The Light and How to Swing It: Resistance, the magic stat
by Matt Walsh 
Feb 24th 2012 at 1:00PM
Perhaps the most elusive of all tanking stats are the various magic resistances. You can't get them on any of the normal gear you strap to your various extremities, only on some trinkets. Some races have magic resistances as part of their racial bonus toolkits, but these are minimal and don't stack with any other resistance buffs. And speaking of which, two raid buffs -- Mark of the Wild and our own Blessing of Kings -- will increase all magic resistances by a set amount. Lastly, you can buff your resistances by a rather large amount with an elixir.
It fits that resistances are so rare considering how very, very powerful they are. Just the combination of a Prismatic Elixir and a raid buff can be worth about 28% magical damage reduction for fire, frost, and shadow damage, for example. Combine on top of the that the clicky effect from Mirror of Broken Images -- Image of Immortality -- which is worth 40.51% damage reduction by itself, and you're talking a serious percentage of magical damage just brushed off like dust on a sleeve.
A short history of magic resistance
In the early days of WoW, a key gear check for some raid fights was the requirement that everyone in the raid had to accumulate a set of gear with resistance stats for a specific type of magical damage. Molten Core was obviously the first, requiring raiders to grind out a complete fire resistance set so they could withstand the various fiery attacks that Ragnaros' minions would dish out.
This trend continued throughout vanilla WoW to fights like Princess Huhuran, for whom you needed melee players kitted out in nature resistance gear, to well into The Burning Crusade for fights like Hydross the Unstable. There, the encounter demanded one tank in frost resistance gear and one in nature resistance gear to correctly tank the fight. Black Temple had several fights that rewarded shadow resistance, and perhaps the grand swan song of the resistance set in The Burning Crusade was M'uru.
Wrath was decidedly muted when it came to requiring magic resistance gearing for the raid. Early work on Sapphiron was greatly facilitated by it but was quickly made obsolete with even a smattering of gearing. Perhaps the last fight in WoW to call for a resistance set was Hodir, but again, that became unnecessary quickly with enough gearing. In Icecrown Citadel, only Sindragosa really needed resistance gear, and that was purely for the tanks to help mitigate her frost breath.
It was evident as Wrath marched on that the thinking at Blizzard had changed. Resistance gear was on the way out. It was boring and cumbersome to require a raid to grind out a set specifically needed for a single fight (or maybe two), and ultimately, the whole concept was just not fun. And so the whole idea of magic resistance shifted on its axis away from being a requirement and toward being a bonus.
Cataclysm was the pilot run for this new way of thinking. There were no new resistance sets for any magic type. Instead, there was an incredible new trinket available on Tol Barad, the Mirror of Broken Images -- a very compelling reason to grind the dailies in that hellish place. In addition, the Flask of Lesser Resistance was upgraded to a more powerful (and guardian elixir) Prismatic Elixir.
To be fair, this idea of magic resistance as a cooldown was first conceived in Wrath when Aura Mastery was introduced, the most useful incarnation of which was when paired with the various resistance auras. It was so powerful that any paladin spec was often cajoled into talenting into it, which eventually forced Blizzard to restrict it to holy paladins only so that it wouldn't be so widepread. But this was just baby steps.
Nonetheless, come Cataclysm, magic resistance stats were a completely different animal.
The trinkets that never aged
In Cataclysm, many of the boss fights had their most deadly damage coming from burst magic attacks. When you can use the magic resistance stats to shave scores of damage right off of the heaviest hit being dealt, you're clearly looking at a very critical stat for tank survivability.
It's been fun watching the arc of the Mirror of Broken Images' usefulness as Cataclysm continued. And by arc, I mean a sharp ascent followed by a straight horizontal line right into the future. Across every tier of this expansion, the Mirror has been the go-to trinket for paladin tanks, not only for the wonderful on-use effect but also because of the impressive chunk of mastery it would bestow.
Personally, even when block-capped, I built my gear sets around the assumption that I was using the Mirror of Broken Images. It was so powerful that it was a must-have to use on just about any progression fight.
Moreover, on the cutting edge of progression, some tanks even went back to their unvendored Sindragosa's Flawless Fang and paired it with the Mirror. Using one trinket and then following it with the last gave tanks a massive chunk of magical damage reduction for at least 20 seconds every minute. Even well into Dragon Soul, such a possibility of survivability boosting in the face of overwhelming magical damage was too good to pass up. They could also stack, but chaining was usually the more powerful option.
What does the future hold?
Knowing what Blizzard knows now about how highly tanks value these trinkets, Aura Mastery plus Resistance Aura, or any other source of magic resistance, the big question is whether it will repeat the move of giving out so much magic resistance in such small packages. I can't help but think that there's no way the developers would be happy about watching tanks use the same trinket for all three tiers of a single expansion, not to mention reaching deeply into their banks for a similar trinket from the last tier of the previous expansion. If I had to assume -- and I suppose I must -- I think the devs will take steps to curb magic resistance's power in Mists.
It may just by not itemizing any future One Trinket to Rule Them All or something more definitive like the massive nerf that the various bonus armor pieces of tier 10 took with the advent of Cataclysm. As someone who's ridden the resistance train as far as he could -- as runaway as it might have been -- I'm a little wary of where the track will finally run out. Still, what a ride it has been. It'll be interesting to see where it reaches next.
The Light and How to Swing It shows paladin tanks how to take on the dark times brought by Cataclysm. Try out our four tips for upping your combat table coverage, find out how to increase threat without sacrificing survivability, and learn how to manage the latest version of Holy Shield.
Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Leptos Feb 24th 2012 1:08PM
I hope they eliminate it as a stat. It's situationally useful in PVE, but that could be replaced by trinkets that reduce incoming magic damage by a set amount, or absorb a set amount of magic damage.
And eliminating spell resistance as a stat would let them eliminate spell penetration as a stat, which is nothing but upside for PVP players.
Nina Katarina Feb 24th 2012 1:12PM
As a blood elf, I am unnaturally attached to mirrors anyhow. Ah, MBI, how I adore thee!
I just finished the Tol Barad grind on my third tank. I've passed anger, denial and bargaining and I'm deep into acceptance. It feels wierd not to be out there tackling Problim any more, like there's a chunk missing out of my evening.
Sumadin Feb 24th 2012 1:54PM
I don't know if you noticed but on the mist calculator all of our auras are just... gone.
It seems they are doing exactly what you suggested and more so.
Aura mastery has been given the eff to reduce magical damage for 20% while giving Interubt immunity for 6 sec. Also renamed Devotion aura but don't let the name fool you.
So yea i think it is fair to assume they are trashing it as a stat.
Drakkenfyre Feb 24th 2012 2:10PM
Resistance, resistance, the magical stat.
The more you need, the less you're capped.
The higher you go, the less you need.
So get some resistance, and stop spell bleed.
Sorry, the title of the article made me think of that.
Bill Feb 24th 2012 2:56PM
The MoP talent calculator indicates that BoK and MoW will no longer increase magical resistances, which makes me think magic resistances as stats are going away in favor of trinkets and the new MoP version of Devo Aura.
Zoros Feb 24th 2012 3:34PM
At Blizzcon, I believe that they said they planned to get rid of all resistances, in the part when they talk about class changes. Not sure if they just meant class abilities the gave resistance or resistance gear in general or the idea of resistance stats. It would make sense to me if they just combined it to one stat and not get rid of it completely.
Ilmyrn Feb 24th 2012 3:35PM
Personally, I kind of miss resistance sets.
Not for the whole raid; down that path lies nothing but madness and broke raiders. But I always thought the idea of the whole raid working together to craft a suit of armor for its tank(s) for one or two fights was really cool. It had a sort of classical legend feel, like Jason or whoever getting that mirrored shield to kill Medusa.
Then again, maybe I just feel that way because it worked out for me. Back in BC, I was trying to become a real tank, and Blizzard had just made their first real efforts into making paladins viable tanks. Even so, I'd never been able to be more than the add tank or something. Until SSC. We were getting ready to tackle SSC, which of course meant we needed a full Frost set and a full Nature set. The Frost Resistance set was easy enough, but as we got closer and closer to the night of our first SSC run, no one had done much of anything towards the Nature set. So I took an evening, farmed up all the mats, crafted the set, and mailed it off to our raid leader. I got it back in the mail with a note saying to keep it, because I was now the second tank for the raid.
RainbowmanOfDoom Feb 24th 2012 6:19PM
That mirror has been in my second trinket slot since the week I got it in early Cata. Combine that with a glyphed divine protection (I have both macro'd to go off at the same time, as they are both 1-min CD's) and well... magic damage? Pffft.
Meatball Feb 24th 2012 7:11PM
Resistances are gone in MoP. This has been known for months.
themightysven Feb 24th 2012 10:55PM
gems need alot of work, one of the things they could do would be add Resist gems (red fire, purple shadow, blue frost, green nature, yellow arcane, and orange flat armor) and then have some blank rings. then you could make your own resist rings, and if you were flush with gear sets, you could gem your own resist set.