Does anyone know how exactly ABSORB actually works?

[wookie919]

I can think of 4 different cases:


1. Absorb works before resistance, and absorb converts damage into life.

e.g. 10% absorb, 50% resistance, 100 damage.

10 damage converts to life.
50% out of the remaining 90 damage is resisted. i.e. 45 damage.
Resulting damage = 45 - 10 = 35 damage.



2. Absorb works before resistance, and absorb does not actually convert damage into life, but just heals the % amount.

e.g. 10% absorb, 50% resistance, 100 damage.

10 life healed.
50% out of the 100 damage is resisted. i.e. 50 damage.
Resulting damage = 50 - 10 = 40 damage.



3. Absorb works after resistance, and absorb converts damage into life.

e.g. 10% absorb, 50% resistance, 100 damage.

50% out of the 100 damage is resisted. i.e. 50 damage.
5 damage is converted to life.
Resulting damage = 45 - 5 = 40 damage.



4. Absorb works after resistance, and absorb does not actually convert damage into life, but just heals the % amount.

e.g. 10% absorb, 50% resistance, 100 damage.

50% out of the 100 damage is resisted. i.e. 50 damage.
5 life healed.
Resulting damage = 50 - 5 = 45 damage.



Things to consider:

A) If absorb works by converting damage into life, and works after resistance is applied, then having - resistance is better if you can have more than 50% absorb.

e.g. 80% absorb, -100% resistance, 100 damage.
Damage becomes 200.
160 damage converted to life.
Resulting damage = 40 - 160 = 120 life healed.

e.g. 80% absorb, 50% resistance, 100 damage.
Damage becomes 50.
40 damage converetd to life.
Resulting damage = 10 - 40 = 30 life healed.


B) If absorb works before applying resistance and absorb converts damage into life, even little absorb paired with high resistance can actually heal.

e.g. 20% absorb, 80% resistance, 100 damage.
Life converted from damage = 20.
Remaining damage after resistance = 80 * 0.2 = 16.
Resulting damage = 16 - 20 = 4 life healed.


C) If absorb works after resistance is applied, and if absorb simply heals the % amount of damage, it is not possible to completely neglect a damage source, no matter how high your resistance or absorb is.

e.g. 95% absorb, 95% resistance, 100 damage.

Damage after resistance = 5.
Amount of life healed = 5 * 0.95.
Resulting damage = 5 - (5 0.95) = 0.25 damage.


So, does anyone actually know how exactly absorb works? It is very possible that simply having the highest resistance and the highest absorb you can get might not always be the best choice.


*wookie919

[helvete]

It's case 4. AFTER resists, and converts damage to healing.

So 1000 lightning damage with 50% resist and 25% absorb would give

- 500 after resist
- 25% of 500 is then removed by absorb
- those same 25% is then added back (so you'd be dead with 499 HP here)
- Result is 250 damage taken totally.

This is why you'd be "immune" to lightning when dual wielding lightsabres in 1.09. Now absorb % caps at 40% but it's still useful.

[wookie919]

Eh? That sounds like case 3 to me.

If it was case 4, it would be:

500 after resist.
125 life healed.
Resulting damage = 500 - 125 = 375.


Case 3, as you said, would be:

500 after resist.
125 converted to life, so damage becomes 375.
Resulting damage = 375 - 125 = 250.


Just to make sure, would you be dead if you were:
1. 500 (not sure why 499?)
2. 375
3. 250


Anyway, absorb being capped at 40% really sucks, I reckon the whole point of absorb was to be able to heal from a type of damage, not just resist more. :(

95% resist, 40% absorb, x damage

Resulting damage = (x * 0.05) * 0.2 = x * 0.01

Basically, the best you can do in 1.10 is to reduce a damage down to 0.01 of the original amount.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Cheers,
*wookie919

[Singollo]

:lol:

absorb being caped at 40% dont suck, if it wasnt then a sorc couldnt do any dmg to players in pvp enless thay are duel tree with makes your attacks week and easy to resist. if we didnt have a cap of 40% it would only be fair to add items with phy dmg absorb so you can be immune to phy too. also using 40% of an elemental absorb and absorb based on whole #s and not % like what you find on black oak shield or rising sun will make you almost immune to that element pendding on the dmg of the attack.

i belive it works after your resist, so the dmg that would deal dmg will heal you, so makeing 10% absorb same as 20% resist. and i think you take the dmg then you get heal by whatever % . i am not 100% sure on this i know someone who knows for sure will answer

[helvete]

Ugh, sorry, didn't see that I had messed up the order of the cases there.
Don't know why I wrote 499 either, when you'd be just as dead with 500 life... Well! That being said, Singollo is absolutely right when he says the cap is a good thing. PvP would really suffer if every barb had 2x lightsabre on switch.

As far as I know, there is no cap on # absorb, so it is still very well possible to get to the point where an (elemental) attack will heal you... it is just that it will not heal you insanely much.

Oh, yeah, and in our figures (1000 lightning damage, 50% resist and 25% absorb) you'd still live if you had 376 life. You'd end up with 126 life, but if you had any less you'd die before you got any life back!

[wookie919]

Yeah, I understand why there is a cap of 40%. Still think it stinks :)

What I think Blizzard should have done is make it possible for one kind of absorb to go above 50%, but make it so hard such that all your resistances to other elements and/or absorbs suck. We could have a whole new experience with the game that way.

[krischan]

Ahh, a discussion about absorb, how I missed that !!

Elemental damage is subject to resists first and to absorb second. There also is absolure absorb which has no cap and which comes into play after resistances and % absorb.

Absolute absorb works on a per frame base. If you have let's say 65 absolute fire absorb from the awesome Rising Sun amulet, you are virtually immune to hydras from councils, meteors from vampires (their impact damage seems to be very small), the spilled fire attack from Diablo and his clone (consists of hundreds of tiny fires which deal damage separately) and most fire damage from monsters in general. With 65 absolute absorb, no percentual absorb and just 0% fire res, you will get healed from any continuous fire (firewalls, secondary meteor damage, chest traps) that deals less than 65*2*25 = 3250 damage per second, with half that amount providing the optimum healing effect.

[Thrugg]

You guys missed one important step, which is that the absorbed life is given to you before the remaining damage is applied. This is good and bad, depending on the situation.

From your example, 1000 damage reduced to 500 by resists, 25% absorb...
The absorb reduces the damage to 375 and puts that 125 into the heal pool.
You then receive the 125 heal.
You then take the 375 damage.

If you are mid-life-bulb with plenty of room in each direction, then you end up with a nett 250 life loss as expected. However, if you are at max life or near it, you can't gain the full 125 so you will lose up to 375. That's the downside.

It does however mean though that you will survive the attack if you had only 251 life at the time (assuming your max life is > 375), which you wouldn't do if the damage hit first.

It was the other way around in 1.09, from memory.

[krischan]

It was the other way around in 1.09, from memory.

I didn't dare to answer that question because I always forget which way around it really is :)

[wookie919]

Ah, so it IS possible to heal with absolute absorb.

95% resist, 40% absorb, 65 absolute absorb, 10,000 damage in one frame:

500 damage after resist.

100 damage after % absorb.

With 65 absolute absorb, 100 damage becomes 30 life.


i.e. you end up gaining 30 life from a damage source which does 10,000 damage in one frame. LOL

[tarzanell]

Ah, so it IS possible to heal with absolute absorb.

95% resist, 40% absorb, 65 absolute absorb, 10,000 damage in one frame:

500 damage after resist.

100 damage after % absorb.

With 65 absolute absorb, 100 damage becomes 30 life.


i.e. you end up gaining 30 life from a damage source which does 10,000 damage in one frame. LOL

Hmmm...what do you mean by "absolute" absorb?

And also, I noticed something interesting the other day...Oath yields a +10 magic absorb. Would it be worth the effort to equip it against characters like hammerdins? What about crafted "magic resist" shields?

Or do hammerdins need the good old fashioned elemental pummle? ;)

[krischan]

Absolute absorb means, a fixed number of damage is absorbed. Example: Ravenfrost. Percentual absorb means, a percentage of the damage is absorbed. Example: Lightsaber.

Absolute absorb is very nice to negate the last bit of damage that bypasses resists and percentual absorb, healing you if it's not too much.

Example: If you have enough resists, Guardian Angel and Thundergod's vigor will give you 95% lightning resist and absolute lightning absorption of 20 which makes you merely immune to any lightning attack from monsters (gloams !!!) - except you under the influence of a boss with a conviction aura. To counter that, you need a little excess resistances (which will help against HF and amp, too).

[helvete]

Ravenfrost was a bad example there, as it too has % absorb. Thundergod's is a much better example.

[Jerkazoid]

Hmmm...what do you mean by "absolute" absorb?

And also, I noticed something interesting the other day...Oath yields a +10 magic absorb. Would it be worth the effort to equip it against characters like hammerdins? What about crafted "magic resist" shields?

Or do hammerdins need the good old fashioned elemental pummle? ;)

+10 absorb is only going to do good if that pvp magic dmg is way low.. like 600 hammer dmg,, (not 12k)

if u could have decent resitance.. (not some low 10%) then maybe it could help.

but even in low level duels mostly likely MDR is doing this for you.

[krischan]

Ravenfrost was a bad example there, as it too has % absorb. Thundergod's is a much better example.

Erm, yes, Ravenfrost has 20% absorb :/