History

Resistances

Resistances reduce the damage a character takes from magic. Classic has five: arcane, fire, frost, nature and shadow. Most of the time they matter little, but several raid bosses deal so much of one kind of magic damage that raids had to build whole sets of gear around a single resistance: fire for Molten Core, nature for Ahn'Qiraj and frost for Sapphiron in Naxxramas.

Sapphiron, whose frost attacks made frost resistance gear a requirement © Blizzard Entertainment

Schools	Arcane, fire, frost, nature, shadow
Cap	75% average reduction
Against level 63	About 315 for the cap
Sources	Gear, buffs, potions, racial traits
Not affected	Physical and holy damage

How resistance works

Resistance does not lower every hit by a fixed share like armor does. Instead, each damaging spell can be partially resisted, losing 25%, 50% or 75% of its damage, or occasionally fully resisted. Higher resistance makes the large partial resists more common, so on average more damage is avoided. Against a monster of the player's own level, a resistance of five times that level gives the maximum average reduction of 75%. Raid bosses count as level 63, so raiders aimed for about 315 resistance to reach the cap.

Spells that do something besides damage, such as a stun, a fear or a slowing effect, work differently: they are either resisted entirely or not at all, and higher resistance raises the chance of shrugging them off.

Each character has a little natural resistance, and some races more: night elves resist nature, dwarves frost, gnomes arcane, tauren nature and undead shadow. The character window lists all five resistances beside the character's model.

The character window, with the five resistances shown beside the model (a later version of the window is shown) © Blizzard Entertainment

Raising it

Players stacked resistance from several sources at once:

Buffs. Paladins have Fire Resistance Aura, Frost Resistance Aura and Shadow Resistance Aura. Shamans place Fire Resistance Totem, Frost Resistance Totem and Nature Resistance Totem. Priests cast Shadow Protection, druids Mark of the Wild (which raises all resistances) and hunters Aspect of the Wild.
Gear. Many items have resistance as a stat, and some raids drop whole sets built around one. Crafted pieces such as [Flarecore Wraps] for fire and the Naxxramas frost sets like [[forever:item:22652]] and [[forever:item:22669]] were made for the purpose.
Potions. [Greater Fire Protection Potion], [Greater Nature Protection Potion] and [Greater Frost Protection Potion] absorb a large amount of one school of damage.
Enchantments, on cloaks especially.

Building a set took work. A raider might farm, craft or buy a full extra set of gear that did nothing in most of the game but was essential for one boss.

Fire: Molten Core

Nearly everything in Molten Core deals fire damage, but most guilds only needed fire resistance for a few fights. Ragnaros hits the whole raid with fire, and the tanks who faced him often wore heavy fire resistance, while Baron Geddon's Inferno punishes anyone caught near him. Fire resistance came back in Blackwing Lair, where Firemaw's flame buffets stack on everyone in range.

Nature: Ahn'Qiraj

The Ahn'Qiraj raids lean on poison. Princess Huhuran's poison volley in the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj hits the whole raid for nature damage and grows worse as the fight goes on, so most raids brought every member into nature resistance gear for her. Other fights in the temple and in the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj rewarded it too, and the [Greater Nature Protection Potion] became a common raid consumable.

The bosses of the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, several of whom deal heavy nature damage © Blizzard Entertainment

Frost: Sapphiron

Sapphiron, the frost wyrm guarding Kel'Thuzad in Naxxramas, fills his lair with frost aura damage that never stops and with an icy blast that can kill a raid that is not hidden behind ice. Naxxramas offers frost resistance gear crafted from its own materials, and it was widely accepted that Sapphiron could not be beaten without several pieces on every raider. For many guilds, building that gear was the last step before Kel'Thuzad.

Later history

The Burning Crusade still had resistance fights, and resistance gear was used for bosses such as Mother Shahraz and Hydross the Unstable. Wrath of the Lich King made these sets rare, and Cataclysm removed resistance as a gear stat. Classic Era and WoW Forever keep the 1.12 rules.