Armor Rating weirdness.

[Gabbek]

I've decided to have a closer look at armor rating, as I'm slowly approaching midgame. My party is level 11 right now. I've noticed something very strange, namely:
111 armor rating - 5% physical dmg reduction.
132 armor rating - 17% physical dmg reduction.
161 armor rating - 34% physical dmg reduction.

Effectively what it means is that my archer, rogue and mage have around 0-5% physical dmg reduction, while my tank - highly depending on equipped gear and buffs ranges from either 17% to around 50% physical dmg reduction. All summons have around 140-160 armor rating (spider, undead warrior, fire elemental, headless nick)... no wonder summoning meat for tanking purposes is really essential on tactical mode, when all but warrior characters take full physical damage. So basically something similar to [formula]: (armor - level * 9) * 0,5 is the formula for armor rating?

[Dorjan]

Yeah, I think this is why all the armour buffs/debuffs were reduced to be around +-20.

I wouldn't say it's weirdness though, but certainly makes every point of armour matter

[Mr.Hmm]

Yes, it makes every point of armour matter alot.

[Woland]

The difference between those summons and a real tank is, that a real tank gets about 50% more HP and can reach 40-50% blocking chance.
But even DPS built man-at-arms characters should have more HP than most summons.

[Sy]

it actually means "every point of armor matters" only on characters that already have high armor. yes, 1 point more or less can make a difference for a tank, but even having 20 points more or less (like from Reinforce or Frozen) on mage/rogue/ranger characters is often not enough to get beyond 1% damage reduction.

i like that it doesn't scale linearly, but i think it's silly that the curve is so strong that it makes an increase in armor completely pointless on many (player) characters.

[mypony89]

I'm confused. So a mage who has 115 armor and a hibrid tank who has 115 armor will take different has different dmg reductions?

[Sy]

Originally posted by mypony89:

I'm confused. So a mage who has 115 armor and a hibrid tank who has 115 armor will take different has different dmg reductions?

no, characters with the same amount of armor will always take the same amount of damage.

but a character with 200 armor might have ~35% damage reduction, while anyone with 100 armor or less will only have 1% damage reduction (the actual reduction always depends on the enemy's level).

that means that, for example, a mage with 70 armor from gear gets no benefit from a buff that increases armor by 20. the increase from 70 to 90 doesn't make any difference, whereas an increase from 200 to 220 would make a BIG difference.

[Floid]

Originally posted by Sy:

Originally posted by mypony89:

I'm confused. So a mage who has 115 armor and a hibrid tank who has 115 armor will take different has different dmg reductions?

no, characters with the same amount of armor will always take the same amount of damage.

but a character with 200 armor might have ~35% damage reduction, while anyone with 100 armor or less will only have 1% damage reduction (the actual reduction always depends on the enemy's level).

that means that, for example, a mage with 70 armor from gear gets no benefit from a buff that increases armor by 20. the increase from 70 to 90 doesn't make any difference, whereas an increase from 200 to 220 would make a BIG difference.

Huh, I didn't know this. So is there any point in trying to make sure all your characters all have as high armor that they can in early game ?? Like theoretically you could just concentrate / prioritize on the special attributes of gear instead and not care about the armor on anything until you can feasibly start equipping 100/200 + armor gear ?? Or am I misunderstanding.

[Stabbey]

INT and DEX users get different armor types, which I'm certain has lower protection than that of STR-based armor. That means it's likely they will never get high enough armor ratings to get any damage reduction of note.

[Sy]

Originally posted by Rehlem:

Huh, I didn't know this. So is there any point in trying to make sure all your characters all have as high armor that they can in early game ?? Like theoretically you could just concentrate/prioritize on the special attributes of gear instead and not care about the armor on anything until you can feasibly start equipping 100/200 + armor gear ?? Or am I misunderstanding.

you're misunderstanding partly: the numbers i used here are roughly what my characters currently have. but the actual damage reduction depends greatly on the level of whoever is attacking you. so while having 100 armor might not do anything for a lvl 15 character (or, more precisely, for fighting lvl 15 enemies) it would give a lot of damage reduction at lvl 5.

however, mage characters generally have a lot less armor than fighter characters of equal level.

in most games, buffs that increase armor have a larger (relative) effect on classes that wear leather or cloth armor. in DO:EH, not only do armor buffs have a larger effect on characters that already have very high armor, but the benefit for low-armor characters is sooo small (less than 1%!) that it makes using such buffs on them completely useless.

you can see exactly how much damage reduction your armor gives (against enemies of your level) by hovering your cursor over the armor value in the stats/inventory window.

Originally posted by Stabbey:

INT and DEX users get different armor types, which I'm certain has lower protection than that of STR-based armor. That means it's likely they will never get high enough armor ratings to get any damage reduction of note.

exactly!

[Vardis]

Huh. So maybe the armor specialist perk is only half-worthless then.

[Floid]

Originally posted by Sy:

Originally posted by Rehlem:

Huh, I didn't know this. So is there any point in trying to make sure all your characters all have as high armor that they can in early game ?? Like theoretically you could just concentrate/prioritize on the special attributes of gear instead and not care about the armor on anything until you can feasibly start equipping 100/200 + armor gear ?? Or am I misunderstanding.

you're misunderstanding partly: the numbers i used here are roughly what my characters currently have. but the actual damage reduction depends greatly on the level of whoever is attacking you. so while having 100 armor might not do anything for a lvl 15 character (or, more precisely, for fighting lvl 15 enemies) it would give a lot of damage reduction at lvl 5.

however, mage characters generally have a lot less armor than fighter characters of equal level.

in most games, buffs that increase armor have a larger (relative) effect on classes that wear leather or cloth armor. in DO:EH, not only do armor buffs have a larger effect on characters that already have very high armor, but the benefit for low-armor characters is sooo small (less than 1%!) that it makes using such buffs on them completely useless.

you can see exactly how much damage reduction your armor gives (against enemies of your level) by hovering your cursor over the armor value in the stats/inventory window.

Originally posted by Stabbey:

INT and DEX users get different armor types, which I'm certain has lower protection than that of STR-based armor. That means it's likely they will never get high enough armor ratings to get any damage reduction of note.

exactly!

Ahh, I think I get ya. Thanks for explaining.

[Gabbek]

Vardis - unfortunately you're much better off getting that bonus armor rating from anywhere else, as you can fully nullify any movement penalty on heavy armor simply by reinforcing it with 5 blacksmith (free of charge, as well)