Damage reduction worthless?

[HappyCrasher]

got easily way over a hundred dmg reduction on my build but compared to taking it all off and putting on elder gear..... it feels more like its 40% damage reduction max, its atrocious, even on veteran having full leto with a bunch of dmg reduction items should make you actually tanky, if i get into a crowd of enemies i just get vaporized regardless its awful.
I understand having that much damage in maybe the higher 2 difficulties but why is armor so worthless even in veteran?????

[[Evil Inc.]Drakkon]

DMR on it's own is worthless, you need to combine it with high levels of constant healing/regen to have it matter and on higher difficulties you'll still be one shot sometimes so dodging is still important.

[Kappa]

Actually, on surv, vet and nightmare, tanking is faceroll ( though you might have some issues in nightmare co-op or with bosses with specific modififiers).

And currently, until they'll fix, even on apo some tank builds make you immortal.

Mind to post your build?
Kinda strange you are having hard time in vet.

[william_es]

Damage reduction is also capped at 80%, so you're wearing some unnecessary gear, and you're not getting the full effect.

[Benjamin]

Originally posted by Evil Inc.Drakkon:

DMR on it's own is worthless, you need to combine it with high levels of constant healing/regen to have it matter and on higher difficulties you'll still be one shot sometimes so dodging is still important.

DMR?

[MrWitz]

"Tank" in a souls-like game simply means you can take an extra 1 or 2 hits. It doesn't mean "face tank" You have to decide whether surviving 1 extra hit is worth the investment. And in a game like this, 1 or 2 extra hits is a huge deal.

Now, with that said, there are currently a couple builds out there that allow you to be nearly immortal. They're almost guaranteed to get nerfed eventually, but for now, you can use them to clear some tough boss fights in your apoc runs.

[boxofit]

Originally posted by MrWitz:

"Tank" in a souls-like game simply means you can take an extra 1 or 2 hits. It doesn't mean "face tank" You have to decide whether surviving 1 extra hit is worth the investment. And in a game like this, 1 or 2 extra hits is a huge deal.

Now, with that said, there are currently a couple builds out there that allow you to be nearly immortal. They're almost guaranteed to get nerfed eventually, but for now, you can use them to clear some tough boss fights in your apoc runs.

Oh yeah this is the correct answer. I have an extremely optimized build IMO. I am riding the damage reduction cap, and have pretty good heals and pretty regular mod uptime. In general on apocalypse I am performing well since I have fought all the enemies several times, but just as sure as I mess up and get surrounded its over.

Also Venom can still one shot me from full health and his AoE's will kill me in a second or 2 if I end up in one not paying attention.

So even the tankiest builds need to stay on guard as the difficulty ramps up. On survivor and veteran though hou can literally face tank anything if you have the right gear.

[Elim Garak]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BqHNkViEFI

This is how the entire stupid system works.

No, the game doesn't once explain this to you.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Elim Garak:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BqHNkViEFI

This is how the entire stupid system works. No, the game doesn't once explain this to you.

That system isn't really stupid, just poorly communicated to the player. This is a fairly standard approach for modern games, though. Warframe and Monster hunter use it (albeit with different stats), just off the top of my head. None of them seem to explain underlying mechanics, though, and I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps the thought is that most players couldn't wrap their heads around the math?

But basically - all sources of armour are additive with each other and give you a single "armour damage resistance" stat. All sources of damage resistance and damage reduction (the game uses them interchangeably) are additive with each other and give you a "buff damage resistance" stat. Both of these stats are multiplicative with each other, and the result is capped to 80%. The in-game Inventory display can go over 80% (for some odd reason), but resistance itself does not.

Any other source of damage mitigation - like enemy damage debuffs or damage shared with pets - seem to be processed on a different pass and are effectively multiplicative with everything else. There don't seem to be any other caps, so such buffs can technically take you over 80% effective resistance.

[Xuhybrid]

To give an example, full leto gives roughly 60% DR with Fortify. If you add Barkskin +10% DR on top you only get +4% DR. Personally i think it's a huge waste to invest more points if your DR from armour is already high. Same goes for Bulwark, if u get 2 stacks your 13%(23%) still only gives like 8% if you have Letos/Fortify/Barkskin. If the max is 80% i would like DR to be additive.

[Black Hammer]

The problem with damage resistance here is that enemies are reliably able to one or two shot you while at the damage cap with spammable AoEs.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Xuhybrid:

To give an example, full leto gives roughly 60% DR with Fortify. If you add Barkskin +10% DR on top you only get +4% DR. Personally i think it's a huge waste to invest more points if your DR from armour is already high. Same goes for Bulwark, if u get 2 stacks your 13%(23%) still only gives like 8% if you have Letos/Fortify/Barkskin. If the max is 80% i would like DR to be additive.

This would only be true if the return from damage resistance were linear. It is not. Effective health is a rational function of damage resistance which trends towards infinity as resistance trends toward 100%. A single percentage point is worth FAR more near 80% than near 0% resistance.

Watch the video. It does a better job of explaining it than I have in the past. Even a single percentage point going from 79 to 80 can potentially increase your EHP by 50-100.