How much is armor helping us really?

ellestil · 04-09-2007, 01:54 AM

Has anyone done any definitive study on how much damage is reduced per amount of armor gained? I was killing some time in Wardship the other morning and just for kicks I started watching how much damage I was taking against a fighter Bloodhowler. This was in a Paladin replenishment stance (+hp and mana regen).

So let's say I was taking an average of 100 damage. I then used our temporary armor buff (30secs) which increased my armor. The damage coming in was still averaging 100. So I got a crit off and stacked our chain armor buff on. The damage went down about 1-2 points. Those two stacked together increase my armor by a few hundred points, and yet, the benefit wasn't very noticeable.

I let those buffs wear off, then I used our judgement that decreases the mobs strength. Now the damage coming in was 90-92. I noticed a much bigger effect of lowering the mobs str vs increasing my armor rating.

So, this made me ponder exactly how big of a roll our gear was playing into our ability to mitigate damage (any tank class). If greatly increasing my armor with buffs barely lowered the damage I was taking, then I can only assume that upgrading your armor has a very small gain to it. Sure you will still upgrade your armor, but how much benefit are you getting from it?

Also, why is it when I mouseover my armor class tooltip on the character sheet window, that the values listed there differ from the values listed under your defense rating in the same window. For example, if you mouseover your armor class number, it may say "Mitigates 26.7% of melee damage". But if you mouseover your defense rating number, it says "Mitigates 28.6% of melee damage". Why two different numbers?

So in summation, idk if armor increases by buff or gear are working like they should. Anyone know what the deal is?

velzevul · 04-09-2007, 06:34 AM

i noticed every 100 AC roughly yields 1% in direct physical mitigation from the tooltips

ellestil · 04-09-2007, 08:29 AM

Hmmm, so increasing your AC by 1000 is 10% damage reduction. Which means if a mob hits you for 100, it will 90 instead. Doesn't seem like very much to me, especially considering that lowering the mobs str had nearly the same effect, and is a whole lot easier to acheive than gaining +1000 ac. Seems like the AC to Mitigation gain needs to be looked at.

ellestil · 04-09-2007, 08:31 AM

Hmmm, so increasing your AC by 1000 is 10% damage reduction. Which means if a mob hits you for 100, it will 90 instead. Doesn't seem like very much to me, especially considering that lowering the mobs str had nearly the same effect, and is a whole lot easier to acheive than gaining +1000 ac. Seems like the AC to Mitigation gain needs to be looked at.

Artos · 04-09-2007, 11:48 AM

i know for a fact that the number shown on the combat window does not accurately represent the actual amount of hp being removed. was testing it a week or so ago, with buffs 10-20 less hp was being removed but the combat window did not change my more then 3 or 4. the one i noticed it the most with was BM searing pact.

velzevul · 04-09-2007, 12:51 PM

Ellestil -

even if not by much, our armor and our aggro keeping abilities is what sets us apart. That 10% minues on a 5k hitting mob means a good bit.

On top of it all, keep in mind that AC is "the 2nd to last resort" of damage absorbance. Damage from a mob goes through debuffs, than through your defensive skills - blocks parries etc, than through your racials and such, than through your armor, and only than biting off at your hp. that is how I look at it.

And as a tank, i'll do everything in my power to boost any one out of those filters that the mob's damage has to trickle through.

But I understand that you are not arguing that AC is useless, you are trying to get a sense of how useful it is in comparison to other means of mitigating damage like debuffs (proactive) and more hp/more block (reactive)

I think honestly slow type debuffs, strength type debuffs, and block/parry type buffs are the highest return mitigation fields. AC and HP are the "last resorts" of mitigation and they are exactly what sets us so far apart from clothies - they got neither of those 2 on par with the content they will be doing.

And the only reason they will be doing that content, is because they hide behind our backs. As they should, cause if that mob hits them... it will f***'em up.

ellestil · 04-28-2007, 04:43 AM

Here's another way of looking at it. Say you have a BP with 500ac and a bonus of 1% mitigation bonus. Then you have another BP with 600ac. Both individually mitigate the same. However, the 1% will be added to your total mitigation number, so in the end a BP with 500ac and 1% mitigation does more for you than a 600ac BP. Therefore, to a degree % mitigation boosts are greater than pure armor rating.

Then there are shields. Shields say %block vs level X mob. So a shield block % will scale vs the mob your fighting. A level 40 28% shield is the same as a level 48 20% shield (Both are roughly 20% vs a level 48 mob). It's only at level 49, if you get a LvL 49 20% block shield that it will outperform a level 40 28% block shield. Since it will block 20% against a LvL 49 mob, while the 40 shield will block 19% instead. This concerns blocking only, as the armor rating can also be an influencing factor, and if the shield has a % mitigation on it as well.

The effect of armor class raising seems small compared to the % boosts. Although, yes you still need a base armor class for the % to work on, once you have two tanks with similar base ac, the % boost is what makes a bigger difference.