PvP Resilience Changes
by Adam Holisky 
Jan 20th 2010 at 1:25PM
This change will "double the value of resilience in reducing damage done by players," according to Bornakk. Players will see a 10% to 20% reduction in damage taken. However, this change will not affect critical strike chances or critical strike damage. If healing becomes too over powered with this change, Blizzard has a "PvP only solution" ready to go, however they're not rolling out that part of the changes just yet.
The full details after the break.
From Bornakk:
We are currently in the process of applying a hotfix to buff resilience. While some modifications may be made, we intend to have this buff in effect for the remainder of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
The change will double the value of resilience in reducing damage done by players. So depending on their current amount of resilience, characters might experience a 10 to 20% decrease in damage taken from other players. The critical strike chance and critical strike damage reduction components of resilience will remain unaffected by this change.
We are also aware of the possibility that this change will make healing in PvP too difficult to counter. While we are not making any immediate changes to address this issue, we have prepared some further changes that will allow us to quickly deploy a PvP-only healing adjustment if we feel it is warranted.
We will be applying this change very soon while we are between Arena seasons so we can evaluate how it works in multiple PvP scenarios for the upcoming Arena season, and as we continue to prepare for Cataclysm. As we have mentioned previously, one of the goals for Cataclysm is to have a PvP environment where it is harder to regularly achieve so much damage and healing in relatively few global cooldowns compared to what we currently have in the game.
Filed under: News items, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Terrafros Jan 20th 2010 1:32PM
And thus, ends the era of the Mutilate rogues! Well, at least the low geared ones.
Will be interesting to see if this change holds ground.
Sean Jan 20th 2010 3:26PM
You mean my Elemental Shaman might actually stand a chance now in PvP?!?! Haha sometimes I say crazy things!
Banndit Jan 20th 2010 3:49PM
This worries me a bit as a Rogue seeing as we thrive on burst damage and ware out the longer a fight goes on. But I'm sure Pally's are loving it. Now it will take even longer to bring them down and they'll have less of their own health to heal.
Thundrcrackr Jan 20th 2010 4:53PM
God i hope this change doesn't hold...
I /shudder to think of BGs lasting longer than they already do. Twice as long in fact. This will be the end of me doing BGs if it sticks, they already take too long for the most part, especially considering you have to wait in a queue before you can even join one.
And they've talked lately about improving our storage options, one of the ways by consolidating gear for certain hybrid classes and making the differences between, say, DPS and tanking be by talents only, not gear. I don't see why they don't do the same with PvP gear. As long as they keep resilience, we're always going to need to keep a whole second set of gear. If they just made an arena/BG-wide buff or debuff instead, we would save space and the could free up the resources spent designing and tweaking PvP gear to be put toward something else. It would be win/win for everyone.
Arbitor Jan 20th 2010 6:45PM
"I /shudder to think of BGs lasting longer than they already do. Twice as long in fact. This will be the end of me doing BGs if it sticks, they already take too long for the most part, especially considering you have to wait in a queue before you can even join one."
1st of all, of course you have to wait in a queue!
What do you think you have to wait your turn to BG coz they're all full?
Noooo.... you are 'queuing' to wait to get a full team together!
It's a joint effort ya'know, if you wanna run in and take on a team yourself by my guest.
But the idea is that you are waiting for other people to join, not to "have your go on the merry-go round". ^_^
Secondly, BG match length will most likely not be affected by this change at all.
Players surviving longer in a fight will not make the clock in WSG tick slower, nor will it increase the amount of resources needed in AB to win.
The whole point of this change is to slow down "Squashed in 3 GCDs" situations, so that people can play tactically rather than just mash their CDs in with their nukes.
Yes you won't be able to kill the flag runner as quickly after this change, yes defenders will live longer after the change, but matches won't last any longer than they do now because its a double edged sword.
E.G. You, a lone ret paladin attack LM, guarded by a lone blood dk.
You will fight him, not for 20-30secs, as you would roughly now assuming similar gear levels, but 45-60 seconds.
That way, people's CDs would have timed out, crutch abilities would have been lost, and the fight suddenly came down to how well you can kite/chase/lock down/evade your opponent.
I for one cannot wait for this change, and look forward to BG'ing on my mage after it.
SamLowry Jan 20th 2010 1:32PM
Oh, so you mean that being killed by another player in less than 1 second is no longer "Working as designed"?
Possum Jan 20th 2010 3:07PM
Now it takes two..
Jm Jan 20th 2010 1:33PM
Omg!!
elementpb Jan 20th 2010 1:34PM
Why not just have an aura with a dmg and healing debuff? Damage recieved -50%. Healing recieved -50%.
Seems to be far more easy to balance, as then they can tweek those numbers, to say 50/40, 30/35, or whatever.
Heilig Jan 20th 2010 1:39PM
This is the way to do it. They have already said health pools will be much bigger in Cataclysm, and they like that. It means no more GCD deaths, and no more healing an entire health pool in one crit. If you reduce both damage and healing by 50%, that's identical to doubling everyone's health pool. This is such a simple answer, why don't they just implement it already instead of continually monkeying with Resilience?
erknost Jan 20th 2010 2:04PM
@Heilig. I think the answer to your question it is that resiliences it is THE PvP stat. And Blizz wanna keep useful THAT stat. They are despairing a lot of stat in Cataclysm maybe resiliences it is one of those, dunno, but maybe that the reason this is JUST a WotLK hotfix.
Rankin Jan 20th 2010 2:32PM
They're increasing health with Cataclysm for PVE purposes as well. They want healing in PVE and PVP to be less of a game of whack-a-mole where the people taking damage are a few seconds from dying at any given time.
Muse Jan 20th 2010 2:36PM
Because resilience is something a player can change. They can have much of it, or little of it, depending on gear.
SamLowry Jan 20th 2010 3:22PM
"They want healing in PVE and PVP to be less of a game of whack-a-mole where the people taking damage are a few seconds from dying at any given time."
So why did they give us H HoR?
Valt Jan 20th 2010 3:27PM
Yes and no. The most problematic thing is then "mortal strikes". How would -50% healing debuff scale then? -100% healing total? Or -75%? Or would wound poisons, mortal strikes become totally useless? Would Rogues start using more dps poisons instead?
Im sure they thought about that and its just not that easy to balance as people would think.
Also theres more flat % "reduces healing" debuffs than flat % "reduces damage done" debuffs.
arcter Jan 20th 2010 7:17PM
An aura? No. I didn't gear up three toons with multiple sets of pvp gear so that everyone could get an indiscriminate aura to keep them alive. I'm no pvp prodigy, but I do care that my hard work makes me more survivable than a pve-geared payer.
thebitterfig Jan 20th 2010 10:49PM
what the idea of an aura gets right is the concept that PvP balance can, in part, be tweaked by adjusting the conditions for PvP-situations-only as well as the "on at all times" changes which they tend to do usually, often with bad results for PvE balance. I look forward to the day when PvP nerfs don't wind up being PvE nerfs too.
knid Jan 20th 2010 11:19PM
~50% healing and damage reduction wouldn't work. At the moment, players are doing about 90% damage and 100% healing. Damage is still too high which would put the numbers around 80% while healing is at 100%. If you go with those ratios, the damage would be 40% and healing at 50%.
Also, if there is a healing reduction, I would also predict a MS reduction too. I do believe that stuns and MS effects are the bane of pvp.
Gothia Jan 21st 2010 4:51AM
I agree, somthing like the debuff that is in ICC and this may prevent Blizzard from making as many changes to specs that would not only affect PvP abilities, but also have negative effects to PvE - as has been the case for much too long.
I have so many emblems of triumph sitting around not ever going to be used that I may try my hand in the arena this season. I haven't played arena since wrath because burst was so high that I would last less than a minute. During Bc I felt as if I was an asset to the team - wrath consisted of death grip, focus, good nite.
How fun is it to get yanked from one end of the arena to the other - Death Knights have changed every aspect of this game that will ultimately lead to the destruction of Azeroth (just consider the damage this class has done starting with the depopulation of Azerothian zones...etc...etc...etc). Sounds more like a Villain class to me and they totally changed the face of PvP which ultimately made me leave the arena.
Less damage by overpowered classes may be a move in the right direction - too bad it took them so long to admit the mistake.
Reinhold Jan 20th 2010 1:34PM
If it wasn't clear enough for you before, I'll say this again: Resilience is by FAR the MOST important stat in PVP.