Order of defense seems inappropriate

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

Hello fellow GD-pals,

As the title suggests, I’m finding the order of defense unreasonably unfair for physical damage mitigation. Here’s what the order of defense is according to the official game guide.

-Fumble, Dodge and Projectile Deflection
-Chance to hit via Offensive Ability vs. Defensive Ability
-Shield
-% Reduced Damage from Monster Types
-Armor
-Resistances
-Reduced Damage from Monster Types
-% Damage Absorption
-Damage Absorption

For every other damage type besides physical, this order is fine, because resistances and %damage absorption both being percentages, are multiplicative, and it really doesn’t matter where they get placed relative to each other. However, for physical damage, armor comes first and absorbs a chunk of damage straight at the top. Only after that the physical resistance and %damage absorption get to play their part. This makes physical resistance and %damage absorption much less useful, especially given that they’re quite hard to come by.

In my opinion, resistances and %damage absorption should be placed above armor to eradicate this discrepancy with physical damage. Flat damage absorption is fine at the bottom where it is, but %damage absorption should be higher, perhaps even before shields, tbh, especially as it is so precious and hard to get in the first place.

Let’s take an example to see how the situation at present negatively affects the balance of physical damage against other damage types.

Suppose on ultimate, a boss hits a char for 5000 chaos damage. The char is luckily a bis one, with 80% chaos resistance and 20% damage absorption(say from MSoP). The damage calculation for this will be as follows:

Damage after resistance:5000-0.85000=1000
Damage after absorption:1000-0.21000=800…Final damage taken

We can see that as both reductions are %based, so their relative order doesn’t really matter. Now suppose the same boss hits the same char for 5000 physical damage, with the char having 2000 armor(100% armor absorption), 20% physical resist and the aforementioned 20% damage absorption. Now the damage calculation will be:

Damage after armor:5000-2000=3000
Damage after physical resistance:3000-0.23000=2400
Damage after absorption:2400-0.22400=1920…(Final damage taken)

Now let us calculate for the same physical hit, if resistance and %damage absorption would had been above armor:

Damage after absorption:5000-0.25000=4000
Damage after physical resistance:4000-0.24000=3200
Damage after armor:3200-2000=1200…Final damage taken

A difference of a whopping 720 damage. And then we use to wonder why bosses like Fabius and Iron Maiden end up annihilating our toons so easily. It is because of this discrepancy in the way physical damage is mitigated less efficiently than the other damage types.

If the order of defense is improved to put resistances and %damage absorption ahead of armor, it won’t affect any other damage type, but the problem with physical would be solved. Then the devs might not even need to nerf those harder encounters and the problem of chars on hc dying because of physical damage getting reflected would also be addressed at least to some extent. All with just a small tweak, without any nerf and without any huge balancing pass.

I hope I’m clear enough for you people to understand what I’m trying to say. Any comment or pointers if you people think I’m overlooking some obvious fact is highly welcome.

Thanks for taking time to read this wall of text.

2

your logic is flawed, it does not make either of these less useful, it makes armor less useful. If there were no armor at all, the two would work just like for any other damage type :wink:

By placing armor before them, armor stops relatively less damage, agreed, but that is not a flaw so much as balancing. There is no right or wrong here, just what works better from a balancing perspective.
Yours would reduce damage more, but that might simply not be intended.

3

Let’s say that to get 20% physical resistance is as difficult as 50% physical resistance.

Damage after armor:5000-2000=3000
Damage after physical resistance:3000-0.53000=1500
Damage after absorption:1500-0.21500=1200…(Final damage taken)

Let’s say that to get 2000 armor is as difficult as 3125.

Damage after armor:5000-3125=1875
Damage after physical resistance:1875-0.21875=1500
Damage after absorption:1500-0.21500=1200…(Final damage taken)

4

Thanks for replying Mamba.

My point here is not to make armor more useful or making the game easy or anything. The point is exactly that the present situation do leave physical resistance and %damage absorption less useful. It’s simple mathematics that any damage reduction based on a % mechanism needs to be as high up in the order as possible, for them to be more useful.

How is armor less useful at present? In the above example, for instance, armor is still reducing damage by the same amount in both the cases, but physical resist and damage absorption together are reducing only 1080 damage in the present scenario while they can reduce 1800 damage if they get placed above armor. Obviously, it’s they and not armor which are less useful at present. The smaller the hit or the higher the armor you have, the less useful physical resistance becomes at present.

Now I’m not saying that it’s a must and it must be changed, but only suggesting that by doing so, many overpowered bosses who deal mainly physical damage can be brought at par to their counterparts without actually nerfing them.

Yes, without armor there would be no difference, but seriously come on, who in sanity’s name is going to jump in a fight without any armor, lol.

Then again if this is intentional, I don’t get why devs want to make physical damage any more difficult to mitigate then it already is. Physical resistance and damage absorption are the hardest earned stats in the game, and for most of the lower damage physical hits, they never even get used at present. Can you now see how diminished their importance is getting at present?

Just keep things simple and let all the resistances reduce the incoming damage first, which is already the case for all other damage types except physical.

5

RedFist, I’m not really sure I’m getting what you’re trying to say, but even in your calculations if we put resistance and absorption above armor, the damage taken will be reduced.

6

If you can get 50% physical resistance you get same result as your calculation.
Or if you can get 3125 armor you get same result as your calculation.
So with your suggestion and with these two suggestion we have three suggestion to solve the same issue.
So, from my point of view the problem is not that the Order of defense seems inappropriate.
From my point of view, the problem that you perceive is that physical resistance, talking about difficult, is not equal to get compared to others.

And I agree with you, I wonder the same, Is this intentional?

7

Thanks for clearing it mate. My point is exactly this that at present, 50% physical resistance is much less useful than say 50% fire resistance, while the former is almost impossible to get and the latter is easily achievable through a single piece of equipment. Idk but something just doesn’t seem right to me here. The situation is even worse for %damage absorption as it comes even lower in the order. A maxed out 20% damage absorption MSoP absorbs only 480 damage(out of 5000) at present in my example above, and you lose a lot of dps as a price for maxing it. By placing it above armor, this problem can be slightly improved. No other damage type will be affected, and physical will get just a little more balanced without much need for balancing and headaches.

8

There is no gameplay issue here to be solved; you’re just annoyed that the math doesn’t minimize damage taken. Minimizing damage is not a game design goal; if the developers wanted to do that then they could just set all monster damage to zero.

In actual gameplay, physical resistance is valued and useful. The game balance in this area in terms of real user experience is fine.

9

we agree on the outcome, I just think it hurts armor more than the % reductions :wink:

By armor being before the % reductions, it relatively stops less damage

Example:

Damage reduction: 50%
Armor: 1000
Damage: 10000

Damage taken in current sequence : (10000 - 1000) * 50% = 4500
Damage taken in your sequence : 10000 * 50% - 1000 = 4000

So in the first example, the armor stopped 10% of the damage, in the second 20%. The armor becomes more valuable the more reductions already occurred before it, as it is an absolute reduction, not a relative one, unlike most others

Then again if this is intentional, I don’t get why devs want to make physical damage any more difficult to mitigate then it already is. Physical resistance and damage absorption are the hardest earned stats in the game, and for most of the lower damage physical hits, they never even get used at present. Can you now see how diminished their importance is getting at present?

No, I only see how difficult it is to get them, they still are important.

For Normal it does not matter, but then for normal this sequence does not matter much either, it only gets interesting in Ultimate :wink:

10

I do not see a problem. x armor prevents x physical damage from reaching you, r% physical resistance prevents r% of the incoming damage.

11

Probably because Fabius scaled Pierce Damage into the hundreds of thousands and the Iron Maiden can get ~+70% Crit Damage. In either situation, order of defense wouldn’t matter. :stuck_out_tongue:

12

Friend you’re not getting the point here. Perhaps I should be more specific.

I’m not by any means suggesting to trivialize the game by reducing the monster damage. Heck I’m all for increasing the difficulty further.

What I’m saying however is that at present, physical resist and %damage absorption are simply worth a lot less than they should be, especially considering how hard they are to obtain compared to the other resists. Putting these two above armor doesn’t change anything for any other damage type, and only slightly for physical, so I don’t understand why you think I’m asking for zero damage. I only want these two hard earned stats to be worth the effort of getting them.

As it stands at present, according to my example in the opening post, physical resistance being a % reduction reduces only 600 damage, so why shouldn’t I just try to increase my armor even more and forget about physical resist completely, when I can basically get the same result through armor, and that too much more easily(devotion, components, better armor).

This actually hurts the squishier caster builds even more, which have a lot less armor and only barely squeeze in some physical resist. Simple game design logic says that a thing/resistance which is harder to get should be worth much more, but here it is evident that physical resist, although harder to get, is much less useful than any other resistance for the same amount of incoming damage. It just feels logically incorrect.

13

If you see it in this way then yes, armor will become ‘apparently’ more useful, but think of it like this, that armor still get to stop the same fixed amount of damage whether it comes before or after, so the relative %damage stopped by it won’t really matter when it comes down to the question of whether you get to live or die after the hit.:wink:

No, I insist that it would still matter, although only slightly. If you can survive these encounters at present, it will become only slightly easier, yes, but the very fact that it doesn’t change much, is the essence of why it can be implemented easily without needing much balancing, and it just places physical resist and damage absorption at their rightful places.

14

Your analysis neglects to account for the relative prevalence of monster damage types. Physical damage is a significant majority of what a character needs to motivate or absorb, so physical resistance is important and valuable even if it’s mathematically less effective than other resistances.

As you point out, not every character had the option to build for a max armor gear out, so physical resist has significant gameplay value at least for those characters.

15

So I ran the math based on your example, and making your proposed change would be approximately a 60% buff to playerside defenses against Physical Damage.

So, while sure, Phys Resist/Damage Absorb aren’t as potent as they could be, are they as potent as they need to be? Is it worth upsetting 60% of Physical-based enemy damage balance in swapping some order of operations around?

I disagree with you on your point of rarity requiring potency. If stat X is incredibly rare but also incredibly strong, then character building and customization goes out the window and the only things people build around are with stat X, and so everything winds up looking the same. On the other hand, if stat X is rare but also only provides a minor performance boost, then players have the option of going out of their way to take it for that boost or ignoring it completely, which is a great boon for character diversity.

16

The problem basically is that as it stands right now, builds with less armor are generally the ones with less physical resist as well, unless they go far out of their ways to get it, which at present is simply a lot more difficult and less efficient than simply getting more armor, which even components can increase.

How?

In my example, at present you reduce the damage by 3080, while after my proposed change, it gets reduced by 3800. So basically a buff of about~23%, and then we must not forget that we are talking about an ideal case scenario when everything is near bis. For higher damages, this buff will come out to be even lesser, and for smaller damages, it already doesn’t matter much. Now take into account that physical is basically the hardest damage type in the game at present. So a slight buff is not actually as bad as you think it is, given that you can easily get 80+ resist for any other damage type. If anything, this change will only balance out the game, and will prevent unnecessary nerfing in the future.

If character customization becomes upset by a small change, then that means there are limited options to choose from, which is actually irrelevant to this problem. Take for example something like ‘light radius’. It is rare and also only provides a minor performance boost. Tell me on how many chars have you seriously considered going out of your way to take it? The point remains that if a stat is rare, it should be more useful, otherwise it’s just not worth it(mind it I am not saying it is useless).

As for customization, just provide more options to choose from. As of now, I don’t think a single person will already not take physical resist and damage absorption if they can get it. Where the customization goes then? Sacrificing logic in the name of balance and customization, can never be a step in the right direction.

17

After reading through and my own gameplay experience I’m inclined to agree with the thread starter that physical resist and %damage absorbed should be moved up the order.

%damage absorbed is only readily available to Occultist and Arcanist, two of the more fragile masteries. Most builds with these two classes have to put every point (or almost) into Physique to survive the physical hits in Elite/Ultimate. The caster armours also block less damage than the heavy armor counterparts.

Moving physical resist up would also make the other masteries more tanky but I feel it’s fine as going for more physical resist would mean giving up other resists/stats.

18

I am also in agreement with the OP. %damage reduction is very hard to get in large quantities and by moving it up as the TitanBane has said it would make a hard to obtain stat more valuable whilst also giving more value to caster armour. This in turn takes the pressure of putting almost all your stats into physique to survive as a caster. For the damage penalty of having MSoP the damage reduction should be better which would be true should this change come about.

19

It makes more sense to me for armor after physical resist, but surely this will make some tank builds too OP.

20

Thanks smokey, kyleblake92 and Rogetit for your support. Finally it seems like I am not the only who finds the survivability of the squishier builds slightly unbalanced against physical damage type. Caster armor is lower, their gear/devotions doesn’t provide much(if any) physical resist and to boot, physical resist and % damage absorption come lower than armor in the defense order, making them almost useless to stack in comparison of stacking just armor.

I guess the people who disagree with me here are the ones who never play casters builds or play only the uber-overpowered ones, that kill everything before it even touches them.

@Rogetit
I don’t think it will make any build overpowered because firstly, it won’t change anything in regards to any non-physical damage types, and secondly, the tank builds won’t even notice a difference as they are already too strong against physical, it’s like adding 200 more armor to a stack of 2000. Not really overpowered. If anything it will slightly level up the playing field for the caster builds in context of physical damage.

Buffing up player defenses in a game like this is not always a bad thing as it provides the devs the opportunity to churn out even harder content in the future. It also encourages build diversity because if defenses are easier to come by, then a player can focus on other fun things.