Spell Vulnerability resist Mechanics

Ska · 09/27/06, 6:42 PM

Being a fire mage with imp. Scorch, I have noticed that the fire vulnerability portion of my spell is resisted more often then the Scorch itself. In my experience it usually takes 6-8 scorches to get a full 5 debuffs on a target that is lvl 63.

Talking to other classes I know that priests experience the same thing happening with shadow weaving.

Does anyone know how mechanics of restiance these vulnerabilitie work?

Perhaps for some reason these debuffs are not affected by +hit and -resist gear.

Nurru · 09/27/06, 6:49 PM

Shitheap inc.

Most of the numbers people have thrown around seem to indicate it's something uncontrollable, perhaps meaning it's more an issue of the 1% guaranteed hit spell miss rate. For what it's worth, I can't recall seeing a Winter's Chill resist so I suspect it's related to partial resist checks in some manner.

Northerner · 09/27/06, 6:54 PM

Meh, it is a legitimate question actually. The problem is that the mechanic is not something controllable so it doesn't really matter what it is. You are going to scorch until five and refresh it to make it stick no matter how many casts it takes. Eyeballing it, I would say that it is definitely possible that +hit talents are not helping but I have certainly not bothered to parse out any data. I can't see why I'd bother really, again simply because knowing a mechanic that cannot affect what I actually do is pretty pointless.

Tempestra · 09/27/06, 6:59 PM

Has there been confirmation that this separate resist mechanic for vulnerabilities is a bug? I seem to remember reading something on this but I can't recall exactly.

If the spell doesn't get resisted, the vulnerability shouldn't as well, /shrug. Let's hope it eventually gets changed.

Fres · 09/27/06, 7:02 PM

Isn't it based on binary resists? I remember reading about this in regards to the improved shadowbolt debuff.

◊ Praetorian · 09/27/06, 7:03 PM

Originally Posted by Nurru

Shitheap inc.

Please don't do this. This isn't the greatest thread in the world but "IBTH" posts do not have content either. If a thread sucks or a post is worthless, click the report button. Don't shit up the thread further.

Edit: Thread has the potential to be informative, so let's see what happens.

Nurru · 09/27/06, 7:07 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

Originally Posted by Nurru

Shitheap inc.

Please don't do this. This isn't the greatest thread in the world but "IBTH" posts do not have content either. If a thread sucks or a post is worthless, click the report button. Don't shit up the thread further.

Edit: Thread has the potential to be informative, so let's see what happens.

Post edited to be Gurgthock compliant.

Bibdy · 09/27/06, 7:11 PM

Scorch, Shadowbolt etc. are not binary, but the debuffs they inflict when they hit (or crit in the case of Imp SB) can be resisted seperately.

Binary effects are those that either land or they don't. There is no middle ground. Non-binary spells can be partially resisted for 25%, 50%, 75% or even 100% of the damage.

This means that non-binary spells can be fully resisted in two different ways. One is a check with the miss/hit/crit mechanic determined by your crit rate, your +hit gear and the target's level - this shows up as 'Resist' in yellow text. The other is the partial resist mechanic described above (which can be affected by 'decreases the magical resistances of the target by X' gear - this shows up as 'Resist' in white text.

Now when a Scorch hits, or a Shadowbolt crits (assuming you have the talents anyway) the binary debuff effect takes a seperate check and has a higher chance of being fully resisted compared to the level based check of a non-binary spell. This is only 'fair' as there is no partial resist check for a binary spell.

Again, it either lands or it doesn't. You can't have 25% of an improved shadowbolt debuff on the target ;)

novasphere · 09/27/06, 7:12 PM

Well, my question would be: Are you hit-capped already? Seeing as those kinds of secondary effects on various spells all are technically a second, invisible spell cast on a target, you could just be running into bad luck through the random-number generator.

Monsanto · 09/27/06, 7:15 PM

You'd probably have to parse logs to check that there's an actual statistical difference, instead of just an observational bias. Seeing the resist message in addition to the regular damage message is a somewhat unique event in terms of all the messages you usually see, and your brain picks up on it and probably over-estimates the frequency at which it is happening.

Nite_Moogle · 09/27/06, 7:19 PM

Don't overlook that for the second effect to land, the first effect that it depends upon must not be resisted. If you assume a 4% resist rate for purposes of easy math and cast 1000 frostbolts and 960 land, of those 960 successful frostbolts only (about) 920 will apply the Winter's Chill debuff, the other 40 will be resisted. Thus the secondary effect technically does have a higher chance of being resisted by default, since it essentially goes through two resist checks. I don't know if +hit affects the secondary effect.

Edit: man, I cannot type today.

Bibdy · 09/27/06, 7:24 PM

I think the main point is that binary spells have a higher chance of being fully resisted than non-binary spells (but more chance of a 100% hit, than a non-binary spell does).

For example, what would have been a full-on resist for a binary spell, turned out to be a 75% resist for a Scorch. So the Scorch landed, despite hitting like a wet paper towel, but the binary spell would have seen a big ol' 'Resist' message pop up. Whereas a binary spell would have fully hit when a Scorch would have seen a 25% resist.

Edit: What's with the black boxes on the left? Someone delete a graphic on the forums?

Nurru · 09/27/06, 7:26 PM

Originally Posted by Bibdy

Edit: What's with the black boxes on the left? Someone delete a graphic on the forums?

I'm wondering the same thing, almost made a thread about it but I figure someone is just mucking with the layout presently.

Sancus · 09/27/06, 7:56 PM

Binary spells don't have a higher full resist chance than non-binary spells against a target that has no resist score, like most raid mobs after CoE/CoS. The "level-based partial" resists that can't be mitigated by anything don't affect binary spells either.

Something's definitely wonky with improved scorch etc, and I believe it's listed as a bug, "Certain effects that proc off of spells can be resisted despite having 100% chance to be applied. " here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...28306354&sid=1

It seems that they shouldn't be resistable *at all* and the fact that they are is unintended.

Bibdy · 09/27/06, 9:35 PM

Well blow me. It'll be nice to finally stop seeing a big yellow RESIST next to a nice big shadowbolt crit.

silya · 09/27/06, 10:25 PM

Originally Posted by Ska

Being a fire mage with imp. Scorch, I have noticed that the fire vulnerability portion of my spell is resisted more often then the Scorch itself. In my experience it usually takes 6-8 scorches to get a full 5 debuffs on a target that is lvl 63.

Talking to other classes I know that priests experience the same thing happening with shadow weaving.

Does anyone know how mechanics of restiance these vulnerabilitie work?

Perhaps for some reason these debuffs are not affected by +hit and -resist gear.

I think the explanation is pretty simple. Spells like imp. scorch or frostbolt + winter's chill are modelled like a spell with another binary spell. The second binary spell has its own resist check. If the first spell is resisted, so is the second. If the first spell goes through, the second might still be resisted due to the second resist check.

Dawme · 09/27/06, 10:28 PM

Yeah but it seems the fire vuln part of a scortch is resisted way more than it should be on to hit capped mages. Maybe it's just bugged and doesn't count +hit, that would explain why it resists so often.

silya · 09/27/06, 10:33 PM

Originally Posted by Dawme

Yeah but it seems the fire vuln part of a scortch is resisted way more than it should be on to hit capped mages. Maybe it's just bugged and doesn't count +hit, that would explain why it resists so often.

That's 'anecdotal evidence.' Do you have any concrete numbers? I play a winter's chill mage, and the resists don't seem unusual to me.

Tancrid · 09/28/06, 12:28 AM

Actually, it turns out that the Fire Vulnerability effect of a scorch spell (with 3/3 in Improved Scorch, giving it a 100% chance to be applied) being resisted separately from the scorch itself is a bug and is not working as intended right now. The same goes for the Winter's Chill effect being resisted separately from the frost spell when you have 5 points in the Winter's Chill talent. I'm not sure at what percentages they're getting resisted (anecdotally it feels like 4 or 5% on bosses no matter how much +hit gear I have), but if it was working correctly the Fire Vulnerability or Winter's Chill effects would never get resisted separately from the spell if you had max points in the respective talent. It's hard to nail down a definite number for the rate at which a talent mechanic is officially broken, or how best to lower the rate at which it's broken.

I don't know what they broke when the mage review went live in patch 1.11, but if you ever used 5/5 improved scorch before that patch (Winter's Chill was a completely different talent before the review) you never ever saw the Fire Vulnerability effect resisted seperately from the scorch.

From the 'known issues' sticky in the official Bug Report Forum:

Spells, Talents, & Abilities
# Certain effects that proc off of spells can be resisted despite having 100% chance to be applied.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...28306354&sid=1

Unfortunately this bug has been listed as a known issue since shortly after patch 1.11. I was hoping it would have been fixed a long time ago, but no such luck. Annoying as it is, it's hard to complain about this bug when Improved Scorch got buffed in four other ways after the review.

Zoner · 09/28/06, 6:03 PM

Procs from talents are assigned the level of the rank of the spell they are attached to. They do not use your character's current level.

Rank 1 Shadowbolt is a level 1 spell. The spell itself is treated as if it were level 60 if you are level 60, for damage purposes. However the proc from Improved Shadow talent is still level 1 and will be resisted 75% of the time against at target with 5 shadow resist.

The highest rank of Scorch is level 58. Against a level 63 target, the target is +5 compared to the proc and has a 39% chance to miss. This chance to miss is then increased if the target has any fire resistance since the proc is a binary spell effect as well and is easily affected by resistances.

People saying Winter's Chill almost never resists would be right: the highest rank of Frostbolt is level 60, and with the amount of hit endgame mages have it should push the level based miss rate down toward 1% for the proc.

Soul Fire is level 56, Rain of Fire is level 58, and Hellfire is level 54, and this is one of many reasons Pyroclasm is a really bad talent.

Bibdy · 09/28/06, 6:08 PM

Intruiging. Do Frost Mages without the AQ20 book tend to see more WC resists than those with it?

p.s. hoping for some kind of data.

Ska · 09/28/06, 6:15 PM

Procs from talents are assigned the level of the rank of the spell they are attached to. They do not use your character's current level.

Does this apply to imp. counterspell? counterspell being a lvl 24 spell.

Of note: I have not had imp CS for some time now with my raiding build, but when I did have it i remember the silence being periodically resisted when the CS itself was not. I assume this is still the case.

Nurru · 09/28/06, 6:18 PM

I've seen people make claims like Zoner's in the past but I have never seen any hard numbers for it. A lot of them seem to stem from people misunderstanding the following line in the 1.07 patch notes:

Debuffs and area effect spells now use their actual cast level rather than effective cast level for calculating periodic resistance.

Essentially, if your claim was true then I would be pretty much unable to use Improved Counterspell, Rank 1 Frost Nova, Rank 1 Blizzard and other such effects. Since this is not the case, I hope you provide some numbers to back it. Unless I'm vastly misunderstanding you.

Tancrid · 09/28/06, 6:22 PM

Originally Posted by Zoner

Procs from talents are assigned the level of the rank of the spell they are attached to. They do not use your character's current level.

Rank 1 Shadowbolt is a level 1 spell. The spell itself is treated as if it were level 60 if you are level 60, for damage purposes. However the proc from Improved Shadow talent is still level 1 and will be resisted 75% of the time against at target with 5 shadow resist.

The highest rank of Scorch is level 58. Against a level 63 target, the target is +5 compared to the proc and has a 39% chance to miss. This chance to miss is then increased if the target has any fire resistance since the proc is a binary spell effect as well and is easily affected by resistances.

People saying Winter's Chill almost never resists would be right: the highest rank of Frostbolt is level 60, and with the amount of hit endgame mages have it should push the level based miss rate down toward 1% for the proc.

Soul Fire is level 56, Rain of Fire is level 58, and Hellfire is level 54, and this is one of many reasons Pyroclasm is a really bad talent.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're way off. The debuff from Improved Scorch getting resisted separately from the scorch itself is a known bug, as stated in this blue post here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...28306354&sid=1

Before patch 1.11 Improved Scorch was never ever resisted separately from the spell. Besides, improved scorch getting resisted at a 39% clip? Are you nuts?

◊ Oggie · 09/28/06, 6:31 PM

From a purely statistical point of view, this 'double penalty' looked to be on the face of it a bug, and I'm glad it's being treated as such. It's really silly to have the resist roll checked twice, even if the 2nd roll appears (anecdotally) to be going off of something like 5% instead of the level differential (at least that's how I interpreted what was being said).

I know we can't see mob debuff timers, but we most certainly can see friendly ones- anyone willing to duel for a few hours and see if you get this sort of behavior with players? If a 3/3 scorch was on the player and the mage gets a 'resist' did the spell fail to refresh? Is it possible to resist once the scorch is up there? Ect.

Or is this purely the inherent level differential resists that -resist has no effect on?