Jump to content

Diablo 3 Thoughts on Resistances/Armor


Recommended Posts

Hey there guys, I noticed there has been alot of talk about good items at the auction house, resistances, armor, and just generally keeping your character alive. So in the light of these talks, I figured I would contribute some math I've been doing regarding resistances, armor, vitality, and effective health. Some of this information has been taken off the internet, mainly Diablo 3/Blizzard forums or dev blog posts regarding the mechanics of the game. But a large part of it is my own, so if you see a problem with the math or logic, please feel free to step up so I can make edits as necessary. Anyways, here we go...

 

Armor and Resistance Formula

 

Yes, armor and resistances have diminishing returns in Diablo 3, so do not be expecting to stack a huge amount of resist/armor and become invincible. It simply won't happen, as diminishing returns will begin to make pushing certain stats impossible and useless for your character. Well maybe not useless, but neglecting one stat while increasing the other is going to make your survival really limited, especially in hardcore. I have included the formulas below for some of the calculations the game will do for you. Just good overall knowledge and will set up my observations for the next section.

 

Reduction from Armor = Armor /((50*Monster Level) + Armor)

 

For example 2000 armor at level 30 will give you:

2000/(50*30+2000) = 0.5714 = 57.14% reduction

 

But doubling that armor and having 4000 armor will give you:

4000/(50*30+4000) = 0.7272 = 72.72% reduction

 

The increase from 72.72% from 57.14% is only 15.58%, which is obviously not double after doubling your armor. So diminishing returns^^

 

Reduction from Resistance = (Resistance *10)/((50*Monster Level) + (Resistance*10))

 

Look at example above, just plug in different numbers :)

 

Total Damage Reduction = (1-Reduction from Armor) * (1-Reduction from Resistance)

 

For example, if you had 57.14% reduction from armor and 40% reduction from resistances (assuming 100 to all resistances).

 

(1-.5714) * (1-.4) = .2571 = 25.71% damage is actually being done to your character.

 

Damage Taken = Monster Damage * Total Damage Reduction

 

At level 30 in Act III monster damage let's say is 4000. This means that your actual damage taken is 4000 * .2571 = 1028 damage being applied to your character.

 

Upgrading a Piece of Gear

 

So when upgrading to a new piece of gear, especially at the Auction House, where you have a large array of choices laid out for you, it is important to note the difference the item is actually going to make. Seen on the internet in alot of places I've noticed the 10:1 ratio talked about alot. Apparently, alot of D3 players will balance their armor to resistances in a 10:1 ratio. This I assume comes from the stat bonuses and previous work on diminishing returns. In other words

 

1 strength = 1 armor

1 intelligence = .1 resistance

 

According to this 10:1 theory, if you have 5000 armor, you should have 500 resistance. Conversely, if one stat is higher than the other, you need to focus on getting the lower stat up to par. Based on these increasing stats, I think that is where this information is from. Anyways, when you are upgrading a piece of gear or a whole set that has new armor or resistance values, use the above formulas to find out exactly how much less damage you will take. Just calculate the damage taken from previous armor and subtract it from the damage taken from the new armor. Pretty simple stuff. When deciding because a new piece with vitality or a new piece with resists and armor, chances are you're gonna want to lean towards the resists and armor. Especially in the higher difficulties where mitigation is almost all that matters. Although there is a certain point where the vitality/hp bonus provided by a piece of equipment might outweigh the bonus to damage reduction, so keep that in mind as well.

 

Okay, big wall of text is done for now :) Hope you enjoyed reading at the very least and the color coding :P

Edited by ryanrocker1217
Link to comment

While you cant reach 100% dmg reduction, the effectiveness on survivability of armor and resistance actually isn't diminishing.

The build-in diminishing return just offset the build-in exponential benefit of dmg reduction (going from 98% dmg reduction to 99% is as useful as going from 0% to 50% etc).

 

So getting more armor and resistance is always useful for your survivability, no matter how much you already have. Well, up until the point where you do not want more survivability that is :D

However, the more dmg reduction the more benefit you gain from vitality as well, so there certainly is a point where you are much better off increasing vitality rather than increasing armor/resistance.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ag4BdvmMzezudEszY2pQUUczTXdhY3A0UE05ZGkzX0E&output=html

Edited by Shadout
Link to comment

Hey there guys, I noticed there has been alot of talk about good items at the auction house, resistances, armor, and just generally keeping your character alive. So in the light of these talks, I figured I would contribute some math I've been doing regarding resistances, armor, vitality, and effective health. Some of this information has been taken off the internet, mainly Diablo 3/Blizzard forums or dev blog posts regarding the mechanics of the game. But a large part of it is my own, so if you see a problem with the math or logic, please feel free to step up so I can make edits as necessary. Anyways, here we go...

 

Armor and Resistance Formula

 

Yes, armor and resistances have diminishing returns in Diablo 3, so do not be expecting to stack a huge amount of resist/armor and become invincible. It simply won't happen, as diminishing returns will begin to make pushing certain stats impossible and useless for your character. I have included the formulas below for some of the calculations the game will do for you. Just good overall knowledge and will set up my observations for the next section.

 

Reduction from Armor = Armor /((50*Monster Level) + Armor)

 

For example 2000 armor at level 30 will give you:

2000/(50*30+2000) = 0.5714 = 57.14% reduction

 

But doubling that armor and having 4000 armor will give you:

4000/(50*30+4000) = 0.7272 = 72.72% reduction

 

The increase from 72.72% from 57.14% is only 15.58%, which is obviously not double after doubling your armor. So diminishing returns^^

 

Reduction from Resistance = (Resistance *10)/((50*Monster Level) + (Resistance*10))

 

Look at example above, just plug in different numbers :)

 

Total Damage Reduction = (1-Reduction from Armor) * (1-Reduction from Resistance)

 

For example, if you had 57.14% reduction from armor and 40% reduction from resistances (assuming 100 to all resistances).

 

(1-.5714) * (1-.4) = .2571 = 25.71% damage is actually being done to your character.

 

Damage Taken = Monster Damage * Total Damage Reduction

 

At level 30 in Act III monster damage let's say is 4000. This means that your actual damage taken is 4000 * .2571 = 1028 damage being applied to your character.

 

Upgrading a Piece of Gear

 

So when upgrading to a new piece of gear, especially at the Auction House, where you have a large array of choices laid out for you, it is important to note the difference the item is actually going to make. Seen on the internet in alot of places I've noticed the 10:1 ratio talked about alot. Apparently, alot of D3 players will balance their armor to resistances in a 10:1 ratio. This I assume comes from the stat bonuses and previous work on diminishing returns. In other words

 

1 strength = 1 armor

1 intelligence = .1 resistance

 

According to this 10:1 theory, if you have 5000 armor, you should have 500 resistance. Conversely, if one stat is higher than the other, you need to focus on getting the lower stat up to par. Based on these increasing stats, I think that is where this information is from. Anyways, when you are upgrading a piece of gear or a whole set that has new armor or resistance values, use the above formulas to find out exactly how much less damage you will take. Just calculate the damage taken from previous armor and subtract it from the damage taken from the new armor. Pretty simple stuff. When deciding because a new piece with vitality or a new piece with resists and armor, chances are you're gonna want to lean towards the resists and armor. Especially in the higher difficulties where mitigation is almost all that matters.

 

Okay, big wall of text is done for now :) Hope you enjoyed reading at the very least and the color coding :P

 

Ryan, thats a great writeup, and just in time! It seems to be coinciding with levels getting into hand with armor being more important for survival. For me, you've uncovered a lot of basics and in a very clear, well-written manner which ends up with me "getting it".

Course you know this means I'm gonna be pestering you in game for more advice now huh?

 

;devil:

 

gogo

 

p.s. just spending some time with searches and filters on the auction house for all the different resistances and armors, it's giving me a good "feel" for availability and what's rare and not.

Link to comment

So getting more armor and resistance is always useful for your survivability, no matter how much you already have. Well, up until the point where you do not want more survivability that is :D

However, the more dmg reduction the more benefit you gain from vitality as well, so there certainly is a point where you are much better off increasing vitality rather than increasing armor/resistance.

 

Haha, whoops maybe I should clarify that in the original post :sweating: . Yes, I do realize that more armor and resistance is useful to stay alive longer, but it comes to a certain point where pushing one while neglecting the other, is just overall bad for your character. Regarding the vitality increase, I also know there is a certain point where Vitality becomes better than resists/armor, but I'm far too lazy to calculate when that happens :crazy:

 

Ryan, thats a great writeup, and just in time! It seems to be coinciding with levels getting into hand with armor being more important for survival. For me, you've uncovered a lot of basics and in a very clear, well-written manner which ends up with me "getting it".

Course you know this means I'm gonna be pestering you in game for more advice now huh?

 

Lol, better run and hide in game now :cow_white: Glad you enjoyed the writeup!

Link to comment

Glad you enjoyed the writeup!

 

I really did, thanks! It's oftentimes too easy to go with damage damage damage, but as my last toon made it to level 44 I should have taken it as a kind of warning that the drops, since they were starting to show more defensive elements, would have been indicator to begin to hunt out more things to balance for my build.

 

I was going strictly vitality before though, with secondary stat... Chrona said that's what he stacked to get to level 60...think this could still work?

 

I'm lazy, and just stacking one or two things is sooooo much easier

 

:P

 

gogo

Link to comment

I was going strictly vitality before though, with secondary stat... Chrona said that's what he stacked to get to level 60...think this could still work?

 

If all he did was stack vitality...I want to know the secret! I'm sure the secondary stat was +all resist or something along those lines, or else he had diablo's health pool on inferno (I think 24.5 million hp) :P

Link to comment

I just asked him on his topic, where he reports he made it to Hell HC... he may have some good info for us... or maybe he just used all vit till beginning of nm, then started to use resistances?

 

:)

 

gogo

Link to comment

That would make sense because you can easily get by normal and the first half of nightmare by stacking vitality, as that's what most of us have been doing, including you right? ;)

Link to comment

Haha, whoops maybe I should clarify that in the original post :sweating: . Yes, I do realize that more armor and resistance is useful to stay alive longer, but it comes to a certain point where pushing one while neglecting the other, is just overall bad for your character. Regarding the vitality increase, I also know there is a certain point where Vitality becomes better than resists/armor, but I'm far too lazy to calculate when that happens :crazy:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ag4BdvmMzezudEFJTUpBYU54aFZCX3JlcHhqSVhwOEE&output=html

Chart with relative values of Armor and Resistance against each other. It is just showing what you already said though.

 

http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1337704597

This one is more interesting however, as it shows the relative value of Vitality depending on how much armor or resistance you have (but not both at the same time sadly).

 

(Both taken from http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149150485)

 

http://rubensayshi.github.com/d3-ehp-calculator/#calculator

This one is quite interesting as well. Calculates effective HP from all your stats - and how much effective HP is upgraded by a new item. Gives a good idea about survivability gains from various sources.

 

Of course effective HP is an abstract calculation, which ignores lots of important survivability - such as Block from shields which is hugely important for Barbs for example. As well as not taking into account mobility from skills, run speed etc, which can let you avoid taking damage in the first place :D

Still, its a decent way to calculate survivability, especially in Diablo because both armor and resistance are such simple dmg mitigations - both working against pretty much everything - in sharp contrast to all the different dmg mitigations in Sacred 2 for example.

Edited by Shadout
Link to comment

That would make sense because you can easily get by normal and the first half of nightmare by stacking vitality, as that's what most of us have been doing, including you right? ;)

 

Ayup!

 

I was able to get to level 44 NightMare with not too much sweating with only vit stat and secondaries. I`m also pretty sure that Schot is up high level in night mare with only stacking Vit and secondary, but will have to ask how he`s doing now. He`s playing a very careful game, mostly only solo with a very specced out templar.

 

:)

 

gogo

Link to comment

Haha, whoops maybe I should clarify that in the original post :sweating: . Yes, I do realize that more armor and resistance is useful to stay alive longer, but it comes to a certain point where pushing one while neglecting the other, is just overall bad for your character. Regarding the vitality increase, I also know there is a certain point where Vitality becomes better than resists/armor, but I'm far too lazy to calculate when that happens :crazy:

 

https://docs.google....OEE&output=html

Chart with relative values of Armor and Resistance against each other. It is just showing what you already said though.

 

http://www.swfcabin....open/1337704597

This one is more interesting however, as it shows the relative value of Vitality depending on how much armor or resistance you have (but not both at the same time sadly).

 

(Both taken from http://us.battle.net...opic/5149150485)

 

http://rubensayshi.g...tor/#calculator

This one is quite interesting as well. Calculates effective HP from all your stats - and how much effective HP is upgraded by a new item. Gives a good idea about survivability gains from various sources.

 

Of course effective HP is an abstract calculation, which ignores lots of important survivability - such as Block from shields which is hugely important for Barbs for example. As well as not taking into account mobility from skills, run speed etc, which can let you avoid taking damage in the first place :D

Still, its a decent way to calculate survivability, especially in Diablo because both armor and resistance are such simple dmg mitigations - both working against pretty much everything - in sharp contrast to all the different dmg mitigations in Sacred 2 for example.

 

Shadout, these are great links, your explanation why they are meaningful very useful, I know where I'll be doing reading today at work as well if itès quiet.

 

This topic has become a great resource topic for the community, I think it,s time to put together a forum for the guides, articles and tips everyone is putting up, great start on this Ryan.

 

:)

 

gogo

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...
Please Sign In or Sign Up