On Saturday I did a quick Heroic ToC-5 with some guildees (I need badges for BOA stuff…) and during the Eadric fight I noticed something I haven’t seen in a long time on my pally: a big red number pop up. A crit. What the hell? Granted, it was only for 9k damage, but that was a bit shocking.
My immediate worry was I still had some Ret gear on from running around and doing the Loremaster grind. I popped open my character sheet and noticed a calm, reassuring defense number that was well about 540. I wasn’t sitting, either, so what could it have been? I knew that some bosses in game had spells giving them higher than normal crit chances (aka, greater than 5.6%), but I wasn’t aware that Eadric was one of them.
When perusing the tanking forums for my daily dose of bile-inducement I spotted this great thread which was compiling just such a list. And, of course, Eadric was on the list thanks to his Vengeance ability. I recommend checking out the initial post in full, but I wanted to share a few of these little cheaters for general awareness.
- The Argent Lightwielder mob in ToC-5 has an Unbalancing Strike that acts a little like the similarly named attack that Thorim uses in Ulduar.
- It is suspected that San’layn bosses (such Prince Keleseth in UK) passively have higher than normal crit chances. This may be an issue in Icecrown Citadel where we will be facing off against the Queen of the San’layn.
- One last thing to double-check: if you’re at 540 defense but get crit, hover your mouse over the defense number and see if your uncrittability number is at 5.6% or higher. There is a rounding error where you can be at 540 defense but only 5.59% uncrit, which would still allow you to be critically struck.
Our shaman has a macro for this – I think the number is 692 or something.
That’s good to know about Eadric. I generally run a little high on defense, as it’s difficult to remain right at 541 all the time.
689 defense rating equals 5.6%
This is certainly news to me. I haven’t tanked heroics in a while, I’ve been working on my healer’s gear, so I haven’t noticed any of this. Good thing to keep in mind, thanks for the heads up!
LOL
I had the exact same experience 3 weeks ago. I think my eyes probably popped outta my head when I saw the lingering bold, all caps, increased font damage number appeared next to my head.
/gulp
I said in vent, “I think I just got crit.” Thankfully, there was someone there more familiar with the mechanics of the fight than I.
Happened to me too, in HoL on a trash mob after the xpack came out. I opened a ticket and the GM told me that no matter what your defense is at, there is always a .01% chance for a mob to crit you, and its just how the game is set up.
That GM is wrong.
Thanks for the great post. I was a bit put off when I was crit by an argent lightwielder the other day (Although I didn’t have to go through the same mental checklist you did, since I’m a bear). It’s good to know why.