Hello incgamers, I singed up here a while ago, but barely ever posted. Well, for one of my first contributions, I want to tell you about the effect of armor on your "effective health".

First, let me give you the formula for your resistance on armor and monster level. I did this by testing out many different armors for each level, and curve fitting them to extrapolate the parameters of the equation. Let me say that I guarantee you that this is correct, and if you don't believe me, try this for many different armors, at many different levels (since it tells you your resistance against monsters that are your level). I guarantee you that the result will always obey the equation I'll give you.

Let r = resistance, A = armor, and v = monster level. Then

r = [A/50v]/[1 + A/50v]

Here's an example. If you have 250 armor, you will have a resistance of 0.2778 (or 27.78%) against level 13 monsters.

This is a diminishing return. Note that as A approaches infinity, r approaches 1. That is, you will never get r = 1 because that would mean complete immunity, so of course we want a diminishing return that prevents that.

Now let's talk about effective health. I define "effective health" as the amount of damage a monster has to dish to you to kill you. I claim that putting points into armor increases your effective health linearly. Let's prove that.

Let H = effective health, and L = your character's max life. When a monster deals X damage to you, you lose X(1-r) life. From the way I defined H, a monster has to do H damage to you for you to lose L life. If a monster does H damage to you, you lose H(1-r) life. Therefore H(1-r) = L, or H = L/(1-r)

Notice that as r approaches 1, H approaches infinity. That is, if you're completely immune to everything, you will never die because your "health" is effectively infinite. It's a good thing that r can never reach 1.

Now take H = L/(1-r), and plug in r = [A/50v]/[1 + A/50v]. This gives us H as a function of armor, and that becomes

H = L(1 + A/50v).

That is, armor increases your effective health linearly. It's basically like another vitality button! It probably doesn't improve your effective health as fast as vitality does, but it has the added bonus of amplifying healing effects. That is, if you are healed by x life, you are healed by x/(1-r), or x(1 + A/50v) effective health. That is, a character with lots of healing spells, life leech, or added bonuses from health globes would value armor a great deal more than those without.

This should also dispel the notion that as you get lots of armor, more armor becomes less effective "because of diminishing returns". The resistance has a diminishing return with respect to armor, but effective health has a rapidly increasing return with respect to resistance, and clearly, this balances out to give a linear relationship. So that extra 10 armor you give yourself on top of that 6000 armor is just as good as that early extra 10 armor you gave yourself when you had only 30 armor.

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=820870

.....

I just saw that. Brokenstorm quoted my post from the bnet forums.

Anyways, I don't think there's an overlap in the two threads. He posts plots on how armor affects resistance, and I give the general expression, and show how it relates to effective health.

Fair enough.

I would like to take a more complete look at survivability at some point.
As was common in WoW, so much of the focus was simply on EH and that's fine and all, but it doesn't tell enough of the story.

EH lets one calculate a basic time-to-death and that's great, but not accurate. We need to include more of the stochastic elements to get a feel for overall survivability. Dodge, while not always on, gives a probability of protection. Granted, one can not count on it, but it's clear that over the long run dodge increases the time-to-death. As such, dex/dodge should at least be considered in a more precise fashion in relation to EH so that we can eventually come up with some answers as to if dodge should ever be used, if so in how much and in what ratio would we be willing to trade-off armor and or hp to do so. The same goes for block and magic resists.

If you're up to it, perhaps you would be willing to comment on this problem and come up with something more indicative to real survivability.

This is an easy problem. If you're concerned about the "long run" average effect of dodge, then you can essentially treat dodge as another resistance. If you have multiple multiplicative sources of resistance, (R1, R2, .... Rn) then your effective health is essentially the product of the factors 1/(1-Ri) where Ri indicates each resistance of index i. Thus for effective health H and character life L, we have

H = L*Π{i=1...n}[1/(1-Ri)]

Where "Π{i=1...n}" denotes the product of index i, as i runs from 1 to n. For example, if we want to look at our "effective health against fire", and we have 30% all resist from armor, and 25% fire resist, our effective health against fire is

H(fire) = L*[1/0.7]*[1/0.75] = 1.90476L.

Since, on average, x% dodge acts like resistance percentage, simply treat dodge chance as another factor of resistance. So for a chance "d" to dodge, we have

H = H*/(1-d)

where H* was the effective health calculated before accounting for dodge. Of course, as you mentioned, this EH isn't quite as objective as the EH calculated before dodge, since it will only behave as a resistance in the limit of many attacks, but on a small time scale, the random fluctuations will be very noticeable.

From what I've seen from dex to dodge so far, it seems that each dex point gives a solid 0.1% dodge chance. This is peculiar, as I haven't noticed any difference in different levels, nor have I observed any diminishing return. If this is the case, and there is no diminishing return to balance out the rapidly increasing return of effective health's dependence on dodge, then that would mean that the more you put in dex, the better and better a benefit you get. Just look at the function 1/(1-d) which multiplies health.
http://i.imgur.com/JHmwa.png

I would hope this doesn't end up being the case.

By the way, I keep seeing this thread as having zero replies. Is this a known bug on these boards?

The boards the last few days have been bonkers, it's usually ok, but something is wonky right now.

As for dex, from a previous poster dex gives 0.1% up until 100 dex at which point the formula changes, though the poster didn't not discover how much dex diminishes at that point.

It looks like this thread was doomed to fail. It's strange, since my thread on bnet was far more wordy, and had much more detail than this one, and it got a good deal of responses. Maybe those who are interested in this stuff already took the time to read that one.

The main reason is probably that this forum is pretty much dead. Just look at the last post made on this forum. Most people only read the general discussion and maybe beta discussion (and many only read one of them). Of course, this makes it difficult to find theorycrafting posts when they are posted in general discussion. So it's not really your fault.

I believe resistances will work the same as armor. Not sure about dodge, though, but it'll probably be the same or similar too. Not sure about the 0.1% comment, makes no sense to have it not level dependent or anything. Any more thorough tests done for dodge?

As for the dodge randomness, overall if we don't get easily killed in a few hits (which should not happen since we should be able to live long enough to kill monsters and spawn health globes, and I expect monsters to also last a few hits from us), then just looking at it as an effective HP multiplier should be more or less fine.

Oh wow, I didn't notice that this was redirected to the Theorycraft section, but that makes sense.

According to Brokenstorm
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?820885-Beta-testers-whats-up-with-dodge/page3
after 100 dex, it continues to give a linear dodge benefit, but with 1/4 the yield it did before.
I still hope it doesn't continue forever like that. Perhaps every 100 dex reduces the yield by the same factor.

Oh wow, I didn't notice that this was redirected to the Theorycraft section, but that makes sense.

According to Brokenstorm
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?820885-Beta-testers-whats-up-with-dodge/page3
after 100 dex, it continues to give a linear dodge benefit, but with 1/4 the yield it did before.
I still hope it doesn't continue forever like that. Perhaps every 100 dex reduces the yield by the same factor.

Yeah, my guess is also that it stops being linear at some point, or if not then like you mention, that the slope continually drops as one increases dex. But that makes me wonder why they just didn't do a simple diminished curve, why the step function. (No, it probably doesn't matter other than to satisfy my curiosity)

Yeah, my guess is also that it stops being linear at some point, or if not then like you mention, that the slope continually drops as one increases dex. But that makes me wonder why they just didn't do a simple diminished curve, why the step function. (No, it probably doesn't matter other than to satisfy my curiosity)

I'm wondering this too, with these steps it makes it very obvious as to what amount of dex I should have because I just choose a breakpoint (number before the next fall-off that I want to go to) and stop there. EG. there is a much smaller benefit from dex once you hit 100, so you are probably better off going for strength. Or maybe you want a bit more dodge, so stop at 200 exactly (assuming thats when the yield drops again).

With a curve it makes it a lot less obvious, and isn't that what blizzard wants? I specifically remember them saying that they removed stat points because there was always a mathematically correct way to use your stats, now its just the same for dex....I spose you can 'respec' your stats in D3 though so hmm, i dunno. Whatever.

Yo guys, so I've been checking out the elemental resistances (the ones intelligence gives us). Here's how I think it goes. Let r be damage reduced, s = resistance, and v = monster level. Then

r = [s/5v] / [1 + s/5v]

The difference between this and armor is the growth controlling factor which is 5 for this, and 50 for armor.

I'm not totally sure about this yet; I'm going to test it out for many different trial resistances and levels.

Hmm, I was suprised by this formula...kinda.

I've been doing some theory crafting and focusing on trying to get a high armor barb while dual wielding, using war cry (+50% armor) and though as nails (+50%). I then did a quick look at the current white item stats, took the third highest from each category, and it equalled roughly 2050 armor all up.

So, adding the two 50% armors from my skill/passive makes it 4100 right? and in your equation that means I would have just over 50% resistance to level 62 monsters, keeping in mind that that is based off all WHITE gear, so that number is likely to actually be much higher.

I just thought that even though I am focusing on armor and that is using high level items (well not really, they are white), that a dual wielder should not be able to have 50% resistance to all damage, in inferno.



please tell me I am calculating this wrong, I can't imagine what a guy with a shield would be like (shields can add 1000 armor on their own), that also uses nerves of steel (your armor is increased by 25% of your vitality) or the rune in war cry that changes it to +100%, and has magic/legendary versions of the items I used in this equation.

Edit: Oh and that isn't even factoring in the + Armor from strength.

50% resistance to all damage as opposed to other characters having what - 25% resistance? Is not all that big of a deal. You do put in the skills/passives for it, and the monster damage is meant to be high enough to still challenge you (or at least their HP high enough to challenge your weaker damage abilities since you used skills/passives on defense).

Bottom line - You can't just look at the % resistance and say it's overpowered.

I'm wondering this too, with these steps it makes it very obvious as to what amount of dex I should have because I just choose a breakpoint (number before the next fall-off that I want to go to) and stop there. EG. there is a much smaller benefit from dex once you hit 100, so you are probably better off going for strength. Or maybe you want a bit more dodge, so stop at 200 exactly (assuming thats when the yield drops again).

With a curve it makes it a lot less obvious, and isn't that what blizzard wants? I specifically remember them saying that they removed stat points because there was always a mathematically correct way to use your stats, now its just the same for dex....I spose you can 'respec' your stats in D3 though so hmm, i dunno. Whatever.

It's actually a common occurrence in real-world aspects as well. Take for instance, a marketing campaign, there is an appropriate amount to spend on promotional budgeting before it becomes redundant and perhaps even negatively impacting the result (such as spending too many points and getting no return on dodge).

However, I agree. The fact that blizzard is doing this in their calculations of stats actually shows a simpler calculation method which would create "one correct method" of stat input. Unless.. if it is impossible to choose between different avenues of choices and you are left with several equal choices. This would be causation for players to choose different stats on the basis of indifference. Perhaps the intention is forced stat balancing? Perhaps the intention is sacrificing hard-gains for ability gains? (Such as +armor based on dexterity for the monk).

I'm not saying it would create better gameplay, just where the evidence leads.

r = [A/50v]/[1 + A/50v]


What are the maximum mlvl in the game? How is player level converted to mlvl, is it just 1:1? What are the damage penalties in pvp?

We don't know the maximum yet, just that maximum clvl is 60 and monsters in inferno will start at 61 and possibly continue to go up from there.

I thought we knew that monsters were levels 61, 62 and 63 in inferno. I am pretty sure this has been mentioned before.

Some questions:

Is armor and resistance totally independent of character level vs monster level? If I have 1000 armor and face a level 20 monster, will the reduction be the same if I am level 20 or level 15? If so I think the very high level monsters will have to hit for a lot more at each additional level.

Are Demon hunters and monks at a defensive disadvantage because of the dodge break points? They will naturally have higher Dex in an effort to increase damage.

Thanks, Charron

Is armor and resistance totally independent of character level vs monster level? If I have 1000 armor and face a level 20 monster, will the reduction be the same if I am level 20 or level 15?

No, the value your character sheet displays for damage resistance from Armor (and resists as well) is against an equal level enemy. If you face a higher level enemy your Armor won't protect you as much. This is evident if you level up and your Armor doesn't change, since your DR% will be reduced on your character sheet. Basically, only your Armor and the level of your enemies matter as far DR% is concerned as far as I know.


If so I think the very high level monsters will have to hit for a lot more at each additional level.

Oh, they will, don't you worry. :)
http://diablo.incgamers.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/8336/title/brady-games-diablo-3-strategy-guide/cat/544


Are Demon hunters and monks at a defensive disadvantage because of the dodge break points? They will naturally have higher Dex in an

Good question. Galzohar did some math on this in this thread: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?828074-Question-about-Dex

Personally, I don't like unreliable defense stats like dodge very much, because my incoming damage becomes much less predictable with them.

I thought we knew that monsters were levels 61, 62 and 63 in inferno. I am pretty sure this has been mentioned before.

Even if so, it was probably before the recently announced changes to inferno.

As for the math, I didn't really do any of it, I just plugged the formula into a table and then made a graph out of it... :)