Changes to resistances mechanics :O

[Instant]

Recently i found out that Resistances no longer give you chance to avoid damage of a given school, but instead reduce the damage (on average). This GREATLY changes usefulness of Resistances for everyone, because most sources of AoE damage are magic. This make abilites like Resistance Aura or Elemental Resistances Totem so much more usefull (they reduce the damage by 25% on average).

Somehow i missed that with all the changes to WoW mechanics that came with Cata. Was i the only one? :O

And next thing, does people in your guild tend to not make a big deal out of this? Because for me 25% reduction in damage is insanely powerful ability, but somehow in my guild people just 'meh'ed' it. Few do though (mostly tanks) and they are farming Hellscream's Reach for resistances trinket

Maybe it's because i'm a healer and i care about damage that raid sustains, but seriously... try to heal Feud with those resistances and w/o them... It's almost like he casted it twice instead three times :O

Anyway, for all those who still weren't aware, don't feel stupid as i did, instead make a good use out of it

[Deleted]

resistances always worked like that. the only change is that now you can read the average reduction of damage taken.
an average of 50% less damage could also mean that once you resist the whole spell, while the second time you dont resist any damage at all.
(which is both very unlikely but not impossible to happen)

the trinket from tolbarad faction is useful for pve especially for tanks, and for pvp, for nearly everyone.
same was in wotlk with the sindragosa trinket, which is essentially the same (stamina and on-use resistances).

[Deleted]

I think it has been like that for quite a long while. Also there's still a chance to completely resist the damage. Like on the trash before Magmaw, the thunderclap does like what.. 40-50k damage? Couple of times with the Baradin's Warden trinket active I resisted like 25k or something and a few times it resisted the damage completely.

Funny by the way, since the original Thunder clap deals physical damage :P

[Instant]

No really. You got me wrong. When i say 25% i mean something else.

With 25%, resistances USED TO work 25% of a time. Now they work ALL THE TIME but reduce the damage by 25% (on average, sometimes they reduce by 10% sometimes by 50% but they always reduce the damage).

[Deleted]

AFAIK it has always been a damage reduction, not a chance to miss.

[Instant]

Nah it wasn't that's the thing.

There was a game called Diablo. In that game resistances reduced elemental damage by a % showed on Character Sheet. But in WoW it was never like this. With stupidy high chances you only had a high chance to RESIST damage (although amount varied), but now in Cata you just reduce the damage by a %.

Example to make it more clear of what i'm talking about:

Two shamans. 1 Elemental Resistances Totem and 100 Lightning Bolts.

You WILL reduce the damage on every bolt that one shaman cast on the other, and usually you WILL reduce it by 25%.

In old model you had 25% chance to resist, so every fourth spell you'd resist damage (varied amount, sometimes full damage).

It might sound similiar, but it's entirely different thing, and Feud is very good example of it

EDIT.

These is a quote from wowpedia.org (wasn't updated yet)

For non-binary spells

Resistance increases the chance to suffer only a fraction of the spell's normal damage. In The Burning Crusade, the percent resisted had a chance to be 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%.[1] The probabilities were weighted such that the average damage mitigated worked out to the same percentage as with binary spells. In Wrath of the Lich King, however, the possible percentages of damage resisted are weighted in sections of 0%, 10%, 20%, ..., 100% averaging to the same overall damage mitigation. However only the closest three or four sections will ever occur at a given resistance value. This allows a sufficiently high resistance to guarantee a certain resist percentage, even in the worst case. DoT spells are now considered non-binary and the partial resistance calculation is applied on each tick.

[blink]

the racials were changed from chance to miss to flat damage reduction, if that's what you're thinking of.

[Deleted]

Oh the old days where you never saw "Miss" when you cast a spell but only "Resist, resist, resist!" Equally infuriating :-P

However I like the current mechanic

[Instant]

the racials were changed from chance to miss to flat damage reduction, if that's what you're thinking of.

Yes, racials were changed because of this change.

But what people in my guild didn't realise (until i explained them) is how much it helps us during the encounter. When you reduce the damage by 25% with a simple ability like Resistance Aura or a Totem.

I see that it might be that i'm crazy about damage mitigation (role bias i think) and for me this is incredible change... But i'm alone in that

[Yagamoth]

As far as i know earlier there were two kind of spells. The ones you could partially resist and such, you resist 100% or not at all. Currently I only see these with partial resists.

I consider Resistance mandatory in many fights. If you are lucky enough to have a Shaman in your team, let him use Glyphed Healing Stream totem. Otherwise you have to adjust the Paladin Auras and/or maybe even Hunter Aspects for resistance. If you've got neither a Paladin nor a Shaman in the raid, chances are that you will have big trouble with Magical raid damage. (unless it's shadow, since there is a Shadow Resistance buff from the priest)

[Instant]

As far as i know earlier there were two kind of spells. The ones you could partially resist and such, you resist 100% or not at all. Currently I only see these with partial resists.

I consider Resistance mandatory in many fights. If you are lucky enough to have a Shaman in your team, let him use Glyphed Healing Stream totem. Otherwise you have to adjust the Paladin Auras and/or maybe even Hunter Aspects for resistance. If you've got neither a Paladin nor a Shaman in the raid, chances are that you will have big trouble with Magical raid damage. (unless it's shadow, since there is a Shadow Resistance buff from the priest)

Yeh there was (and i believe still is, but not sure heh) such thing as binary and non-binary spells. Binary usually had an after effect, and you could either resist them fully or don't resist at all.

Anyway good to know there are some who belive it's mandatory buff I feel better now

[Wythel]

http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t44675-r...chanics_wotlk/

[Instant]

This thread on EJ is for Wotlk, is it not?

[Ektoplasme]

This thread on EJ is for Wotlk, is it not?

Yes. And as you can see, the mechanics you describe already existed in WotLK. It was in fact implemented in BC.

So since BC, for some amount of resistance A , you had a chance to resist at least P % of damage, sometimes more than P% (even fully resisted) but never less. Exactly what you describe.

Before (beginning of BC and vanilla), you could still take 100% of damage with some resistance, there was no lower bound.

So nothing new in cata, the only difference is that it was a hidden mechanic before and now it's written in the character panel, so people like you know about it and not only the theorycrafters.

[Instant]

Yes. And as you can see, the mechanics you describe already existed in WotLK. It was in fact implemented in BC.

So since BC, for some amount of resistance A , you had a chance to resist at least P % of damage, sometimes more than P% (even fully resisted) but never less. Exactly what you describe.

Before (beginning of BC and vanilla), you could still take 100% of damage with some resistance, there was no lower bound.

So nothing new in cata, the only difference is that it was a hidden mechanic before and now it's written in the character panel, so people like you know about it and not only the theorycrafters.

Eh no :S With 25% restiances you still could get full hit. Although wrath ended a long time ago, and i didn't care that much about damage. If such thing never occured (and the chart from EJ is saying such thing) then indeed i'm very late

But i'll explain it in another way.

Imagine that you have 100k HP, and that every second you're healed to full.

Now imagine a boss that hits you for 101k every two seconds.

In cata you won't ever die, cause you'll (most often like 95% of time) resist 25% of damage.

Before that there were moments when you'd take full hit, thus kill you.

In cata you have reduction on every magical hit, always, there is no chance to resist, you mitigate damage period. I don't know how you can think it's exactly same thing

When you only have Marks or Kings you always reduce damage by ~12%. Sometimes more, sometimes less but you always reduce, when in Wotlk you often took full damage.

And thank you for those incredible remark about how 'i people' know about it. That was very insightful.