Anyone noticing excessive amount of resistances happening?
I have 70 spell pen, which is pretty good amount vs most buffs and it seems very broken compared to TBC classic.
In tbc classic they also messed up resist formula or spell pen didnt even work, just feels really off right now, or is it just me ?
Its so bad. It feels like everyone resists everything. Some spells like Bash dont even need to be bound…
On 2.5.5, the main problem is that players often lump several different mechanics together under one word: “resists.” That makes the whole system feel random, even when different parts of it are working exactly as the game intends.
There are three separate layers to understand: base spell miss chance, actual school resistance, and talent- or mechanic-based extra resist effects.
The first layer is base spell hit. Against a same-level player, spells do not start at 100% chance to land. The base spell hit chance at 96% against a same-level target, 95% against +1, 94% against +2, and 87% against a +3 player. Spell hit increases this first roll directly. That means that even before resistance is involved, a same-level target already has a built-in 4% chance to make your spell fail.
The second layer is actual school resistance. This is the part that spell penetration is meant to counter. Spell penetration reduces the target’s relevant resistance point for point and cannot reduce it below zero. Under the old TBC resistance model, average resistance is based on the target’s effective resistance compared to caster level, with a hard cap of 75%.
At level 70, the useful shortcut is simple: every 46.7 effective resistance is about 10% average resistance.
That means:
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23.3 resistance is about 5% average resistance
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46.7 resistance is about 10% average resistance
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70 resistance is about 15% average resistance
So if someone has 70 resistance to your school and you have 70 spell penetration, their effective resistance against you becomes 0. If someone has 100 resistance and you have 70 spell penetration, then 30 resistance remains. At level 70, 30 resistance works out to roughly 6.4% average resistance, because 30 divided by 466.7 is about 0.064.
The formula is:
Average Resistance = (Target Resistance / (Caster Level Ă— 5)) Ă— 0.75
At level 70, that becomes:
Average Resistance = (Target Resistance / 350) Ă— 0.75
Which can be rewritten as:
Average Resistance = Target Resistance Ă— (0.75 / 350)
Since 0.75 divided by 350 equals 0.002142857…, the inverse is 466.666…
So at level 70, the shortcut becomes:
Average Resistance = Resistance / 466.7
That is all the number means. It is just the level-70 version of the old resistance formula.
This is why someone can have “enough” spell penetration and still feel like the game is eating too many spells. Spell penetration only affects actual school resistance. It does not remove the base miss layer, and it does not automatically bypass talent-based mechanic resists. In practice, the player just sees resist or a failed spell and experiences all of it as one issue, even though the game is using multiple systems.
There is also an important difference between binary and non-binary spells. Binary spells use resistance as an additional modifier to the chance to land at all, while non-binary spells first do the hit check and then apply resistance afterward. In plain English, binary spells are harsher: resistance can turn them into a full fail. Non-binary spells are more likely to land and then lose part of their damage through partial resist.
A simple example makes this easier to follow.
Say you are fighting a same-level player. Your base spell hit is 96%. The target has 100 resistance to your school, and you have 70 spell penetration, so 30 resistance remains. That leftover resistance is about 6.4% average resistance at level 70.
For a non-binary spell, that usually means some damage gets shaved off after the spell lands.
For a binary spell, that same resistance affects the final chance to land, so the spell can feel much less reliable even though your spell penetration is good.
The spell penetration math still makes sense for real school resistance, but that is not the whole picture. You still have the base miss roll, binary spells are harsher, and talent-based mechanic resists are their own category. That is why 70 spell penetration can look completely adequate on paper and still feel bad in actual PvP.
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chat gpt answer
i have taken all that into consideration when i asked is it STILL bugged because it feels alot worse than last tbc classic. Its a bit hard of a thing to narrow down.
Also after they messed it up in tbc classic i have suspicions about it as well.
True,
ChatGPT summed up everything I had from theorycrafting across old archives, and it was on point. There are tons of docs covering 20 years. There are more, but they’re boring.