PvP Mechanics Questions

[Bolty]

Elitist Jerks has a good thread containing a lot of game mechanics and theorycrafting data. However, there are some holes I'm looking to fill with knowledge of some experts of WoW mechanics, particularly in mind to PvP (that thread is more about PvE than PvP).

1) When picking out enchants and gems for my Season 3 arena gear, I was looking to get some spellhit. In short, having a mana burn or psychic scream get resisted is devastating to a Priest, especially that fear due to the cooldown leaving you so exposed.

As a result, I did what quite a few high-end healing arena Priests do: put spellhit enchants on my gloves and head items. Along with a Great Dawnstone, I have 15+14+8=37 spellhit, or +2.93% hit, while staying over the resilience cap of 493 (501, to be precise).

Now, I know that all spellcasters have a 1% chance to "miss" with a spell, no matter what. What I keep seeing conflicting data about is how much spellhit is needed against other players - either 3% or 4%, to hit the 99% cap. And yes, I realize that's assuming no resistances. Would another 1.07% spellhit be beneficial for me to get? I can add 8 more spellhit via another Great Dawnstone and sacrifice 8 resilience to bring me to about 3.56% spellhit and 493 resilience, but only if it's worth doing so (remember how critical resilience is to a Priest).


2) This ties into the next question: resistances. Let's say my target has 50 resistance to shadow and I'm attacking with a mana burn. Would additional spellhit affect my odds of striking, or would only spell penetration then help to mitigate that 50 resistance? Again, I have a hard time finding solid data on this because spell penetration isn't useful in PvE.

Let's say both spellhit and spell penetration would boost my odds of hit against that 50 shadow resistance target. If so, which is more valuable? Is, say, 8 spellhit rating worth as much as 20 spell penetration? I have a feeling the answer may be "depends on how much resistance the target has."


3) Armor. Priests are starved for armor, especially when their greatest weakness is melee opponents. 35,880 AC is required to reach 75% mitigation against a raid boss (level 73). What's the formula for armor's value in PvP?

I ask because I'm comparing the value of the 120 armor enchant to cloak vs the +20 spell penetration enchant to cloak. With armor penetration now featured in Season 3 gear for melee opponents, they are even more able to mitigate what little armor I have (~2400 without Inner Fire, which is often purged or runs out). So I'm trying to figure out the value of 120 armor considering a few factors:

- if I'm Pain Suppressed, reducing all damage by 40%, is the armor reduction counted against the Pain Suppressed damage or the original damage? Taking a 1000 damage hit that is turned into 600 damage by Pain Suppression and then reduced by armor to 480 (20% off 600) means armor reduced the damage by 120. Taking a 1000 damage hit that is turned into 600 damage by Pain Suppression but also reduced by armor to 400 (20% of 1000) is a big difference in the grand scheme of things - a reduction of 200. Armor is more valuable in the latter scenario.

- Likewise with Focused Will, the new Priest discipline talent that can reduce all damage taken by 15%. Where does armor factor in?

In short, is it more beneficial to take an enchant that provides use whenever I'm under melee or Hunter attack consistently, over an enchant that may increase the odds of getting off a fear or mana burn but may also be of no use when fighting against those with no resistance? How much of a difference does 20 spell penetration make, and how much of a difference does 120 armor make, statistically? And what about armor penetration that my opponents will have plenty of within a month or two?

-Bolty

[Concillian]

Don't know if you're aware, but there is also a +240 armor leatherworking armor kit to gloves that was introduced in 2.3. I'll get my gloves next week, but my plan was to get armor to gloves.

Then again, the only team I'm competitive with is in 2s with a warlock. You know how 2s is. And with a warlock instead of the rogue you had, I'm potentially even less able to kite than you were. I have no chance to think about offense. I'm shooting for ~2800 armor unbuffed and well over 500 resilience.

Using the spellhit enchant to head is a decent option though.

[Skandranon]

1) When picking out enchants and gems for my Season 3 arena gear, I was looking to get some spellhit. In short, having a mana burn or psychic scream get resisted is devastating to a Priest, especially that fear due to the cooldown leaving you so exposed.

You have a 4% chance to miss against another player, so you only need 3%. You're fine.

2) This ties into the next question: resistances. Let's say my target has 50 resistance to shadow and I'm attacking with a mana burn. Would additional spellhit affect my odds of striking, or would only spell penetration then help to mitigate that 50 resistance? Again, I have a hard time finding solid data on this because spell penetration isn't useful in PvE.

This I'm not clear on, because I don't know (due to mana burn's unique mechanics) whether it's treated as a binary spell or not. Have you ever seen a partial resist on mana burn damage?

If it's non-binary, spell hit will not help and spell penetration will. If it's treated as a binary spell, spell hit will function as effective spell penetration.

Let's say both spellhit and spell penetration would boost my odds of hit against that 50 shadow resistance target. If so, which is more valuable? Is, say, 8 spellhit rating worth as much as 20 spell penetration? I have a feeling the answer may be "depends on how much resistance the target has."

Basically, yes. If your target has no resistances, penetration is worthless. That said, it only takes 4.6666... resistance to grant 1% chance to resist a spell of that school. You can overcome that with 12.6 spellhit or an equivalent amount of penetration. Against a target with at least 20 resistance, the cloak enchant is worth over 4% spell hit.

3) Armor. Priests are starved for armor, especially when their greatest weakness is melee opponents. 35,880 AC is required to reach 75% mitigation against a raid boss (level 73). What's the formula for armor's value in PvP?

I've done less research on armor, but I'm fairly sure the armor mitigation value is based solely on the level of the attacker and not the level of the target being attacked. The amount is given by x/(x+10557.5) for a level 70 attacker, where X is your armor value.

- if I'm Pain Suppressed, reducing all damage by 40%, is the armor reduction counted against the Pain Suppressed damage or the original damage? Taking a 1000 damage hit that is turned into 600 damage by Pain Suppression and then reduced by armor to 480 (20% off 600) means armor reduced the damage by 120. Taking a 1000 damage hit that is turned into 600 damage by Pain Suppression but also reduced by armor to 400 (20% of 1000) is a big difference in the grand scheme of things - a reduction of 200. Armor is more valuable in the latter scenario.

I'm fairly (but not completely) sure that it actually goes armor first (1000->800) and then you do PS (800->480). I am completely sure that such effects are done sequentially, and not together, because Defensive Stance does not stack linearly with armor (i.e. 65% mitigation + defensive stance does not mean that hits taken are 25% of the original value).

- Likewise with Focused Will, the new Priest discipline talent that can reduce all damage taken by 15%. Where does armor factor in?

Effects like this are added as multipliers to the end, I believe. So using the example above, if you have a full stack of Focused Will up, it goes 1000->800 (armor), 800->480 (PS), 480->408 (FW). You could, of course, do these operations in any order and end up with the same result, but the convention, I think, is to do armor first.

[Lissa]

Elitist Jerks has a good thread containing a lot of game mechanics and theorycrafting data. However, there are some holes I'm looking to fill with knowledge of some experts of WoW mechanics, particularly in mind to PvP (that thread is more about PvE than PvP).

1) When picking out enchants and gems for my Season 3 arena gear, I was looking to get some spellhit. In short, having a mana burn or psychic scream get resisted is devastating to a Priest, especially that fear due to the cooldown leaving you so exposed.

As a result, I did what quite a few high-end healing arena Priests do: put spellhit enchants on my gloves and head items. Along with a Great Dawnstone, I have 15+14+8=37 spellhit, or +2.93% hit, while staying over the resilience cap of 493 (501, to be precise).

Now, I know that all spellcasters have a 1% chance to "miss" with a spell, no matter what. What I keep seeing conflicting data about is how much spellhit is needed against other players - either 3% or 4%, to hit the 99% cap. And yes, I realize that's assuming no resistances. Would another 1.07% spellhit be beneficial for me to get? I can add 8 more spellhit via another Great Dawnstone and sacrifice 8 resilience to bring me to about 3.56% spellhit and 493 resilience, but only if it's worth doing so (remember how critical resilience is to a Priest).

For someone of equal level, mob or player you need 3% spell hit to hit. so 2.93% should be enough.

2) This ties into the next question: resistances. Let's say my target has 50 resistance to shadow and I'm attacking with a mana burn. Would additional spellhit affect my odds of striking, or would only spell penetration then help to mitigate that 50 resistance? Again, I have a hard time finding solid data on this because spell penetration isn't useful in PvE.

Let's say both spellhit and spell penetration would boost my odds of hit against that 50 shadow resistance target. If so, which is more valuable? Is, say, 8 spellhit rating worth as much as 20 spell penetration? I have a feeling the answer may be "depends on how much resistance the target has."

Depends on if Mana Burn is binary or not (I think it may be, but not sure as I can't recall if I have ever seen a partial resist on MB or not, binary is all or nothing, that's why a partial resist would tell the answer). For a Binary spell, the calculation is two fold, it takes into account your spell hit and it also takes into account your spell penetration. So depending on what level of DR from spell resistance the person has, the actual to hit is: [Base Spell hit (96%) + Spell hit (3%)] * Spell DR (25%, 50%, 75%, etc) so (0.96 + 0.0293) * 0.75 (25% DR) = 0.742 or 74.2% chance to hit. Add in Spell Penetration means that if you can drop their DR to next to nothing, you should hit almost 99% of the time. If MB is not binary (I still think it is) you would have a 98.93% chance to hit, but if MB is binary, it will depend on their spell DR.

3) Armor. Priests are starved for armor, especially when their greatest weakness is melee opponents. 35,880 AC is required to reach 75% mitigation against a raid boss (level 73). What's the formula for armor's value in PvP?

I ask because I'm comparing the value of the 120 armor enchant to cloak vs the +20 spell penetration enchant to cloak. With armor penetration now featured in Season 3 gear for melee opponents, they are even more able to mitigate what little armor I have (~2400 without Inner Fire, which is often purged or runs out). So I'm trying to figure out the value of 120 armor considering a few factors:

- if I'm Pain Suppressed, reducing all damage by 40%, is the armor reduction counted against the Pain Suppressed damage or the original damage? Taking a 1000 damage hit that is turned into 600 damage by Pain Suppression and then reduced by armor to 480 (20% off 600) means armor reduced the damage by 120. Taking a 1000 damage hit that is turned into 600 damage by Pain Suppression but also reduced by armor to 400 (20% of 1000) is a big difference in the grand scheme of things - a reduction of 200. Armor is more valuable in the latter scenario.

- Likewise with Focused Will, the new Priest discipline talent that can reduce all damage taken by 15%. Where does armor factor in?

In short, is it more beneficial to take an enchant that provides use whenever I'm under melee or Hunter attack consistently, over an enchant that may increase the odds of getting off a fear or mana burn but may also be of no use when fighting against those with no resistance? How much of a difference does 20 spell penetration make, and how much of a difference does 120 armor make, statistically? And what about armor penetration that my opponents will have plenty of within a month or two?

-Bolty

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the DR listed for your armor is correct for you against an equal level opponent. I'm not sure if Expertise and Defense will play a role here in changing it, but if you have the equation for the curve, just plug in level 70 and that should give you the armor value to achieve 75% DR.

As to how does Focused Will and Pain Suppression work, it would only kick in after someone blows through a shield and DR (from talents as well as armor) does not kick in unless it is damage directly to you (so a shield will not get the effects of DR from talents or from armor for absorbtion purposes). All damage reducing talents still calculate to the same if they are taken before or after DR. So if you are hit for 2000 damage, have a PW:S up that absorbs 1500, with a Armor DR of 40%, Pain Suppresion, and Focused Will you would see the following: Absorb 1500, 153 damage taken (500 * 0.6 = 300, 300 * 0.85 = 255, 255 * 0.6 = 153 or 500 * 0.85 = 425, 425 * .6 = 255, 255 * 0.6 = 153 or 500 * 0.6 = 300, 300 * .6 = 180, 180 * 0.85 = 153). So damage reduction from talents doesn't matter which order you put it in, it will still be the same.

[Concillian]

As to how does Focused Will and Pain Suppression work, it would only kick in after someone blows through a shield and DR (from talents as well as armor) does not kick in unless it is damage directly to you (so a shield will not get the effects of DR from talents or from armor for absorbtion purposes). All damage reducing talents still calculate to the same if they are taken before or after DR. So if you are hit for 2000 damage, have a PW:S up that absorbs 1500, with a Armor DR of 40%, Pain Suppresion, and Focused Will you would see the following: Absorb 1500, 153 damage taken (500 * 0.6 = 300, 300 * 0.85 = 255, 255 * 0.6 = 153 or 500 * 0.85 = 425, 425 * .6 = 255, 255 * 0.6 = 153 or 500 * 0.6 = 300, 300 * .6 = 180, 180 * 0.85 = 153). So damage reduction from talents doesn't matter which order you put it in, it will still be the same.

I'm pretty sure that shields take into account damage done exactly as if they were damage done without the shield. It's always seemed as if shields last longer against physical damage when inner fire is up, for example. Though I have not done personal testing on this.

There is also 2 bugs that currently have significant effect on a disc priest:
1) pain suppression's 65% dispel resist applies both to negative effects on you and to beneficial effects on you. In other words, if pain suppression is up, you will have as difficult a time dispelling corruption or whatever as they will have trying to dispel shield, etc..

2) crits that happen through a shield do not proc 'on being crit' talents This means a shield can potentially lose you your 3 stack of Focused Will. This can be tested by dueling, sitting and getting crit. Watch all your crit talents proc. Now shield and do it again and none of them proc, but the absorb amount is the size of a crit.

[TheDragoon]

Here's the armor formula that I always go grab from Wowwiki. I haven't actually tested it very extensively, but it seems like it should be close (it shows a bit under 32k armor for 75% versus level 70 and just under 36k armor for 75% versus level 73, which is about correct):

Levels 60+ DR% = Armor / (Armor+400+85*(MobLevel+4.5*(MobLevel-59)))

And, as was stated earlier, the damage mitigation displayed on your character screen is with respect to a same-level attacker, so that's the quick way to go. However, with the formula you could always do a differential to find the change in damage reduction for a change in armor... :)

[Lissa]

I'm pretty sure that shields take into account damage done exactly as if they were damage done without the shield. It's always seemed as if shields last longer against physical damage when inner fire is up, for example. Though I have not done personal testing on this.

This is contrary to what I have observed. This also does not fit with your charges on IF. If IF was being included into the damage mitigation of what the shield takes, it should tick downward each time you are hit with the shield up (it does not). Also, against white damage attacks that don't crit, you should see similar amounts of damage between absorbtions on the shield and the final absorbtion and damage you take when the shield goes down and I have not see this to be true either (usually the final hit ends up coming up to less total damage than the fully absorbed hits on the shield when damage range has little variance).

Also, couple notes to Bolty,

Yes, Mana Burn is a binary, so penertation would be of help if someone has SR. You could probably stay with the Armor to cloak enchant and maybe grab a couple items with a little less healing (going damage and healing instead to get penetration) like the off hand with penetration on it, the damage rings (veteran's and vindicator's), and one other item (which I can't remember off the top of my head) which can net you close to 80 spell penetration (100 if you really want the cloak enchant, but I would disregard it as 80 should be more than enough). There is another option though, you could go 6 to 10 deep into Shadow (which you probably don't want to do) to get Shadow Focus (grabbing Blackout on the first tier) which can help as well when dealing with the binary effects of MB.

[TheDragoon]

This is contrary to what I have observed. This also does not fit with your charges on IF. If IF was being included into the damage mitigation of what the shield takes, it should tick downward each time you are hit with the shield up (it does not).

I don't think that rules it out, at all. The losing of charges and the taking of damage might be completely different mechanics. It would be interesting if Priests could equip shields because then you could test to see if a completely absorbed hit (via blocked damage) would take an IF charge or not. My guess is that it would not, just like absorbing a hit with a shield does not...

My experience has been largely the same as Conc's: Shields seem to stay up longer when you have IF active versus not having it active.

[Concillian]

I checked it out lastnight and if pain suppression is up before shield --> shield uses damage reduction (stays up much longer)

I didn't re-test pain suppression after shield because I didn't feel like waiting around for 3 minutes.

So in conjunction with the bug that doesn't let crits through shields proc 'on being crit' talents, it seems that pain suppression + shield is a surefire way to dispel your own 3 stack of Focused Will.

[Lissa]

I don't think that rules it out, at all. The losing of charges and the taking of damage might be completely different mechanics. It would be interesting if Priests could equip shields because then you could test to see if a completely absorbed hit (via blocked damage) would take an IF charge or not. My guess is that it would not, just like absorbing a hit with a shield does not...

My experience has been largely the same as Conc's: Shields seem to stay up longer when you have IF active versus not having it active.

No, what I mean in what I've observed is this, the first hit that is fully absorbed is say 1000 damage, the second hit that is partially absorbed would be 600 absorbed and 200 actual damage. If IF was affecting damage reduction with the shield up with two similar attacks without crits and accounting for variance in damage range, you would not the two amounts vary by 20% in difference like this all the time (and this is what I have observered, a 15 to 20% variance between the damage taken with full shield absorbtion vs. partial absorbtion from the shield). That means that there is a mechanic that is not affecting how much damage you take.

As to Pain Suppression and what Conc has observed, possibly Pain Suppression has a different mechanic that allows it to affect shield (although it shouldn't), but a shield without Pain Suppression behind it seems to act like I posted above from what I've observed.

[Concillian]

As to Pain Suppression and what Conc has observed, possibly Pain Suppression has a different mechanic that allows it to affect shield (although it shouldn't), but a shield without Pain Suppression behind it seems to act like I posted above from what I've observed.

I highly doubt this.
I will eat my hat if PS is handled differently from armor reduction with a sheild.

Okay... you got me, I'm not wearing a hat... but I'd be really, really surprised.

[Artega]

Elitist Jerks has a good thread containing a lot of game mechanics and theorycrafting data. However, there are some holes I'm looking to fill with knowledge of some experts of WoW mechanics, particularly in mind to PvP (that thread is more about PvE than PvP).

1) When picking out enchants and gems for my Season 3 arena gear, I was looking to get some spellhit. In short, having a mana burn or psychic scream get resisted is devastating to a Priest, especially that fear due to the cooldown leaving you so exposed.

As a result, I did what quite a few high-end healing arena Priests do: put spellhit enchants on my gloves and head items. Along with a Great Dawnstone, I have 15+14+8=37 spellhit, or +2.93% hit, while staying over the resilience cap of 493 (501, to be precise).

Now, I know that all spellcasters have a 1% chance to "miss" with a spell, no matter what. What I keep seeing conflicting data about is how much spellhit is needed against other players - either 3% or 4%, to hit the 99% cap. And yes, I realize that's assuming no resistances. Would another 1.07% spellhit be beneficial for me to get? I can add 8 more spellhit via another Great Dawnstone and sacrifice 8 resilience to bring me to about 3.56% spellhit and 493 resilience, but only if it's worth doing so (remember how critical resilience is to a Priest).

I think the others are correct about it being about a 4% base miss chance versus other players; SW Stats says that's about how often my Enhancement Shaman (who has no spell hit) sees her shocks resisted. I'm curious to see how melee/ranged hit plays into PvP as well. I don't really focus on melee hit for my Shaman (or my Paladin when I spec him Retribution for PvP), and I don't seem to miss as much against players as I do mobs in the same gear. It could just be that I'm usually focusing on clothies in PvP, and thus the hits that DO land hit for a much greater amount than on a normal mob.

2) This ties into the next question: resistances. Let's say my target has 50 resistance to shadow and I'm attacking with a mana burn. Would additional spellhit affect my odds of striking, or would only spell penetration then help to mitigate that 50 resistance? Again, I have a hard time finding solid data on this because spell penetration isn't useful in PvE.

Let's say both spellhit and spell penetration would boost my odds of hit against that 50 shadow resistance target. If so, which is more valuable? Is, say, 8 spellhit rating worth as much as 20 spell penetration? I have a feeling the answer may be "depends on how much resistance the target has."

If you're willing to spend some cash, you could just test it directly. Have a friend (ideally a Paladin or fellow Priest for Shadow Resistance, or you could just buff them yourself) alternate between no SR and 70 SR while you alternate between spell hit and spell penetration setups. See which one works better for you. You could do the math (and it looks like others have, more or less), but personally I'd prefer to directly test something instead of relying on mathcrafting:)

By the way, I'm pretty sure Mana Burn is all-or-nothing (which is binary, I believe.) I don't recall ever seeing partial resists when Priests are burning my pally.

3) Armor. Priests are starved for armor, especially when their greatest weakness is melee opponents. 35,880 AC is required to reach 75% mitigation against a raid boss (level 73). What's the formula for armor's value in PvP?

As far as I'm aware, Armor's value seems to stay somewhat consistent regardless of your level versus theirs. When ganking lowbies, my hits don't seem to be too far off from what they'd be on a same-level player wearing the same general type of armor. That is, if I crit a lvl 70 clothie for 1200, I usually won't see more than 1400 or 1500 on a low-level clothie. I haven't done the math or really done any empirical testing (the lowbies generally won't stick around for me to test it on them:)), these are just observations. Honestly, it seems as though your Armor reduction is exactly what it shows on the character sheet for all player attackers of all levels. That is, if you're lvl 40 and you have 45% damage reduction to a lvl 45 mob, you have 45% damage reduction to any player attacker of any level; I've had geared lolMS warriors gank my pally and other warriors (repeatedly), and even though they're often 30 or more levels higher than me, I generally don't see them hitting me for more than 800 or 900, which is only slightly more than what they hit my lvl 70 warrior for (when he's in PvE gear, naturally.)

Pretty sure the others are right in terms of global damage reduction effects in relation to your Armor reduction. They certainly don't stack additively, at any rate. While it'd be fun to have 65% physical damage reduction through Shamanistic Rage, I do believe it'd be slightly overpowered;)

As for Defense Rating and other "PvE" stats in PvP, I don't think they have much of any effect at all. Stacking Defense to -5% hit/crit chance seems to result in me taking more crits than if I were to wear Resilience gear up to -5% crit. I could test this for you in some duels if you'd like, since I haven't done so before.