[Theorycraft] Calculating frostbolt damage exactly

[Ana]

Iirc it's 120 res to all schools, possibly 140. Of course certain bosses have increased fire / nature res or are downright immune.

[Gnoggin]

According to the mage guide post on the Nost forums, raid bosses everywhere have 145 resistance to Fire, Shadow, Frost, Arcane. 70 resistance to Nature, 15 resistance to Holy. Of course there are certain exceptions like Ragnaros having huge fire resist.

When curse of elements and curse of shadow are applied, resistance is reduced by exactly 75 - meaning bosses will still have 70 frost resistance. For mages, this is reduced to 60 because of the Arcane Subtlety talent reducing enemy resistance by 10.

Casting a binary spell (such as frostbolt) on a mob with 100 resistance will mean that it gets fully resisted 25% of the time. So if raid bosses have 60 resistance remaining, frostbolt is being fully resisted 0.6 * 25 = 15% of the time. Every 10 spell pen would reduce this by 2.5%, which equates to 2.5% more damage on average and makes spell pen very valuable.

The reason some people question whether spell pen is useful is because some people think that raid bosses have a certain amount of resistance that is impenetrable. However I can't seem to find a concensus on this. See this elitist jerks post for some discussion (http://forums.elitistjerks.com/forums/t ... and-mages/). If the amount of 'impenetrable resistance' is >= 60 then obviously spell pen is worthless. I'd like to do some experimentation with this in some raids to find out. Or perhaps the mods will give some clues!

[Impsie]

"Impenetrable resistance" is 24 vs boss @ level 60, and only seems to affect non-binary spells. Frostbolt is of course binary.

[Lazermon]

@gnoggin

do the resist check macro on every boss out there, nobody has compiled a list on it, it would simplify the discussion.

I remember seeing bosses with 0 after all of the debuffs had been applied, so it's relevant.

[sirael7]

Casting a binary spell (such as frostbolt) on a mob with 100 resistance will mean that it gets fully resisted 25% of the time. So if raid bosses have 60 resistance remaining, frostbolt is being fully resisted 0.6 * 25 = 15% of the time. Every 10 spell pen would reduce this by 2.5%, which equates to 2.5% more damage on average and makes spell pen very valuable.

From where do you get the 25% full resist chance for 100 resistance? Because the information post lists 1% full resist chance for 100 resistance and 25% dps loss if the spell isn't binary.

[Gnoggin]

Casting a binary spell (such as frostbolt) on a mob with 100 resistance will mean that it gets fully resisted 25% of the time. So if raid bosses have 60 resistance remaining, frostbolt is being fully resisted 0.6 * 25 = 15% of the time. Every 10 spell pen would reduce this by 2.5%, which equates to 2.5% more damage on average and makes spell pen very valuable.

From where do you get the 25% full resist chance for 100 resistance? Because the information post lists 1% full resist chance for 100 resistance and 25% dps loss if the spell isn't binary.

I'm just quoting from the mage information post, in the "Binary and non-binary spells" section it says

Casting a binary spell on a mob with 100 resistance will mean that it gets fully resisted 25% of the time.

@Lazermon I'll definitely do that

[sirael7]

I must have overlooked that Gnoggin. I'm confused now as to what is correct.

1. According to some information spell penetration can be ignored as a frost mage.
2. On other sites(wowwiki for example) it states that for binary-spells the hit chance gets reduced by the exact amount resistance reduces your damage. Which would result in exactly the 25% on a 100 res enemy. The second case would mean that my mage which only has 1% hit should get 22.5% of casts resisted on raid bosses (10% miss chance from hit and 12.5% from resistance).

From my experience thus far I would guess that Nostalrius has implemented the first option. I'll do some Frostbolt resist counting next raid. Should be pretty easy to spot if I miss 10% or 22.5% of casts. Maybe an already hitcapped mage from the pvp server could bring some enlightenment here.

[Gnoggin]

So I've been collecting info on boss resistances when I've remembered to do it. This is the macro I've been using to check:

Code: Select all

/script u=UnitResistance y="target" a=u(y ,0) h=u(y ,1) f=u(y ,2) n=u(y ,3) fr=u(y ,4) s=u(y ,5) z=u(y ,6) SendChatMessage(UnitName(y).." has "..a.." Armor, "..h.." HR, "..f.." FR, "..n.." NR, "..fr.." FrR, "..s.." SR and "..z.." AR.", SAY)


This is what I've found so far:

UBRS

• Chromatic Elite Guard: 2441 armor, 0 holy, 220 fire, 220 nature, 220 frost, 220 shadow, 220 arcane
• Gyth: 2141 armor, 10 holy, 210 fire, 210 nature, 210 frost, 210 shadow, 210 arcane
• Warchief Rend Blackhand: 2591 armor, 15 holy, 15 fire, 15 nature, 15 frost, 15 shadow, 15 arcane

Onyxia's Lair

• Onyxia: 4691 armor, 0 holy, 450 fire, 15 nature, 15 frost, 15 shadow, 15 arcane

Zul'Gurub

• Jin'do: 2700 armor, 15 holy, 0 fire, 15 nature, 0 frost, 0 shadow, 0 arcane
• The'kal: 4241 armor, 15 holy, 15 fire, 15 nature, 15 frost, 15 shadow, 15 arcane
• Hakkar: 3795 armor, 0 holy, 15 fire, 15 nature, 15 frost, 15 shadow, 15 arcane

15 frost resistance seems to be very common amongst bosses. This means that spell penetration is basically useless if curse of elements is on the boss.
On the other hand, I don't think that the spell pen maths in the calculator is wrong - and if you were fighting a boss with more than 85 frost resistance spell pen would be very valuable. Perhaps some of the Blackwing Lair bosses have high frost resistance, like Chromaggus.

[Fafniel1]

Code: Select all

/script u=UnitResistance y="target" a=u(y ,0) h=u(y ,1) f=u(y ,2) n=u(y ,3) fr=u(y ,4) s=u(y ,5) z=u(y ,6) SendChatMessage(UnitName(y).." has "..a.." Armor, "..h.." HR, "..f.." FR, "..n.." NR, "..fr.." FrR, "..s.." SR and "..z.." AR.", SAY)


This macro actually displays legitimate useful data from the within the server code? Why haven't I heard about this one yet, and are there other ones like it?

[Brainzy]

Awesome work Gnoggin. We should gather data on all bosses. PS. I think your data on Jindo was with COS and COE on.

What i have noticed is that mobs and bosses get 5 to all resist per level, so a 61 elite has 5 to all, 62 has 10, and 63 and bosses(they are also 63) get 15 to all.

There was a discussion on elitist forums that these resistances are level based (although they were mentioning higher numbers , 24 I believe) and that they stay after curses as well, besides macro giving 0 resistance after they are applied. Should be tested as well.