Let's treat the increases to EHP as percentages, shall we?

10K hp + 75% DR (3000 armor+300 allres) = 40K EHP
By doubling your resist and armor, you raise your EHP by 50K gaining a 120% upgrade compared to your previous EHP.
If you add 3K armor and 300 allres again (the previous value), you raise your EHP to 160K, gaining a 77.7% upgrade compared to your previous EHP.

In other words, the flat value adds are not diminishing, but the applied EHP percentages are.

Still a brilliant thread - I am grateful for all the info.

holy shit great post - i had no idea

mindblown/10

Well shit... Now I feel like an idiot for dropping from 1090 all res lol.

An 80000+ hit (golgors, phasebeasts, tremors, cleavers, occultist fireballs, fallen overseers, heralds) or hits of 40000+ (everything else) in act 3 inferno, you're constantly bombarded by these numbers every second in a3

40000 HP

6000 armor, 600 res all --> 87.75% reduction --> 9800 / 4900 per hit --> 5 / 9 hits to kill you
7000 armor, 700 res all --> 90% reduction --> 8000 / 4000 per hit --> 5 / 10 hits to kill you
8000 armor, 800 res all --> 91.59% reduction --> 6728 / 3364 per hit --> 6 / 12 hits to kill you
9000 armor, 900 res all --> 92.71% reduction --> 5832 / 2916 per hit --> 7 / 14 hits to kill you
10000 armor, 1000 res all --> 93.75% reduction --> 5000 / 2500 per hit --> 8 / 16 hits to kill you

Yeah, really worth stacking all that res / armor when you're bombarded by tens of thousands of dmg per second in inferno a3/4

This isnt D2 where the jump from 75 res all to 95 res all was HUGE and you felt immortal ...

Beyond 7-8k is diminishing returns yes, unless you got a 100k + hp pool.




yeah, well oppressors were bugged and are now fixed. The reason is as you said, a3/4 mobs do way too much dmg, and stacking res / armor beyond 7-8k / 700-800 is worthless. The most dangerous attacks in the game are molten / plagued / desecrator / arcane, no amount of res / armor will help you feel safe against these anyway, with 94% dr on my barb (class bonus, 7500 armor, 900 AR) I take 4000 per tick on molten, wtf is that shit? Its probably ignoring armor, in which case if it were so it would be somewhat worth it to stack armor ... but needs testing.

This post was edited by markilbaldacchino on Sep 6 2012 03:10am

I wasnt factoring cost in to it at all, its kinda unimportant for the point I'm making. With good information people can make good choices on what gear to spend their gold on, right?
As for how they work together its actually an exponential effect rather than a diminishing one. The more armor you have the better your resistances become and vice versa.



Yes, the applied EHP percentage is getting smaller but thats totally unimportant. It doesnt make armor and resistances less effective at any point.



No, there's still no diminishing returns. You simply haven't understood the concept of diminishing returns; that the second point would be worth less than the first, and so on. It's obviously not.

I feel sufficiently safe with my 12900 armor and 1270 res to stand in whatever molten, plaguepool or single stack of desecrated ground any mob can conjure up in any act. I'm playing hardcore and I'm still alive after 200 hours played on my current character, having soloed all content and farming act 3 on a daily basis. ~97,3% total reduction provides that feeling of relative safety. Yeah, you see I take less than half the damage you take since when working together armor and resistances actually have an exponential effect. If I drop my MF gear for more mitigation I'm sure I could pump up mitigation above 98%. That 4000 tick on you would be a 1300 tick on me. Its never not worth it to increase mitigation.

The average base dmg hit from a mob you'd have to worry about in act 3 is around 70k. With your stats thats (actually) a total of ~94,8% reduction meaning you take 3640 dmg per hit. Yes, when you get pounded by ten of these at the same time it's gonna hurt. Now look at my stats, 97,3% reduction makes me take 1911 dmg per hit. You take almost twice the dmg I'm taking and you're saying it's not gonna make a difference? Get real.

Some examples of hard hitting monster from game data:


While some of them have special abilities dealing more dmg it should give you an idea of how dangerous they actually are.

This post was edited by Blodulf on Sep 6 2012 06:09am

Yes , diminishing returns means the second point would be worth less, it means thats the 4 or 5th points are just not as impactful as the 2nd or 3rd. (just an example). And in fact, they arent for the most part except if youre playing something like tank barb. If you're ranged / glass cannon theres no need / incentive for you to pump mitigation to the extreme for that little benefit, and as for melee .... if you have good loh / life leech returns, then 7k / 700 is more than enough for 90% of all game attacks. If you dont have any leeching in inferno as melee, all the mitigation in the world wont help you! You be dead in the same timespan with 7k vs 12k armor / AR. Thats my point.

Did you miss my part abt molten etc? I did say theyre the only attacks in the game probably worth stacking mitigation for, my 4000 tick would be 2000 or so with yours (94 vs 97 reduction, you're closer to 96 actually vs mlvl63), it could also be a case of 7500 vs 12500 armor (70% vs 79%). Maybe you also have ignore pain / leap iron impact on top of that, I dont and most other chars / builds dont either, since majority of barbs now are ww/nado with no slot for ip/leap.

I reduced the damage of molten from 4-6k to 2-3.5k just by adding 2k armor (5500 to 7500). Did some other tests too with higher armor lower res, seems only armor is impacting it.

The average base dmg hit from a mob you'd have to worry about in act 3 is around 70k. With your stats thats (actually) a total of ~94,8% reduction meaning you take 3640 dmg per hit. Yes, when you get pounded by ten of these at the same time it's gonna hurt. Now look at my stats, 97,3% reduction makes me take 1911 dmg per hit. You take almost twice the dmg I'm taking and you're saying it's not gonna make a difference? Get real. ---> Well for me its not worth it, I can loh / leech back both amounts very fast, if Im in a sitation where my leeching is compromised I'm dead just as quick. Maybe you got a shield too, in your case such high armor / res could really have an impact, I can understand that. Me and you are talking about melee, where dmg can be mitigated to such small amounts where the last few % make a huge difference. But I wouldnt sacrifice my dmg for something like the stats you got. All other classes that cant stack up armor / res from skills and dont have class bonus take so much damage from each hit anyway that its not worth for them to increase res / armor beyond a certain point. They'd rather get more loh + good proccing skills / high dps + life leech to outlast the dmg taken.



How do you flat out deny such an important point as this as not having anything to do with the reduced impact of higher levels of ar / armor?

This post was edited by markilbaldacchino on Sep 6 2012 07:00am

I'm not talking about diminishing returns in some practical sense, I'm theorycrafting the value of resistances and armor. Along your reasoning it means DPS has diminishing returns to. I mean, the usefulness of DPS diminishes when you rape everything in seconds anyway, right? Actually, everything has massive diminishing returns because once you got the gear to beat the game. I mean, if you can beat the game, how much does it increase your game beating efficiency in % by adding more gear? Yeah go suck on that one, anything beyond reaching the bar for beating the game is obviously massively diminished in value. Its a ridiculous point you're trying to make. All I'm doing is providing mechanics in a non confusing way, leaving it for people themselves to decide what gear to use being better informed players.



You're wrong on several points.

First of all my mitigation was calculated vs mlvl 63.
12900 armor = 80,37% DR vs mlvl 63
1270 res = 80,13 DR vs mlvl 63
Base reduction 30% from being an awesome barb
1*0,1963*0,1987*0,7=0,027303367=97,27% reduction
Ok so I rounded the numbers a tiny bit and missed by 0.23% mitigation. While it does have an impact on final numbers we're nowhere near your proposed 96% reduction. A character with 96% reduction takes close to 50% more damage than a character with 97,3% reduction. Check your math please.

Also, going from 5,5k/900 to 7500/900 isnt going to lower molten dmg from 4-6k to 2-3,5k.
5,5k/900 =
5500 armor = 63,58 % DR vs mlvl 63
900 res = 74,07% DR vs mlvl 63
1*0,3642*0,2593*0,7=0,0661=93,39% reduction
7500 armor = 70,42% DR vs mlvl 63
1*0,2968*0,2593*0,7=0,0539=96,41% reduction
A 4-6k hit post 93,39% reduction would be 60509-90763 pre reduction.
A 2-3,5k hit post 96,41% reduction would be 37106-64935 pre reduction.

First of all molten doesn't hit that hard. Second, either your
method of testing has some serious flaws, or
your recollection of numbers you've seen are faulty, or
you're pulling numbers out of your ass to strengthen your futile, silly argument.

Also, no. Armor isn't the only thing impacting it. Thats the silliest thing I've heard in a long time.



I'm not here to tell you if it's worth it or not, thats a choice every player will have to make for themselves. I just provide the information on how game mechanics work. If you still decide you'd rather have more damage and drop a bit of resistances, good for you, hope it works out.



Because it's not actually important. That argument can be applied to any non exponential stat really. It's relative effect is going to diminish so it's never worth getting better. Sounds about right? No. Thats why it's important to see it for what it is and know how the game works. The more you know the more informed will your decisions be. That is all.

Edit: As a funny example though, my reduction vs yours. You take 33% more damage than I do. This also means any means I have of getting my hp back are 33% more effective. It's not always just a flat "I'll get more LoH instead of more mitigation to get better". Mitigation actually increases the efficiency of heals as well. Further reason to know the mechanics.

This post was edited by Blodulf on Sep 6 2012 08:41am

The condescending tone of yours as if you know it all ... yuck.

Play with semantics some more ''Ok so I rounded the numbers a tiny bit and missed by 0.23% mitigation. While it does have an impact on final numbers we're nowhere near your proposed 96% reduction. A character with 96% reduction takes close to 50% more damage than a character with 97,3% reduction. Check your math please.'' --> Big fucking deal, its less than 50% more and its just not worth stacking all that armor / res for the massive diminishing returns. l2p.

A 4-6k hit post 93,39% reduction would be 60509-90763 pre reduction.
A 2-3,5k hit post 96,41% reduction would be 37106-64935 pre reduction.

exactly, thats why I knew something was amiss.

First of all molten doesn't hit that hard. ---> It does

Second, either your method of testing has some serious flaws, or your recollection of numbers you've seen are faulty, or you're pulling numbers out of your ass to strengthen your futile, silly argument. --> I've tested this a lot, my eyes dont deceive me, and I know the armor / res / corresponding dmg tick numbers by heart. Not pulling anything out of my ass. Chill out, y so mad?

Also, no. Armor isn't the only thing impacting it. Thats the silliest thing I've heard in a long time. --> This has been debated on the official forums for a long time, Im not the only one proposing this. Maybe you should stop theorycrafting and living under a rock. It seems the higher the armor is, irrespective of AR amount, the more you mitigate molten / desecrator dmg.

Yes, taking 50% more dmg is a big deal.



Sorry for not just taking your word for it, considering how you've been treating numbers so far. 50% more dmg taken not being a big deal and so on. I'm not stuck theorycrafting, I'm not living under a rock. Like I said, I'm playing hardcore and I've cleared all content. I keep up to date with stuff and yeah I've also seen people claim ridiculous stuff such as certain skills ignoring resistances/armor. So far noone has anything solid to prove it though and everything I've seen indicates that they need to check back with their highschool math teacher. So, deliver or begone.

Like I said, it depends on the class. If youre taking 50% more dmg from an attack that is already reduced to ~3000 from your ar / armor, its one thing. Barbs and monks fall in this category. They are the classes that can take some dmg as long as its well mitigated beyond a certain point and then can sustain themselves with their leech / healing skills without requiring further mitigation. If you take 50% more dmg from an attack reduced to 10k, then I'd agree.

What are you playing on hardcore? If its barb, Do you have shield, IP / iron impact? You stand in molten / plagued pools without ignore pain / leap's 300% armor? I've seen barbs on stream with 10k ish res / armor avoid molten / plagued like the plague, pun intended. Or making sure theyre dead before IP is out, else they have to kite for a bit and wait on the cd. These are barbs with massive dps too. But then again, tank barb is an entirely different issue. Its a one off build that can 'tank' those aoe affixes. Revenge with a decent life pool and loh and ignore pain can let you stand in molten for a far longer time than any other class / build in the game. You could probably do just as good with 800 ar / 8k armor, while improving your dps output too.

So far noone has anything solid to prove it though and everything I've seen indicates that they need to check back with their highschool math teacher. So, deliver or begone. --> again, we are discussin, why do you have such an attitude? Not like you have delivered anything to counter it either .... whats your point? That you're right just because you decide to say so?