Spell Penetration Sources

[Keftenk 0]

With Elitist Jerks nuked to the point where even Wayback Machine can't save it. No one would happen to have the Spell Pen data that the forum had which was allegedly correct, would they? 

[Docholy 4]

Spell penetration was not a stat like it was in BC, resistances were overcome on bosses by having warlocks curse of the elements/curse of shadow.  Additionally, each spell caster class had (in later game) "Decreases magic resistances of spell targets by X"  set bonuses from gear or on gear.  Of  course some classes also had talent resistance resist.  Though all over the above are Spell penetration, nothing in vanilla was labeled as such.

Edited December 11, 2016 by Docholy

[Lifealert 19]

I can't wait for spell pen to come around so I can kill all of you disgusting horde players as destro without everything getting resisted.

 

 

And also the default 20ish or 40 shadow resist undead get that makes it so deathcoil gets resisted repeatedly. 

Edited December 11, 2016 by Lifealert

[Keftenk 0]

Spell penetration was not a stat like it was in BC, resistances were overcome on bosses by having warlocks curse of the elements/curse of shadow.  Additionally, each spell caster class had (in later game) "Decreases magic resistances of spell targets by X"  set bonuses from gear or on gear.  Of  course some classes also had talent resistance resist.  Though all over the above are Spell penetration, nothing in vanilla was labeled as such.

Alright, aside from miss labeling it. Does anyone have the old EJ sources that correct what Blizzard has on their official site?

[Horten 9]

Do you mean this thread? http://web.archive.org/web/20150426001125/http://forums.elitistjerks.com/topic/8107-spell-penetration/ Only the first page is readable though.

I've been wondering what the exact value was for level based resistances for a while, found this old Blizzard post that also mentions spell penetration.

http://blue.cardplace.com/cache/wow-mage/952187.htm

Interesting read for any caster.

[Undertanker 88]

Basic table conversion chart:

 

 

CoS and CoE from warlocks will give you -75 resist.    You can not bring a mob to negative resist.   Drakes in BWL have 80 shadow resist, averaging a 1.25% damage loss to locks/shadow priest on those mobs.

 

Bosses from MC through Naxx can have up to the following:

 

145 resistance to Fire, Shadow, Frost, or Arcane. 70 resistance to Nature, 15 resistance to Holy.  Excluding certain fights like Rag.    The higher resist noted by other players receiving partial resist were primarily from the abomination wing in Naxx.  Other than 80 resist from drakes, I can not find any body else commenting on receiving partial resist prior to Naxx with warlock curses up.

 

Note the 15 holy resist?   Because only the base resistance of being 3 levels higher than you should come into effect, this makes gearing smite priest and ret not as difficult if the server is scripted correctly to accommodate for this.

 

 

Pretty much for the content that is out, the -spell resistance gear from AQ and Don ring will greatly help you in PVP for those that are buffed with Mark, Aura, some talents, and if they are using some T2 gear in their setup.   PVE wise, you will increase your damage greatly on trash mobs since warlocks typlicaly are not throwing out their curses on mobs that are dropping fast.  It will help you when you solo in the world/farm.  Your 20 man may not have 2 warlocks to keep both up on a boss.

 

Once Naxx is released on this server we'll get a better idea after people test if they are getting partial resist with CoE/CoS up.  If so, you can review the table above for any scaling/damage increases that may apply.

 

I studies this a lot back in 2006 as I was a mage back then, though we could only do Spider wing.  I came across a few articles also referencing that only the Naxx bosses were giving them any damage increase using the - spell resistance, though I just spend an 2 hours and can't find much on the articles I've come across in the past so take that with a block of salt if you will.

[flowqz 34]

is there any update on this matter?

i saw some ppl on anathema wearing spellpen items so id assume partial resists are a thing with aq?

[flowqz 34]

apperently the resist of bosses is still 75 so far. should be higher but w/e.

[quasexort 4]

https://web.archive.org/web/20071212234737/http://elitistjerks.com:80/f31/t18441-mage_sweet_informational_thread/

https://web.archive.org/web/20130811112339/http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t17008-pve_raiding_compendium/

These are from TBC but it's basically the same for vanilla.  Quotes from these two threads.

"With a few notable exceptions (Felhunters in Hyjal, Supremus vs Fire, and Illidari Council) enemies have no resistances above 75. Therefore spell penetration is considered useless in PVE in the majority of fights."

"Spell penetration is of almost no value at all, it's primarily a pvp stat."

There's no proof at all that bosses had 145 resists to all.  I guess if you want to do research to disprove this you can try to watch naxx videos and see how often casters are getting partial resists and see if that lines up with the boss having 145 resist.