20/01 PvP Resilience Changes

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.

Some people are concerned that this change will encourage people to equip more PvE gear in the Arenas, and although we do think that some teams might experiment with this, we do not think that this will become much of an issue as players equipped in PvE gear will have much less survivability than those in PvP gear. After all, the goal of this change is to make Arena matches last a little longer, and reducing the focus on high burst damage is a good way to do this.

This change will bring more focus on longevity and survivability, and it will be much harder to nuke down enemy players as a result. This means it will become a lot more risky to not wear any resilience gear as the price for getting higher damage by using PvE gear is even lower survivability in comparison to the PvP equivalent.

If it turns out that one can blow up players in PvP gear too easily using PvE gear, then we might buff resilience even further. If, however, this hotfix results in PvE geared players becoming much less of a threat, well – then we have accomplished what we set out to do.

Additionally, if it turns out that healers can’t be defeated after this change, then we will need to make further adjustments like, for example, a nerf to healing in PvP.

Q u o t e:


As a Rogue, I'm concerned that this resilience buff might make it even harder for us to land a kill on an enemy, as we are glass cannons with a timer (timer being CDs). Of course a Rogue's role is not purely to DPS, since we have a lot of utility in locking down players and ccing, but my main concern is that once we are out of CDs, we can still be gibbed in a stun unless we already killed our target. I hardly doubt that a 15% (or whatever it lands at) will improve a Rogue's survivability in a stun, as a Rogue almost never uses full PvP gear, and should we, our damage will be reduced even more. A rogue without CDs can be kited/trained very easily, even with the help of teammates. Only option is to try to reset or at least get a restealth in.

But only time will tell of course, hopefully this change will in fact be balanced from start.

Big changes rarely happen completely free of trouble with no need for additional adjustments, and this is a big change indeed, so your concerns are understandable indeed. Quite a lot of people will have to learn first hand what this change actually means and how this will affect them in-game, and then from then on they will have to figure out how to adapt accordingly.

That being said, if this resilience change ends up doing more harm than good, then we will most surely have to look into that and make further adjustments and fixes.

Q u o t e:
We think crits need to be proportionately weaker in PvP than in PvP. I'll explain why in a minute, but first let me reiterate that the buff we are making to resilience just affects damage. The relative value of crit in PvP won't change at all with this hotfix. You won't be critting less or doing less proportional damage when you crit. If you hit now for 3000 and crit 30% of the time for 6000 then after this change you might hit for 2700 and crit 30% of the time for 5400. Crit damage will be lower, but crit damage relative to normal damage will not. We don't want to get to the point where a crit is actually mitigated lower than an actual hit. That would be bizarre and do bad things for a lot of talent trees.

As to why we think resilience needs to reduce crits, it's because you're playing against another human and not an AI-controlled creature. Creatures generally don't heal or blow defensive cooldowns, or at least not very well. The ability to pack a lot of damage into a small time window is much more important in PvP just because the opposing player or team have so much control over the size of that window. If you whittle them down to 10% of their health but can't "close the deal" then they may be back up at 50% or 100% in no time. This kind of mechanic happens in PvE too, but much more rarely. The ability to crit in PvE is important largely because it buffs your damage or keys into talents. But the burst portion of crits themselves (high damage in a short amount of time) is much more important in PvP. Thus, we think the value and role of crit would be too high in PvP without a way to mitigate that through stacking resilience.

Was just about to post this as well, but I guess Tolk was faster than me... Thanks Tolk :-)

Yes, Ghostcrawler did post the above, and I am quoting it again because it clarifies quite clearly why we think that critical hits need to be weaker in PvP than in PvE.