PvP Mechanics Questions

[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.