Thread: Monster resistance rates in Book 1

Originally Posted by jmsgalla

Thanks for at least letting us know it's here to stay. At least the hunters are happy

Actually we're not, all our traps, fears and mez is subjected to these higher resist rates and we don't have a single legacy or trait to reduce the resists...

Originally Posted by LOTROSystems

Shortly after Mirkwood’s launch, we found an unexpected bug. Between the Moria and Mirkwood updates, monster resistance rates had been accidentally altered in strange way. From level 1 to 42, the resistance ratings were correct. These ratings translated to around a 1% resistance rate at low levels that slowly rose to the expected rate, which is around 10%. However, at level 43 the ratings dropped down by exactly half, and stayed that way all the way to level cap. This means players leveling with a tactical character would see monster resistance rates raise slightly as they leveled, even out at 10%, and then suddenly drop away at level 43. This is contrasted by classes that fight against Block/Parry/Evade for damage, who saw their rates stay the same.

Monster resistance rates have been fixed in Book 1 to stay around 10% for all levels past 43. There are a number of trait, gear and legacy options that can be used to reduce this number. B/P/E classes are in the same boat, but have always been dealing with higher rating numbers to fight against. Reports of resistance rates 20% or higher are likely caused by small sample spaces, fighting up-level or against creatures with specific resistance buffs.

Unfortunately, this fix was not properly documented, which led to its omission from the release notes. It was never our intention to hide this from players or perform any kind of ‘stealth nerf’. We apologize for the communications breakdown and will make every effort to avoid similar issues in the future.

Thank you very much for posting, LOTRO Systems. As I stated in another thread earlier this morning, I did experience roughly a doubling of resists on my RK from about 1 in 20 (5%) to 1 in 10 (10%).

But, NameAlreadyTaken makes an excellent point about other classes who do not have the options to boost their -resist and will be having a much harder time with this change than we RKs (even if he did leave out Wardens and Captains ).

unfortunately I just see this as more reason to stack RKs at endgame to ensure corruptions are cleared.

encounters are being designed in such a way that a string of resists can mean certain wipe and to top it off melee is being discouraged.(durchest, carcaraf)

Also tact resist legacy on RK weapons becomes must have again.

As others have said, some classes do not have ways to reduce resists.

Originally Posted by Mad_Bombardier

Thank you very much for posting, LOTRO Systems. As I stated in another thread earlier this morning, I did experience roughly a doubling of resists on my RK from about 1 in 20 (5%) to 1 in 10 (10%).

But, NameAlreadyTaken makes an excellent point about other classes who do not have the options to boost their -resist and will be having a much harder time with this change than we RKs (even if he did leave out Wardens and Captains ).

Sorry, I only listed the classes I'm actively playing. My Captain and Warden are parked at 60. They will of course be effected to varying degrees as well.

Out of curiosity do you have the -Resist legacy on your stone, and do you slot the -Resist trait?

Sounds to me like we (the players) need to gather some actual data on resists rates. I think that would be more useful to the devs than anecdotal information.

I have to admit that my riddle resist rates seemed too good for quite a while. (My riddles were almost never resited even when I didnt trait complicated terms.) I can start traiting complicated terms to help with riddle resits, but unfortunately there is nothing I can do to help with
- addle resists
- conjunction resists
- gamble resists
- corruption removal resists
- reveal weakness resits
- etc

Originally Posted by NameAlreadyTaken

Sorry, I only listed the classes I'm actively playing. My Captain and Warden are parked at 60. They will of course be effected to varying degrees as well.

Out of curiosity do you have the -Resist legacy on your stone, and do you slot the -Resist trait?

Captains will be sucking it hard since our cries are our only ranged attacks. Though, wardens prepping 5 part Fist gambits only to have them resisted will not be any more fun.

Ah yes, that info was in my other post. I have -720 resist chisel and unranked -resist on my stone (-492, I think). I do not slot the traits. Since my legacy is unranked, I valued my -resist efforts at 1.5 out of 3. Well, potentially 4 with traited Thunderous Words, but since that is a %process for a short-term buff I'll leave it off.

Originally Posted by Patience

It wasn't made in a post-Bullroarer build. When we did some digging today to find out what was going on, we found the checkin for the change was made on December 11th. So this was indeed on Bullroarer. I just double-checked the bugs submitted on Bullroarer for "resist," "resisted," or "resisting," and don't get any results back.

So maybe some other change caused an unintended bug in this fix?

I find it unbelievable that nobody would of noticed this on beta as everybody seems to be noticing it now.

Remember the huge outcry about resists when Moria was released? One would hope that whomever did this fix would consider what happened the last time you made mechanics changes that affected resist rates and maybe take that into consideration. Its incidents like this that give the horrible impression that the mechanics development team does not pay attention to or care about the player community.


I also agree strongly with the prior poster's concerns about balance. Boss corruption rates vs corruption removal resists and mez resists in particular will make the endgame content significantly more difficult. Perhaps toning down the corruption rates and slightly reducing the killing skill rates of the normally mezzed monsters would be appropriate to bring the content back to the difficulty it has been in for the past few months.


10% is a pretty high resist rate. When you add in level losses due to gloom you create a situation where it wont be uncommon for a good group to be wiped in the hard encounters in BG for no other reason than a string of a few too many unlucky resists. Making content that its likely people will fail is different from making challenging content. You take the responsibility to succede away from the players and give it to a random number generator.

Well i for one noticed a lot of my 65 warden's leeched being resisted on lvl 48 swarms.... end game mobs resist more then i like before anyway.... I also noticed some of my leeches leaching a smaller amount (6 instead of 32 and 16 instead of 76).

Originally Posted by dhatcher1

Remember the huge outcry about resists when Moria was released? One would hope that whomever did this fix would consider what happened the last time you made mechanics changes that affected resist rates and maybe take that into consideration. Its incidents like this that give the horrible impression that the mechanics development team does not pay attention to or care about the player community.

I recall a constant repeating of "WAI. look to your traits and legacies for -resist" for 6 months before the problem was acknowledged and fixed (though, only fixed on the surface since mob damage mitigations were increased to lower our total damage anyway).

Yes, please learn from the previous experience. I understand that the resist rate may have been lowered accidentally in SoM and it is important to fix the error. But the new rate is being reported as significantly higher than MoM Book7 (the previous fix). While we gather numbers and evidence, please do not close your ears and tell us all is well.

Originally Posted by LOTROSystems

Unfortunately, this fix was not properly documented, which led to its omission from the release notes.

Err... this statement is worrisome to me. What wasn't fully documented exactly...even to the degree where it wasnt fit to put into the patch notes?

The exact amount of the buff?

The actual effect on ALL classes, not just pure tacticals with resist rate lowering options?

The actual impact on current encounter difficulty, which may have been balanced on the "Bugged" system?


what wasnt properly documented?

Originally Posted by KenR

So maybe some other change caused an unintended bug in this fix?

I find it unbelievable that nobody would of noticed this on beta as everybody seems to be noticing it now.

It also depends on what are the % of classes on BR. (There always seem to be abundant amount of champs ) Also, perceptions to testing content are different than playing live. For good or for bad, rarely do players play a test server the same way they play on live.

As an easy example, imagine the mark counts you would see on leaderboards for BR compared to a live server. Perceptions of SM/hr on BR were very different than they are now, and it would have been very difficult to get players to push mark aquisition rates. Thus after skirmishes went live, there are adjustments.

Originally Posted by dhatcher1

10% is a pretty high resist rate. When you add in level losses due to gloom you create a situation where it wont be that uncommon for a good group to be wiped in the hard encounters in BG for no other reason than a string of a few bad luck resists.

already happening, IMO, and I've posted this in my kin-forums. We had a much more "interesting" time removing corruptions in BG than pre-patch.





Personally, I think corruption removals shouldn't be resisted at all, but that's b/c I think corruption stacking == wipe, ergo, spam corruption removals == no wipe == poopy raid 'challenge'

10% is a huge resist rate, although seems higher. Maybe it's just higher on spells I need cast to stay alive.

Really changed the game, for the worse. Much worse. I was sure this had to be a bug.

I was running skirmishes with the tactical offense personal and felt like I was playing wack-a-mole just recasting on resists. Swarm resisted once three times in a row.

I can't even do skirmishes over level 60 anymore because of the resistances... I thought turbine wanted to promote skirmishes not discourage skirmishes.... Looks like many people will avoid skirmishes going forward until the change things back.

Well, everyone was complaining that everything was far too easy.

Originally Posted by Mystarr

Sounds to me like we (the players) need to gather some actual data on resists rates. I think that would be more useful to the devs than anecdotal information.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think resists are logged in the combat text. So the only way for players to get quantitative data on this is to watch and write down the resists from floaty text. That's not only a PITA, but it's prone to mistakes and hard to do for long enough to get a good sample size.

I'd say there's sufficient anecdotal evidence for a dev or QA to run some simulations with large sample sizes to be sure that it's WAI. Or maybe they already did...

Originally Posted by wyldcyde

Also tact resist legacy on RK weapons becomes must have again.

Just so happens that +Penetrate Resist Legacy is a Pool B. The LI System is already a disaster for RKs. Now we are going to be expected to retool our LIs based on a Pool B legacy?

Won't even get started on how this negatively impacts my Hunter or Guardian...

Turbine strikes again! LOL! /facepalm

I'm enjoying this thread. Despite the following sentence from the OP:

"Reports of resistance rates 20% or higher are likely caused by small sample spaces, fighting up-level or against creatures with specific resistance buffs."

...the first page was almost all "I'm seeing resist rates of 20-80% or more!".

Small sample sizes, people. Fighting a few mobs, running a skirmish, or even running BG won't provide a statistically significant sample size.

Track your tactical attacks and chart all resists for thousands of attacks - that'll mean something.

(And yes, I know that it's not terribly feasible or fair to ask players to do this, but if you're convinced that resist rates are higher, this is the sort of thing you may need to do to convince Turbine that they are indeed higher than what is being purported. Of course, such data would need to include your level, your LIs & legacies, traits, level of mob, type of mob, any hope/dread effects you may have, etc.)

Originally Posted by Lestache

I'm enjoying this thread. Despite the following sentence from the OP:

"Reports of resistance rates 20% or higher are likely caused by small sample spaces, fighting up-level or against creatures with specific resistance buffs."

...the first page was almost all "I'm seeing resist rates of 20-80% or more!".

Small sample sizes, people. Fighting a few mobs, running a skirmish, or even running BG won't provide a statistically significant sample size.

Track your tactical attacks and chart all resists for thousands of attacks - that'll mean something.

(And yes, I know that it's not terribly feasible or fair to ask players to do this, but if you're convinced that resist rates are higher, this is the sort of thing you may need to do to convince Turbine that they are indeed higher than what is being purported. Of course, such data would need to include your level, your LIs & legacies, traits, level of mob, type of mob, any hope/dread effects you may have, etc.)

after doing all that, will the turbine QA department send us their payroll check from the test period? JK
but yes, it is unreasonable to ask players to supply all that info, unfortunately, it may be the only way that the devs can accurately assess the problem and come up with a balanced fix

....and I'm only hearing about this now....long after I've maxed out my RK LIs with no thought to resists as it wasn't a problem. Way to screw us over Turbine!

Are you people really going to rebuild your entire character over a 10% resist rate? Really?

Originally Posted by Lestache

I'm enjoying this thread. Despite the following sentence from the OP:

"Reports of resistance rates 20% or higher are likely caused by small sample spaces, fighting up-level or against creatures with specific resistance buffs."

...the first page was almost all "I'm seeing resist rates of 20-80% or more!".

Small sample sizes, people. Fighting a few mobs, running a skirmish, or even running BG won't provide a statistically significant sample size.

Track your tactical attacks and chart all resists for thousands of attacks - that'll mean something.

(And yes, I know that it's not terribly feasible or fair to ask players to do this, but if you're convinced that resist rates are higher, this is the sort of thing you may need to do to convince Turbine that they are indeed higher than what is being purported. Of course, such data would need to include your level, your LIs & legacies, traits, level of mob, type of mob, any hope/dread effects you may have, etc.)

Keep in mind though that resists aren't tracked in the combat text log, so unless you can have someone standing over your shoulder with pen and paper in hand it may be very tough to accurately see how this is affecting the game for many classes. What kind of scenario can really exist for a class who relies highly on tactical skills to play their character as they normally would and yet sit there and write down specifics of what skill is resisted and when, not to mention the mob and it's level and what buffs it puts up mid-fight and blah blah blah.

The best way of testing this really is for Turbine to implement some system, even if it's just showing the info in the combat log, so things like this can be examined after a "normal" fight has occurred. At the moment that does not exist.

I'm too lazy to use the quote system properly.. from LTSystems post:

Shortly after Mirkwood’s launch, we found an unexpected bug. Between the Moria and Mirkwood updates, monster resistance rates had been accidentally altered in strange way. From level 1 to 42, the resistance ratings were correct. These ratings translated to around a 1% resistance rate at low levels that slowly rose to the expected rate, which is around 10%. However, at level 43 the ratings dropped down by exactly half, and stayed that way all the way to level cap. This means players leveling with a tactical character would see monster resistance rates raise slightly as they leveled, even out at 10%, and then suddenly drop away at level 43. This is contrasted by classes that fight against Block/Parry/Evade for damage, who saw their rates stay the same

Okay, so you're saying that the "tacticals" have it easy until level 43. I'm not leveling a tactical character around that level, so okay. Except, keep in mind that B/P/E also has partial B/P/E. They still do damage(not sure if they still have their secondary effect like a bleed/stun). When a tactical skill gets resisted; there is nothing!


Monster resistance rates have been fixed in Book 1 to stay around 10% for all levels past 43. There are a number of trait, gear and legacy options that can be used to reduce this number. B/P/E classes are in the same boat, but have always been dealing with higher rating numbers to fight against. Reports of resistance rates 20% or higher are likely caused by small sample spaces, fighting up-level or against creatures with specific resistance buffs.

Okay, so you are saying 1: On-level equal con resist is 10%
2: Get some -resist stuff yesterday!
And by inference of No 2.. No 3 Cookie-cuttering is more likely to be prevalent.. because if after all, my skills don't hit; I don't do squat(it rhymes).

Not only that are all classes nowhere NEAR equal in the available options in -resist gear/traits (RK's win on this); but often times these legacies are in the "A" pool making them ever harder to come by.

And, I'll state again, b/p/e has partials unlike a resist; where absolute jack happens.. and most tactical skills are on MUCH longer cooldowns then you average melee skill.

Okay, no more soapbox.

So, add partial resists and then you wont be screwing the "tacticals" over (again).

Originally Posted by gildhur

Are you people really going to rebuild your entire character over a 10% resist rate? Really?

You don't understand, Turbine is saying 10%, majority of people here would agree it is more like 50%+.

Originally Posted by danazc

You don't understand, Turbine is saying 10%, majority of people here would agree it is more like 50%+.

Yes, and they're either wrong or it's bugged. In either case, it hardly requires such outrage and character redevelopment.

Originally Posted by lwk1138

It's like giving someone glasses to correct bad vision, then giving the same person laser eye surgery to correct their bad vision but making them keep the glasses on. Their vision will be just as bad, but in a different way! Turbine needs to get it together and choose one or the other. All the rebalancing that happened is now totally out of whack!

I absolutely agree.

Originally Posted by lwk1138

I dread what our next BG attempt will look like.

I just don't see the point in doing BG at all, ever. It's a long, complicated fairly painful process that doesn't really net any worthwhile rewards. Perhaps someday when casual players stop insisting that they should get awesome armour just because they craft (when crafting is so easy and, especially since crafted relics, everybody does it in some fashion) the devs will once again create radiance armour that's worth chasing.

Another thing that occured to me is that resist rates seemed to have gone up with the release of Mirkwood. I assumed it was intended and part of the "tougher monsters". But based on the OP that doesn't seem to be the case. So I now have to wonder what happened at the start of Mirkwood to increase the resists and if that was unintended is there still something strange going on.

Originally Posted by gildhur

Are you people really going to rebuild your entire character over a 10% resist rate? Really?

Are you really suggesting that everyone that's reported higher than 10% resist rates is seeing things? Are you really so blinded by your faith that it's beyond the realm of possibility that Turbine is wrong in their expectation that resist rates are truly at 10%...when they've been wrong in this area more than once before?

Aarg! You post too fast.

Originally Posted by gildhur

Yes, and they're either wrong or it's bugged. In either case, it hardly requires such outrage and character redevelopment.

Good, it's not beyond possibility.

Originally Posted by danazc

You don't understand, Turbine is saying 10%, majority of people here would agree it is more like 50%+.

Exactly. I noticed it most when fighting bosses in BG - probably because you are concentrating on the one target and also because certain elements in there are dps races....firstly we noticed that it was taking an extra long time to dps bosses down compared to our runs pre book 1. So I paid extra attention to my RK....resist....resist....resi st....at least 50% of the time....I promise you....I had runs of 5 attacks in a row resisting....add into that the misses....and it was pointless me even being there.

Originally Posted by jayssen

....and I'm only hearing about this now....long after I've maxed out my RK LIs with no thought to resists as it wasn't a problem. Way to screw us over Turbine!

Are you getting screwed over? Or were you inadvertently allowed by Turbine to ezmode it for the last few months?

(Not so much directed at you in particular, but at all who feel that way.)

That's the other side to this that seems to be going unnoticed. What we've been told is that tactical classes level 43+ have apparently been having an easier time of things than they were supposed to until now.

Oh, and I do play at least one max-level tactical class, so this isn't a melee class player enjoying your misfortune - just someone playing Devil's Advocate.

Originally Posted by gildhur

Are you people really going to rebuild your entire character over a 10% resist rate? Really?

That depends on the class. Resists can be huge. I'm not changing anything for my hunter, but I may for my lore-master or minstrel.

It's definitely higher than 10%. On my 2 highest characters (lvl 65 RK and lvl 63 LM) I am seeing my skills resisted far more than before, to the point where it's now more frustrating than challenging, especially on my LM.

I found about 2%. If we take the anecdotal evidence from everyone else, find the standard deviation, fit it to a Poisson distribution, then we can determine the current dollar to euro exchange rate. Or something...

I have faith that Turbine made an intern sit down at a console and spam nothing but Ballad of Steel on an Orc with 5 million morale and write down the number of resists, just to double check this. There is no way (crosses fingers) resists are as high as some people are claiming (50%+). It is most likely that negative events (resists) are standing out above positive ones, combined with some bad RNG luck.

Originally Posted by Lestache

Are you getting screwed over? Or were you inadvertently allowed by Turbine to ezmode it for the last few months?

LOL - good point If, for a second I believed the resist rate to now be at 10%, I'd shut up....I don't. Additionally, it is now completely frustrating to play when all my attacks are being resist at the rate they are.

Equally as frustrating is people posting that they don't believe all the people stating that resists are definately higher than 10%.

Originally Posted by jayssen

LOL - good point If, for a second I believed the resist rate to now be at 10%, I'd shut up....I don't. Additionally, it is now completely frustrating to play when all my attacks are being resist at the rate they are.

Equally as frustrating is people posting that they don't believe all the people stating that resists are definately higher than 10%.

I'll take one positive out of the higher resist rate - I can finally finish the "get resisted 500 times" deed on my RK.

Maybe the same for my Burg w/Riddle and Addle.

Meh... some people are pulling the typical insta-defense of anything Turbine does and especially using the phrase "Do you have data?"... even though those same people are admitting that it's nearly impossible to get the exact data that they're saying is the only offer of proof.... except they say that still wouldn't be proof, just a tiny bit of evidence. Right... I'm sure that's how all research works... mmhmmmm... I somehow have never encountered that in my career where 100% excessive proof is the requirement for medical or scientific evidence. Whatever... you guys can have your beliefs.

Personally, I can say my resist rates were well over 10% too. I won't say I saw anything like some people have said... but it was at least 1/5 attacks. I do agree, however, that resist rates were far too low before... I would proc a resist about once or twice a session.... which is ridiculous. There's a happy medium somewhere in here though that we completely skipped over... I mean... I don't have enough dps on my minstrel to have all 3 of my WS skills + my piercing cry + Echoes resisted when I'm fighting 2 pulls of mobs. I'm still doing alright... I'm surviving... but it's making me not want to solo skirmishes in my free time between healing.... which is an issue, because I'm taking a pretty tempered approach to it, whereas I know not everyone will be willing to bend for a while.

I just hope it's addressed in some way... it's def an issue right now. (Edit: Mainly an issue due to the fact that my or my group's survival/success is getting determined far more by luck than skill... which is a bad formula, imo.)

My anecdotes say that my addles and mezzes are being resisted noticeably more than they used to be - and more than 10% more. Two SG runs last night showed me all I need to see.

Way to make a sweeping untested change, Turbine. I have good minnies in my kin repeatedly failing skirmishes they used to ace.

Isn't the combat system finished yet? I mean....3 years later - can we have a little stability, pls? It's getting silly. Move on for cripes sakes.

Content. Give us content, not more tweaks.


P.S. V3 B1 makes me sad.

Originally Posted by Ioffryd

So let me get this straight... as our characters increase in level, we become more and more susceptible to resists?

No, the enemies get stronger resists as they level up :-)

Originally Posted by gantoris

Well, everyone was complaining that everything was far too easy.

Not true.


Back to resists, first, no way for me is it 'doubled'.

Not only that, forget the patch notes, this is a major change for players that for many will require reworking their builds. Unless it is fixed of course.

Sorry Turbine but you really fubar'd this one, especially in conjunction with the duos disguised as small fellowship skirmishes. I don't feel like playing this game via an Excel spreadsheet, if you are making major combat changes, maybe a heads up? Please? Just give me a hint to what I need to do (I'll assume it will include me paying in game cash) so I can get back to enjoying the game again. Thanks.