Something Beef said on R&D: "One theory we have had is that the acid spit may be being cast at level 630 instead of level 63, or something along those lines."



Does this mean that NR above 315 would useful? That would be interesting (although maybe not very much so--depends on whether stacking NR that high is worth it to begin with). If they did do something like this, however, it couldhave come implications for future encounters.

Alternatively, maybe she just has -resist. They have the mechanic in the game now, no reason to think they wouldn't put it on a mob. Especially on an ability like Acid Spit, which they probably don't want people resisting like Flame Buffet.

But just on that one ability? That'd be an odd mechanic. Her regular poison bolts are obviously very resistable.

The pattern of resists on Acid ticks we saw was like a handful of -25% resists, and mostly full damage, from tanks with >200 NR. It's what you'd expect to see vs. normal level 63 attacks if you only had 20 or 30 NR. I can't explain what would cause that precise pattern. If it were just spell penetration like casters have, then going from 200 to 300 NR would cause a very noticeable improvement. But in reality it doesn't... it's like going from 20 NR to 30 NR....

Still, one ability which was cast at a totally off-the-wall level would also be an odd mechanic. Do other mobs cast things at levels not at all equal to their own? Other abilities for which resists are very important, such as Flame Buffet or the green dragon breaths, behave exactly as you'd except based on the mob's level.

This probably isn't very important anyway, since lots of guilds are getting her down without thinking about it very much, but it might be some kind of insight into what they do when they specifically don't want something to be avoidable with resists (and I don't have anything better to wonder about, since we haven't gotten her yet).

I'm sure some actual data about the resist rates would get to the bottom of it pretty quickly, although I'm not sure anyone's ever going to take the trouble to collect it.

I don't buy the whole "it uses the spell level, not the mob's level for resist checks" thing.

Shadow of Ebonroc is a level 24 spell. You don't resist 75% of the Shadows with 120 resistance, or anywhere near 75% of them which debunks that theory.

There must be some other control they can apply to partially-resistable spells.

If it's actually casting it at level 630, it'd most likely be a bug due to a typo, not a new game mechanic.


What's odd about the acid spit is if they wanted to make it unresistable, they could easily do so. But instead it's resisted a small amount a very small percentage of the time, way out of line with what you'd expect from any mob. I don't see why or how they would do it like that.

I was wondering if that's what you were getting at when you chose the number 630. But it still raises the question of how an erroneous spell level could cause incorrect resists since, as far as we know, resists are determined by the level of the caster (except for a specific change in PvP which was made a few patches ago).

I don't know why they'd do it intentionally. If they wanted Acid Spit to force rotations, they could have made it unresistable. I can't think of a good use for an ability that's very slightly resistable.

To fuck with us, clearly.

Yeah -- I agree that it's odd.

But it most definitely IS resistable, but only a little bit. Nothing else works like that, and my explanation is the only one that fits all the data I've seen in combat logs.

*shrug* I'm sure it was intended to be unresistable, since otherwise the huhuran fight would be only the 30% gimmick, which wouldn't be much fun at all.

Yeah, if it is somehow a bug I hope they don't change it. I really enjoy these race and execution fights, and to see it become another gear up and win encounter would be dissapointing.

I may sound stupid here, but I thought the highest things got in pretty much all blizzard games was level 255. Let me know if I'm wrong.

No way, Archaedas in Uldaman is level 500+, Cosmos says so.

Heh, 255 would be a holdover from the 8bit days (think the original Diablo). We don't store stuff in bytes anymore.

Hell, most of the stuff I'm writing in game development these days stores stuff in 64 bit values, that means it can go up to 18,446,744,073,709,551,614!

You still store them in bytes, but don't confine them to a single byte.

AMIRITE?

Actually, weren't the stat caps in D1 250?