Damage absorption

[Androdion]

I wanted to confirm with veteran players if damage absorption is indeed additive when being present from different sources, as I believe it is.

With that in mind what's more useful for the higher difficulties on a dual wielding Harbinger, Trance of Convalescence or Trance of Empathy? I've been using ToE for the reflect and life leech, but at higher difficulties with mobs having much more HP and higher resistances will ToC make a better result with its damage absorption? Between that, Distortion Field and Battle Standard shouldn't my toon be more resilient than with the reflect?

[rulikstanislav]

flat absorption is additive but the %absorption is i believe multiplicative from my observations, if i am wrong someone please correct me. :)

the ToC certainly have more impact than the ToE for your overall survivability as a dual wielder - more beneficial since the %absorption is last on the dmg order; trance of wrath is briliant for melle chars in general because of the skill disruption(cyclops,dactyls,ghost etc...) and resist.reduction.

[Androdion]

Originally posted by rulikstanislav:

flat absorption is additive but the %absorption is i believe multiplicative from my observations, if i am wrong someone please correct me. :)

Does that mean that if I have ToC always active then I'll be neutering my Battle Standard's higher damage absorption? If I understood the formula correctly using ToC+DF won't work too badly since it's a 5% chance anyway, but BS will work better on its own because it has a much higher value? Sorry but I suck at these formulas...

Is ToW really that good? I can see 32% reduced resistances on enemies as a very important aspect, but how exactly does it proc since it's a 4 second timer? Same for skill disruption, how does it proc when it's just 1 second?

[rulikstanislav]

it multiplies the highest numbers and yes the % absorption indeed stacks multiplicatively - tried it on a conqueror ( colossus 66% [+4] and banner 36%).

ToW is just another spell like death chill aura, ring of flame... on a dps level by automatically re-casting/applying - each time(second) the ToW hits an enemy, the skill disruption is being reapplied again and again etc.. res.red. for 4 sec is reapplied on the fifth hit again and again... its just automatically done for you so you do not have to do it yourself like casting banner one after another or war horn and such. Much like how damage over time works... 30 bleeding damage for 3 seconds means 10+10+10 damage and then it ends -> the spells like ToW-ring of flame will reapply them.

[Androdion]

Oh, I thought they'd stack according to trigger order, but if they stack based on the higher value then with 15% from ToC, 20% from DF and 36% from BS I can still get nearly 50% of damage absorption? Is that it?

Ok, so it procs constantly but "pauses" for the duration of the DoT. So basically no enemy ability can be triggered, apart from bosses? Since skill disruption procs every second, and I assume bosses are resistant to it.

So ToE and ToW are both offensive and defensive with leech/reflect and dot/skill disruption whereas ToC is mainly defensive with damage absorption/life and energy regen.

[rulikstanislav]

1) yes

2) after reading what i wrote i think i said it the wrong way, just to clarify what i meant was as long as the enemy is within your ToW radius every single one of the affix is being reapplied on every hit per second so that your "X" electroburn dot and res.red. become instant damage-> the spell does not wait for the dot to take the full duration affect as long as your enemy gets hit every second. When the enemy is no longer in your ToW radius the dot+reduction will continue to have an affect based on the duration they have after receiving last hit from the spell. It is a same thing as you dealing poison damage by swinging your weapon every hit per second and not waiting to let the dot do its work.
As far as I know, yes bosses are immune against effects but not debuffs.

3) From how you look at it yes,but the reflection and retaliation are not defensive but offensive, they are only a different form of dealing damage to enemies compared to dealing damage by a spell or a weapon. Otherwise the defense = dmg order (ToC only)

[Androdion]

1) It's very helpful for cutting down the squishiness then.

2) Yeah, I understood what you meant. What I tried to say by "pause" was that since those dot effects don't stack it only procs again after 4 seconds, even though it hits every second. Otherwise by the third second on the timer enemies would have no resistances at all.

3) I guess what I tried to say is that all three trances can be helpful depending on the situation. I can see ToW being almost mandatory for legendary since it breaks resistances. But I'll have to get there first.

You've been very helpful, thanks a lot for taking your time with a TQ noob. I've played Sacred 2 for far too long and the mechanics here are in some ways very different, so it's great to have help on such questions.

[rulikstanislav]

Excellent, you are welcome :)