A cavity microwave filter assembly for filtering an electromagnetic wave including a plurality of cavity resonator assemblies, where each cavity resonator assembly has a bottom and including at least one lossy element for electromagnetically coupling two elements of the filter assembly, where at least one element is a cavity resonator assembly. The lossy elements provide attenuation in the loss variation of the filter and sharper slopes resulting in an improved Q factor for the filter. A method for realizing lossy elements as resistors requires determining an equivalent circuit model that can be manufactured using resistors, coupling elements, and transmission lines. The method includes representing the resistive element with a resistor, unity admittance inverters and coupling elements and then scaling to determine the resistor and coupling values. The method further includes replacing the admittance inverters with transmission lines of the appropriate length to account for the specific design of the filter.