It’s not just various guides but the official game guide that kinda goes against your claims here…
What about weapon damage casts (ex. Forcewave)? Does enemy armor apply 3 times? Like, once for true weapon damage in FW’s weapon damage, again for global flat bonuses to weapon damage within FW’s weapon damage and then again for FW’s built-in flat phys? This sounds a tiny bit far fetched if you don’t mind me saying so… One minght argue if all flat phys was worth 30% of its face value nobody would go out of their way to stack it or use Beronath sword or Gladiator belt to stack it further from other dmg tyoes…
I’d test it myself but I don’t do mods. Maybe your mods are bugged?
Oh! fun Well, then probably either there was miscommunication between game developers and people responsible for the official website, or it is just outdated information. What I know for sure is that in 1.0.6.1 resistance really goes before armor - you can easily test it yourself in a mod.
To be honest, I’ve never tested Forcewave (I prefer Blade Arc, as you can see in my DK video). Though, I doubt there is a lot of difference in mechanics of different skills.
There is one single exception in the rule I’ve described above: in case different physical damage sources come from the same weapon, they are first added together, and then modified by resistance and armor. This is why Gutsmasher is the highest physical dps weapon in GD (taking into account its AS, of course): its bonus damage is just added to base damage before any calculations. Gladiator belt, on the other hand, is absorbed separately (this is the reason why I never use it, no matter how appealing it looks).
Mods can not be bugged Mod which consists of just a single modified weapon uses the same game mechanics. Well, see for yourself. Attached file is my mod, which has just a single weapon changed - the very first weapon your start with (it changes its damage to fixed 500-500). This is actually renamed .rar archive (I don’t use winzip), but I guess any common archiver should “understand” it. You have to unpack it into your “mods” folder, and then launch as custom game (it requires its own character save files, too).
If I recall correctly, this came up before. A Chinese user mathematically proved the physical damage vs armor formula worked that way, applying each physical damage source separately to enemy armor. It also came out in that thread that enemy vs player armor worked differently than player vs enemy, in that case it works more like it is supposed to.
Stacking flat physical damage still has an effect because no enemies have 100% absorb. It’s just not as much effect as it should be. Zantai responded in that thread (iirc) saying it wouldn’t be changed because the game is balanced around it working the way it currently does.
I am confused regarding the armor application to damage.
So, say a weapon has
-some flat physical
-some elemental
-and you have global 100% ele -> phys (and hypothetically assume 100% conversion for everything else in the questions below…)
Questions:
a. The flat phys (x % bonus) and the converted ele (x % bonus) are 2 separate armor applications?
b. Each flat physical damage stacked from other equipment sources is also a distinct armor application? And in the case of 2 types of flat damage, each be a distinct armor application, much like the weapon? ie, belt with some phys and converted elemental will be 2 further armor applications?
c. I assume spells that do physical tally up all physical ( and conversions) prior to application? As do devotion proc conversions to physical, such as Fiend chaos +fire combining before armor application. Or are these separated armor applications, as well?
d. in the case of something like Firestrike, with multiple %WD and stuff. Added prior for one application or does each have its own armor application?
For example there are:
-flat fire base FS
-%wd base FS
-potential flat physical ES
-%wd ES
-more potential flat if converted in Static strike
-2 damage types in Brimstone, if both converted.
I’m not sure about multiple sources of converted physical dmg coming from the same weapon (Beronath), but what I’m 100% sure is that other damage sources like flat bonuses from rings, belts and stars are absorbed by separate armor applications. As for Fire Strike… well, take my mod and test it? Also, you can mod skills too, not just items… for example, you can make any skill work like Fire Strike (i.e. add fixed elemental damage to be converted to fixed physical).
Well, then probably either there was miscommunication between game developers and people responsible for the official website, or it is just outdated information. What I know for sure is that in 1.0.6.1 resistance really goes before armor - you can easily test it yourself in a mod.