Armor vs Phys res

Grim Dawn General Discussion
81

I cleared SR75 with Asid Retal DE Opp 3days ago.
Very slow on acid-resistant enemies and caster enemies, but causes extraordinary damage to other enemies, so if acid-% RR is added to the Necro skill, Asid Retal DE will absolutely adjust I think it is necessary.

82

So, with more RR you would have good damage against the specific hard ones and super-extraordinary (or something better than extraordinary
) damage to others? Seems rather overkill.

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Yes. So, as I already wrote, if Necro’s base skill gains an acid RR in the future, it will definitely be Nerf. I mentioned in the Necro buff thread that some builds need to be adjusted.

Asid Retal DE gains an unusual amount of Asid Retal from the Sentinel set, and its attack power is amazing. However, it is not so sturdy. I died several times before clearing SR75. I have not tried a crucible.
I will upload the build, so please test it if you have interest and time. _RETALOP.zip (1.3 MB)

84

I’ve changed my devotion setup, but i still dont get it - why should i use caster gear (Fateweaver’s Raiment, etc) instead of tanky Light’s Defender?
I got enough energy sustain even without that caster gear, as well as res overcaps, so why should i give up tankiness for nothing?
A new setup.

BTW, forget what i’ve said about phys res. It seems it works BEFORE armour, after all:
https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/resistance-works-before-block-and-armor/90126/11

85

If that’s the case, Z will probably change it.

Why fateweaver’s? Because:

  1. Great resists means allowing yourself to get dawnshard pauldrons for hardcapped disintegration, meaning you’re free to get arcane harmony for 100% disrupt res.

  2. 9% phys res is also huge too.

  3. Last but not least, going for ravager helm, or any helm with +1 to arcanist/all skills allows you to hardcap AAR, which in turn means you won’t benefit from 2 piece light’s defender bonus (unless you use light’s defender shoulders + green pants
but that’s not very optimal imo)

To put point 3 into perspective


  • 24/16 --> 25/16 AAR = 32 damage increase
  • 25/16 --> 26/16 AAR = 58 damage increase

So you can think of any helm giving +1 to all arcanist as giving +58 damage to AAR.

EDIT: Fateweaver’s also allows you to go for mark of the shadow queen which is huge for OA and %damage alone. But +2 to AoC means more damage reduction, greater AoE, and better RR.

On top of that, you get crafting bonus as well.

EDIT: Being forced into allagast ring because of resists also means that you give up 20 - 30% aether to lightning conversion on AAR. Or
~80 damage on AAR.

So in your current set up, you’re missing missing out on ~100 (edited) damage to AAR <— This also means you adcth for that much less.

@BoG - I suppose at the end of the day, everything is connected. Every item choice, every constellation needs to meld together well to make a truly optimized build.

86

Why dont just get a ring or medal with “of Gildam Arcanum suffix”? Especially if one has great-rolled pants
 And one can hardcap disintegration even without Dawnshard Pauldrons and Alex’s pants (just with 2x glyph of the storm witch).
You dont get 100% disruption res anyway, just 80%.

Is that AAR hardcap so neccessary? I tried it with another item, and damage increase isnt so significant


But lose it on helm


I’m forced into it because i CANT FIND IT YET, not because i lack resists. Check my overcaps for poison & vitality - they sure allow it.
And, btw, with good rolls, you can get 88-90% Aether -> lightning conversion with belt and one ring alone. At this point, a second ring for mere 10-12% conversion would be unnecessary (but still OK due to its stats)

Mark of Shadow Queen grants no more OA than a medal with “of attack” suffix. Damage and +2 to AoC is nice, sure, but its res bonus is rather lacking, compared to something like Impervious Kymon’s Badge of Attack (which is possible to purchase from vendor eventully), providing ~40 chaos res and ~50 poison and pierce res. Compared to mere ~30 pierce res, it’s day and night. Though i agree, if you DO have all required res overcaps, Mark of Shadow Queen is good.

87

2x storm witch is BiS (yes I read that you can’t find it yet, but I didn’t know that).

RE medal
shadow queen is BiS for sure.

So if you roll with these items, arcane harmony is the only means for disrupt res

58 damage increase is significant if you start increasing your % lightning damage. E.g. You’re missing out on 300% lightning damage with your shoulders, medal, and not finishing spear

But you get crafting bonus on pants, and medal
2 for 1

Proc is really nice too. 10% conversion is still 33 flat damage to AAR at 26/16

Not true. A well rolled shadow queen gives like 70 + 4% OA. That’s more than any of attack suffix.

At the end of the day, the empirical data is there. I’m not trying to be a condescending fuck, or put you down, but you should take your build for a spin in naked crucible and see how it fares (because I agree that buff/banners is kinda cheesy).

And I suggest naked crucible over SR only because it is far less prone to RNG.

@Nery: Yup. So you just need to consistently survive damage spikes to be okay with the build.

88

Imo I am not what I am talking or doing
 most of the time :smile: including with AAR. So physical resistance their can compensate for lack of armor from Light’s Defender. Also life steal from Off hand means the more damage you make, the more you steal back and thus surviving.

89

Well, i preffered to get Korvaak instead - it grants great OA & DA boost, plus perma-stun for trash. Well, i could give up Solemn Watcher and finish Spear, but then i’d lose a bulk of DA and some armour
 Is it worth it?

But lose on boots too (stun res wont come out of nowhere).

A PERFECTLY rolled, you wanted to say, probably
 And still, it’s roughly the same as +140 OA. ± 15 OA in the end, which doesnt matter at all.

90

Well, i already feel significantly less tanky with that setup, and it doesnt seem that damage makes up for it. Maybe, with 2-nd ring things would get better a bit
 that’s what i hope for.

91

I actually like your decision for korvaak. Seems interesting and definitely worth testing. If your OA can afford the hit, I would actually take the point from aeon’s, and the side node on eldritch sun and put them into spear.

Wyrmscale (+2 to censure as well)

%OA is of extreme value here because of overload. Like removing the 5% OA node from eldritch sun drops your OA by 125. So that’s saying something.

You gotta go all or nothing in most builds in GD. Same with DPS. You can try piloting the spec I’ve shared and just see how it fares.

If it isn’t tanky, delete it.

EDIT: Lmao, just realized that I’m not even making use of RR on SBoE. That’s how unpolished my build is :rofl:

92

I think, ~35% damage and 5% crit arent worth losing 5% OA & 20 OA, not to mention 20 DA and ~800 HP. It’s kinda unfair trade-off.

Care to perform some math, please. In my setup, if you replace +140 flat OA (of attack) with +4% OA and 70 flat OA (mark of shadow queen), you net with the SAME total OA value, ± 5 points.

The main reason i’ve gone was because it allows for 2x Glyph of shadow witch. I just need to get it somehow in SR :).

93

I think we are splitting hairs here. Sure, forget what I said about OA, honestly, even if it’s a +20 OA gain, it’s not really going to matter (I’m too lazy to do the math too)

Fair enough. Like I said, I find korvaak an interesting choice. I do think you shouldn’t give up ghoul, however.

I’m 99% certain my build can do SR 75

EDIT: At the end of the day, I’ve said my piece. There’s nothing more for me to add here.

94

Just for that 18% phys res proc for 5 sec with 25 sec CD? And for that i have to lose really a lot (Solemn Watcher, for example) Is it really worth it?

Obviously i can do it. But damn ring still doesnt want to drop.

95

Zantai said

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96

and how he’s going to explain that video? Bugged patch?

97

Thankfully I don’t have to explain anything since I can look at the code that has the order of events.

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98

In that case, i think i’ll trust you.

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@Zantai @grey-maybe @sir_spanksalot @Stupid_Dragon @RektbyProtoss @Ceno (pinging a well known doctor of Cadence since I used it in the test below)

I’ve made a test that agrees with what @BOG and @moongazer concluded
here and in Resistance works before block and armor? in independent tests
(I don’t know their methodology yet and hadn’t known what the result of the test was supposed to be) which is that

Physical Resist works before Armor

  • I have a save with a character doing constant Physical damage with Cadence (not having variable sources in gear such as weapons)

  • only 1 source of Physical damage - Cadence

  • I concluded that target dummy armor is slightly off in Grim Tools, 1517 instead of 1585? by analyzing differences between damages on various difficulty levels and matching it with different absorption levels

    • armor of dummy seems different in files but even if you use different armor it’s hard (at least for me) to explain the results

  • test done in Normal where Armor Absorption is 70% (slightly more in Elite and slightly more than that on Ultimate)

Anyway, after modding Target Dummy Physical Resistance (Defense Physical) to 20

  • I tried doing it in various ways because you can change it in dummy, in the difficulty adjustment, in dummy passive skills


    • every time my damage dealt changed from 1734 to 1183 (sheet damage is 2796)

Now if Phys Res was working after amor, I would deal much more damage, around 1734 x 0.8 = 1382.2

Whereas calculation with Physical Res working before Armor I get 2796 x 0.8 - 1517 x 0.7 = 1174.9
and is very close to what I deal (1183)

From 1734 to 1183 there’s a whooping 32% decrease which was obtained just by increasing dummy’s physical resistances to 20% from 0%.

Sorry if my test is wrong (i.e. somehow this is Total Physical Damage I changed) / I modded badly (or perhaps Dummy is programmed differently than other monsters), don’t understand something. I encourage others to devise more tests confirming it or telling me what I did wrong.

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100

Curious, can you test the % damage absorption too? I wonder if your result agrees with the sequence resistance -> absorption -> armor or with resistance -> armor -> absorption.