Has anyone tried to make use of this stat as much as is possible? For example, “20% Reduced target’s Damage for 3 Seconds”.
I wonder if you had all your equipment, pet, component (ol blood), augments, etc, if you could go up against an Ultimate Ravager and not have to worry about being hurt.
You gotta pick appropriate reductions. I don’t remember which are in the game, if there’s anything as with RR, but I only remember things like “20% reduced target’s damage” and therefore it doesn’t stack, the strongest is applied.
Does this also apply to Damage absorption? For example if you were a soldier/arcanist, would your Menhir’s Bulwark stack with your Maiven’s Sphere, or would it only use the higher of the two? If you used other sources of DA, such as relic, constellation or aether clusters, would those stack or just go with highest? My impression is they stack, but maybe I’m wrong. I assumed if DA stacked then reduced enemy damage would stack too, but now your post questions that.
Most things do stack, such as cooldown. That’s why I am a little taken aback when you are saying this won’t stack.
Last I’ve heard, % damage absorption stacks multiplicatively. So Maiven’s Sphere and menhir’s bulwark both at 12/12 would be about 22% damage absorb (which is an additional 2.5% over Maiven’s alone)
Many debuff don’t stack. Reduced enemy damage isn’t an exception here. For example, two debuffs spells/effects of the same name won’t stack (like if two people cast Curse of Frailty on the same enemy in multiplayer). This is why you’ll never see two debuffs with the same name and icon on your own debuff bar either.
All debuffs with flat numbers not containing a minus symbol “-“ also don’t stack. For example, “250 reduced enemy defensive ability” won’t stack with “120 reduced enemy defensive ability”, but both would stack with “-70 enemy defensive ability”.
All debuffs containing a “%” also don’t stack, assuming they’re debuffing the same stat. This is where you learned that “x% reduced enemy damage” doesn’t stack. This also applies to “y% reduced target’s resistances”
It’s complicated, but that’s the simplest way I can summarize what stacks and what doesn’t:
Debuffs containing the wording “x reduced y” don’t stack
Debuffs containing the wording “x% reduced y” don’t stack
Debuffs containing the wording “-x target’s y” (the word “target” is optional) DO stack.
Note that this is only for debuffs. Most player stats stack additively, like cooldown reduction, DA, and the like.
Interesting, thank you for taking the time to write that out.
So what would the result be of 20% reduction of target’s damage (form an item) and 20% damage absorption (from maiven’s)? instead of 100 damage, would i take 100-20-20=60?
A question that has always nagged at me, when I assign a constellation power that is 20% on attack to a skill that is activated only 18% of the time, like markov advantage, is the constellation power still going to activate 20% of the time? Or would it only activate 20% of the time that the skill activates, which would only be 3.6% of the time?
How about when it’s assigned to skeletons, will it activate 20% of the time for each attack the skeleton attacks? So if i had 5 skeletons, it’d be activated potentially 100% of the time (if they all constantly attack), or at least the moment the cooldown is finished, it goes off again.
20% reduced: 100%->80%
20% absorb: 80% -> 64%
3.6%
Yes, A devotion with no cooldown like Flame Torrent is up basically 100% of the time on skeletons, if you assign a devotion to a pet it gives them the proc, not you, so all 5 skeletons in your example would each have it up pretty much 100% of the time.
Cool…what about the other question I posed, when you assign a 20% on attack constellation power to a 18% chance of activating skill? Will it still go off 20% of the time, or 20% of 18%?
He posted 3,6% already… 
So 20% of 18% is the answer you’re looking for.
Staying with your soldier example - makes it even harder when using cadence. Cadence itself hits only every 3rd attack and doesn’t count as a normal attack. So if you’re using a cadence build only 66% of your attacks can proc WPS like markovians advantage. Resulting in super low proc chances for binded devotions.
It’s a very good stat, that’s what Aura of Censure on Inquisitor’s mastery is so powerful. Not only it gives you passive elemental RR, it also acts like a shield basically.
To shed more light on this - korsar in his infinite wisdom has informed me that damage reduction occurs before any other defense mechanism is applied. This makes it INCREDIBLY useful.
For example I get hit by 100 physical damage on a toon with 50 armor, 100% armor absorption, and 10% phys res and 25% damage reduction from war cry. Applying the order of defense…
http://www.grimdawn.com/guide/gameplay/combat.php#q17
75% * 100 damage = 75
75 - 50 armor = 25
applying 10% res… 90% * 25 damage = 22.5 damage
As you can see, as the damage inflicted unto you increases, damage reduction becomes more and more useful. The same with phys res for the simple reason that they work on a % basis.
Side note: I like to think of armor as the solution to trash mobs (I.e. many small but low damage attacks) and damage reduction/res as the solution for hard hitting bosses.