Flat res reduction and ways to apply (and how important is it still?)

#1

As something of a continuation of this thread, I’ve beein wondering, what is the point of the “22 Reduced target’s Resistances for 3 Seconds to War Cry” prefix for Conduit of warring whispers.
Seems like it’s just 4 -res better than the baseline(-18 all), so all that part does is save you 3 skill points, give or take? Seems like a rather arbitrary thing to throw in with the bleed.

Also, as a small follow-up, is the best way to apply flat reduction still obliteration or harbinger doom bolt?
And for % Mindwarp?
And is it still required to preferably get at least 1 of each and 2 sources of -X%? Or have the recent balance patches abated that a bit?
I wonder if I should try cycling FoI, Obliteration and Acid purge to enjoy the dot stack:thinking:
Edit: Restructured post a bit.

#2

I would suggest one source of flat RR for every build you make.

There are better sources than others. I don’t like flat from DB, cause range is pretty small and it’s skill on CD. Revenant with good procer is decent activator, although you can’t control skeletons targeting. Also skill modifiers with flat RR are generally good, for instance to your main attack like Cadence.

Using 3x channeling skills sound like a disaster, I don’t recommend it. Obliteration is very good on builds with secondary smaller damage skills/procs. But I wouldn’t use it just for flat RR.

%RR is the least important RR type, because of it’s mechanic and the fact it can’t reduce enemies resistances below zero. But if you play elemental build, do get it. And there are few items mods with it. But don’t use items just for that.

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#3

I agree, though to clarify, it does further reduce enemy resistances once you’ve already made them negative with -X% RR type. But if you’ve made the resistances close to 0, %X RR will barely do anything.

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#4

Hmmm I use the occasion and make a plot here and nerd out a little.
(I always wanted to see it drawn)

Relative Dmg Gain from %RTR
Assumptions:

  • 20 RTR assumed
  • 20% RTR assumed
  • This damage gain is a function over X
    where X is Monster resists - all our -Y% RRs (only this one type RR added here)
    [ i.e. if X = 0 we want to get 0% DMG gain
    and if X=100%=1 we want to get 100% DMG gain
    {because final monster res goes from 80% to 60% so DMG goes from “20%” to “40%”]

The formula I got is
formula%20-%20Copy
(it agrees with single cases I mentioned above)

Let’s plot it from x=100% (1) to x=-100% (-1) too see
how the effectivness of 20% RTR changes:

From the plot:

  • A -> if X = 100% we get 1 = 100% -> double damage

    • but of course this is not a real scenario,
      this would mean monster immune even after reductions of the first type -Y%

    • maybe super noob Vitality player fighting Ravager with no -%Vit Res

  • B -> if X = 60% we get 0.2 = 20% relative damage gain

    • still pretty unrealistic scenario, maybe it can happen with highly resistant monster + noob player

  • C -> more realistic X=0% and of course 0% relative damage gain due to weird multiplicative mechanics

  • from C to D we can see that relative damage gain slowly raises from 0 to 10%

    • the real scenario here)
    • which is not a lot considering the higher values will affect trash rather than bosses

plot
plot.png1728×1000 69 KB

To sum up - in realistic scenario I’d expect 0% - 5% relative damage gain to non-trash enemies
(because the values raise very slowly on the left side of the plot and slowly on the right side in realistic cases)

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#5

Beautiful. Gotta love me some nerding out.
I’ll read it again later.

Though the original question still interests me: Is there a point in the -22 resist on conduit when it gets 18 base? I assume the bleeding could be nice for a bleed build, but I’d expect other amulets to be more convincing.

#6

There’s is some point in some scenarios where Terrify might suck.
Although 3s duration seems really bad but maybe the bleeding re-applies the RR?
Probably not but I’m not sure.

#7

Doesn’t DoT damage only calculate RR at the moment of initial impact? In that case, you hit during the 22RR, and your 10-15sec bleed ticks keep their boosted damage value for their whole duration.

#8

That’s actually an interesting consideration:
Does the RR apply immediately, before the damage?
That said, you’d get 18 base RR from the shout anyways. It seems to me like the bonus is rather tacked on to add a little bit to the strong bleed.
Well, maybe it is. :man_shrugging:

#9

Flat RR is still very important and I can’t imagine not picking up any source of it. Assuming any build can push enemy resistance to about 0% a 20 flat RR is 20% damage increase. If a build has at least 2000% damage stacked it equals to finding another 400% damage, which is usually a much harder task than simply including a source of flat RR into the build.

Mathematically there’s a point where typical flat RR would start to fall off, but realistically it’s simply not going to happen because it requires total RR of -170% at the very least.

Honestly I’m not averted to cutting all the biggest flat RR sources in the game by 5-6 and then gimping enemy resistances by the same value, similar to how it was done with class RR in 1.1.8.

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#10

I’d prefer reducing the -*% values further, on both constellations, and masteries.
Say, -20% instead of -25% something.
Real flat reduced target’s resistance isn’t as much of a problem - it does not stack, and there’s very few high values to be had. Or maybe that’s what you meant. Or somehow create a bigger opportunity cost for it.

#11

For masteries it was done this patch. The default value for RR in masteries was 30% instead of 25%.

Yes, but it only works as an argument for increasing the abundance of flat RR, while my point was flat RR constellations are mandatory unless the build has it else where (which mostly pierce Blademaster, BWC build and to lesser extent builds that make good use of War Cry RR, mostly Warborn and Krieg), and not picking one is like not picking two T3 constellations worth of %damage.
One can increase the build variety by either increasing the abundance of flat RR or by nerfing it’s values so that not picking it was more of an option and nerfing enemy resistance to compensate.

#12

As in, even the 25% are very strong in its stackability. And the patches also introduced more MIs with resistance shred options.
Regarding the flat values, it would indeed be nice to have some more options to get some of it, a tiny amount, to make those constellations less mandatory - or reducing the value of the skills on those constellations a little, sure. I think a few more level power options would be a lot easier to balance though; no need for much-high level monster rebalance on that. But then again, so many attack builds pick some dying god while utilizing neither vitality nor chaos. :roll_of_toilet_paper:

#13

Afaik it hasn’t been a thing for a while.

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