Proof that Chaosbolt doesnt ignore resilience

We'll look into the resilience issue. It will require a little testing. It's entirely possible I misunderstood the nature of the change we made. Spells that work like this are fairly complex and the effects are not just listed out the way numbers like cooldowns or damage points are. I didn't test the implementation myself (with the number of changes we make, that would be nearly impossible), but I can get with the people who did and report back.

Q u o t e:
GC really needs to change the perception locks have right now, that every patch blizz goes looking to nerf them.

The perception after the last patch was that Destro burst was crazy. There were locks posting all over this forum saying "Yep, we're going to get nerfed." We are trying not to do that. As such, I find the martyr complex a little misplaced this time around. :)

Q u o t e:
Bump for more testing. Quick before they stealthily change it to NOT be affected resilience so they can patch it to be affected by resilience in 3.1.3 so GC can save face. Conspiratorial? Yes, but I wouldn't be surprised.

LOL

EDIT: I found out this morning that Chaos Bolt does respect resilience on live. The developers still thought that the 3.1.3 change was appropriate. I was just not caught up on the latest developments. My bad. More details below.

Q u o t e:
Plz don't nerf the damage. PVE Destro locks are finally where they need to be.

I can't promise anything because if we made a change in 3.3 to lock dps, I am certain I would be bombarded with "You promised never to change us!" :)

But... as I said we are happy with the Chaos Bolt (and Incinerate and Conflag) damage now. We don't want it to ignore damage reduction effects, because the spell never claimed to do that. We do want it to ignore absorption and resistance. If it was bypassing resilience, that is now fixed. If it's not bypassing resilience, then you likely won't see any change in 3.1.3 anyway.

Damage reduction effects include things like Shield Wall, Barkskin, Icebound Fortitude and Frost Presence. Absorption effects include things like Power Word: Shield and Anti Magic Shell. So Chaos Bolt will still poke through AMS. We try to name things that are absorptions with "shelly" names. If there is a specific ability that you aren't sure about, feel free to ask.

Q u o t e:
I don't understand. I really don't. How can you even say that after the first sentance of your post on CB was "The main problem was that Chaos Bolt ignored resilience." The main problem. How is it a main problem if on live it does obey resil? What are the other problems? Did anyone test the premise for this radical conclusion first? Or was this like some kinda Dilbert comic session at Blizzard?

We saw a lot of feedback about Chaos Bolt after the last patch. We investigated, and decided we were happy with the damage it did, but noticed that it also ignored damage reduction, which the tooltip didn't specify. This seemed like a bug, so we fixed it. In the last discussion we had on the topic, someone brought up the concern that DR included resilience. We figured if that was true, then we should definitely fix the DR bug and perhaps that would be sufficient without having to nerf Fire and Brimstone again. People went off to make the change and I assume they know whether it turns out resilience was a factor or not. I don't know the answer to that at this time, but I can find out.

Q u o t e:
Nobody took 5 minutes to test it? Let's say hypothetically chaosbolt does in fact ignore resil and it is changed to only pierce priest shield and mage mana shield/barrier. Doesn't that seem extremely niche for a 51st point talent? Will it take every lock going x/x/50 to show this?

People tested it. I was not the person to make the change or to test it. I have no doubt the change was made correctly -- I just wasn't there to witness it first hand, and at 1 AM last night when I posted this, they weren't available for me to consult with. I do most of my posting on my own hours, when unfortunately it isn't always easy to verify the status of every change. I try to caveat everything I say because it's impossible in a game of this size for any one person to know exactly how everything is constructed. If I was wrong, it won't be the last time.

Don't freak out. The bottom line is that we're still happy with the Chaos Bolt damage.

Q u o t e:
Earth Shield?

Earth Shield is neither damage reduction nor absorption. It doesn't affect incoming damage -- it just protects casting and heals when damage is done. Chaos Bolt should do nothing unusual to an Earth Shielded target.

This thread seems to be quickly wandering away from Chaos Bolt and into other warlock issues or other classes in general. Let's try to keep it focused so players can get the information they are looking for.

Cheat Death is an absorption. So Chaos Bolt can still pierce it.

Cloak of Shadows is a resist. So Chaos Bolt can still pierce it.

There are four basic categories of spell resistance here:

Immunities -- things like Divine Shield. Chaos Bolt will not affect these.
Damage reductions -- things like Barkskin. Chaos Bolt affects these currently, but not in 3.1.3.
Absorptions -- things like Power Word: Shield. Chaos Bolt will continue to affect these.
Resistances -- things like Cloak of Shadows. Chaos Bolt will continue to affect these.

I know it's all a little confusing, but PvP is a system of checks and balances so we often end up in situations where X works against Y but is trumped by Z.

UPDATE: Chaos Bolt obeys resilience on Live.

There was a rumor, apparently long-standing because I believed it, that things that ignored damage reduction effects also ignored resilience.

When the designers made the change to Chaos Bolt for 3.1.3, they verified that this was NOT the case. Chaos Bolt currently does less damage to targets with resilience on live. They went ahead and made the change to make Chaos Bolt not ignore damage reduction effects (like Barkskin and Spell Warding), since it was never intended to do so anyway and we hoped this would help balance it against the damage increase it received in 3.1.2. I was just misinformed about the final implementation. The post I made last night was in error, and I apologize for any confusion. Sadly, many developers will now have to die as a result of this mistake.

Our intent is that the 3.1.3 change will remain as documented and we don't think Chaos Bolt needs any additional nerfs.

Q u o t e:
Good thing lead developers of multi-million dollar companies follow fact and research rather than rumors and opinion....

I don't pretend to know every bit that is flipped in the WoW codebase. Nobody does. Fortunately I am part of a very large and competent team that makes sure all the bases are covered. I won't excuse making a mistake, but I'm not going to promise they won't happen from time to time. :)

Q u o t e:
It doesn't help his case when he namedrops everyone in the room and uses that to reinforce the validity of his claims.

When someone makes a post saying "Hey, there's a problem here." GC comes back and says, "Well, Ted and Bill and Sally are just down the hall and we see each other every day and I'll talk to them about it."

So now when he drops the ball on something very important to 9% of the total WoW population, then yea, I'm going to come right back and say "HEY! You're an idiot!"

Kurdaj, you need to take it down a notch or we'll ask you not to post.

Q u o t e:
To reiterate: this example shows that GC isn't an expert. I don't doubt he works with a team of people, but that doesn't seem to be doing a lot of good when the MAIN REASON for a CAP TALENT of a predominantly PvP ability for the LOWEST REPRESENTED CLASS in Arenas is getting nerfed based on a FALSE PREMISE that a player proved untrue in a matter of minutes.

We buffed Chaos Bolt quite a bit with the Fire and Brimstone change. People (developers and the community) were worried we had over-buffed it. That has happened sometimes. It's not going to do anyone good, least of all warlocks, to go from under-represented to totally overpowered and then have to be nerfed again.

Based on how quickly the thread grew with a lot of warlocks asking questions, I would also argue that resilience affecting CB was not as widely known as you claim.

Q u o t e:
It took a stranger minutes to prove something that the whole Blizzard design team (isn't one man, it's a team) failed to see. And you think that's all honky dory?

It wasn't the whole Blizzard design team in this case. The mistake was mine. I don't make every change to classes (or many of them to be honest). The people responsible for the change verified that resilience had nothing to do with damage reduction, but still thought the change was a good one to make. I don't have to approve all of their decisions because they are empowered, informed and competent designers. Those are the only kind we hire. I just wasn't up to speed on the breaking news, which is going to be true of a lot going on in WoW. It's a big game with a lot of moving parts.

I won't claim that I know more about every class than the entire rest of the community put together. That would be a ridiculous assertion and in fact nobody can make that claim. The good thing is I don't have to be, because we operate as a team, and together we have the bases covered. While most warlock players are acting maturely, if your response is going to be to beat me up every time I make a mistake, the result will just be less communication with us. You'll see the patch notes, then the patch, and that will be it. I'll certainly be more careful about late night posts from now on, so if you see patch notes go out, you may want to refrain for a day or two before you ask questions.

TLDR: Chill.

Q u o t e:
Lets face it , the implied intent of this spell has been changed with what doesnt seem like much decisive thought. Also It worries me that the devs would make this change without even having a list of spells that this will effect.

Think about it like this:

"Gee, Chaos Bolt sure does hit hard now. Do you think we overbuffed it?"
"It would suck if that happened because warlocks feel like they're on a bit of a roller coaster with the whole Fire and Brimstone / Conflag thing. We told them we wanted to give them more burst and make their 51 more attractive. Let's be very careful here."
"Okay, I looked at the spell, and guess what. Not only does it ignore absorption and resistance like it says, but it also totally ignores damage reduction."
"Hmmm. Maybe if we fix that bug, it will make Chaos Bolt not overpowered since players will have a way to counter it."
"Hold on. I read somewhere that it ignores resilience too."
"Really? Do damage reduction effects ignore resilience? That would be bad."
"Why has nobody caught that before? Let's look into it."
"Should we buff DKs while we're at it? We want to make sure they stay the best class."
"Good idea."

[time passes]

"Okay, I verified that resilience is not considered a damage reduction effect."
"Oh, good. That would have been a nasty bug."
"So we'll just change the damage reduction since that clearly wasn't the intent of the spell and might help to balance it in PvP while keeping it a good nuke in PvE."
"Cool. I'll make the change and get QA to verify."
"Then we can run some numbers and make sure the change does what we want."
"Somebody better tell GC."
"I think he already left for the bar...".