Guide to Damage Mitigation [DM] - By soldats

[soldats 0]

I don't like giving away what I consider cornerstones to my builds, but since no one on the sif has touched upon this subject in detail, I will try to explain why toughness/armor lore mastery/damage mitigation is mandatory for all classes and in particular, 2 classes

 

 

firstly, what is damage mitigation?

it is a % reduction of incoming damage. the % reduction occurs BEFORE the damage reduction from armor value[so far as I know without going into the game's coding, can anyone prove otherwise?] I will be calling it dm from now on for brevity's sake

 

so why would you want this property on your gear?

if it isn't obvious, a % reduction in damage becomes immensely powerful at end game levels[140+]. many players belong to the camp that thinks, 'the best way to mitigate damage is not to take any.' of course this is true, but there are going to be situations where you WILL be hit. especially those of you who play characters without a shield for cc/ca blocking, such as a bfg seraphim or a temple guardian or a dw something or other. evade and reflect are fantastic properties to have on gear, but they come with diminishing returns later on. so far as I know, I have not hit any diminishing returns for dm. the reason is simple: the rarity of this property ensures that it will never suffer from diminishing returns. and if you know how I play, I prioritize my gear in order of rarest property to most common.

 

one disclaimer before we get started...keep in mind that dm won't be truly effective until higher level, which means toughness should be your 50 or 65 skill pick, UNLESS you want it mastered by 75. because it is % based, there's little reason to try and gain 5% dm or 10% dm. you'll want at least 30%+ to make this property worthwhile, through whatever means you find mitigation. it's like starting out with rings with +5% attack value. that won't help nearly as much as +15 attack value because of the low % having very little effect.

 

 

there are 6 ways I know of to achieve dm, with 4 being the most effective/best bang for your buck.

 

01. **armor lore mastery unlockable- all channels[rare]

02. **native property- all channels[rare/set]

03. **toughness- all channels

04. **particular ca mods- all channels

05. native property- single element[rare/unique]

06. set bonus- single element/all channel[set]

 

#####

 

01. armor lore mastery unlockable

aside from ancient magic and combat discipline and toughness mastery[by proxy], I believe that armor lore is one of the best skills to master. why? it allows for the use of higher armor without penalty, lowered regen penalty on Combat Arts, and best of all, all the unlockables

 

armor lore mastery unlockables include-

detrimental magic effects -xx.xx%

damage mitigation xx.xx%

 

we will not be looking at the detrimental magic effects as I haven't thoroughly tested that unlockable yet. however, the dm is very important to our discussion here. dm when unlocked by armor lore mastery on rare gear gives a scaling % mitigation to ALL CHANNELS[all elements] relative to skill level of armor lore, which means if you're packing heavy +all skills, your mitigation will keep rising without any more hard points being invested past 75. the servers are down, so I cannot provide you with pictures for an example, but the rares I've been finding with this property at skill level 225~ is around 14-15%.

**note- there are ONLY TWO pieces of rare gear where this property can spawn- torso and shoulder armor.

 

02. native property- all channels

this property that grants dm for all channels can occur natively[that is, without armor lore mastery] on certain set pieces and rare pieces as well. again, this property can ONLY spawn on shoulders and torso of rares and with two exceptions that I know of, can occur on shoulders and torso of set pieces as well. the two set pieces that are in exclusion are the greaves of the demiurge for the temple guardian and endijian's wings for the seraphim.

 

what I've been unable to determine, however, is if you can find BOTH a natively spawning mitigation with armor lore unlockable on the same rare torso/shoulder armor. if so, that would make the character who wears it almost immune to damage with the right setup.

 

03. toughness

well. most people gloss over the importance of this skill. as stated before, many players opt for avoidance over mitigation. well, as I've stated, you WILL be hit. there is no avoiding it. some get hit less, some more, but you will be hit. that being said, that is not a strong enough argument for toughness alone. what I suggest is that characters who want to get away with choosing less defensive skills for more varied and unique builds[players like myself], you can choose to take that damage all the time, but reduce it to an amount that is manageable. that means NOT picking combat reflexes and spell resistance. I laugh at both of those skills when in comparison to toughness and mitigation from other sources combined. for characters that cannot use a shield for cc/ca blocking, toughness makes up for the avoidance factor. bfg seraphim, dw characters, tg's will all benefit greatly from the use of this skill

 

the rate at which mitigation climbs with this skill seems deplorable, especially after it was nerfed, but when used in conjunction with other sources of mitigation, toughness really shines. at skill level 250~[75 hard points only], it grants me 21.1% across all channels.

 

04. ca mods

some ca mods such as the gold mods for jolting touch, archimedes beam, purifying chastisement, etc offer dm to all channels as well, and is added to your existing base mitigation when in use. I will not be going in depth on how to use these Combat Arts as they are situational in use and depend on your playstyle. just know that using these is what I consider icing on top of the cake...which is to say unnecessary in most cases, but fun to see incoming damage being reduced to 25% or less.

 

05. native property- single element

these, while less effective, can be useful in certain situations. natively spawning mitigation properties are 99% physical. why? I don't know. but it makes their use particularly moot in niob, where enemies do 80%+ elemental damage. it is still useful, but not as useful as all channel mitigation. there are exceptions, as certain uniques and sets offer single element mitigation, such as fire on a certain amulet or set boot.

 

06. set bonus- single element/all channel

there are certain sets that grant you single element mitigation of a hard to find natively spawning element. magic, poison and ice are 3 that come to mind with regard to these set bonuses. however, I would stay away from using these, as they limit your gear choices for just a single element. some set bonuses grant all channel mitigation and I am on the fence about those, so I am not going to argue for or against them. if you can fit it into your playstyle, then go for it. if it involves too much sacrifice, then don't.

 

lots of reading, I know, but hang with me for just a little more...

 

 

so you can see how dm works and where to get it...but I will elaborate a little more on why

it opens up more skill slots because you can opt to take damage and lessen it. also, it does not suffer from diminishing returns so far as I know, with 52.2% and no sign of hitting a cap so far.

 

I think this may have to do with the fact that I'm using different sources for dm. that is, from a skill and from gear. 50%+ might suffer from diminishing returns if it was from ONE source- gear alone. which I think is near impossible to achieve anyway, being that shoulders and torso are the only rare pieces with scaling dm, you will need to have armor lore at skill level 1000 before you see results over 50%. but that is the beauty in dm. you can stack a gear dm with toughness and achieve 50% quite easily and kiss damage goodbye.

 

in my case, I've gotten several pm's and posts asking how I take so little damage on ms. grandcross' video. the secret is dm. in particular, how it applies to energy shields.

since energy shields are MUCH easier to increase than hp alone, it would be prudent to apply dm to energy shields with a little absorption warding energy, you can effectively increase your hp almost exponentially. however, from playing experience, I wouldn't have my energy shields absorb 100% of incoming damage. the reason being that with constitution mastery, I can recoup some damage to my hp that's split between my energy shields and hp, so 80/20 seems more appropriate. also, by applying dm to energy shields, you can take mods other than increasing the total shield energy to allow for more flexible builds.

 

 

I hope I have made a strong case for damage mitigation. this is the secret to a couple of my builds and why exploring what some people call worthless skills is necessary.

 

[edit]

also adding to my op...

 

dm is quite useful for characters without a way to raise armor value other than through armor lore. for instance, a high elf with crystal skin is going to have armor in the 100.000's by 200, and the dryad with ancient bark can easily achieve 100.000 at much lower levels. these characters do not necessarily need dm, but I will explain how it would be useful in certain situations...

 

now, the other 4 classes do not have Combat Arts that give them a huge increase to armor, so by default, they are going to take much more damage when hit. a good example is to take a dryad into the swamp and let 15 spiders hit you. even without ancient bark's hp regen, constitution mastery is probably going to heal you back 500% of what you're taking in for damage. now take a seraphim there. her hp will slowly decrease because there is no way to boost her armor value. you'll have to rely on hallowed restoration or potions to heal, slowing down kill speed, exploring speed, etc. with mitigation, there will be little need for healing, as your hp regen[with constitution mastery] will be more than enough to keep your red bar full.

 

as for the ancient bark dryad...if you are experiencing difficulty with fire based attacks, then mitigation will make up for the sensitivity to those attacks. that being said, I would find it hard to believe that anyone in 150+ range would be having any sort of difficulty, but on the off chance something like a crit/widd that's fire based strikes your dryad...or in pvp applications, this might be worth looking into.

Edited August 5, 2009 by gogoblender

[Barristan 14]

Heya Soldats,

 

some of this I knew, some I didn't.

 

I do think you've made quite the point here. Well written and explained. A very good job imo.

 

It would free up one skill choice... as you would not need either CR or SR. That being skills I do not take often, this is certainly worth a try.

 

Again, nice read!

 

Greetz

[Dobri 55]

Great work soldats. The point you made is more than strong, and you have my personal thanks for making it. I was really beginning to think that my toughness-addiction (provided the build allows for it OR the char can take it) was just some kind of mislead thinking since as you said - most people opt for max evasion, max defense rating and keeping the chance to be hit to about 5-7%. I, personally, would prefer to be hit 4 times for 2000 damage than once for 8000. At least if you take less damage through more hits, you have much more time to react and hit a HP pot.

 

Your information also opens up quite an interesting point in build-making. Thanks to you, and as barristan said, people will be spared a bunch of skill choices which may be put up to better use. After doing some research based on your info, the revered/celestial caster build on the seraphim can easily accommodate 2 utility skills to help it (like riding-bargaining for example) and suffer no penalties from it in both regen time and damage taken.

 

There is one more thing I'd like to add. It was really wonderful to share such important information with others. It is the truly great players who share their experiences with others.

[Barristan 14]

Heya,

 

now that I'm paying attention to DM, I'm finding stuff with Dual DM.

 

Shoulder (rare) one normal mod and one unlocked by armor lore mastery. Quite nice, thing even has two sockets

 

Greetz

[Viper007 1]

Thx for the info. I will be paying more attention to dm now that I have read this.^^

 

cheers!

[stubbie 22]

Its about time you shared some of your more in depth knowledge to the Sacred community.

 

Thanks for posting this info soldats. Hopefully it will help many players with their builds.

[Zinsho 0]

As to it scaling and diminishing returns kicking in.

 

I'm quite certain there are none.

 

Simplest test is with Jolting Touch modded gold for Shelter.

 

Take a level 200 TG (test character), read 1 JT rune, mod it with 9 points to get Shelter then go find a pack of wolves/kobolds/etc around Sloeford. Of course if you're really adventurous, go after something challenging instead, but for testing wolves work.

 

Now the values on the Wiki are correct for Shelter, it actually is 25% + 0.5%/level, so at level 1 it's 25.5%. Since you're level 200 you can cast it 4 times in the 3s duration, thus you can watch the effect on damage. (And you see the mitigation values show up over and over in your sigma bar)

 

When I did this, damage went from 1.4k or so, down to ~1k, to ~700, to ~400 to nothing. I could still see the 'sparks' that indicated hits, yet took no damage.

 

Now with the full Lost Fusion set JT reached level 57

57 * 0.5 = 28.5 + 25 = 53.5, and this was what sigma reported.

 

Now, for the sake of testing, I went straight to the great machine, with a badly geared TG (full Technical set, pretty much nothing else), no JT ~7k damage from the traps that the champ TGs throw, 1 JT that was down to 1.3k or so, 2 and I was taking no damage (I was standing in 5 traps, with 8 or so TGs all hitting me at once and I was taking 0 damage whatsoever) Of course they were killing themselves on 2x 50% reflect or so (didn't look at the specific value, wasn't important for the test).

 

(This was with 13.8% mitigation from Technical Pants and 10.7 or so % mitigation from T-Shroud)

 

So yes, 100% mitigation is possible, and it does make you completely immune to damage if you reach that point.

[stubbie 22]

[edit]

also adding to my op...

 

dm is quite useful for characters without a way to raise armor value other than through armor lore. for instance, a high elf with crystal skin is going to have armor in the 100.000's by 200, and the dryad with ancient bark can easily achieve 100.000 at much lower levels. these characters do not necessarily need dm, but I will explain how it would be useful in certain situations...

 

now, the other 4 classes do not have Combat Arts that give them a huge increase to armor, so by default, they are going to take much more damage when hit. a good example is to take a dryad into the swamp and let 15 spiders hit you. even without ancient bark's hp regen, constitution mastery is probably going to heal you back 500% of what you're taking in for damage. now take a seraphim there. her hp will slowly decrease because there is no way to boost her armor value. you'll have to rely on hallowed restoration or potions to heal, slowing down kill speed, exploring speed, etc. with mitigation, there will be little need for healing, as your hp regen[with constitution mastery] will be more than enough to keep your red bar full.

 

as for the ancient bark dryad...if you are experiencing difficulty with fire based attacks, then mitigation will make up for the sensitivity to those attacks. that being said, I would find it hard to believe that anyone in 150+ range would be having any sort of difficulty, but on the off chance something like a crit/widd that's fire based strikes your dryad...or in pvp applications, this might be worth looking into.

 

What about an example for the High Elf or is DM simply not needed if Crystal Skin is used?

[soldats 0]

im about 800 miles from home so I'm posting this via iphone and it won't be as in depth as I wish it to be, but the instances I was inferring to involved the use of glacial thorns against a reflecting opponent. since at high ca levels, gt becomes primarily ice damage, the physical armor gained from cs won't be enough to save you from an 800k[yes, quite easy to achieve that damage without combat d.], on a crit+db, you might end up dead. however, since he's only get mitigation on one piece of gear, the most I can imagine you can get is around 20%. that still might not be enough to save you. in the cases of using cascading s., it increases vulnerability to fire damage, so mitigation there is nice, though if you know which mods to take, you can avoid damage completely. magic coup elves choosing the ice path have much to gain from using dm if their damage is reflected. I'm sure there are other instances as well, albeit more specific.

 

thank you all for your posts, especially yours, zin. I've been out of town so that's why there's been a lack of responses from me