Beyond mages... a whole big caster issue

[Mackadoody]

The newest patch did something that is hard to understand.

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


What does this mean? Frost Bolt, Shadow Word Pain, Fire Ball, Earthshock, Taco Fart, etc... Most of these spell's top ranks are achieved at lvl 54-58... Does this mean that a Rank 10 Frostbolt (lvl 54) hit the MoBs as if I were still lvl 54 instead of 60? They've been saying in the Mage forums that they're starting to see some insane resists... 30% of cast spells failing.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=4870215&P=1

Caydiem offered little help. I'm worried about my effectiveness against high level MoBs now...

Anyone experience anything weird yet?

[Wez]

http://www.dominusnihil.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11371

Not lookin good so far...

[Dokar]

that has *got* to be a bug.

How are you supposed to even try to damage a lvl 63 mob? (that has high fire resist...)

[Wez]

Yea, not sure where they are going with this one. Seems like a hotfix in the making. Why should casters be discouraged from using a lvl 1 spell, much less have their highest lvl spells be resisted constantly.

[Mackadoody]

It's so stupid.

If they don't want us to use the lower level spells, take them out of the spellbook.

Does a lvl 60 rogue still use a lvl 1 gouge?

Don't render all casters useless... I think I can help melee, I've got a dagger that's 40.1DPS...

In MC, the mages primary job will be to sit in the back, make food and water, and de-curse, since none of our lvl 54 rank 10 Frostbolts will touch any of the MoBs.

EDIT:
By the way, I went to Light's Hope this morning to progress the Ras Frostwhisper quest line we're doing...

By the time I got off the bat, I was dead.

2-shotted by a hunter. That's with Onoxia's buff, ice armor, and a fort (plus Arcane Int) from last night. :(

[Wez]

In MC, the mages primary job will be to sit in the back, make food and water, and de-curse, since none of our lvl 54 rank 10 Frostbolts will touch any of the MoBs.

http://www.darkspearhorde.org/forums/showthread.php?t=532

[sultaro]

OK wait a minute now how in Gods name could this not be caught on the test server?!?!?!?!? Guss I need to go check out what lvl I was when I learned my last set of spells.... :confused:

[Wez]

Highest rank Dispell is learned at level 36, Vampiric Embrace is learned at level 30......this has got to be a joke.

[Mackadoody]

The nerf applies to De-buff spells...

That's spells that create DoT's, spells that slow, and spells that take you out of things... like stealth.

That's my whole offensive spell line.

I suck... or I can endlessly farm and gank people and MoBs lvl 56 and below.

[xeno]

it's another hunter buff... nobody told you? :P

[raideromega]

i was wondering why the crap i was sucking in AB the other day. thats a load of crap! they better make my dang spells work or im guna have to go on to BF2.

just when i was getting good at using my frost spec the right way too.

[Aharzo_DN]

It may of been an additional bit of code added to facilitate the later change of making it so rank 1 spells cannot be used to kick people out of stealth.

Along with all the other stupid AOE stuff that does.

To be honest I cant tell you how sick I am of a spell I resist kicking me out of stealth.

Im sure they'll hotfix it for PVE (does it even affect high end PVE? - i.e is there some sort of non-viewable level cap in place)

[Mackadoody]

It may of been an additional bit of code added to facilitate the later change of making it so rank 1 spells cannot be used to kick people out of stealth.

Along with all the other stupid AOE stuff that does.

To be honest I cant tell you how sick I am of a spell I resist kicking me out of stealth.

Im sure they'll hotfix it for PVE (does it even affect high end PVE? - i.e is there some sort of non-viewable level cap in place)


Try running MC with a mage who only hits and damages 60% of the time... Arcane Missles and Frostbolts highest rank is attained at lvl 56.

And according to Blue.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=4899366&p=2
Our Quality Assurance Department has just thoroughly tested spell resistances and it appears as if they're are all working correctly. We've tested with both PC and NPC targets and everything appears to us to be working the same as before version 1.7 released.

If you guys have more specific data, please post in the Bug Reporting forums so those responsible for testing and analysis can review the information properly.

We'll have to see, I'm running ZG with the guys tonight... The squishies will have to compare notes.

[barks]

Post number 347 for the win

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=4899366&P=18

Hopefully this will clear up any confusion that is currently widespread regarding spell resistances as well as reinforce the fact that since these reports back come in, QA really has tested spell resistances thoroughly and found that they are working in 1.7.0 exactly the same way that they were working in 1.6.1.

Firstly, as you all know, the following note is included in the patch 1.7.0 patch notes:

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

In better terms, this means that Debuffs and area effect spells now use their adjusted cast level rather then the level the spell became available when calculating periodic resistance. For example, Blizzard rank 5 (a spell learned at level 52) cast by a level 60 mage should be considered cast by a level 60 caster not a level 52 caster.

Secondly, below is the current spell resist percentage table before and after patch 1.6.0:

The general resistance data is as follows for PVE:
Vs. +0 level mob (same level), old resist: 4% new resist: 4%
Vs. +1 level mob, old resist: 5% new resist: 5%
Vs. +2 level mob, old resist: 6% new resist: 6%
Vs. +3 level mob, old resist: 37% new resist: 17%
Vs. +4 level mob, old resist: 48% new resist: 28%
Vs. +5 level mob, old resist: 59% new resist: 39%
Vs. +6 level mob, old resist: 70% new resist: 50%
…
And so on (+11% for each additional level)

The general resistance data is as follows for PVP:
Vs. +0 level player (same level), old resist: 4% new resist: 4%
Vs. +1 level player, old resist: 5% new resist: 5%
Vs. +2 level player, old resist: 6% new resist: 6%
Vs. +3 level player, old resist: 25% new resist: 13%
Vs. +4 level player, old resist: 32% new resist: 20%
Vs. +5 level player, old resist: 39% new resist: 27%
Vs. +6 level player, old resist: 46% new resist: 34%
…
And so on (+7% for each additional level)

We have tested this chart again in patch 1.7.0 on live retail servers and verified that these percentages are correct.

Lastly, I took several of the reports from this thread and had them tested as closely as possible to how they were described in the original post. All of these reports were testing on a currently live retail 1.7.0 realm. The outcomes of these tests are listed below:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
so many resists

i had drain life and drain soul resisted like hell against lvl 53/54 stuff in BL yesterday.

just silly.

4 consecutive resists against drain sould from a 60 lock on a 54 mob???

c'mon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



As a level 60 Warlock fighting a level 53 Helboar from Blasted Lands our test resist rates with Drain Soul and Drain Life were as follows:

Rank 1 Drain Soul
50 spell hits
1 spell resist

Rank 4 Drain Soul
50 spell hits
1 spell resists

Rank 1 Drain Life
50 spell hits
0 spell resists

Rank 6 Drain Life
50 spell hits
1 spell resist
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
yup getting full or partial resists on a very high rate with my lightning spells and shocks...definately noticeable and i am using the highest rank of all abilities...terrible thing is the only testing i have done is on level 51-54 elites, which by all reasoning shouldn't resist hardly at all being so much lower level than i am...very strange indeed
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



As a level 60 Shaman fighting a level 54 elite Anvilrage Marshall our test resist rates with Earth Shock and Lightning Bolt were as follows.

Rank 1 Earth Shock
50 spell hits
0 spell resists

Rank 7 Earth Shock
50 spell hits
1 spell resist

Rank 1 Lightning Bolt
50 spell hits
0 spell resists

Rank 10 Lightning bolt
50 spell hits
1 spell resist --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
I'm getting about 33% resist rates on my Frost Nova. Go Go lvl 54 max rank spells!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



As a level 60 Mage fighting a level 57 Blackrock Battlemaster our test resist rates with several mage spells including Frost Nova were as follows:

Rank 1 Fireball
50 spell hits
1 spell resist

Rank 11 Fireball
50 spell hits
1 spell resist

Rank 1 Frost Nova
50 spell hits
1 spell resist

Rank 4 Frost Nova
50 spell hits
0 spell resists

Rank 1 Frostbolt
50 spell hits
1 spell resist

Rank 10 Frostbolt
50 spell hits
0 spell resist
-

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
I see so many RESISTs for Crippling Poison that I'm tempted to switch to Instant/Instant -- because Instant Poison still works.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



As a level 60 Rogue fighting a level 60 npc target our test resists with Crippling Poison were as follows.

Rank 1 Crippling Poison
50 spell hits
2 spell resists

Rank 2 Crippling Poison
50 spell hits
1 spell resist

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q u o t e:
I hope you're kidding.

Since 1.7 in level 60 vs level 60 PvP in Arathi Basin the amount of times my Cheapshot stun (the only reason to use Cheapshot as your opener I might add) has been resisted so often I thought I had broken my talent spec somehow. See also gouge and blind being parried, dodged etc at a far higher rate. You don't even need logs to notice it. It was so noticeable I couldn't NOT notice it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



As a level 60 Rogue fighting another level 60 player and attacking from behind our test resists with Cheap Shot were as follows.

Cheap Shot

50 spell hits
0 spell misses

Just as a final test, we also looked at a level 60 Mage using Fireblast against another level 60 player. Our resists were as follows:

Rank 1 Fireblast
50 spell hits
1 spell resist

Rank 7 Fireblast
50 spell hits
1 spell resist

Rank 1 Frost Nova
50 spell hits
0 spell resists

Rank 4 Frost Nova
50 spell hits
2 spell resists


Tallying up all of the results from these 6 tests we see that out of a total of 1066 spell attempts 1050 of our spells hit and only 16 of them were resisted. This is about a 1.5% resist rate.

A combat system based on randomly generated numbers will always have a chance of giving you a “resist”, “miss”, “parry”, etc several times in a row. As low as this chance might be, it is still a possibility. As low as the chance of a coin landing on heads 100 times in a row is, it’s still a possibility.

Another thing to remember is that both PC and NPC targets can have both resistances and abilities that will cause you to resist more often. For example, an NPC could be resistant to shadow damage or a Hunter PC could have the “Surefooted” talent that gives them a chance to resist stuns.

Even though we were able to show that resist rates are not completely abnormal in this patch I am not completely ruling out the possibility that under some circumstances that we have not tested yet, resistances could become broken. If anyone has any solid evidence showing that they are actually getting extremely high resist rates from either NPC or PC targets I urge you to please provide us with that evidence. We have seen reports of people saying that they have seen as low as 1/10 chance to hit. Without any information regarding the circumstances under how to reproduce these kinds of problems, these kinds of reports do not help us at all. Again, if you do have this problem I urge you to post proof so that you can aid us in ensuring that the World of Warcraft is as bug free as possible.

Thanks!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- motive -
Blizzard QA Lead Tester

[Dokar]

wow, owned by blue. ;)

Also, there were rumors that they stealth fixed it yesterday afternoon...

[Romac]

wow, owned by blue. ;)

Also, there were rumors that they stealth fixed it yesterday afternoon...
lol

that is the best and timely response by a blue that i can remember seeing. The funny thing is that i've been noticing way more resists, but i bet it's all because of the constant buzz in-game of everyone talking about the great resist ninja nerf.

[Wez]

Yea, whats up....how could Blizz testing be so off from what others have been saying?

[Mackadoody]

This is my combat stat from Live Stratholme last night, two runs for the Archivist and the head of Balnezaar.


I guess we're talking about lvl 58-60 MoBs...

http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload1/WoWScrnShot_091705_113031.jpg

average of about 300 frostbolts(Rank 10, attained at lvl 56 - 17 misses = 5.7%)... I've gotta keep this data, since I never really took SS's of the resists in 1.6

[Qece]

This is my combat stat from Live Stratholme last night, two runs for the Archivist and the head of Balnezaar.


I guess we're talking about lvl 58-60 MoBs...

http://upl.silentwhisper.net/uplfolders/upload1/WoWScrnShot_091705_113031.jpg

average of about 300 frostbolts(Rank 10, attained at lvl 56 - 17 misses = 5.7%)... I've gotta keep this data, since I never really took SS's of the resists in 1.6

Dude, what UI is that? I could do with it to test for myself. From the looks of it though you didn't have many problems and I have to concede that aside from the first day, when I did undoubtedly have extra resists, I'm ok now.

In fact, on Friday night I duelled one of DN's best duelists (Dibb, 60 Shammy) and took him to the wire.......................he of course blames the beer but we all know that it was just my general uberness and, more specifically, entire lack of resistance on his part. :o

[Mackadoody]

It's called Recap... Its the mod that also shows the party DPS, heals and crits.. you can set it to just analyze your data.

It was part of Insomniax.

[Qece]

It's called Recap... Its the mod that also shows the party DPS, heals and crits.. you can set it to just analyze your data.

It was part of Insomniax.

Thanks Mack, I'll look it up when I get home from work.