Parry -- WoWWiki Information (??)

[Ciderhelm]

I've had a personal pet peeve with a particular listing on WoWWiki for several months. The Parry Formula is not supported by the actual research and combat log parsing myself and several others such as Aylevene have done.


From Fortifications:


0.4.2 Parry
Parry represents 100% avoidance of a frontal attack. Players can Parry most Physical attacks. Most Elemental-based Melee attacks can be Parried. A player cannot Parry a Critical Strike or Crushing Blow under normal circumstances.

Parry represents an offensive avoidance and costs considerably more in terms of itemization. When a player Parries, their next normal melee swing becomes a counter-attack sped up by as much as 50%.

Parry is most beneficial when using slower weapon.


From WoWWiki:

Swing Timer

An important piece of information that should be noted is that successfully parrying an attack will reduce the delay before your next attack. The reduction amount is a flat 40% of your normal swing time. The delay cannot be reduced to less than 20% of your weapon?s base swing delay.



These two are at odds. I would like to see a resolution.

First, for the record, I have a natural distrust of anything posted on WoWWiki. I take everything I read there with a pretty darn big grain of salt.

My questions:
Who came up with the WoWWiki formula?

What evidence and combatlogs did they parse to determine this information?


I don't know who all has done research on Parry and Doge mechanics. I do know that all of my comments and information contained the guide was tested and parsed by me personally. I did not see the pattern emerge that the Wiki claims to be the case.

I'm also not discrediting the Wiki. It may be accurate, because even very slight server lag could be throwing off numbers to the point where a pattern can't be determined. However, if this is the case, I'm curious how they came up with that formula. Perhaps a game file?



I unfortunately can't search for either of my original Parry postings on the forums due to the 10-page limit. However, a recent combat log I was able to find can be found here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=75381044&postId=789532589&sid=1#129

[Kaili]

At the very top of the page is a link to a 'discussion' tab, I see no discussion of the point there. I would recommend editing the main page so it says 50%, and documenting the change with evidence on the discussion tab.

Wikis are meant to be edited, join in and help make it a better resource for everyone :)

[Ciderhelm]

ooooh
never thought about that

[Ciderhelm]

well, I nuked it. Here's the old post if we need to put it back up at any point:


=== Swing Timer ===

An important piece of information that should be noted is that successfully parrying an attack will reduce the delay before your next attack. The reduction amount is a flat 40% of your normal swing time. The delay cannot be reduced to less than 20% of your weapon?s base swing delay.

For example, let?s say you are using a 3.4 speed two-hand weapon. You attack at time 0. You parry an enemy attack at time 0.5. Your parry reduction value is 40% of 3.4 which is 1.36 seconds. Instead of attacking at time 3.4 you will now attack at time 3.4 ? 1.36 which is 2.04 seconds. If you parry with 0.68 seconds or less remaining in the delay to your next attack then no reduction would take place. If 2.04 to 0.68 seconds remain in your delay for this example then the delay gets reduced to exactly 0.68 seconds, since that is the minimum for this weapon.

Note - the above formula may not be correct. Recent testing has shown that the parry delay may be prorated depending on how far through the swing you are when you parry a mob's attack. This would account for combat log parsing making it look like you cannot affect a swing time to be less than 20% of it's initial value.

[Groundchuck]

well, I nuked it.


Good for you! I've seen that info on WoWWikki for a while and never quite understood it. Good to see the right info put up. :)