Faerlina ? Maybe its my perception, but i'm 90% sure she has some fire resist.

Nope, nothing. Well, that doesn't mean that's the case, it might also mean that I'm never paying attention or generally just slacking :)

I currently have -50 to resists on my PvE gear (5/5 DC and Shackles of the Unscarred).

If I ever butcher other warlocks in DPS with similar gear (but have no -resist) while casting the exact same spells in a fight where high DPS is a priority, I'll let you know.

So far, I've yet to see it happen.

In current content, 10 Spell penetration, can't be compared to 1% Hit with spells. 10 Spell penetration would have 0 impact on a level 63 mob at 0 resist. 1% To hit would improve your DPS though and for most encounters this is the case. With current pve content +spell to hit is far superior to spell penetration.

I have ZERO -resist gear and Faerlina seems just like everything else to me.

If They bring back bugged SS/WW 40% enrage 5 cp Ghostly Strike and unnerf normalization sure buddy ;)

and on this topic, Gurg is right, they might as well remove -resists from PvE gear until it has a viable use in PvE

A Thread on the EU Mage Forums was suggesting that mobs have +5 Resistances to all schools of magic for every level it has over a player.

For example, a Level 63 mob would have 15 resistances to all school of magic vs. a Level 60 player.

This innate 15 resistance cannot be reduced by -Resist gear or by CoE/CoS, which could also explain the presence of partial resistances against mobs even with no extra resistances or against a player with a large amount of -Resist.

I'm going to agree with Gurgthock on the "very, very confused" part. Not that this is anything new; I'm pretty sure that most Mages came to this conclusion a long time ago.

Even though Blizz has been getting better about these things recently, it's pretty easy to see how this one came about. Remember how, on the Test server, resists weren't yet capped at 0? They conjured up these stats, tested them internally, itemized items, all with that design in mind. And it wasn't a terrible concept--a linear -resist does, in fact, have a more significant impact against a high-resist target than against a low-resist one.

But for a few reasons, it doesn't work out well in this game. The way it was, it was in a no-mans-land. Strong enough that it was overpowered to let it affect resists below 0, but it didn't accomplish its design goal anyway. A Fire Mage with a bunch of -resist gear would still have been better off casting Frostbolt against a high Fire-resistance mobs.

So they changed it at the last minute. And when things get changed at the last minute in games, it's too late for spectacular design. You're trying to cut your losses and make sure you don't release a broken mechanic. So, as a result of all of this, we don't have a special suit of gear that makes us useful against high-resist mobs, we don't have broken vulns procs in PvP, and all we have is some slightly underpowered gear.

Even then, I question its pvp utility in say, 2-3 months time for some people. T3 characters won't have any resists. Those still gearing up in T 1/2 will, but argueably you're going to smack them all other things being equal anyway. Someone goes at you in a full frost resist suit? Switch to fire. Maybe warlocks will have a slight disadvantage against other warlocks (who cares) or T2 priests, but these are the minority cases.

Food for thought: Staff of the Qiraji prophets. -50 to a target for X seconds. This would imply 40 mans have >125, right? Anyone got in data that confirms this debuff stacks with coe/cos? Becuase the only reason I can see between the "wtf" and "haha you dont get it" camps is if they didn't stack.

One thing I've noticed when I dps since I'm a fire mage is alot of partial resist. Now since I've Picked up Enigma Robes and Malice Stone Pendant for -33 resist, I've noticed a huge difference in the amout of partial resists I get. Spell penetration does not work with frost in PvE since there aren't any partial resists. It hasn't been stated what exactly Spell Penetration does but looking at my Nurfed combat log I definately notice a difference.

Unfortunately mathematical analysis shows no difference and trumps anecdotal evidence.

The question is can +spellhit (and I suppose -resist gear) counteract the level based resistances of a mob on binary spells.

We know it can't on non-binary spells. You'll still get partials. But what about binary?

With enough +spellhit (combined total of +16) and say -24 in spell penetration (going off the theory that each level above you adds 8 unmitigable resistance) will you be at the miminum 1% resist rate on boss mobs? Or will the resist rate be higher? What about instead of using spell penetration you instead use more +spellhit?

Well, one of the big problems is that the Resist system in WoW is pretty badly designed.

Spells can operate under two different resist mechanics: binary resists and partial resists. Binary resists are simple, but partial resists are not so simple, because you take damage in certain increments: 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, 150% and 200% damage taken. As we all know, this caused issues with negative resists because the absurdly large increments of negative damage and the kooky partial damage look-up table more or less gives a target with -75 resists about a 1% chance to take double damage from two spells in a row. Since most of us were in BWL when this was going on, we saw this manifest in the form of Broodlord wipes. Oops, 12000 damage done in 3 seconds due to double vulnerable Shadow Bolt crits off a Nightfall proc.

I have no idea why they didn't revise the Resist system into something simpler and less retarded than what they currently have. If they had kept positive resists the same as they are and made negative resists a mirror of positive resists or, better yet, a linear gradient, then allowing -resist gear (and CoS/CoE) to drop resistance into the negatives would have been just fine. But nope, they floored a target's modified resist rate at 0 and we have a lot of useless gear.

A few studies parsing data for 5+ mages each on multiple fights showed identical resist rates for huge -resists and none at all. Each study was pretty convincing.


I'm going to have to say that's a damned ugly way to model it, as a scientist. "We are observing partial resists of our spells, and inferring therefore the mob has some resistances. These resists do not go away after CoE and -resist gear, therefore they are un-overcome-able resists." A far better way to model it is to say the mob has a flat 5% partial resist rate, just like the flat glancing blow rate. Why invoke the resists mechanic for this phenomenon, if these resists cannot be affected by things that affect resists?

After reading this thread for 20 minutes I still know nothing about - resists. :(

It's actually extremely simple. They subtract from your opponent's resists, down to a minimum of zero. The confusion comes from that fact that after CoS/CoE, almost ANYTHING in the game has zero resists already (players and almost all raid mobs).

Raid bosses have been observed time and time again to have a flat partial resist rate against spells, which is unaffected by both +hit and -resist gear. This is what is clouding the issue, but again it's simple: raid bosses have a flat partial resist rate. It's just there, and there's nothing you can do about it.

So, what good is this gear you ask? Well, if you're a fire mage and fighting someone in T1/2 armor, they might have 20-40 FR. Your -resist gear will remove this and you'll see slightly fewer partial resists on them.

That's about it. Mostly pointless.

-Resist is only good for pvp, and even then, situational against tier1/tier2 (only common gear with +resist). As for raid mobs, after CoE and CoS, their resists are usually at zero, and wearing any -resist is useless.

Could we just get negative resists back again? 1 shotting Paladins with Soul Fire was ever so much fun.

Because people are stuck in the belief that partial resists = resistance based and binary resists = level based. In the simplest of minds, there are no partial level based resists.

Has anyone analyzed the effect of -resists without CoS or CoE on a raid mob? Having to occasionally deal with a 2 Warlock raid, I've gone without CoS on a few bosses. What baffles me is that the only damage I really miss from not having CoS is the flat 10% modifier. I can't tell that the spell is increasing damage in Naxx at all beyond the flat modifier, which leads me to believe that Blizzard totally screwed up the intended functionality of CoS and CoE during the negative resist nerf. I always thought these two were supposed to cause you to get less resisted spells, and the added damage was just a side effect. Now it seems the added damage is the main effect, with the -resists barely having a use.

Most raid mobs do not have a lot of resists. CoE/S ensure these are reduced to 0, which is nice, but you are right: the 10% modifier is the truly important aspect.

Most raid bosses DO, however, have a flat partial and full resist rate, and you will see partial and full resists on your spells that cannot be overcome by Curses, -resist gear, or +spell hit gear.

it also made pve a lot more interesting.
having to actually pay close attention to see if you hit the mob for a huge amount (and would have to calm down for a bit) was much more interesting than knowing how much you were going to hit for.