Spell Penetration

Hi,

I've been reading a few Hunter guides regarding stat priority/gemming and was wondering how much spell penetration do hunters actually need. Against Druids, it's stated that hunters should have at least 75 spell penetration. However, Mark of the Wild only provides 54 resistance. Where does the 75 spell penetration requirement come from? Also, how does the spell resistance calculation work? How much % dmg decrease there per 1 spell resistance?

Thanks

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pearlicious

Against Druids, it's stated that hunters should have at least 75 spell penetration. However, Mark of the Wild only provides 54 resistance. Where does the 75 spell penetration requirement come from?

---

http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=17051

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mier

http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=17051

---

Ah I see the problem. The buff tooltip says 54 even with the talent but the character stats menu says 75 resistance. Thanks for help.

most people go for 75 for druid buff, i go for 95 for bg's because of nature resist totem/aspect, personnal pref, but 75 is must

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fmtansei

most people go for 75 for druid buff, i go for 95 for bg's because of nature resist totem/aspect, personnal pref, but 75 is must

---

Do you know what the damage reduction rate is per 1 spell resistance?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pearlicious

Do you know what the damage reduction rate is per 1 spell resistance?

---

1 point of spell penetration negates 1 point of spell resistance.

There is more info about spell resistance here: https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Resistance

It doesn't reduce damage like Armor. It gives you chance to resist part of the damage(increments of 10%).

So, for example, if you have 55 resistance(what you get with 75 Spell pene against totems/auras)
20% chance to resist 0% damage
47% chance to resist 10% damage
28% chance to resist 20% damage
4% chance to resist 30% damage

for average 10% resisted you need something like 45 Resistance

gaining more Resistance will increase your chances to get higher % resists and eliminate lower % resists, there are certain caps for this, though every point helps. I think it was 100 Resistance to have guaranteed at least 10% resist on each spell that hits you, with average 20% resisted over lots of spells hitting you.

Keep in mind, these numbers might not be all accurate, writing from memory.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by angrylol

It doesn't reduce damage like Armor. It gives you chance to resist part of the damage(increments of 10%).

So, for example, if you have 55 resistance(what you get with 75 Spell pene against totems/auras)
20% chance to resist 0% damage
47% chance to resist 10% damage
28% chance to resist 20% damage
4% chance to resist 30% damage

for average 10% resisted you need something like 45 Resistance

gaining more Resistance will increase your chances to get higher % resists and eliminate lower % resists, there are certain caps for this, though every point helps. I think it was 100 Resistance to have guaranteed at least 10% resist on each spell that hits you, with average 20% resisted over lots of spells hitting you.

Keep in mind, these numbers might not be all accurate, writing from memory.

---

I see...so if in a scenario fighting with 75 spell pen vs 75 spell resistance, it would be completely negated with the enemy having a 0% chance to resist, correct? Or is there still an increment where there's a very small chance of it being resisted?

Yea, 0 chance if you negate all resistance with penetration.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pearlicious

Do you know what the damage reduction rate is per 1 spell resistance?

---

basically its the number of spell pen in relation to your targets resistance (nature/shadow/fire,etc) , having equal penetration to the targets resistance basically nullifies the chance of resisting that specific spell's resistance nature, so for hunters, 75 is usually the most common because it negates mark of the wild resistance buff (75resistance when talented into imp mark of the wild, which everyone has), but there is also other resistance buffs, such as paladin auras and totems, but for hunter, the only spells affected by resistances are nature, frost and fire, but it is mostly used for the chimera shot, since chimera is nature damage, i personally go for 100 in case there is a shaman with nature resist totem, basically 1 more spell pen gem than regular 75 build, which doesnt drop my dmg too bad and helps lowering shaman totems resistance by a fair amount, if you only do lets say premade bg's which they'll have shaman totem + druid buff, you could build yourself with more spell pen, but this hinders your dps by quite a big amount, if you use Jewelcrafting as a profession, id recommend using the 3 dragon's gems as spell penetration

Hunters are a physical range damage dps. So thus spell pen is honestly pointless. Serpent sting is ment to keep players in the fight and to slow down others from re-stealthing. Most druids pop bear form to take a burst, and other defensive CD's, at that point you should be using scare beast vs worrying about spell pen. If you read into chimera shot, youre doing 125% weapon damage, and deals 40% of serpent sting. http://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/spell=53209 Id be more focused on getting armor pen(40% or better), or doing agility for a mm pvp setting. Spell pen is useless in my opinion for a hunter. If youre that dependant on that sting to do most of your damage, there's something wrong. You should be kiting and using your pet(crab, spider, or ravenger) to slow down your opponent. Again in my opinion, Spell pen on a hunter is pointless and a waste of a gem slot.