This idea involves a major overhaul of the spell system with numerous obvious (monks, blinds, damage debuffs) and who knows how many yet unknown problems. The best case scenario for implementation looks like a patchwork system that would be a massive time sink and require patches upon patches as new issues are discovered with spells and encounters.
I think maybe you overestimate how complicated this would be. I've already coded the main bit for testing (swapping out 1 function for a slightly modified version of that function is pretty easy) and since it's designed to approximate the same average damage per mana as the current system, I don't think many adjustments would be necessary, at least on the player against NPC side. I'm also not sure how many issues it could bring up (something gets mitigated more than we'd like, something gets mitigated less than we'd like, is there anything left? edit: I thought of one in the form of Leechstorm and Soulspike, since those are faux lifetaps that use a recourse heal that's always fully effective unless you fully resist. Can just make an exception for that one, or make a PBAE Tap target type that really should exist. Pretty atypical type of thing, but another one out of the way before we even start!). Lots of high end encounters, at least, have resist adjusts so high (if not outright unresistable) that it would hardly make a difference. Some lower end fights might get a bit easier from a healing perspective, but I somewhat doubt how much: if you're fully resisting an AE often enough to make a significant difference then you've probably trivialized it already; if not, the difference will be minimal.
Monks and damage debuffs might be problems but keeping them using the current system is a really easy solution. I'd only need to add one little check in one line of code for to do that for FD'd Monks; Slaariel's solution might be a bit more complicated, but not much. Damaging debuffs are already there in my test code.
To some extent every change inevitably requires some amount of fixes, usually for lapses of logic. That in itself isn't much argument against doing something.
What would we gain? Well, the lower levels would be nicer for casters. The effects of CHA and Specialize Focus/Mind and Divination mods and resist debuffs would be much much easier to see and to weigh and thus more fun (if I may say so). It's easy to take slowly accumulating, difficult to "feel" effects for granted. No one wants to do the kind of involved parsing it would take just to see how much 20 CHA helps you, for example. By the same token resist adjusts on spells become more significant and something that can be considered directly as part of the spell's damage rather than something that's kind of mysterious even from a Dev's perspective. Might even get us into a position where we can argue that spell x should have resist adjust y for a reason rather than just slapping -200 on this and -10 on that without much thought. I wouldn't mind seeing threads arguing Poison and Disease DoTs should have better resist debuffs in that situation probably.
Also makes resists more valuable in high end raids and, again, their value becomes easier to judge. Even a small amount of mitigation could be valuable in some situations, whereas a 3% chance to fully resist something may never even come up in a fight, for example.
Phasing out MotS and Dampening Curse would probably be a bigger, more balance-requiring change than any of this system itself on the NPC against player side. But I'd still like to consider it since those have been an annoyance for a long time, and this seems like a good excuse.
And as someone (probably Solo) has said: resists kind of suck. Wasted mana, wasted time. In the new system you'll be able to easily judge whether an iffy spell is worth casting on this boss in clear terms rather than taking a gamble and giving up when you've wasted your mana just to be resisted 3 times and never trying it on that boss again, even though you really just had an unlikely streak of bad luck. And so on.
Tell me if I'm wrong about Necros being worried about Wizards horning in on their territory because all in all I thought it'd be pretty obvious the big resist adjusts on some of Necro's biggest damage spells would preserve a pretty big advantage in the new system. Otherwise it's kind of baffling to hear such immediate dismissal from two Necros with no specific argument against the idea itself yet forthcoming.
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