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.

Maybe I misread this thread, but are you saying your getting partial resists on the damage that was "amped" by the CoS, or are you getting partials overall (with no curse)?

As a Frost Mage, I have yet to see a partial resist (with CoE up) and I would figure since Shadowbolt is binary (not dot, so it has be, I would think, could be wrong) then you wouldnt see any either.

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.

(off topic) wodin, which addon is that parse from?

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.

I believe partial resists on Seal of Command come from the combat log misinterpreting glancing blows. Although Seal of Command damage is holy based, it follows all melee rules and thus you would encounter some glancing blows(or partial resist in your combat log). In terms of Judgement of Command, then yes, I believe there are level based resists but no base resist(evident through the auto re-judge sloppy coding).

Ha! I was wrong.

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

speaking of emps, this is what I saw from the fight, unfortunately I don't feel like checking % of damage lost, nor do I feel like checking +weapon skill (fist spec :\ ).

And is your crit rate 32%?

Interesting analogous question - Can an attack that crits be glancing, and can an attack that's glancing crit? In other words, which check is applied first, and does it invalidate the other?

(I know you can't actually get "You crit x for 256 (glancing)", but could a successful crit check invalidate or skip the glancing check, improving your non-glancing hit rate?)

Thanks for that, interesting read. Based on those numbers, you've (all the Mages) gotten around 5.45% partially resisted. Do you have any numbers on how many full resists you got?

I got a partial Holy resist tonight. Didn't think that was possible.

(It was on a lava surger, FYI).


Edit: Oh, that backs up this:

Was messing around doing stupid stuff with my Mage alt late last night, trying to take on level +3 mobs, as a fire mage, when my main damage spell hadn't been updated for about 4 levels.

Anyway, I saw a partial resist once, the rest were either full resists or non-resisted, using fireball, pyroblast, and fire blast as my main sources of damage, with an occasional CoC if everything else was on cooldown and the mob was right in my face.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a54/Kytra...evelpartial.jpg

I imagine that that was a level-based Partial Resist, seeing as the mobs didn't seem to have much fire resistance otherwise, and seemed to be mainly resisting my skills binarily.

Any thoughts on what happened here? Or does this example fit the subject that you're talking about.

I've had several partial resists on holy damage against mobs 2-3 levels above me. I thought that was common. Although I was only smiting since 1.10 which is after this change.

My metric for partial resists are when a spell that hits for 400 base damage randomly hits for like 150 and shows as much in my hitsmode.

I believe I do occasionally see a full Frostbolt resist against a non-63, and I've had >=6% spellhit for a long time. Haven't done any real testing, though.

Cripes, I don't feel like going back to ZG enough to finish off what would be a 17% hit set. Still, I could try to remember to very carefully leave my parsing on only against 63's, and see whether the resist rate is higher than what it should be, given my +hit.

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On a related note, someone in my guild posted a screenshot yesterday that included a vuln proc (on a Mind Blast). Being that my main nuke is Frostbolt, I was complete unaware that vuln procs were still possible after 1.9. What can cause them?

Certain mobs have built-in vulns. Go nuke the Tar Elementals in Un'goro for fun and profit. :)

How about Flamewalker Healers?

Flamewaker Elites are vulnerable to nature. I peel one to my offtank with lightning bolt and get quite inflated numbers.

Lava Spawns + Blizzard are another common example.