I was wondering... with an SA on a weapon with 20% chance for Hold to land and I casted it on a person with Hold resist like nightmare armor gives.. does the hold land autmatically or is it 20% to cast and then another % of going through the persons defenses?
I believe that the SA gives you a chance to follow the normal procedure for the offensive spell even though you didn't actually cast that spell yourself.
For example, your 20% chance to Hold basically means that there's a 1:5 chance that it will automatically "cast a hold spell" at the target whenever you meet the conditions for trigger, and the target will have all normal opportunities to resist it.
I believe that the SA gives you a chance to follow the normal procedure for the offensive spell even though you didn't actually cast that spell yourself.
For example, your 20% chance to Hold basically means that there's a 1:5 chance that it will automatically "cast a hold spell" at the target whenever you meet the conditions for trigger, and the target will have all normal opportunities to resist it.
That is correct. On the PTS, I whomped a GM with such a weapon, he took the damage, but I got a 'GMxxx has resisted your hold magic' message.
From my experiences, however, the SA's either don't use a very high level of the root/paralyze/silence or they don't benefit from spiritshot. I had a magic paralyze weapon, and the SA never landed even on mobs that I could root with my EE (lvl 9 root at level 56 at the time). I gave the weapon to a 60+ SH to try on the same mobs with similar results. One paralyze in 10 attempts (actual paralyze attempts, not attacks) landed. So I tried to OE it, blew it up, and haven't cared one bit.