Multiplicative Scaling and its Display

**Narttram** · 21-05-2012, 00:26

As far as I know resistances and Armor scale multiplically, meaning you would always get a greater return by increasing the lesser one. From my experience this is NOT calculated into the red/green numbers for %protection if you mouse over the new armorpiece. Has anyone else found this, and wouldnt this make it very hard for newer players to know that teb resistance gear might actually be better even though the tooltip sais their protection would go down by equipping it?

**Karth** · 21-05-2012, 01:37

Yeah, resistance isn't calculated at all. I assume that Blizzard didn't do that because it would conflict with single-res items. It gets even more complicated when you consider +vitality vs all resistance gear. All these people running around with a ton of vitality and no intelligence and resistances would often gain more effective hit points by switching some gear to +all res.

**zakaluka** · 21-05-2012, 05:06

the difficulty is this: to know how much resistances benefit you, you actually need to know the damage breakdown. There's no realistic way to even generalize it, since it will change from fight to fight. In my spreadhseet I assume 1/6th of all damage comes from each element. Is that realistic? Absolutely not. It's not even in the ballpark.

That'd be the same thing as making a protection calculation based on my "average resist". Really not very useful.

**Narttram** · 21-05-2012, 09:13

Originally Posted by Karth

Yeah, resistance isn't calculated at all. I assume that Blizzard didn't do that because it would conflict with single-res items. It gets even more complicated when you consider +vitality vs all resistance gear. All these people running around with a ton of vitality and no intelligence and resistances would often gain more effective hit points by switching some gear to +all res.

Are you sure about that? If I remember correctly switching 2 nearly identical Items of which one has more int it shows a small green protection number? Or is it that int is calculated but pure resis arent? that would be screwed up.

@Zalakula I am mainly talking about intelligence and Items with +resist to all, single resistances are of course more difficult to gauge in its value but as far as I know 10 resist all should equal 100 armor in its protective value. (Given your resistences and your armor are at a similar level as they scale multiplicative.

**Karth** · 21-05-2012, 09:35

Originally Posted by Narttram

Are you sure about that? If I remember correctly switching 2 nearly identical Items of which one has more int it shows a small green protection number? Or is it that int is calculated but pure resis arent? that would be screwed up.

Yes. I just opened a game with a low-level character (where armor values are often the same for items) and tested it. While wearing a 39 defense, +1 intelligence helm, a 39 defense +10 intelligence helm showed no +protection in the tooltip, and vice versa, while in the resistance numbers there is a ~1.5% difference in resistance because of the 9 intelligence diffence. The item you had probably gave a stat you forgot about or didn't notice; a few points of defense difference or maybe a little +str.

**galzohar** · 22-05-2012, 06:21

The +% protection tooltip is useless. Not only it lists damage reduction rather than EHP, but it also completely ignores resistances.

Resistances are overall better than armor simply because items with resistances offer a bigger value than items with armor. But yes, 10 armor is better than 1 resistance point if you have less armor than 10 times your resistances and vice-versa. If your armor is anywhere near to 10 times your resistances, though, the difference between the defensive value of 10 armor and 1 resistance is negligible.

**The Rockman** · 22-05-2012, 17:40

The green number for protection does include the following any STR, DEX and armour on the piece your looking at compared to the old one at lest. As for INT I am not sure as the only item I had it on have differences in all the other stats that confuse matters for me.

**Karth** · 22-05-2012, 19:59

Originally Posted by The Rockman

The green number for protection does include the following any STR, DEX and armour on the piece your looking at compared to the old one at lest. As for INT I am not sure as the only item I had it on have differences in all the other stats that confuse matters for me.

It does seem to include Strength and Dexterity on the item. I haven't deliberately compared them, but any time I look at two similar items, one with a bunch of Dex for my character and the other with less, the one with Dex shows a defensive bonus. If I find a convenient item on my low-level chars to test this, I will.

**galzohar** · 23-05-2012, 01:43

If it includes dex as well, then it is even more useless. What you should care about is the EHP increase, not some arbitrary meaningless value of added damage reduction % from dex and str. If you don't even understand why the number is meaningless, then for you it should be even more meaningless... Just don't look at it, it'll confuse you more than help you.

**The Rockman** · 23-05-2012, 14:40

DEX increases dodge by a %. If you increase your dodge chance by 5% then its ~+5% more effective hit points (but its lack base). <- so it increasing your protection.

I made an effective HP calc with some work by zakaluka

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...FSU5YR1E#gid=0

Have a play around with it and hopefully it help your understanding.