I’ve been googling around trying to gather information on how “useful”, if at all, resistances are in PvP. I would love to stack some resistance and have it give me a little bit of an edge against certain caster types. If I could aim to stack frost resist to counter mages or shadow resist for priests and warlocks, I would love to try that. What I am worried about is that it’s just not possible to do such a thing or the benefits would be minuscule. But based off what I am reading it seems like I would need 150 resistance to be useful, but I am also reading that this is against lvl 50 spells. I can’t seem to find much data on lvl 60s vs lvl 60s.
Thanks for any help in advanced!
Magic resist varies on the type of spell. You have full resist, and partial resists. So resists would either allow you to outright resist a spell, like Pyroblast. Or you simply resist part of the damage, like Shadow Bolt (or Pyroblasts’ dot damage).
Resists are very useful in pvp, even at around 50. I’m too lazy to find exact numbers though.
It’s also def a strat to have resist gear for certain matchups. For instance a warrior in frost gear can actually kill a frost mage, and rogues/warriors can stack shadow resist for locks/spriests. It becomes less viable in later phases once spell penetration comes out.
You need quite a bit before it becomes noticeable. 150 min, really 200+.
Thank you, I can definitely see hitting the 50 resistance very manageable in my PvP sets, so that’s actually nice to hear. I am also the type of person to build out frost resist, shadow resist, etc sets for various WSG games that start to drag out.
Definitely doesn’t need to be that high. But it depends on what you consider noticeable. You can test how much you get from partial resists by looking at your combat log (will say something like Shadow Bolt hits you for 1500 (250 resisted))
I’m conflag spec, and i’ve dueled warriors with 150 fire resists and my damage is literally halved. That’s not to mention how high your outright resist chance can get. My DC gets resisted constantly from people with just raid set shadow resist, and i have +8% to hit with affliction.
Noticeable in my opinion being high enough that it might actually impact the outcome of the fight. Sure if they’ve got 100 or so I’ll get some partials, but its not going to change the fight results. Unless they’ve got over 200, I’m still going to beat them as if they had 0 pretty much.
An outright resist at any point could lose you a fight in pvp. Whether that’s a fear, DC, Shadowburn, Dot on a rogue, whatever. Partial resists are still pretty substantial sub 100, and can easily be the deciding factor in a fight.
Sure depending on class/skill matchup, you can still win the fight, but it’d definitely be harder, and it could definitely swing group fights.
100 resistance gives roughly 25% chance to resist a spell of that magic type. You also resist a portion of damage from hard hitting spells that manage to land, like shadowbolt and frostbolt.
However spells with no bulk damage, or spells that only do DoT damage (affliction locks, SW:pain, etc) can only be resisted fully, or hit fully. You can’t resist a portion of a DoT. Once it lands, you’ll take the full damage.
You’ll also be gimped if you’re stacking too much resistances, or if you stack resistance and then have to pvp someone that uses a different kind of spell. So obvious perks to stacking resistances, also obvious draw backs. It’s advised to use the addon item rack. It allows you to keybind your gear in specific sets. So if you’re out of combat and see a lock or priest you can swap into all your shadow resist gear instantly, or frost gear for a mage.
2 Likes
Not really as SL. You have plenty of time to try again. It can make a difference in group pvp, but, they are making themselves tougher against one type at the expense of their own output. Kinda a wash unless we’re talking 2v2 arena.
You realize that using SL as an example of the usefulness of resists is kind of stupid right? SL’s strength is based on their tankiness, not actual damage output. And even then, resists still matter.
I figured using a pvp spec to measure the value of resists in pvp was actually fairly relevant.
OK, by that train of thought we can look how well your nature resist is going to help you with an enhancement shaman.
Likewise, look at how much it would help you vs a fire/frost mage, a spriest, an ele shaman, and any other warlock spec.
Come on now…