The ability 'Sandstorm'

[Kaitz]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted your thoughts if you feel the same about this move. Everytime I meet a pet, or cast it myself, it states the move reduces all pets accuracy by 10%, but it definately feels like more than 10%, whether thats in your favour or not. Anyone know if its working as intended?


Kaitz~

[Notamonk]

It may depend on what abilities you are using while Sandstorm is active (some abilities state in the tooltip that they have a higher chance to miss), or a level difference with the pets.

Personally I haven't really noticed much of anything while someone has Sandstorm active.


Also,


Don't forget that Elementals are immune to weather effects. So if the Sandstorm weather affect is active they don't gain the buffs/debuffs that the effect geives to other pets.

[Poofah]

The base miss chance is 5%, so most abilities will now be at 15% miss chance. This pushes the miss chance high enough so that, whereas misses are usually pretty rare, they're now virtually guaranteed to happen multiple times in a battle. That's probably why it feels like more than 10%.

Since it's additive, inherently high-miss abilities are hurt more. Lift-Off for example has an inherent 20% miss chance, on top of the 5% base and then the 10% for Sandstorm. So it's down to 65% accuracy. Abilities like Demolish (base accuracy of 50%) are down to 35%.

Also, the proc chance for abilities like Moth Dust or Frog Kiss is determined by hit chance, so Sandstorm will subtract from those too. Frog Kiss says 25% chance to polymorph, but that's subject to -5% base and -10% from Sandstorm. Similarly, multi-hit abilities like Flurry use hit chance to decide how many hits they get: and each hit is then subject to the usual hit or miss check, in addition. This double-dipping makes -hit debuffs especially painful.

[Dragonwizard]

Since it's additive, inherently high-miss abilities are hurt more. Lift-Off for example has an inherent 20% miss chance, on top of the 5% base and then the 10% for Sandstorm. So it's down to 65% accuracy. Abilities like Demolish (base accuracy of 50%) are down to 35%.

Also, the proc chance for abilities like Moth Dust or Frog Kiss is determined by hit chance, so Sandstorm will subtract from those too. Frog Kiss says 25% chance to polymorph, but that's subject to -5% base and -10% from Sandstorm. Similarly, multi-hit abilities like Flurry use hit chance to decide how many hits they get: and each hit is then subject to the usual hit or miss check, in addition. This double-dipping makes -hit debuffs especially painful.

This is some great info but I'm wondering where you got those numbers from? I have yet to see hit chance anywhere. I would love more info on that as it really gets frustrating with all the misses I have been getting.

Back on topic with Sandstorm really the only attacks I have seen a big difference with are the multi hit attacks.

[Gromagrim]

Lift-Off is such an annoyance, I can go through a whole tamer battle with a spawn of onyxia and not have it hit once.

I wish the tooltip mentioned it's lower-than-base chance to hit.

I understand it's more useful for it's one round immunity, but when I'm using it to deal damage (Agaisnt Aquatics for example), I want some warning that I might be wasting my time!

[Tahsfenz]

Lift-Off is such an annoyance, I can go through a whole tamer battle with a spawn of onyxia and not have it hit once.

I wish the tooltip mentioned it's lower-than-base chance to hit.

I understand it's more useful for it's one round immunity, but when I'm using it to deal damage (Agaisnt Aquatics for example), I want some warning that I might be wasting my time!

Yeah, I switch this ability out on my Spirit of Competition because the misses were getting annoying.

[Poofah]

This is some great info but I'm wondering where you got those numbers from? I have yet to see hit chance anywhere. I would love more info on that as it really gets frustrating with all the misses I have been getting.

For the base dodge/miss chance, there's a macro to pull up the ingame variables, you can find it here. You have to be in a pet battle for it to return actual values -- dodge and miss are both 5 according to this, for equal-level pets at least.

Wowdb lists the accuracy for various moves, that's here -- the only caveat is that abilities with a secondary effect (Frog Kiss, etc.) list the accuracy for the secondary effect, and not for the initial damage. I think this is because wowdb is culling the last accuracy variable from the ability, even when there are multiple.

You can do ingame experiments to see that miss chance is calculated additively -- for example you can try to Frog Kiss while affected by Slippery Ice (-20%). If it were multiplicative, then you'd have a .25*0.8*.95 chance to hit; if it were additive, then you'd have a 25%-20%-5% chance.

[Zaelo]

Poofah, always so full of good info! Thanks for all those details

Personally, I don't think the % matter, if I cast Sandstorm with my Anubis, you can be sure I'll miss ALL my attacks and the computer will not fail once against me lol
Ok, maybe I exagerate.. a wee bit..

[Poofah]

Try Sandstorm against an elemental. If you still miss... then yes, the computer hates you.

[Klunketh]

Lift-Off is such an annoyance, I can go through a whole tamer battle with a spawn of onyxia and not have it hit once.

I wish the tooltip mentioned it's lower-than-base chance to hit.

I understand it's more useful for it's one round immunity, but when I'm using it to deal damage (Agaisnt Aquatics for example), I want some warning that I might be wasting my time!

^^THIS^^
gets on my nerves, im even missing using Blitz on my Flayer more often now, another thing, Panda Earth spirit tamers Rupture hits stun nearly everytime, i have 2 in one team and hit stun 5% fgs

[Zaelo]

Try Sandstorm against an elemental. If you still miss... then yes, the computer hates you.

I'm confused, why against an elemental? I guess the elemental will be immune to the miss chance given by Sandstorm weather, but I wont be..so I'll still miss, won't I?

[Poofah]

Oops! I got the effects confused.

The elemental is immune to the shield effect on Sandstorm, and immune to the -hit debuff. So you'll still miss extra, but when you hit, it will be for full damage. The elemental will not miss extra, but when it hits you, it will be for reduced damage. The -hit debuff is 10%, and the shield is 25% of the caster's power, so this is almost always bad for the elemental.

[Zaelo]

Ooooh I see! More subtleties in that effect than what I had first understood, good to know!