Long time lurker, first time poster. I figured this would be a good theorycrafting topic to start with!

Alright, so since 1.9, casters have been reporting getting more partial resists than before in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and generally on all raids. We all know the average WoW player likes to whine, but this time, something is definitely up. Nothing was changed in 1.10.

What's basically happening is this: Monsters with CoS on that should effectively be on 0 SR (or FR, but I'm a Warlock so I'll go with the former), are partially resisting where they shouldn't be.

It's basically confirmed that:
Level based resists are binary, %hit gear works on these (and only these), and the base is 4% chance to resist against a same level mob, up to 17% against a +3 levels mob/boss.
Resistance based resists are partial, spell penetration gear and CoS/CoE work on these, and the base chance to resist depends on the resistance of the monster relative to the level of the player. (resistance/playerlevel*0.15)

Before 1.9 (where CoS was changed which I'll get back to), Warlocks were scoring vulnerability bonuses on trash in MC. This means the trash had less than 75 base SR. After 1.9, I've been getting partial resists with CoS on, on the very same mobs. This means one of two things: Either their (and pretty much every raid mob/boss) SR has been buffed to more than 75 base, or something is broken as of 1.9

I hooked up with another Warlock theory geek and did some quick testing.
-Mobs that are 3 levels higher but do not have any base SR do not trigger these strange partials.
-Mobs that are same level, have some SR but are reduced to 0 (was wearing dual WSG trinket, Don Julio and CoS was on vs a Doomguard with 75ish SR), do not trigger partial resists.

These weird resists seem to only be happening on mobs that are both higher level and have some form of base SR. To completely invalidate the theory of a global raid SR buff, I tested this on the level 62 dragonkin in Wetlands that have very little (but most probably some) SR, and with CoS on I was still getting partials.

Now, having realized something is most definitely broken, we started looking for an answer.

We had three possible explanations, but have yet to prove either one right or wrong:
-CoS (or possibly all -resist effects, including gear) are not working on raid mobs. This issue was introduced in a patch that changed CoS so it seems like it could have happened.
-CoS is secretly resisting, much like Tranq Shot. There's no doubt the +10% bonus on CoS is working when the icon is on the mob, but could it be that secondary effect of lowering SR was resisted? Since CoS consists of two seperate effects, is it possible that only one is applied? http://thottbot.com/?sp=17937
-Some part of level-based binary resists are showing up as partial resists. The question is then how this relates to stuff like %hit gear since %hit is designed around reducing binary resists.

I was hoping someone had found out more than me, but I'll settle for a brainstorming session too.

Edits: Minor stuff for clarity.

This actually happens to mages, too. There was an amusing thread in the bug & exploit official forum about Arcane Missiles getting partially resisted with Spell Pen gear + CoS. They quietly buried it and haven't mentioned it since. I don't remember there ever being a consensus as to what was going on, because nobody has really been able to figure it out.

I personally fancy the idea of a partial resist on CoS meaning that it knocks some but not all of the resists off invisibly, but that's just a silly flight of fancy.


As an amusing sidenote, melee have partial resists too.

I haven't played a caster in a while, but as I understand it binary abilities have to do with sidegrade effects rather than the means by which damage is delivered. A spell with a dd and dot portion is still binary (fireball). A spell with a slowing effect or any built-in debuff excluding talent enhancement is not (frostbolt).

Backward.

A binary spell is really anything that's a debuff (curses, snares, roots, mezz, etc). It's a hit or miss (1 or 0), since partially resisting the damage of such a spell is basically worthless. Frostbolt (all frost spells really with the exception of blizzard) qualifies b/c it has an innate snare.

Purely damage spells, like fireball and shadowbolt can be partially resisted b/c the damage IS the goal of the spell. Secondary debuffs added by talents (impact, aftermath, blackout, and oddly enough imp. blizzard etc.), while binary themselves, are do not make the associated damage spell binary and they operate on two separate resist checks.

A fun new toy from the rogue forums.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...hreadID=1051138

I don't want to direct-link the mod because it's not my bandwidth, but a nice, bored CS student learned enough of the UI code to parse for glancing blows.

The results on level 63 mobs are very depressing. On the upside, Death's Sting is looking better.

You know I find this all very funny. Not being a strict melee class and doing my melee in a way that cannot be improved by +Skill, I'd always assumed that +Skill was one of the most important variables due to hits/misses/glancings. When this stuff started to get collected recently I actually was very confused because I'd always thought that +skill was considered paramount after +hit.

It seems you are saying that there aren't partial resists due to level. There are level based partial resists. My fa... paladin used to get partial Seal of Command Resists on +2 and +3 mobs (haven't seen many since i hit 60 as there aren't many 61+ mobs around for me to beat upon). These partial resists are pretty rare though.

Ha! I was wrong.

You say that as though it wasn't orgasm-inducing already.

I've been testing -resist items and i figured some stuff out about partial resists:

http://forums-en.wow-europe.com/thread.asp...en&T=132218&P=1

To save you all from reading:
- Appearantly higher level mobs(60+) have some base chance to partialy resist your spells even if they have 0 resistances. For boss level mobs its around 5% damage lost to partial resists.

And is your crit rate 32%?