Damage Reduction and how it relates to Thorns-esque effects

[icbat]

Ok, so the number-crunching, masochistic part of my brain has been wondering recently:


How is damage taken by your character calculated?
When is damage return, aka IM or Thorns taken into consideration?
Does blocking still give out IM/Thorns damage?

I know that Reduced by X comes before Reduced by % (and that % comes after X). That being said, how viable is, say, a paladin using thorns really going to be? A character built to do nothing but take hits (likely with CB on swap)?

[BobCox2]

well in the skills hack days it killed screens of cows

[Hrus]

Thorns and Iron Maiden returned damage is based on damage you take. So both damage reduction by X and % makes the returned damage lower. btw monsters in hell usually do around 100 physical damage while they usually have around 5K life (and usually some physical resistance. This disproportion makes thorns and Iron Maiden uselesss in hell. And it works only for melee monsters.

EDIT: blocked attack means no damage returned from thorns.

[onderduiker]

well in the skills hack days it killed screens of cows
Now Hell Bovines have 12,588-15,449 base life and Damage Resist 50% in Hell, and deal 111-167 damage (with 5% chance of doubling that damage): level 36 Thorns returns 1,650% damage, which means about 915-1,377 damage would be returned if the Paladin had no damage reduction.

However, curse the Hell Bovines with Amplify Damage (DR -100%) and level 36 Thorns returns about 2,746-4,132 damage; convert one of the cursed Hell Bovines and level 36 Thorns returns about 4,108-6,187 damage when other cursed Hell Bovines hit it. :)

The combination of Thorns, AD and Conversion is fun and viable in certain situations when playing solo, but even against many mêlée attackers it can be ineffective due to their AI: you don't fully appreciate just how many monsters flee when injured until you've used Thorns.

[jel]

you don't fully appreciate just how many monsters flee when injured until you've used Thorns.

Playing a thorns + conversion paladin on a team with a necromancer in v. 1.00 atm. and I know what you mean, as an example indifidel (those tall 4 armed sand warriors in act 2 that often enhance themself with cold or fire) do very often flee after being low on hit points, or they actually don't even flee, rather they just stop attacking and walks randomly.

[In the name of Zod]

Playing a thorns + conversion paladin on a team with a necromancer in v. 1.00 atm. and I know what you mean, as an example indifidel (those tall 4 armed sand warriors in act 2 that often enhance themself with cold or fire) do very often flee after being low on hit points, or they actually don't even flee, rather they just stop attacking and walks randomly.

Aha, now it makes sense why bramble has both poison and thorns. They run away and die slowly.

[jel]

Aha, now it makes sense why bramble has both poison and thorns. They run away and die slowly.

That's actually quite a good idea, maybe a combination of a poison necromancer, with a high level of amplify damage, using an edge bow, could do well (or maybe not well, but at least is manageable).

Combining with dim vision against ranged attackers, skeletons (I don't think they've damage reduce) for stuff to return damage off of, maybe using mages just to be original.