Are resistances useful? (especially with the new damage crystals)

[Pharaxes]

Made a small test today.

Scenario 1:
Armor: 1790
Ethereal Armor: 500
Flame Res: 1035
Spell: Fusion Burn, Perfect Spell, Multicast, Fiery Strike V
Damage: 2153

Scenario 2:
Armor: 2383
Ethereal Armor: 0
Flame Res: 40
Spell: Fusion Burn, Perfect Spell, Multicast, Fiery Strike V
Damage: 3249

Scenario 3:
Armor: 1790
Ethereal Armor: 500
Flame Res: 1035
Spell: Perfect Spell, Multicast, Fiery Strike V
Damage: 1161

Scenario 4:
Armor: 2383
Ethereal Armor: 0
Flame Res: 40
Spell: Perfect Spell, Multicast, Fiery Strike V
Damage: 1368

comparing scenario 1 and 2 would mean only difference of 50.90% (if I calculate right)
comparing scenario 3 and 4 would mean only difference of 17.83%

Somehow my mind is screwed now what I should think about it...

[Silithus Zerr]

Are these damage numbers averages over many casts per scenario? There can be a lot of variability with damage sometimes, so it can be hard to interpret the damage of the same attack twice~

-Sil

[Guaran]

From scenario 2, it shows that

0 armor, 40 resist allows 3249 damage

scenario 1:

500 armor, 1035 resist allows 2153 damage

scenario 3:

1790 armor, 1035 resist allows 1161 damage

scenario 4:

2383 armor, 40 resist allows 1368 damage.

So, 2383 armor lowers the damage by 1881.

The armor values changed with each test, so figuring out how much the resist lowers the damage isn't straightforward.
Do another test with some resist, and no armor (will have to be a fusion burn example, with no ethereal armor).

If 2383 lowers damage by 1881, 500 should lower it by 395. So from scenario 1 where 995 resist is added, without the armor the damage would have probably been 2153+395, or 2548. So 995 resist lowers the damage from 3249 to 2548, or by 701 damage.

I am not sure if armor/resist lower damage by percentage or by specific amounts, but have always been under the impression it was by specific amounts.

It looks like each point of resist lowers the damage by .7
It looks like each point of armor lowers the damage by .79
If the damage is lowered by specific amounts. There's likely some +/- due to extra randomization, and I believe the attackers skill level comes into play too.

When you need to lower the damage by an extra amount, resists definitely help.

[jerk-o]

The only issue I have with this test is that you show the total damage done, but not the damage done for every spell that hits. An example, I could say I hit a massive thornwood treant with multicast, perfect spell, fusion burn, and flame wave for 1416 damage, or I could say I hit a massive thronwood treant with multicast, perfect spell, fusion burn, and flame wave for 388, 365, 386, and 277 damage.

[hallucin8]

Guaran's analysis sums it up, resistance helps. Cheers Since we have some idea of what's happening, the test performed above seem to support the rhetoric that resistances certainly are useful. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens now with all the "opposite" damage types.

For those who might not be familiar: Armor will provide damage reduction for most in-coming types (ethereal aside), while resistance will naturally focus on that one type of damage. Since the resistance techs provide more value than armor techs, they can be useful in that sense, and since the resistance xtals provide both resistance and ward, they can be more useful than armor xtals in that sense. But if you just want an all rounded set of armor(/scales) then armor xtals are typically the way to go.

For other statistically minded persons, feel free to read, ignore or even debate the below comments:

Unfortunately there are too many variables in the tests performed. Ideally, you would do each test at least 40 times (or you could get away with 10 times using Multi-cast), and compare the averages and quote the variance too. Obviously this takes a lot of time, hence why no one ever does such rigorous testing, but at least 10 observations per test would be preferred. I'd also leave Ethereal Armor/Fusion Burn out of the equation for now. Also, make sure the person doing the damage is not extremely powerful, i.e. keep power and flame close to 1000(?), no point in trying with power over 2000 as this will likely skew the results (kinda guessing on this aspect, but it doesn't necessarily seem like a linear relationship when stats are much higher or out of whack).

Firstly, you wan to actual pin down what you want to test/know, and it's easier to test only 2 things i.e. Armor and Resistance.

An example of the testing might be:
Armor: zero
Fire resistance: 0, 500 and 1000
And run those with at least 20 results for each.

Then, the 'reverse' of that:
Armor: 500 and 1000 (stop there unless you can get your flame resistance higher, else it's no longer a balanced experiment)
Flame resistance: zero.

You could also run one interaction test with Armor 500 and Flame resistance 500.

You must run the tests a lot of times, unfortunately, as there is will be a lot of variation within tests even with all things kept equal. From there, you could run some statistical tests (chi-squared perhaps), but hopefully the numbers alone would give you an idea.

[Sindala]

Or just play as an Ancient, don't matter then as nothing hurts (except big boss mobs) and nothing lasts more than 1 or 2 hits (again except big boss mobs)
Resistance/armour might help but when I downed the mob with 1 GR hit it don't make much difference.


On a side note, surely Resistances is the Mob hitting you? The mob probably has all sort of different levels and properties.
I'd say the test should be say...
1000 armour and 0 resistance then take the values of the mob hitting you then..
1000 armour and say 500 resistance and see if the values are changed?

And what about Wards?

[Vortura]

I would say that comparing both scenarios is completely valid. (So long as 1 point of Resistance counts as 1 point of Armor)

Comparing Scenario 1 & 2

Fusion Burn makes Flame damage spells hit with Ethereal damage, ignoring the Armor value. Also, since we're hitting with Ethereal damage, Flame Resistance is not used in reducing the damage calculation.

The only difference here is the 500 points of Ethereal Armor reducing the damage by about 44% in Scenario 1.

Comparing scenario 3 & 4 (Assuming 1 point of Resistance equals 1 point of Armor)

As we are not using Ethereal (Fusion Burn) damage, Ethereal Armor value is not used.

3. Armor 1790 + Flame Res 1035 = 2825 Combined Armor
4. Armor 2383 + Flame Res 40 = 2423 Combined Armor

Difference in Armor of approx 14%
Difference in Damage of approx 15%

Smeglor's old post rescued from Tazoon forums is worth a read

....Armor: Reduces incoming non-ethereal damage at a slightly better rate than Strength and Power add to such.
Ethereal Armor: Same as Armor, but against ethereal damage.
Resistances: Add to Armor and Ethereal Armor against attacks of the resistance's type.
Wards: Add to Evasion and Magic Defense against attacks of the resistance's type.
Parry/Dodge/Block bonuses: These "active defenses" use a two-check system. The first check is a skill contest, as outlined in the skill section above. If that check succeeds (from the defender's point of view), then there is a flat 20% chance of the defense working. Parry, Dodge, and Block bonuses add to that 20%...

[Pharaxes]

Thanks alot for the old thread Vortura. I don't think I've ever seen much of an explanation about what reduces damage in which way.

So basically as long as you have enough armor you don't need a special resistance? As long as it's not ethereal damage that is.

And ethereal armor only is effective against ethereal damage. Somehow I thought so far it's just a better kind of armor, protecting against more damages.

And yes, Scenario 1 and 3 were made with scaleset with flame resistance as well as using the stone of seeking whereas Scenario 2 and 4 were made with my scales I usually use for fighting enemies.

[starlight]

if I remember right the order of how the damage is received is checks for ward first then resistance to the damage type. the armor, if the attack is ethereal based then its ethereal armor. this I think is the order which is done for each attack .

[hallucin8]

Ward affects evasion against that damage type, but it won't reduce damage. And I'm no really sure why I suggested having to do the tests that many times, just use a repeater and let it land 10 times, which should take about a minute for each scenario.

[AmonGwareth]

Wards reduce the chance of you being hit. Resistances are added to Physical Armor or Ethereal Armor to create a total against the incoming damage type. There is no such thing as "Ethereal Damage" as damage always has a type (Flame, Ice, Slash, Crush, etc) and then is either Physical or Ethereal which determines the type of armor it is applied against.

[starlight]

So it sounds I was not too far off on the order of how the damage is figured in part. as for the ethereal part so as a example. A dragon would have basically zero armor and resistance vs say mage using fusion burn (makes all flame spells do ethreal or slash damage when a traverse uses ethereal blade?