill

 12		 5.0731697876777	0.4227641489731420	2.365385055542000
 14		 5.9186980856240	0.4227641489731430	2.365385055541990
 16		 6.7642263835703	0.4227641489731440	2.365385055541990
 19		 8.0325188304897	0.4227641489731420	2.365385055542000
 21		 8.8780471284360	0.4227641489731430	2.365385055541990
 24		10.146339575355		0.4227641489731250	2.365385055542090
 26		10.991867873302		0.4227641489731540	2.365385055541930
 30		12.682924469194		0.4227641489731330	2.365385055542040
 35		14.796745214060		0.4227641489731430	2.365385055541990
 38		16.065037660979		0.4227641489731320	2.365385055542050
 45		19.024386703791		0.4227641489731330	2.365385055542040
 59		24.943084789415		0.4227641489731360	2.365385055542030
 71		30.016254577093		0.4227641489731410	2.365385055542000
 92		38.894301705529		0.4227641489731410	2.365385055542000
 94		39.739830003475		0.4227641489731380	2.365385055542020
106		44.812999791153		0.4227641489731420	2.365385055542000

--Taleden 16:19, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

  • Rounded down?! Does this mean that the Shield Block rating of 15 on Andormu's Tear which counts for +1.90% (@ lvl70) is rounded down to +1%? And what about things like Greater Inscription of Warding with its 15 Dodge rating? Doesnt that equate to some +0.8% (@ lvl70) to dodge? is that rounded down to 0? Surely not. What about on my character sheet where it says maybe +15.5% chance to parry, is that rounded down? Or does the rounding only occur with Defense Rating conversions and Weapon Skill Rating conversions? Benser 08:44, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Originally, there was only defense skill on gear. The game is only coded to directly translate defense skill into dodge, parry, miss and block chance. Defense rating from gear is converted into defense skill by a formula based on level, and that amount of defense skill can only be an integer. As such, any extra defense rating is rounded down and provides no benefit at that particular time. WoWWiki-Sakkura (talk) 15:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
The 'ideal' defense skill rating for Druids with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest at 415 seems to be off, as I've had defense 416 today while fighting the Curator in Karazhan and he managed to land a few crushing blows on me. Coincidence? Or is he much more higher than 3 levels above me? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by VerVe (talk · contr).

+Defense can actually reduce crushing blows Edit

Theoretically you can actually reduce the chance of crushing blows (indirectly) via defense, because if you have enough of it you can get your Dodge, Parry, and Block stats high enough to push Crushing blows off the Attack Table. Although not via the same mechanism, it's important to not be misleading in the fact that there's some sort of "defense cap". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nathanmx (talk · contr).

shadok posting:
I woul like to ask a few questions about defense that i'm unable to test myself.
First the defense cap that is mentionned on different sites; is it just the defense level that prevent all posible crit from bosses, or is it a real cap where defense stops reducing damages in any ways?
My second question is does defense increase glancing blow rate. Indeed if you just take the dodge/block/parry/miss chance that gives def, you will find that pure dodge or parry rate is better in pure damage reduction. Altough when you try it it seems that defense reduces the damages way more. :From my own experience i would say it is due to an increased glancing blow rate and an increased glancing blow effect, however it is impossible to find on the net a serious test made to calculate it.
And i dont see what you mean about the crushing blows.
even if your parry miss dodge rate prevents a lot of attacks on you, the remaining attacks will always crush at the same rate. There is no reason for parry dodge ans miss to apply preferentially on a crushing blow. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by WoWWiki-Shadok (talk · contr).

Cleanup Edit

Something the article isn't too clear on:

A level 73 boss v a level 70 player tank. Does the boss still have a 5% Crit chance v the player, or is it increased due to his skill being 365?

For a druid to become crit-immune with Survival of the Fittest (-3% Chance to be crit) leaves the NPC at 2% Crit chance: 365 - 415 * .04 = -2 which means 415 Defense is needed by a feral druid to become crit-immune for a skullboss.

Would appreciate it if someone could just confirm that for me, and I can maybe work on making the article a little more clear on this. Furiousv 17:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

A 73 boss starts with a 5.6% crit chance against a 70 player with max defense. In the absence of resilience, 415 is the target defense for feral druids Thoth 19:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

arithmetic error Edit

In the "2.0 changes" section we have this text:

For a level 70 : 2.36 DR = 2 41/112 DR = 1 defense skill

The arithmetic is wrong. 241/112 = 2.15 while 241/102 = 2.36. Can someone dig up a URL with the formula for all levels, plus fix whichever number is wrong? (so far the 241/102 is corresponding with my test data better). Thoth 19:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts on Math: I believe they are saying it is a mixed fraction meaning 2 + (41/112) DR = 2 + 0.36607 DR ~= 2.367 DR... or rounded down to be 2.36 DR. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brainbit (talk · contr).

Tank rating script Edit


Is that script still accurate? and does it work for all classes?   Zurr  TC 02:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand where the 2.6 comes from. Looking at the Combat rating - Resilience page, it seems to be in relation to feral druids with the survival of the fittest (SotF) talent. Should this not be 5.6 for tanks which don't have the -3% crit against chance given by SotF? I believe 5.6% would come from:
  • 5% crit chance for all mobs of equal level (from Defense page), and
  • and 0.6% crit chance for the extra 15 weapon skill a lvl73 will have against a lvl70 (0.04 crit/weapon skill).
--Brainbit 21:49, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Base defense value 350 or 370 Edit

The page consistently speaks about the base defense capped at character_level * 5 => 70*5 = 350 at level 70, but my level 70 draenei warrior has a defense skill of 370 (in the actual skills table). Since 490 is the aim regaantrdless, it's not a big deal, but I wonder at the difference.

Kallewoof 20:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

It's because you have the anticipation talent. Anticipation adds 20 defense to the base defense, so the base will appear as 370 in your tables. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Georgesmith (talk · contr).

Patch 3.0.2 Changes? Edit

Is anyone working on changes to Defense in the 3.0.2 patch?

My specific question:

In 3.0.2, the Druid Talent Survival of the Fittest now reduces chance to be critically hit by 6%, from an original 3%.

Since a 73 mob (boss) only has a crit chance of 5.6%, doesn't this mean that I am crit-immune without adding any +def to my base stat?

The whole thing bases on max. Weapon Skill (WS) vs. max Defense Skill (DS), which is cLvl*5. For a 80 player this would be 80*5=400 DS vs 80*5=400 WS from a 80 mob. According to this, in the old (2.4.3) rules it still would mean 5% crit chance for the mob, add 3*0.2% for a lvl 83 mob, and you'll be at 5.6%.

Now, Survival of the Fittest still grants 6% crit chance reduction, so I still should be crit-immune, right?

The formula for Druids on the Defense page states 2.6% (instead of the usual 5.6%), so Survival of the Fittest is taken into account there. Now if i substract 6%, I already start with a negative number (and WoW returns an error when using the formula that way, hehe)... another proof we should be crit-immune now :D

If my theory was correct, this would be great news for all Druid tanks, as we don't have to gimp ourselves with +def any more and can go for sta, agi, dodge, ap instead :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Subworx (talk · contr).

Remove section on crushing blows? Edit

I've updated the section on crushing blows to better reflect gameplay after patch 3.0 but the entire section can probably be moved to another article or removed completely. Crushing blows are irrelevant to raids and high-level dungeons and hence probably not even worth bringing up in an article about defense (arguably a stat that only max-level tanks care about anyway). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hunterforhire (talk · contr).

Self contradiction Edit

I decided to read up on tanking stats, as I am looking into making a tank set. I noticed this quote at the beginning of the article. "It further decreases the chance of receiving critical hits from any level attacker by 0.04% per point that the target's Defense skill exceeds the attacker's Weapon Skill." And this quote later down. "Each point of defense beyond the player's base reduces the chance to be critically struck by 0.04%." They can't both be right, because a raid boss's effective weapon skill on a level 80 raider is.. 415, which means that the first 15 points of defense beyond the base 400 (assuming it's trained up) don't reduce the raider's chance to be critically hit. Correct me if I'm wrong... but doesn't that go completely against all of the examples of how to become crit immune, which start counting crit chance reductions from the very first point of additional defense? Does the attacker's weapon skill have anything at all to do with the crit chance reduction given by defense? Or is the crit chance reduction purely based on every point of defense that exceeds the raider's level*5, regardless of the attacker's level or stats? LieAfterLie (talk) 11:55, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I know this is belated with respect to the question, but for anyone reading here is the explanation. The first part means that every NPC in the game (unless otherwise stated) has a base crit chance of 5%. But at 400 defense against a level 83 mob (weapon skill of 415), you're "recuding his chance to crit" by -.06% ((400-415) * .04 = -.06%). This leads to a double-negative: (5.0 - (-.6%) = 5.6%), an increase of .6% over his base crit rate. This is what the second quote is explaining, which is that his chance to crit against you is 5.6% from the start, so every point of defense skill that you gain reduces the 5.6% by 0.04%, requiring 140 total for a level 83 mob. Of course, the easier way to look at it if your skill is maxed at any level is to just add the .2% per level above you and work from there without the reverse logic, but the previous example can be used if you're not 80 yet going into new content, or if your defense hasn't yet caught up shortly after reaching 80. This serves as a warning: if you just reached level 80, without accounting for resilience, even with 140 defense from gear, your character defense skill is only 395; you're still not uncrittable for raids until your character's defense skill reaches 400. (Ravath) 30 April 2010

Confusion. Edit

A lot of numbers thrown around, without a lot of explanation. "Critical Hit immunity for a level 80 player against a raid boss occurs at 540 Defense and requires a defense skill of 140 (689+ def rating) from gear to achieve. Critical hit immunity at level 80 for a heroic dungeon is 535 Defense, because mobs in a level 80 heroic 5-man are never higher than level 82. "

So, do I need the thing on my character sheet to read '689'? Or 540? Gear doesn't show 'defense skill', just 'defense'. Is that the same thing? Any chance of a short version? --Azaram (talk) 09:40, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Gear has defense rating, which adds to the defense stat on your character sheet in much the same manner as critical hit rating. Your CHARATER SHEET, in the Defenses tab, will list your defense stat, and that's what needs to say 540. To get that, you will need a total of 689 defense rating on your gear. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 16:10, April 29, 2010 (UTC)
I edited the Critical Hit section re: Heroic Mobs and Raid Bosses to make it more clear that a 535 Defense is sufficient for Heroics, because it's not uncommon to get DPS (i.e. non-Tanks) in Heroics screaming that a Tank needs 540 to be Crit capped. Jspattison (talk) 00:20, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

Formula? Edit

Does anyone know the formula for the increase in defense rating required per skill per level, or some way to derive it? I tried shortly to work it out, but didn't get any results. I was curious about this to write a script to see whether you're currently uncritable at any level while leveling up :) (Ravath)

The best I can do is say that Combat rating#Defense skills has the values for levels 60 and 70. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 21:26, April 30, 2010 (UTC)

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