[BUG] Demoralizing Shout Increases NPC's Unmitigated Physical Damage targeted at casting Warrior

[kenthklui]

1. Current Behavior

1.1. Description

When a warrior casts Demoralizing Shout at an NPC, it should reduce the NPC's physical damage dealt by 10%. However, according to combat logs, the raw physical amount dealt by the NPC at the warrior is instead increased by roughly 10%. Luckily, this only affects the unmitigated amount, as the final mitigated amount still appears to be correctly reduced by roughly 10%.

Additional notes:

• On WCL, this bug causes a tanking warrior to suddenly appear to have 20% extra damage reduction from an unknown source.
• This bug does not apply to physical damage dealt by the NPC to other players (or perhaps classes?). Both the mitigated and raw damage dealt is correctly decreased by roughly 10%
• This bug does not happen when the target of Demoralizing Shout is a player. The target player's physical damage is reduced by 10% correctly.

• This bug does not happen with Demoralizing Roar or Vindication, which are the bear druid/protection paladin counterparts to Demoralizing Shout. It is not known whether this bug affects Scarlet Fever.

  1.2. How to Reproduce

  1. On a warrior, with combat log enabled, engage any enemy NPC that performs melee attacks
  2. Let it attack you for a bit. Turning your back will avoid blocks/parries/dodges which can complicate things.
  3. Cast Demoralizing shout.
  4. Let it attack you again for a bit.
  5. Run away and disengage.
  6. Compare recorded melee attacks before and after applying Demoralizing Shout at the enemy.

2. Expected Behavior

2.1. Description

Assuming the behavior is comparable to previous expansions, the NPC should have their unmitigated physical damage reduced by 10%.

3. Observed Behavior

The NPC's raw attack damage is increased by 10%, though the final mitigated attack damage is reduced by roughly 10%.

4. Source/Reference Material

Log of Solo warrior against NPCs

• When demoralizing shout is casted, the mitigation % on melee damage jumps from ~77.09% to ~81.66%, which is almost exactly 20% less damage taken. This value should stay constant when damage debuffs are applied to NPCs.
• This is offset by the fact that skeletons attack ~10% harder, jumping from 3416-4865 to 3888-5448 unmitigated damage when the debuff is applied.
• The combined result is the warrior taking (seemingly correct) ~10% less damage.

Log of Solo warrior against Player

• When demoralizing shout is applied, Thunder Clap (which has no damage range) damage is reduced from 428 to 386. This is almost exactly a 10% reduction.
• Inspecting raw logs indicates that raw damage dealt is reduced from 1196 to 1076, once again the expected 10%.

Log of Solo paladin against NPCs Log of Solo Druid against NPCs

• The same bugged behavior of increasing unmitigated physical amounts does not appear with Vindication and Demoralizing Roar.
• It is worth noting that correct physical damage debuff application, should not lead to physical damage mitigation % being changed.

Log of DK & Warrior against cleaving NPC

• In this log, a DK and Warrior are standing in front of a cleaving mob to observe how cleave damage is affected by Demoralizing Shout
• When the Shout is applied, the unmitigated physical damage bug only applies to attacks targeted at the warrior, but not against the DK.
• This results in a weird situation where the same cleave attack has significantly different attack damage against shared targets:

[kenthklui]

Here are my personal notes and speculation on what is happening:

• The final post-mitigation damage values appear to be correct on all characters, so this is unlikely to have any gameplay impact.
• As the physical damage mitigated is increased by exactly 20%, it is likely that the unmitigated damage increase is not 10%, but ((1/0.9) - 1) = 11.11%.
• Combining the two, perhaps this is just a display bug in the log, where mob damage incorrectly divides by 0.9 instead of multiplies?
• It's a mystery to me why this bug only applies to damage that is targeted at the warrior. I do not know if this affects damage targeting ALL warriors, or just the warrior who casted the shout.

[kenthklui]

Reopened - was closed due to a misunderstanding! Log link: https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/reports/nxh27AYNDVt1mygF#boss=0&difficulty=0&type=damage-taken&pins=0%24Separate%24%23244F4B%24auras-gained%241%240.0.0.Any%240.0.0.Any%24true%2446379.0.0.NPC%24false%241160&source=2&target=1&view=events&ability=1