Resists ARE misses, for spells. Every caster should go for spell hit cap, but it’s pretty hard to get while having decent spell damage early on.
Cap for equal level (like in PvP) is 4% IIRC.
+0 levels = 4%
+1 level = 5%
+2 levels = 6% (most 5 man bosses)
+3 levels = 17% (raid bosses)
There’s also SM/Ruin which is a 5% dps difference between the two. It’s the more well rounded spec that’s good in any content. DS/Ruin is unfortunately more limited outside of raiding.
It can be a tough choice between the two, but the raid will want at least one SM/Ruin lock for imp buff.
Thanks for the responses.
We still get hit, but we never quite hit cap. I’d link bis list, but Blizzard’s new forums won’t let me.
paste it, highlight it, and then hit the </> looking button in your toolbar
Technical Pre BiS and BiS list per stage: https://goo.gl/3bvbs9
Man, 9% (Naxx level) seems… really low. I’ll trust the number crunching that’s happened over the last 14 years, but damn. 1% through MC seems atrociously poor too.
There is a Felwood quest chain that allows locks to get a +1% spell hit staff with + spell dmg on it.
Yeah that was the ST class quest… added fairly late IIRC. I ended up choosing the VW trinket because I already had BWL gear by then and I used the trinket for farming.
It’s slightly different. “Resist” is the message that shows up when a spell misses, and what you have here is the correct base spell ‘miss’ chance.
However, it is also possible for a target to have Resistance to an element. Having resistance increases the ‘miss’ chance, but also offers the option of a partial resist, where the spell lands but deals reduced damage. (Nondamaging spells have binary resist, which means they miss more often.)
This kind of resistance isn’t something that warlocks have to deal with often, thanks to Curse of Shadows/Curse of Elements, but it theoretically might come up at some point.
Yeah, it does on a few bosses (mostly deep AQ40 and Naxx IIRC). Well, for many more with Fire but a full Destro build was so bad I don’t think anyone seriously bothered with one for PvE.
Are you sure it ups the miss chance though? I thought it was also just a “resist”, and Blizz sucked at making it visible for the players (we couldn’t tell if it was a miss or a resist when it just said resist no matter what).
Hit cap is for resists. Spells don’t miss in Vanilla, they either resist (partially or fully, depends on the spell) or they hit. Getting more spell hit lowers the chances of spells being resisted.
There’s also always a 1% chance to have the spell resist no matter how much spell hit you have. There’s 5% chance to miss in PVP but you only need 4% to be hitcapped because of that reason.
Speaking of that Imp buff, is there any popular build that utilizes the talent that increases the Imp’s buffs by 30%?
To the best of my recollection, additional spell hit will reduce the chance of ‘spell no land’ derived from additional numerical resistances.
I could be wrong, though!
Generally speaking you should focus on spell damage first and worry about hit second. Suppression doesn’t help much if your RAID leader is limiting what DOTs you can put on the primary target. DS/Ruin and sacrificing the Succubus is a very common RAIDing build. Or you may be called upon to keep your imp up for the tank group, so expect that too. Don’t throw away any hit gear you get and certainly keep a list of where various bits and pieces can be obtained from. You want those pieces when you can get them. But spell damage is what you will be looking for most of the time.
Spell hit really only matters in RAIDs. Maybe a tiny bit for PVP but I don’t recall ever actually focusing on it for PVP builds during the Vanilla days. Generally speaking other classes did not have much in the way of resists (Warlocks actually could have better resists than other classes in PVP due to the MD + FelHunter). Spell hit will never be able to override someone who specifically gears for high resists.
This may seem strange to some folk, but for 5-man Dungeons I almost universally went with a Soul Link build. I would run with the imp but always be ready to quickly pull out the VW if necessary, or if off-tanking was required to offload a poorly geared tank. The reason was simple… a Warlock can easily save a 5-man group from a wipe or near-wipe. You will have a higher percentage of smooth, successful dungeon runs with a defensive build verses being able to kill the mobs slightly faster. And you can still DS a Succubus to get some of the lost DPS back if it came down to it. Also, sometimes pulling out the Fel Hunter was useful due to the resists and dispell it offered, so building all the way to SL with some points in MD as well could be very useful for 5-man dungeons.
(Using the FH in a RAID could also be useful when you were undergeared and lacking required resists, but only as a temporary shim for particular fights where you were dying because of a lack of resists. You lose considerable DPS when you have a SL talent build).
Multiple talent builds are useful in PVP but being able to quickly call up a VW and sacrifice it for a shield is typically a minimum requirement, which means getting to at least the Master Summoner talent mid-tree. Warlocks don’t last long in PVP if their pet is killed.
Soul Link is NOT as useful as you might think in PVP. At best a warlock might talent through Master Demonologist (the MD bonuses with pet out are important and you can still get RUIN from the Destruction tree and DS a succubus)… building through MD gives the warlock a lot of flexibility, so consider it for PVP. Soul Link can be useful for flag defense but that is about it… you will have trouble finishing off opponents with a SL build. The extra 3% DPS just doesn’t move the needle.
In Vanilla I almost never DS’d for mana regen. The only time I ever did it was when I was protecting bottlenecks in AV from a hill or tower, to improve my sustain. And even then if I DS’d for regen it would usually be the Void Walker and not the Fel Hunter. Casting Life Tap is not a big deal. At most other times I needed the pet to be up.
-Matt
Yeah I’m just trying to remember, it’s been a long time since Vanilla. I know the end result but can’t recall if it’s a different metric just confusingly using the same output (“RESIST” scrolling text) or if they are combined. I’m not sure if it really makes much of a difference either, honestly.
I don’t remember if resists are tied into the spell miss mechanic, but I do remember that resists also had a damage reduction component in addition to the complete miss mechanic. Depending on how much resistance you had, the enemy could get roughly the equivalent of a glancing blow against you that was 25%, 50%, or 75% lower damage. Something like that. It was a very deterministic damage reduction… it ran in four tiers so you needed enough resist to get yourself to the next tier to trigger it.
I remember this from when I was soloing mobs in the center of Feathermoon Isle, before Blizzard finished building the island out. They did a ton of … I think poison or nature damage and I needed high resists to be able to solo them with my FelHunter.
But I don’t remember precisely what period during those early years I was doing that so I’m not 100% sure that it was strictly during Vanilla.
-Matt
This is copied from a guide on vanillagaming
Players have resistances to one or more spell-schools. In battlegrounds players may have shadow protection, mark of the wild, paladin auras or totems that increases player resistances, so having spell penetration is quite useful in PvP and should not be forgotten. However this guide will focus on spell penetration from a PvE-point of view.
The trash mobs in Molten Core will have high fire resistances or even immunity. Mages would spec Frost there and so spell penetration would only be neccesary for the bosses.
All bosses have resistances to all schools (fire, shadow, nature etc.), different numbers depending on the school and the boss. Some bosses are more resistant to Shadow, some are more resistant to Nature, etc.
This boss resistance means that a part of your damage will be reduced unless you find ways to reduce the enemys resistance.
Warlocks can cast Curse of the Elements and Curse of Shadows
When these 2 curses are on the mob (you will need 2 warlocks), Shadow, Arcane, Frost and Fire resistance on the target is reduced by 75.
It is not possible to reduce a player or monsters resistance to less than 0.
Resistance comes after Hit
When you cast on a mob, the first thing that happens is the Hit roll. Meaning that you need Chance to Hit to overcome a level difference for example. This is before resistance is added into the picture.
As a caster you will -always- have 1% chance to miss with your spells.
Vs target of your own level: 4% chance to miss. 3% chance to Hit is needed for cap. (pvp)
Vs target of your own level +1: 5% chance to miss. 4% chance to Hit is needed for cap.
Vs target of your own level +2: 6% chance to miss. 5% chance to Hit is needed for cap.
Vs target of your own level +3: 17% chance to miss. 16% chance to Hit is needed for cap.
Spell Penetration will only increase the effect of spells that already have succesfully landed on the target. However, even spells that land have a chance to do nothing at all if the mob resistance is very high. That’s what spell penetration is for.
Miss is when you don’t have enough Chance to Hit.
Resist is when you don’t have enough Spell Penetration.
That being said, our combat log doesn’t make it easy for us to see what’s going on. For some reason even when a spell misses, it will show as “resisted” in the combat log. Keep this in mind when you observe combat logs. But for the sake of understanding the mechanic we’ll just have to be aware that there is a difference.
Binary and non-binary spells
Some spells will either do their full effect or none at all. It is not possible to have 50% of your counterspell be resisted.
Binary spells will also be affected by the targets resistance, but their chance to resist will be the “average dps lost” percentage.
Casting a binary spell on a mob with 100 resistance will mean that it gets fully resisted 25% of the time.
Casting a non-binary spell on a mob with 100 resistance will mean that it has 1% chance to be fully resisted, 4% chance to deal 75% less damage, 19% chance to deal half damage, 47% chance to deal 25% less damage, and 29% chance to deal full damage.
Examples of Binary spells:
Death Coil, Fear, Howl of Terror, Banish
Frost Nova, Counterspell, Polymorph
Mind Control, Psychic Scream
Mind-Numbing Poison, Crippling Poison
Examples of Non-Binary spells:
Shadow Bolt, Searing Pain, Immolate
Fireball, Arcane Missiles, Flamestrike
Mind Blast, Holy Fire, Mind Flay
Deadly Poison, Instant Poison
To add to the whole binary spells, it’s good to know that spells that have a secondary non-damage effect will be binary. For example, Frostbolt can’t be partially resisted because it has a slow effect attached to it. Ditto for Frost Nova that has a root effect, or Death Coil that has a terrify effect.
Mind Flay is a binary spell for that very reason.
The initial application of a DoT is a binary spell (it either gets applied or not) but the ticks can be partially resisted.
Locks are basically blind casters until ZG.
It really depends on how blizzard does itemization but there are some pre-raid items with spell hit.
For example:
Other then those items, you won’t see any spell hit until zg/bwl and your dps won’t be that great, you will mostly be used for curse of shadows, elements, and recklessness, as well as banishes.
When ZG/BWL are available you’ll have a wide assortment of spell hit and you will see an increase in your damage. Some of these include
ZG
BWL