Yatsa
Legend
The experimental viability of resistance gear via Void Sphere gem slots for 70 twinks in Patch 5.4.7
Method:
I farmed a second set of gem slot gear specifically for these tests and slotted it completely with void spheres, and with the help of the combat log and a calculator, determined the ranges of percent damage resisted as well as counted the number of attacks completely resisted for several different amounts of stacked resistance.
Conclusion:
The end result is a working theory, so far only tested with mage spells used on a blood DK:
1) 32 resistance has the same effect as 44 resistance. At both of these amounts, all resistible attacks do a range of 10% to 33% less damage.
2) At this cap, roughly 8% of all spells are completely resisted, dealing no damage whatsoever.
32 resistance would mitigate between 10 to 33 percent of all damage from resistable spells AND completely negate 8% of all those spells cast. Whether or not this is worth the cost (currently 8 gem slots of any color, with void spheres) is debatable, though in limited use (such as flag carrying in rated battlegrounds) I would consider this a viable option.
Experimentation (Trials that led to my conclusions):
For these tests, I took a dual-boxing account with a recently leveled mage in 70 pvp gear (no gems) and dueled a twinked blood dk with a mix of BC raid gear and pvp gear. The blood DK did nothing during the duels, while the mage launched the same attack repeatedly. The logs were analyzed thereafter.
Trial 1: Control test (No resistance on the blood dk. 50 ice lances were cast by the mage)
No damage was resisted, 1 attack missed.
Trial 2: 44 resistance via void sphere gem slots. 100 ice lances were cast by the mage.
Damage was completely negated due to resistance 7 times out of 100. Misses were not counted towards the tally. Between 10% and 32.22% of every cast was resisted.
Trial 3: Frostfire bolt cast 20 times, 44 resistance on the DK. Tested whether or not resistance would proc twice, as the spell was both frost and fire:
2 completely negated attacks, damage mitigated between 10% and 32.25%
Note: No change in effect from trial 2, suggesting resistance is calculated for dual-school spells in the same manner as single-school spells.
Trial 4: Frostfire bolt cast 20 times, DK swapped gear to lower resistance to 32. Hypothesized that the damage mitigated would be reduced:
2 completely negated attacks, damage mitigated between 10% and 32.25%.
Note: No change whatsoever from Trial 3, suggesting that a cap on resistance has already been exceeded. Hypothesis - the amount of damage resisted is 33% rounded down, accounting for the consistent 32.25% for Frostfire bolt and 32.22% for ice lance.
Trial 5: Casting ice lance 20 times at a blood dk with 20 resistance (more gear swapped): Hypothesized that no change would be apparent.
Resistance ranged from 0% (nothing resisted) to 21.72% (consistently 21.something over 5 on largest resists). No full resistances recorded.
Note: Hypothesis incorrect, amounts of resistance appear to affect both the amount of damage per attack resisted and the chance for attacks to be negated altogether (more trials needed to confirm the negation chance)
Trial 6: Casting ice lance 20 times at a blood dk with 28 resistance (gear swaps)
Resistance ranged from 0% (nothing resisted) to 21.82%. No attacks completely negated.
Final Notes: No change - the extra 8 resistance over the last trial has no effect whatsoever. I thought resistance might only demonstrate an effect in tens (for example, 10 resist might give <11% max reduction in damage, 20 gives <22%, 30 gives <33%?), but trial 2, 3, and 4 demonstrated no advantage of having 44 resistance over 32 resistance. As trial 5 and 6 suggest no difference in 20 and 28 resistance, resistance appears to have set values you need to exceed to attain improved results. Due to the limitations of my available gem slots, 32 resistance yields the maximum possible effect at level 70 within my means of achieving through DK gem slots alone. It IS possible that 48+ resistance would yield increased results, and based on these trials I would speculate further results would yield just under 44% maximum damage mitigated if another tier of resistance exists.
-Yatsa
Addendum: Trial 7, 8, and 9: All Casting Ice Lance on a Blood DK with Varying Levels of Resistance
**All percentages rounded down to the tenth decimal place
Trial 7
At 62 Resistance
(13 void spheres, 1 band of many prisms)
On non-critical hits:
Highest: 43.2% (6 of 30 strikes ranged from 42-43% resisted)
Lowest: 11.1% (6 of the 30 strikes ranged from 11-13% resisted)
Critical resists: 3 (3 of 30 strikes 100% resisted)
On a critical hit by the attacker with ice lance, the lowest percentage dove under the
previously demonstrated 'low cap' for one particular strike:
Lowest: 5.8%
All other crits stayed within the 11-43% range.
Trial 8
At 52 resistance
(13 void spheres)
Out of 30 strikes:
Highest: 43.1% resisted
Lowest: 11.0% resisted
Critical resists: 5 (5 of 30 strikes 100% resisted)
Critical Hits:
Highest: 19.6%
Lowest: 5.8% resisted
Trial 9
At 48 resistance
(12 void spheres)
Highest: 32.7% resisted
Lowest: 11.1% resisted
Critical Resists: 4 (4 of 30 strikes 100% resisted)
Critical Hits:
Highest: 19.5% resisted
Lowest: 5.8% resisted
Updated Conclusions:
1) Resistance upgrades appear to happen at hard caps. There is no difference in 32 and 48 resistance, but having 52 resistance will increase the maximum effective mitigation by 10%. No further gains are demonstrable between 52 and 62 resistance, suggesting that the next hard cap is greater than 62.
2) It is possible for an attacker to halve the mitigation from resistance on a critical hit. This effect halved the mitigation below the resitance low-cap only three times during 90 attacks over varying levels of resistance. (Speculation: these three outliers halved a perfectly low resistance roll. If the resistance on the defender was 48, normally giving 11-32% mitigation, then a lower end random 11% after being halved would give the 5.8% demonstrated in both of these two 'critical-critical hits').
Method:
I farmed a second set of gem slot gear specifically for these tests and slotted it completely with void spheres, and with the help of the combat log and a calculator, determined the ranges of percent damage resisted as well as counted the number of attacks completely resisted for several different amounts of stacked resistance.
Conclusion:
The end result is a working theory, so far only tested with mage spells used on a blood DK:
1) 32 resistance has the same effect as 44 resistance. At both of these amounts, all resistible attacks do a range of 10% to 33% less damage.
2) At this cap, roughly 8% of all spells are completely resisted, dealing no damage whatsoever.
32 resistance would mitigate between 10 to 33 percent of all damage from resistable spells AND completely negate 8% of all those spells cast. Whether or not this is worth the cost (currently 8 gem slots of any color, with void spheres) is debatable, though in limited use (such as flag carrying in rated battlegrounds) I would consider this a viable option.
Experimentation (Trials that led to my conclusions):
For these tests, I took a dual-boxing account with a recently leveled mage in 70 pvp gear (no gems) and dueled a twinked blood dk with a mix of BC raid gear and pvp gear. The blood DK did nothing during the duels, while the mage launched the same attack repeatedly. The logs were analyzed thereafter.
Trial 1: Control test (No resistance on the blood dk. 50 ice lances were cast by the mage)
No damage was resisted, 1 attack missed.
Trial 2: 44 resistance via void sphere gem slots. 100 ice lances were cast by the mage.
Damage was completely negated due to resistance 7 times out of 100. Misses were not counted towards the tally. Between 10% and 32.22% of every cast was resisted.
Trial 3: Frostfire bolt cast 20 times, 44 resistance on the DK. Tested whether or not resistance would proc twice, as the spell was both frost and fire:
2 completely negated attacks, damage mitigated between 10% and 32.25%
Note: No change in effect from trial 2, suggesting resistance is calculated for dual-school spells in the same manner as single-school spells.
Trial 4: Frostfire bolt cast 20 times, DK swapped gear to lower resistance to 32. Hypothesized that the damage mitigated would be reduced:
2 completely negated attacks, damage mitigated between 10% and 32.25%.
Note: No change whatsoever from Trial 3, suggesting that a cap on resistance has already been exceeded. Hypothesis - the amount of damage resisted is 33% rounded down, accounting for the consistent 32.25% for Frostfire bolt and 32.22% for ice lance.
Trial 5: Casting ice lance 20 times at a blood dk with 20 resistance (more gear swapped): Hypothesized that no change would be apparent.
Resistance ranged from 0% (nothing resisted) to 21.72% (consistently 21.something over 5 on largest resists). No full resistances recorded.
Note: Hypothesis incorrect, amounts of resistance appear to affect both the amount of damage per attack resisted and the chance for attacks to be negated altogether (more trials needed to confirm the negation chance)
Trial 6: Casting ice lance 20 times at a blood dk with 28 resistance (gear swaps)
Resistance ranged from 0% (nothing resisted) to 21.82%. No attacks completely negated.
Final Notes: No change - the extra 8 resistance over the last trial has no effect whatsoever. I thought resistance might only demonstrate an effect in tens (for example, 10 resist might give <11% max reduction in damage, 20 gives <22%, 30 gives <33%?), but trial 2, 3, and 4 demonstrated no advantage of having 44 resistance over 32 resistance. As trial 5 and 6 suggest no difference in 20 and 28 resistance, resistance appears to have set values you need to exceed to attain improved results. Due to the limitations of my available gem slots, 32 resistance yields the maximum possible effect at level 70 within my means of achieving through DK gem slots alone. It IS possible that 48+ resistance would yield increased results, and based on these trials I would speculate further results would yield just under 44% maximum damage mitigated if another tier of resistance exists.
-Yatsa
Addendum: Trial 7, 8, and 9: All Casting Ice Lance on a Blood DK with Varying Levels of Resistance
**All percentages rounded down to the tenth decimal place
Trial 7
At 62 Resistance
(13 void spheres, 1 band of many prisms)
On non-critical hits:
Highest: 43.2% (6 of 30 strikes ranged from 42-43% resisted)
Lowest: 11.1% (6 of the 30 strikes ranged from 11-13% resisted)
Critical resists: 3 (3 of 30 strikes 100% resisted)
On a critical hit by the attacker with ice lance, the lowest percentage dove under the
previously demonstrated 'low cap' for one particular strike:
Lowest: 5.8%
All other crits stayed within the 11-43% range.
Trial 8
At 52 resistance
(13 void spheres)
Out of 30 strikes:
Highest: 43.1% resisted
Lowest: 11.0% resisted
Critical resists: 5 (5 of 30 strikes 100% resisted)
Critical Hits:
Highest: 19.6%
Lowest: 5.8% resisted
Trial 9
At 48 resistance
(12 void spheres)
Highest: 32.7% resisted
Lowest: 11.1% resisted
Critical Resists: 4 (4 of 30 strikes 100% resisted)
Critical Hits:
Highest: 19.5% resisted
Lowest: 5.8% resisted
Updated Conclusions:
1) Resistance upgrades appear to happen at hard caps. There is no difference in 32 and 48 resistance, but having 52 resistance will increase the maximum effective mitigation by 10%. No further gains are demonstrable between 52 and 62 resistance, suggesting that the next hard cap is greater than 62.
2) It is possible for an attacker to halve the mitigation from resistance on a critical hit. This effect halved the mitigation below the resitance low-cap only three times during 90 attacks over varying levels of resistance. (Speculation: these three outliers halved a perfectly low resistance roll. If the resistance on the defender was 48, normally giving 11-32% mitigation, then a lower end random 11% after being halved would give the 5.8% demonstrated in both of these two 'critical-critical hits').
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