Spell Penetration

[Imperial]

As the subject speaks for itself, spell penetration does not work. An immediate reply of "we fixed it long ago" will simply be a lie.

Proof?

78 spell pen
35 resistance target
resists 3/10.

78 spell pen
75 resistance target
resists 2/10.

Even with curse of the elements which adds up to 88 spell pen people still resist at least 3 times per duel, please for god's sake fix it already.

[Mayore]

such numbers
very proof

[Imperial]

as it should be 0/10, pretty much, yes. it's annoying when your only chance to actually do anything is a shadowfury and it gets randomly resisted. same goes for fears and coils unfortunately.

WowWiki:

Spell penetration reduces the target's resistance to your spells; it is a different mechanic from spell hit rating. Spell penetration only works against targets with resistances, and will not reduce resistances below zero. Due to it's implementation, it is primarily a PvP-oriented stat.

Spell penetration typically is intended to help casters against players (PvP) who wear resistance gear or are buffed with extra resistance, such as Mark of the Wild.

Conclusion => 1 resistance for 1 spell pen. no base chance to resist, no rng chance to resist. unlike spell hit/melee hit.

[Balls]

getting full resists is not a spell pen issue but a spell hit issue and it's - i think - a well known issue here.

[Cube]

Conclusion => 1 resistance for 1 spell pen. no base chance to resist, no rng chance to resist. unlike spell hit/melee hit.

And what does a spell miss register as in the combat log? If you can't answer that, try to recall the last time you played tbc and saw *missed* pop up as a caster.

As Balls said, it's not a matter of resistances or penetration, it's a matter of hit.

[Imperial]

its kinda combined. Im also spell hit capped. anyway I didnt know it's a "well known issue". thanks for clarifying that for me.

[Cube]

No, it's not combined, since the hit system didn't start to make sense until Wrath was released, where Blizzard revamped and rewrote it. Being hit capped in tbc means that you should have a 99% chance to hit, not a 100% chance. This obviously means that it's rng based, but that statistically around 1/100 should get resisted. But since it's rng based, you can be unlucky enough to have 1/10 resisted, or lucky enough to have 1/200 resisted. This however is not the case around here, from my experience at least, and I'm fairly sure quite a lot of people would agree.

On top of this, there are various talents and abilities which either lowers your hit chance, or the chance to hit the target. Insect Swarm, Predatory Instincts, Balance of Power, Heightened Senses, Enveloping Shadows and Pursuit of Justice are examples of such talents/abilities.

[Bucovsky]

Doesn't resistance lower the damage from magic spells and improve chance to fully resist magic cc abilities? After using improved mark of the wild 2/5 + flask of chromatic wonder I have noticed many cyclones being resisted on me(most druids use just 20 spell penetration cloak enchant). Same goes for sl/sl felhunter combined with flask of chromatic wonder and voidstar talisman. It wasn't hard to hit him with spells, but huge part of damage was resisted, although chance to banish successfully was really low.

[Cube]

Doesn't resistance lower the damage from magic spells and improve chance to fully resist magic cc abilities? After using improved mark of the wild 2/5 + flask of chromatic wonder I have noticed many cyclones being resisted on me(most druids use just 20 spell penetration cloak enchant). Same goes for sl/sl felhunter combined with flask of chromatic wonder and voidstar talisman. It wasn't hard to hit him with spells, but huge part of damage was resisted, although chance to banish successfully was really low.

It does both. Unless you equal your targets spell resistance with spell penetration, he'll have a chance to resist spells of said school depending on the gap, and also mitigate spell damage. And that goes for all spells, not just cc.

Look at spell resistances as a form of armor and dodge combined for spells of the various schools, and spell penetration as a form armor penetration and expertise. While spell hit is just what it says, hit chance for spells. The difference in the combat log is that armor mitigation from physical attacks doesn't show up, while resist mitigation does. And dodges/parries/misses from melee attacks show up as just that, while both spell resists and spell misses registers as resists. It wasn't until wrath that spell misses registered as actual misses in the combat log.

[Vicarious]

The spells your using and what target matter as well, shadowfury is commonly resisted due to stun resist rather than magic resistances. Same with fear, so an orc warrior with those 5 points in arms is gonna resist your shadowfuries a LOT, also Ferals are very unlikely to be hit by shadowfury OR fear, ever.