Armor Absorption VS Damage Absorption

[LevelSix_SYSTEM]

Wondering how they compare and whether or not going Trickster for the 15% damage absorption outweighs losing 13% armor absorption, little over 400 OA & 200 DA, about 20% stun resist, & 500 armor having the exact same build on a Blademaster?

[KG]

What build? The answer's almost certainly "no" but there isn't much info here beyond what you're losing... which are important in context of how much you have in the first place. IE how much OA, DA, armor absorption, etc. would the Blademaster have in the first place?

[mikeydsc]

Use this site to link your build.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/

Use the first button in the upper left to upload the build, and the 2nd button to get the URL so you can copy and then paste it here.

Its much easier than trying to explain it all in text.

[andrew.thiele]

Armor Absorption VS Damage Absorption as an argument is a bit weird for me. Like I could see Armor VS Physical Resist or % VS Flat Damage Absorption, these make more sense to me.

But I'll just add that "Armor protects against Physical Damage only. It does not reduce any other type of damage, including Pierce and Internal Trauma. Internal Trauma, a physical damage DoT, is reduced only by Physical Resistance." And the remaining damage types are all reduced by their respective resistance types.

Now the total amount of Armor a build has (its Armor Rating) does matter, as you should always be striving for 100% Armor Absorption on all characters. And the % chance enemies have of hitting any particular armor piece are as follows:
- Head: 12%
- Shoulders: 12%
- Torso: 24%
- Arms: 16%
- Legs: 20%
- Feet: 16%

"This means that upgrading your equipment is equally important across all armor slots. If you have low protection in a slot, you are vulnerable to hard hits in that area."

On the opposite side, Damage Absorption is something that protects against all damage. The % Damage Absorption is the second last defense to be calculated followed by Flat Damage Absorption. % Damage Absorption is certainly powerful, but "Because flat damage absorption occurs only after damage has gone through all your other defenses, it can be a very powerful tool in your survival and should not be underestimated."

I could go deep into the math of it all but these resources explain it enough. And all the sourced pieces of this post are from the GD Wiki link:

https://grimdawn.fandom.com/wiki/Game_Mechanics
https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/malawiglenn-s-guide-on-game-mechanics-for-beginners/84347

And you may think to yourself, wow, Armor only protects against Physical Damage...how useless. BUT the majority of enemies in the game, especially Bosses and Celestials, deal a lot of Physical Damage so you want to reduce as much of it as possible.

Having a decent Armor Rating & Physical Resist can go a long way in surviving these encounters, and crucial if you are a melee character. But in every circumstance, you should be trying to reach 100% Armor Absorption on all builds. Damage Absorption is certainly an excellent thing to have as well, but not every class combo has access to these, outside a devotion or two...and consumables.

[LevelSix_SYSTEM]

This was my original plan was Blademaster, started as a dual wield but found the Soulreaper Axe

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/62ayO3D2

After finding out floor effects arent reduced by regular aether/poison resists I want to know if this Trickster would be better
Also swapped set to Shatterguard for more Damage Absorption at low health

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2E4j7vN

[mikeydsc]

In your devotions - Kraken does nothing for you. Its for 2 handed weapons, not dual wielding.

[LevelSix_SYSTEM]

Originally posted by mikeydsc:

In your devotions - Kraken does nothing for you. Its for 2 handed weapons, not dual wielding.

I changed from DW to 2H just left the 1h weapons slotted though

[andrew.thiele]

On the Trickster, Feral Hunger and Upheaval only proc off of Default Weapon Attacks. So as it stands, they could only proc during the cooldown's of other skills mapped to the mouse buttons, which are a basic Weapon Attack.

[LevelSix_SYSTEM]

Originally posted by andrew.thiele:

On the Trickster, Feral Hunger and Upheaval only proc off of Default Weapon Attacks. So as it stands, they could only proc during the cooldown's of other skills mapped to the mouse buttons, which are a basic Weapon Attack.

Yeah, I know theres default attacks inbetween ABB, have it mapped to left mouse button, TY

[LevelSix_SYSTEM]

Or should I just suck it up (Floor DMG Effects mostly) and stick with Blademaster and just shoot for this build with Shatterguard for Damage Absorption at low health?
Somehow lost my aether & piercing overcaps with the gear swap though

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4ZD4Dx8Z

[RodHull]

Armor absorption just says how effective each armor piece at soaking damage, if you have 75% and 1000 armor that armor actually functions as 750. As such its important but not that important, first of all its easy to get armor absorption to 100% anyway with components, and secondly its only useful vs physical damage which while important only accounts for a portion of the damage you receive.

Damage absorption on the other hand cannot be gotten through components or gear (well there are a few pieces but it has long cooldowns and limited use) it does exist on a few devotions but generally skills is the only way to get it. And its effective vs all sources of damage

[LevelSix_SYSTEM]

So if I am using Maivens Sphere for 20% Damage Absorption and Shatterguard for another 20% at low life do I really need 100% Armor Absorption still, or can I get away with say 87% or even less?

As per this build?

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/r2BnGJW2

[Draug]

Without showing the math... Armor Absorption (AAb) is better against lots of weak hits, where the physical damage is at or below your armor rating. Damage Absorption (DAb) is better for single heavy hits, where the incoming damage is well above your armor rating.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Ankhseram:

So if I am using Maivens Sphere for 20% Damage Absorption and Shatterguard for another 20% at low life do I really need 100% Armor Absorption still, or can I get away with say 87% or even less?

As per this build?

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/r2BnGJW2

Just an aside the two 20% do not add up to 40%, it works like 20% then the next 20% is based on your current 80% damage taken (so it actually does 16% in this case) this is I believe to prevent people ever getting 100% (outside of MOE)

Originally posted by Draug:

Without showing the math... Armor Absorption (AAb) is better against lots of weak hits, where the physical damage is at or below your armor rating. Damage Absorption (DAb) is better for single heavy hits, where the incoming damage is well above your armor rating.

Damage absorption is always better as it works against all damage, armor only works vs physical damage. Granted some of the hardest enemies do lots of physical damage, but there are plenty who do virtually none and its useless against those

[Draug]

While Damage Absorption does work against all damage, I'd argue that it is barely needed against non-physical damage. The other damage types you should have capped resistances for and be dropping to 20% (or less) of the original incoming damage. So with 80% resistance and 20% damage absorption, you'd only take 16% of the original damage... If you were taking a hit or shotgun attack that did 2000 damage after resistances, that 20% damage absorption would only drop it to 1600. Yes, it's 20% less damage, but it also is only 400 damage off of a hit that started at 10000 damage. (And really, if 400 damage makes the difference between life and death, you should probably make some changes to your build or playstyle) Of course, if you don't have sufficient overcapping on your resistances, damage absorption does gain some relevance back.

For physical damage, the importance of armor comes in to play. Oh, and I checked... there are exactly 2 nemesis bosses (Valdaran and Zantarin) and 1 celestial (Mogdrogen) that don't have 1 or more skills that deal physical damage, and even they will deal physical damage if they happen to just attack you. I'm sure there are other lower rated enemies I'm forgetting, but who's really caring what damage a lowly Walking Dead is doing.

But back to armor... What follows is the equation that describes how armor works (assume damage numbers are physical damage only, and armor rating is of the location hit):

Damage taken = min(damage dealt, armor rating) * (1 - Armor absorption) + max(0, damage dealt - armor rating)

From this you should be able to see that with adequate armor and 100% armor absorption, you can eliminate physical damage as a threat except from the strongest attacks. And reducing damage to 0 is something that % damage absorption can't do.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Draug:

While Damage Absorption does work against all damage, I'd argue that it is barely needed against non-physical damage. The other damage types you should have capped resistances for and be dropping to 20% (or less) of the original incoming damage. So with 80% resistance and 20% damage absorption, you'd only take 16% of the original damage... If you were taking a hit or shotgun attack that did 2000 damage after resistances, that 20% damage absorption would only drop it to 1600. Yes, it's 20% less damage, but it also is only 400 damage off of a hit that started at 10000 damage. (And really, if 400 damage makes the difference between life and death, you should probably make some changes to your build or playstyle) Of course, if you don't have sufficient overcapping on your resistances, damage absorption does gain some relevance back.

For physical damage, the importance of armor comes in to play. Oh, and I checked... there are exactly 2 nemesis bosses (Valdaran and Zantarin) and 1 celestial (Mogdrogen) that don't have 1 or more skills that deal physical damage, and even they will deal physical damage if they happen to just attack you. I'm sure there are other lower rated enemies I'm forgetting, but who's really caring what damage a lowly Walking Dead is doing.

But back to armor... What follows is the equation that describes how armor works (assume damage numbers are physical damage only, and armor rating is of the location hit):

Damage taken = min(damage dealt, armor rating) * (1 - Armor absorption) + max(0, damage dealt - armor rating)

From this you should be able to see that with adequate armor and 100% armor absorption, you can eliminate physical damage as a threat except from the strongest attacks. And reducing damage to 0 is something that % damage absorption can't do.

Point is most of those enemies do physical AND something else in most cases multiple other something elses. Taking the two most extreme cases (the two who are pure melee) Iron Maiden and Fabius, the do about a fair chunk of physical but they also do life reduction, cold, bleed, pierce, internal trauma... none of which armor helps at all against.

Now before this gets turned into something it never was, at no point have I ever said armor is useless, theres a reason most of the builds people have legit killed superbosses with have high armor. BUT for normal play lets say in SR damage absorption will IMO prevent more overall damage in say a 20 minute period than the difference between 100% or 90% absorption.

As I also said before there is no excuse not to have 100% armor absorption anyway, but if you start boiling it down damage absorption is the more valuable as it has very few legitimate sources where as anyone can stack up on armor value.