The Numbers Game: Learning to Understand Math in WoW

[Thegreatme]

Table of Contents

1. Intro
2. The Basics
3. Aspects of WoW Math

last updated: 3/11/11


Intro

When many people look at wow math they either try and skip over it as fast as possible because they have no idea what it means, or they simply try and avoid it completely. I believe that this is a problem and this guide is going to attempt to help people not be so afraid of math in WoW.

Yes, my puns are awful, and yes, prolonged exposure to them can cause serious injury and/or death.


Common misconceptions about WoW math:

1. It's very complicated.

If you can add, subtract, multiply, and divide you can do ~98% of the math that occurs in WoW. Just because an equation is long does not mean it is complicated, most long equations are broken down in to what I call “aspects,” which I will be explaining in this guide.

2. You don't need to know math to be good at WoW, so what's the point?

While you may not directly need to know the math in order to be good at playing the game, you do need to know the math in order to truly UNDERSTAND the game, which in turn can make you better at the game.

3. Math is hard.

It's easy if you know it.



The Basics:

Percentages:

In math all percentages are expressed as decimals. for example 47% is written as 0.47 in the equation

If a tooltip says that it increases something by some percent, when you multiply it, you must multiply by the math by 1 plus (+) the percent. For example, if something increases damage by 30%, it would look like 1.3(damage).

If a tooltip says that it decreases something by a percent, when you multiply (*) it, you must multiply (*) the math by 1 minus (-) the percent change. for example if something decreases damage by 30%, it would look like 0.7(damage).

If increasing add(+) to 1 then multiply(*), if decreasing subtract(-) from 1 then multiply(*).

Remember order of operations:

Parenthesis:

Always do the math in the inner most parenthesis first, then start working your way out.
Example:
Do this fourth(Do this third(Do this second(Do this first)))
for each set of parenthesis, remember to do the math in this order:

Exponents (^) > multiplication (*)/Division (/) > Addition (+) / Subtraction (-)

work left to right within each set of parenthesis.

Symbols:

Multiplication: x , * , n(math). In the 3rd case multiply the number n by everything inside the parenthesis: ( )
Division: / , ÷
Addition: +
Subtraction: -
Equals: =
Exponent: ^

When Dividing (÷):
top(aka numerator) / bottom(aka denominator)

WoWWiki:
wowwiki.com
This site helped me out the most when I was learning to understand math in WoW. There are pages that explain pretty much every mechanic in the game.

WoWhead:
WoWhead.com
The tooltips of abilities on wowhead make it really easy to figure out the ability math, just plug the proper numbers in to the variables on your calculator.



Aspects of Math in WoW:

1. Rates (_____ per ______)
2. Weapon damage
3. Spell Power Coefficients
   
4. DIM (damage increase modifiers)
5. Uptimes
6. Procs

Rates (____ per ____):


What this aspect is:
whenever you compare something over something else, you have a rate. Damage per second, damage taken per second, healing per second, damage per GCD, etc. these are all rates.


What it looks like:
x/y=z
z is a rate, with units of x per y (or xpy, if you make an acronym out of it)


While you won't necessarily find rates (z) inside of equations, the goal of most wow math is to determine some sort of a rate. They are the easiest aspect to start out with, but can become more complex once other aspects are introduced in to finding a given rate.

Time is fat, and checks it's weight on a timescale:

And because time is fat, it's on the bottom of the equation in most cases because it doesn't like to crush its friends.

Most rates involve time in some way shape or form. How you express time is VERY important to the result of your calculations.

Note: When ever I say "on an infinite time scale", that means as time approaches infinity, the DPS of the ability average out to be what ever the answer happens to be.

The hardest part of dealing with time that most people have is figuring out how much time to use in your equation.

for all of these examples I will be using DPS equations, though you can apply this to any form of a rate equation.


The Basic Idea:

Damage/ usage= DPS

Divide how much damage an ability does by how often you use it. (this can be longer than the cooldown if it is not your highest priority ability, so make sure your usage is accurate)

Let's say you have an instant ability that does 1500 damage with no cooldown. If you were to hit that ability every GCD it would do:

1500/1.5=1000 DPS

Now lets say you have an ability with a 4 second cooldown, that does 5000 damage. If you were to hit that ability on cooldown you it would do:

5000/1.5 = 3333.33 DPS FOR THAT GCD
5000/4 = 1250 DPS over an infinite time scale

Now let's say you have a DoT, that does 1500 damage when applied, and every 1.5 seconds for 9 seconds, for a total of 15000 damage.

1500/1.5 = 1000 DPS for that GCD
15000/9 = 1666.66 DPS on an infinite time scale.

now here's the crazy part. Because that DoT does 15000 damage, you could also say that it does 150000 DPGCD (damage per GCD), which makes it more valuable than the 5000 damage ability with the 4 second cooldown.

In general ability priority systems are concerned with damage per GCD, and rotations are concerned with DPS on an infinite time scale.

Weapon Damage:


Understanding the weapon damage aspect of wow math is probably the most “complicated” part to understand initially because of the division, but don't worry, that's what I am here for.


What pattern to look for:
((Max wep damage + Min weapon damage)/2)+(attack power/14)x wep speed


The big thing to look for is the /14, this calculation is only done for weapon damage type calculations (barring anomalous equations)


When simplified:
(Average weapon base damage) + (Damage gained from attack power)


What does this aspect mean?
Essentially the goal is to find out how much damage an average hit will do.


In a step by step format:

1. find the average weapon base damage → ((Max wep damage + Min weapon damage)/2)
2. Find how much DPS is gained from attack power → (attack power/14)
3. Multiply (*) DPS gained from attack power by the speed of the weapon → x wep speed
4. Add (+) the damage gained from attack power to the average base damage → average weapon base damage + Damage gained from attack power

Weapon Normalization

Some instant attacks will use "normalized" weapon speeds to calculate their damage instead of your weapons actual speed.

Daggers have a normalized speed of 1.7
Other 1 handed weapons have a normalized speed of 2.4
2 handed weapons have a normalized speed of 3.3
Ranged weapons have a normalized speed of 2.8

What does this mean?
this means that when ever you wish to wish to calculate the damage of an ability that uses normalized weapon damage, use the proper normalized speed instead of your weapons actual speed.

How do I know if an attack is normalized?
either you can do a ton of testing, or you can go to Wowwiki.com/Normalization and look at the list of normalized attacks.




Spell Power Coefficients:

When ever you cast a spell, you gain damage or healing from your spell power. Because not all spells have the same cast time, Spell power coefficients make the damage/healing gained from your spell power proportional to the cast time.

How to determine the Coefficient of a Direct cast spell (ex. Shadow Bolt, or Healing Wave)

Coefficient = Base cast time / 3.5

For healing spells you need to multiply the equation by 1.88, making it look like this:

Coefficient = (Base cast time / 3.5)*1.88

For instant cast spells, and any spell with a base cast time under 1, the cast time is treated as being 1.5s when calculating the coefficient.

What does the above coefficient mean?
it means that you need to multiply the coefficient you just found by how much spell power, which will give you the amount of damage/healing gained from your spell power.

Coefficient * Spell power= damage/healing gained from spell power.

From there just add that to the base damage/ healing of the spell, and you will have the answer of exactly how much damage/healing that direct cast spell will do.

DoT's & HoT's

The the process is pretty similar, just with a few different numbers.

Damage Coefficient = Base Duration/15
Healing Coefficient = (Base Duration/15)*1.88

Unlike Direct cast spells, there isn't a minimum duration for the calculation, use what ever the base duration is when calculating the coefficient.

If you wish to find the coefficient for each individual tick of a HoT/DoT, then divide the coefficient equation by the total number of ticks.

For example, if a HoT ticked 7 times, the equation would look like this:

Healing Tick Coefficient = ((Base Duration/15)*1.88)/7

Channeled Spells

It looks exactly like the Direct Cast spell equation, but instead of cast time, it's the Duration of the channel:

Damage Coefficient = Base Duration / 3.5
Healing Coefficient = (Base Duration / 3.5)*1.88

To determine the Coefficient for each tick, just divide the equation by the number of ticks of the spell.
For example, if it's a damage spell that ticks 5 times it would look like this:

Tick Damage Coefficient = (Base Duration / 3.5)/5

AoE Spells

the only thing that changes is that you double the amount that you divide the base cast time/duration by.
instead of it being Damage Coefficient = Base Duration / 3.5, it would be

Damage Coefficient = Base Duration or cast time / 7
Healing Coefficient = (Base Duration or cast time / 7)*1.88

Hybrid Spells

Hybrid spells deal direct damage, and have a DoT/HoT component as well.

Currently no one has figured out a coefficient equation that works for hybrid healing spells, so just make something up and assume you are wrong, because that's the best that you are going to get.

Someone has however figured out the coefficient equation for Hybrid damage spells. It also happens to fit in the category of the 2% of WoW math that isn't simply add/subtract/multiply/divide. Because I'm a little sadistic, I'm going to include the formula, but I will be nice and white it out so you only have to see it if you want to.

x = Duration / 15
y = Cast Time / 3.5

CDoT = x2 / (x + y)
CDD = y2 / (x + y)

CTotal = CDoT + CD  D

Don't freak out at me unless you intend to also purchase my comforting services (info at the end of this guide), I warned you.


If you would like to know more about how spell power works in relation to your spells, I highly suggest you read the page on WoWwiki about it: wowwiki.com/Spell_power




DIM's (damage increase modifier):


These are everywhere. Talents that increase damage by percent values are a great example of DIM's.


What pattern to look for:
x(y(z(other math)))


x, y, and z in the above example are the DIM's.


Simplified:
xyz(other math)


What does this aspect mean?
DIM's are things that modify damage by a percentage. These percentages are expressed in decimal form and are multiplied (*) to the base damage of an ability/attack.


In most cases each individual DIM will be between 2 and 0, but if there are more than one DIM, and the person who is posting the math simplified all of the DIM's to be a single number, it could be greater. DIM's will never ever ever be negative, if you see a negative coefficient (a number that is being multiplied by a bunch of things inside parenthesis) something is very wrong.


A DIM that is between 0 and 1 means that it is decreasing the damage of something, and a DIM that is greater than 1 means it is increasing the damage of something, with that something being what ever it is you are trying to calculate.
Offhand damage always has a base DIM of 0.5 (meaning it's damage is reduced by 50%).

DIM's in your DIM's so you can DIM while you DIM:
In general you can just multiply(*) all the DIM's together to simplify the equation, but there are a few DIM's that need to be added (+) together and not multiplied.
A notable occurrence of this is with Shield block value when the talent Shield Mastery, and the ability Shield block are are introduced.
Talent gives +30%
Shield Block gives +100%
Additive = 230% total (not 260% = 130% * 200%)
(Blatantly copy/pasted from Wartotem's post in this thread)




Up times:
What is it?
If you have something that isn't up all the time such as a proc (I'll get to those, don't worry); when you do the math to account for that thing, you need to know what it's 'up time' is, because this will tell you how big on an effect the thing you are trying to account for has on the rest of your math.

What to look for:
1-(1-a)^b
Note that the above equation only works for procs that do not have an ICD (internal cooldown)

The variables:
a is the chance to proc
b is the number of chances to proc per duration of the buff.


Examples:
Fury warriors are generally interested in how often flurry is up, so you will commonly see equations floating around fury warrior discussions that look like 1-(1-c)^x where c is your chance to crit, and x is the number of attacks that occur during 3 weapon swings.

Why this is important:
Using flurry up time as an example again; people regularly will think that because flurry lasts for 3 swings, that if you have 33% chance to crit you will have 100% flurry up time, which is completely false. As you get more and more crit, your flurry uptime will approach 100%, but will never actually reach 100% until you have 100% chance to crit.


Procs:

This aspect is what makes equations look really scary because they can add a lot of length to it, but that doesn't mean it's that complicated.


What Procs do:
Procs are buffs/effects that are not always active.
Because proc's are not active 100% of the time, when someone is doing math that deals with procs, they need to factor in uptimes, which is to calculate the effect of the proc when it is up multiplied(*) by it's % uptime, plus (+) the effect of not having the proc active, multiplied (*) by the % of time it is not up.


What to look for:
Y*z(math)+((1-Y)(same math))


These look a lot like DIM's, but look for the 1-y, and repetition of calculations. If you don't see a 1-y but there is repetition, chances are the person posting the math simplified the equation, and if you were to do 1-y it should be the coefficient of the repeated math.


Procs are DIM's that aren't always there.


Crit's work under the same principles as Procs:
%crit(ability crit damage)+((1-%crit)(ability hit damage))


When Procs congregate, they take up a lot of space:
lets say that a proc (a) has an uptime of (c)%, and another proc (b) has an uptime of (d)%. This means there are 4 possible combination's of those two procs: a and b; a; b; not a or b. this means that there will be four repetitions of what ever these things are modifying.


For the sake of not adding any extra length, both a and b will be simple DIM's


Step by step

1) figure out what percent of the time both a and b will be up: multiply (*) the uptime of a,(c) and the uptime of b, (d) together:

c*d

2) calculate for both a and b being up with the found uptime

(c*d)(a*b(ability math))

3) figure out the uptime that only a will be up take it's base uptime, subtracted (-) by the uptime of both a and b

c-(c*d)

4) calculate for only a being up

(c-(c*d))(a(ability math))

5) figure out the uptime that only b will be up take it's base uptime, subtracted (-) by the uptime of both a and b

d-(c*d)

6) Calculate for only b being up

(d-(c*d))(b(ability math)

7) figure out the percentage of time that neither a or b will be up using a similar method to how you found the uptime of both and b together.

(1-c)*(1-d)

8) multiply(*) the normal ability damage math by that amount

((1-c)*(1-d))(ability math)

9) combine all of the parts with addition (+) signs:
(c*d)(a*b(ability math))+(c-(c*d))(a(ability math))+(d-(c*d))(b(ability math)+((1-c)*(1-d))(ability math)


As you can see procs create a ton of extra length, but that's mostly because it repeats the same things over and over.






I am scared PLZ HALP:
my comforting services can be purchased for $83.50/hour.


I understand it! Does this mean I am a WoW math expert?
No. These are just common pieces of many of the equations that you will find when people post WoW math. There are tons of specific formulas for certain abilities or stats. It isn't that scary, and if you are having troubles understanding it go ahead and post the equation in this thread, and describe what about the equation doesn't make sense, and I will do my best to help you understand it.



If you think there is some aspect of wow math I missed, please let me know and I will add it to the guide.

[Delmonte]

Although I'm sure you don't want to make this overly complicated, it might be worth briefly mentioning armour and normalization of weapon damage (as a lot of tooltips mean 'normalized damage' when they say 'weapon damage') in with how to work out weapon damage and possibly that you are calculating the average damage as most abilities have a range of damage. It might just help people see how the numbers they actually see in the game relate to 'weapon damage'. For example, people can play about a little on the target dummy with recount and see how it all fits together in a controlled environment without lots of raid buffs/procs once they know how armour and normalization work.

I probably wouldn't put the whole rundown of armour, maybe a link or 2 but the modifier for the hc target dummy with no debuffs might be useful to list. Or, perhaps even the mods with the various debuffs (sunder, ff etc).

Dunno how much you want to explain basic maths as well but as you mentioned order of operations it might be worth mentioning multiplication taking precedence over addition along with the parentheses stuff.

Some people might not know that the percentages you are talking about need to be expressed as a decimal e.g. 56% becomes 0.56.

[Thegreatme]

Armor calculations, especially ArP, are very tricky and can easily confuse anyone that doesn't already have a pretty solid understanding of WoW math in general, and I would rather not be dropping formulas like 1-(((1-arp)*7773.5)/ (((1-arp)*7773.5)+ 15232.5)) all over the place when my target is people who don't really know WoW math, and my goal is not to scare them away.

I will definitely include more basic type material, %'s as a decimal, explaining weapon normalization and how to find out if a given ability is normalized, more indepth explanation of order of operations, etc.

[Kazeyonoma]

Nice TGM good guide. sticky worthy?

[Airowird]

Your additive DIM example is a bad one, because it's basicly multiplicative.
A good example would be Warrior's block value

Talent gives +30%
Shield Block gives +100%
Additive = 230% total (not 260% = 130% * 200%)

Also rounding in game can be important, e.g. Strength multipliers are rounded down each time, so you may sometimes have 1 less Strength than the total DIM would give

Also, Armor isn't that hard, because it's basicly a DIM of 1-M where M = Armor/ (Armor+K) so 1-M = K / (Armor+K)
The more armor you have the lower the DIM the mob/boss has

[Thegreatme]

Nice TGM good guide. sticky worthy?

Up to you.

Your additive DIM example is a bad one, because it's basicly multiplicative.
A good example would be Warrior's block value

Talent gives +30%
Shield Block gives +100%
Additive = 230% total (not 260% = 130% * 200%)

Also rounding in game can be important, e.g. Strength multipliers are rounded down each time, so you may sometimes have 1 less Strength than the total DIM would give

Also, Armor isn't that hard, because it's basicly a DIM of 1-M where M = Armor/ (Armor+K) so 1-M = K / (Armor+K)
The more armor you have the lower the DIM the mob/boss has

I'm not sure how using OH weapon specs as an example is bad, if they were multiplicative then a 25% OH DIM would actually result in a 12.5% damage increase, and a 50% OH DIM would result in a 25% increase, and as far as I am aware this is not the case and they do in fact increase the damage of your OH by the amount specified on the tooltip.

As far as armor is concerned though I might end up adding something on incoming damage mitigation, but outgoing damage mitigation is the tricky part because the level constants have to do with the person doing the damage, and not the person receiving the damage, which is backwards logic for most people.

[Satorri]

Nice. I like. =)

[Delmonte]

Armor calculations, especially ArP, are very tricky and can easily confuse anyone that doesn't already have a pretty solid understanding of WoW math in general, and I would rather not be dropping formulas like 1-(((1-arp)*7773.5)/ (((1-arp)*7773.5)+ 15232.5)) all over the place when my target is people who don't really know WoW math, and my goal is not to scare them away.

I will definitely include more basic type material, %'s as a decimal, explaining weapon normalization and how to find out if a given ability is normalized, more indepth explanation of order of operations, etc.

Yeah I agree arp etc wouldn't be worth putting in here, maybe links for those who are interested. I meant more just making people aware that the number they see on the target dummy is less than the base damage of the ability calculated. For example, just making people aware that it's roughly weapon dmg x 0.589 with no armour debuffs etc. I suppose every dps warrior out there is going to have some arp though confusing the issue.

I just though it might help people understand how you go from the ability damage calculated to the number the actually see on the screen. Not so much going into lots of details but just making people aware of it a little more as whilst calculating weapon or ability damage in itself is great for improving understanding, it is calculating a number that you will almost never see in the game (cos you'll almost never reduce a mob's armour to 0 in a raid) which may still be a little confusing for people who are new to WoW maths.

I'm not sure how using OH weapon specs as an example is bad, if they were multiplicative then a 25% OH DIM would actually result in a 12.5% damage increase, and a 50% OH DIM would result in a 25% increase, and as far as I am aware this is not the case and they do in fact increase the damage of your OH by the amount specified on the tooltip.

I haven't tested this much but I was under the impression that it was the case that they were multiplicative, i.e if you have 5/5 dw talent as a warrior your offhand does base x 0.625 dmg. I could be wrong though.

By definition, if they are multiplicative a 25% OH DIM will increase damage by 25%. Going from a mod of say 0.5 to 0.625 damage is a 25% increase in damage. If your offhand was doing 100 damage before the talent, it would be doing 125 after, i.e. 25% more damage. If they worked additively the way you describe (which perhaps they do), a 50% OH DIM would be a 100% increase in damage and rogues with 5/5 dw would hit as hard with their offhand as they do with their main, I don't believe this is the case but I'm not 100% sure on that.

[Aggathon]

TL;DR the math was too hard for me



=P J/K, great guide man, well broken down!

Edit: I will say though that that ~2% of math that is more complex is mostly statistics

[Theotherone]

Math? We don't need no stink'in math.

[BruisedOoze]

Edit: I will say though that that ~2% of math that is more complex is mostly statistics

Must... resist... making... stupid and horrible math joke...

[Aggathon]

if you did, that joke probably wouldn't be... real... ::RIMSHOT::

Math puns are awesome.

[BruisedOoze]

if you did, that joke probably wouldn't be... real... ::RIMSHOT::

Math puns are awesome.

Thank you for biting that bullet for me. And yes, I love math and science jokes.

[Thegreatme]

added a "Basics" section, for explaining order of operations, and general things that people may not know/remember about doing math that they need to know. Also added weapon normalization to the weapon damage section.

[Thegreatme]

I haven't tested this much but I was under the impression that it was the case that they were multiplicative, i.e if you have 5/5 dw talent as a warrior your offhand does base x 0.625 dmg. I could be wrong though.

By definition, if they are multiplicative a 25% OH DIM will increase damage by 25%. Going from a mod of say 0.5 to 0.625 damage is a 25% increase in damage. If your offhand was doing 100 damage before the talent, it would be doing 125 after, i.e. 25% more damage. If they worked additively the way you describe (which perhaps they do), a 50% OH DIM would be a 100% increase in damage and rogues with 5/5 dw would hit as hard with their offhand as they do with their main, I don't believe this is the case but I'm not 100% sure on that.

You are right, I'm an idiot. just tested it on my alt rogue using two heirloom daggers and OH weapon spec, OH damage was 75% of MH damage. they are multiplicative, and as such I will change the example.

EDIT: example has been changed.

[Quinafoi]

There are two different types of time used in measurements.

The first is actual time as it relates to the ability in question. This is used in calculating Damage per Second or DPS of an ability.
The second is execution time. This is used in calculating Damage per Execution Time or DPET of an ability.

These are both "rate" calculations, but serve two very different purposes. In the case of Damage over Time abilities in particular, understanding the difference between the two is important. Your priority system for ability usage, assuming no other considerations are being made other than maximizing damage, is based off of the DPET of the abilities you have.

If you have two abilities only one direct damage ability and one damage over time ability you end up in a situation where you have to choose between which ability to use. Lets say both abilities are instant casts and your GCD is at the 1 second minimum. Say the direct damage ability does 5,000 damage and your damage over time ability does 7,000 damage but over 14 seconds. The direct damage ability does 5,000 DPS. The damage over time ability does only 500 DPS. Which ability is higher in your priorities? The damage over time ability provided the target will live at for the duration and doesn't already have this debuff. This is because the DPET of the direct damage ability is 5,000 but the DPET of the damage over time ability is 7,000. It has a higher priority despite only doing one tenth the DPS. The person who only spams the direct damage ability will do 5,000 DPS over the course of the fight. The person that casts the damage over time ability once every 15 casts does 5,133 DPS over the course of a longer fight. That is the result of understanding their priorities correctly.

P.S. Last math topic I posted got 0 replies...

[Quietsch]

Maybe you would like to take also the link to wowhead into the guide, as it's imho much more helpful for the most mathematic issues, as there are more informations about the spells, effects and so on in most cases. And also mostly the informations are more up to date, than on wowwiki.

Also it could be helpful, if you add something to the introduction which says, that every physical damage value is before armor.

And please, be stringent in your use of parenthesis, so either
((Max wep damage + Min weapon damage)/2)+((attack power/14)x wep speed)
or
(Max wep damage + Min weapon damage)/2+(attack power/14)x wep speed
, it does much for the readability imho.

To be honest, i don't understand your example of the uptime calculation.
For example, and as i understood it, with dmc:greatness, you would get y = 0,3 and math = 300, so you'd get a value of 310 str for dmc:g...
so what it imho needs is either a explanation what's math respectivly Y, or your formula is wrong.

Point 7 & 8 of the uptime are wrong. As you said, you've 4 possible combinations, a+b, a, b, 0
now, let's say a is 10% uptime and b 20%
you get a+b = 0,1*0,2 = 0,02
a = 0,08
b = 0,18
so all in all it has a total uptime of 0,08+0,18+0,02 = 0,28 for at least one being active.
with your calculation, you would get a downtime of 1-0,3 = 0,7 for none being active. (You haven't taken into account, that both have also a "shared" uptime, where they both are active, and so this time subtracts from uptime a AND uptime b. But you calculate only the downtime off something which has some kind of shared cooldown, so that it can't proc together, which it can do in your example.)

[Delmonte]

Just another minor thing, it's probably worth explaining in the basic maths (percentages) part that to increase something by a certain percentage, you multiply it by 1 + the percentage as a decimal, e.g. to increase a value by 63% you multiply by 1.63, increasing by 100% is therefore x2 as you would expect. Similarly, explaining that to decrease by a certain percentage, you multiply by 1 - the percentage as a decimal (rather than dividing by 1 + the percentage as a decimal some might expect) would probably be helpful. It might not be immediately obvious to people who are relatively new to maths.

To be honest, i don't understand your example of the uptime calculation.
For example, and as i understood it, with dmc:greatness, you would get y = 0,3 and math = 300, so you'd get a value of 310 str for dmc:g...
so what it imho needs is either a explanation what's math respectivly Y, or your formula is wrong.

Just a small point here, I've never done any maths on procs before and I'm sure someone can explain it better than me but the 'maths' part wouldn't be the stat gain of the trinket such as +300 str, it would be something like the effect of the proc on dps. Stats don't necessarily increase your dps in a linear fashion, for example in the case of arp, having 0% arp 90% of the time and 100% arp 10% of the time is not equivalent to having 10% arp 100% of the time.

[Thegreatme]

good call. added that to the basics section.

[Quinafoi]

The crit calculation is a poor example of a procing effect as crit is subject to variable limits affected by the other attack table events, variable depending on hit, and neglects the difference between a melee critical and a spell critical (the double roll aspect of spells). Crit is actually a lot more complex than that.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Crit
http://www.wowwiki.com/Attack_table
http://www.wowwiki.com/Spell_hit