That’s an error. A mark of dreeg in a shield won’t stack with the weapon or vice versa. It will only work with a focus. If the skill uses the shield, it wont use any reduced target’s resistance on the weapon or components attached to the weapon.
Mark of dreeg does stack with affixes like plaguebearer’s.
So it actually works more or less how I initially suspected.
Thanks for clarifying things, nine.
Do totems count as pets?
No, they scale off the players %damage increase, you can reduce cooldown, and they do not scale off cast speed, but cooldown functions similar as most have one. You want X3 of the storm totem asap vs bosses to quickly kill them(Wind devil, ultimate levels of Mortar and blade spirit will also do this). They use your OA and have no hp thus no DA.
They are a weird half way between pet and player skill.
This holds true for Mortar, Thermite mine, Storm totem, Windigo totem, Wind devil and Blade spirit
Some simplification to the greater good:
If incoming damage is more than armor: (A*(1-AA))+(PhysDam-A) = Damage Taken
This is equal to:
PhysDam - A*AA
Which is much easier to understand.
*I don’t know the weights for these, but for the purposes of explaining, I’m going to assume the numbers I put by them. If you know them, free feel to comment and I will edit it into the post.
Last time when it was tested by me and other players it was 50% (25% by each hand). But it could be changed afterwards.
PS Tested again. 90 dw attacks from 201 total. So I suppose it’s still 50%
Charges (Cadence)
There is reason to believe that B27 changed information in this section. This information may be out of date.
The differing WPS skills add different charges to skills like Cadence. Here are the skills you can get from Nightblade and Soldier.
It was changed recently. Right now DW does not give ANY benefits in comparison with 1h+shield. So cadence+DW do not synergy anymore. So the only benefit which gives you DW+cadence is additional attacks by offhand (you still can make dualwield animation when one hand hits by cadence while other hand hits by casual attack)
How does Damage absorption like Primal Bond effect the dmg taken formula?
If incoming damage is more than armor, does it become:
(A*(1-AA))+((PhysDam*(1-Dmg Absorption))-A) = Damage Taken
Damage Absorption is a flat multiplier (or value, in the case of Blast Shield/Menhir’s Bulwark) that directly applies to ALL damage. You can see this best on Mirror of Ereoctes (100% Damage Absorption -> you become immune to damage).
Thanks Ceno.
However, I’m trying the gauge how effective armor rating is in comparison to having 30% or 45% damage absorption and for that, I’d like to use a formula to test the changes.
So is my formula above correct?
Damage absorption is applied before armor rating.
Additionally, armor rating only protects against physical defense.
So it would be better to stack 15% more damage absorption, espicially since we cannot reach the cap on damage absorption (if there is one), whereas the cap on the max amount of armor that can be blocked is 70% (unless modified by +armor absorption gear).
Well lets see… Armor only affects physical damage and by default reduces 70% of that damage within the armor rating. Damage absorption affects all damage before other mitigations apply. I’m not sure what purpose such a comparison would have since it’s not like they are mutually exclusive or something.
The order of defense is:
Dodge and Projectile Deflection > Chance to hit via Offensive Ability vs. Defensive Ability > Damage Absorption > Armor > Resistances > Shield
@ Ceno, @Amokk:
Btw, are dmg reduction and dmg absorbtion considered to be different things? It sounds like one is a buff for the character and the other one is a monster debuff. And am i right, when i assume that i can use both mechanics in combination for a big defensive boost (e.g. use Blitz with Blindside + Primal Bond on a Warder)?
Damage reduction reduces the target’s damage. Damage absorption increases the player’s mitigation to incoming damage. Yes, you can use both mechanics.
Damage absorbtion is a straight up % of incoming damage taken away, before armor, resistances, or your shield is calculated. Damage reduction is a debuff for your enemy, and both can help your defenses.
Damage reduction is a percent taken off of an enemy’s attack. So if you had a 100 fire damage incoming, with -10% damage reduction and 15% damage reduced, that fire damage would be:
100
90 (Damage Reduction)
76.5 (Damage Absorbed)
Damage Reduction comes into effect before Damage absorption in the Order of Defenses, since all modifers to the attack take place before defenses are considered.
Thx guys, you are awesome :).
Damage reduction is applied to the target, so it the starting damage an enemy would be attacking you with.
Yeah, I know. I was thinking of flat damage absorption, like on Blast Shield 
I fixed it before you posted your post!
Alright, thanks guys, I’m quite convinced now that having high armor rating is not really useful if you have access to dmg absorption unless Devotion brings some sort of twist on it (such as allowing it to also mitigate a proportion of elemental dmg)
If you have dmg absorption, even if you have Scars of Battle or increase your AA to 100%, having the dmg reduction applied only to physical is very limiting and the increase in AA is not really a lot of change. You may as well just stack more health.
It’s actually quite a bit of a shame. I was looking forward to creating a high armor 2-h character with bubbles.
Again, they aren’t mutually exclusive, so I don’t get how you are coming to that conclusion. Armor isn’t something you can just ignore and you don’t trade off armor for damage absorption.
If you have dmg absorption, even if you have Scars of Battle or increase your AA to 100%, having the dmg reduction applied only to physical is very limiting and the increase in AA is not really a lot of change. You may as well just stack more health.
Armor absorption is multiplicative, not additive. It wont give you 100%. Also damage absorption helps your armor by lowering incoming damage, insuring you are mitigating higher physical damage attacks with armor.
It’s actually quite a bit of a shame. I was looking forward to creating a high armor 2-h character with bubbles.
Good news then. Whether or not you take damage absorption, there isn’t a reason to deliberately choose bad armor.
I see your point regarding the Armor absorption calculation. It really just makes it weaker then.
As for armor and dmg absorption: I’m not saying they are mutually exclusive. I’m saying that the effect of increased armor when you have dmg absorption is largely reduced. Let me illustrate what I mean:
Base case
Dmg taken: 1,120
Scenario 2 - Increased Armor
- Dmg taken: 945
Scenario 3 - Reduced Armor
- Dmg taken: 1,260
Dmg taken differences:
For me - and this is completely arbitrary - the damage difference of 175 between 400 and 650 armor is small. It doesn’t warrant to spend points on Strength purely to be able wear heavy armor (not including health increase now), when the tradeoff is wearing light armor with increased DPS and potentially compensating with added health which is relatively easy to find.
I guess my issue is that I’ve realized the above too late and spent most of my points in Strength to be able to wear heavy armor instead of going Spirit.