Spell Resistance – The Easy Way

Previously I have covered just how devastating spell resistance can be in PvP and the importance spell penetration has in countering its effects; but spell resistance is by no means only important in PvP game play. Throughout much of the PvE content in World of Warcraft there are numerous encounters with high amounts of elemental damage; in fact it has been fairly traditional that most raid wide damage taken by players will be elemental in nature be it from curses placed on you or a damage aura.

It has normally been quite hard to increase your spell resistance to help counter this damage without having to equip specific resistance equipment which would heavily compromise your ability to perform your normal tasks. With WotLK however it has become much easier to gain spell resistance without any massive changes, allowing you to be far more durable and reduce the pressure on healers; the following is a list outlining the simple ways you can increase your spell resistance with minimal sacrifice.

For every spell type except for Arcane there are classes that can provide an aura or a buff that will increase your spell resistance by 130 (23.5% mitigation against bosses) these auras will not stack with each other or with the spell resistance provided by Mark of the Wild but will stack with all other effects.

Several classes are able to increase their resistance levels via talents; Mages can gain 140 resistance (25% mitigation) to all spell schools with a fully talented Mage Armour and frost Death Knights can gain 150 resistance (27% mitigation) from the Acclimation talent.

All classes are able to enchant their helms with 25 resistance (4.5% mitigation) to a single school of magic while Leatherworkers are able to place unique fur linings in their bracers that provide 60 resistance (11% mitigation) to a single spell school.

Alchemists are able to create lesser flasks of resistance that provide 50 resistance (9.5% mitigation) to every spell school, this can be further increased by the Alchemists mixology ability to 82 resistance (15% mitigation)

All of these simple means are widely available at a very small cost to other attributes and when combined can provide massive amounts of mitigation; for example a frost Death Knight could easily achieve 330 resistance (59.5% mitigation) to any spell school by combining their Acclimation talent with a flask and another classes aura; all without wearing a single piece of resistance based equipment.

This high level of resistance would allow the player a lot more flexibility in raids as he would not have to worry so much about avoiding raid wide damage which can lead to a greater amount of time spent fulfilling his role instead of changing position.