Request for more transparency - AC / Dam Reduct Comparison

[Gorka]

help damage reduction
"DAMAGE REDUCTION"

Damage reduction is an innate ability the monk class has to absorb damage
from monsters they are fighting. With each point of damage reduction
achieved, the monk will absorb more damage than previously till they have
reached the maximum amount allowed. The amount of damage absorbed depends
on the difficulty and how hard the monster a player is fighting.

** We are currently looking into changing damage reduction in an effort to make it slightly more effective.

AC "ARMOR CLASS"
See Also: ARMOR STONE SKIN

This is your armor class, it is defined roughly as follows:

10.0 Butt nekkid
0.0 You've got armor on, but you better find somebody else to tank
-11.0 You're so well armored that even the IRS can't nail you

Equipment and spells can improve or ruin your armor class.

This is all the information I can find that a person has to work with, when making a decision to spend 800 drachma on an ac item or 800 drachma on a damage reduct item. Therefore it feels like trying to compare apples and oranges without having tasted neither.

Some people believe dam reduction is percentile based, other people say that -0.1ac is comparable to 1 damage reduction. The game help files suggest that the formula was under review, did it get changed? Everyone seems to have an opinion, no one seems to trust each others opinion or have other suspicions. Could an immortal please give some comparison of how the systems compare, so that players can make informed choices in spending hundreds of drachma or trying to decide whether to socket dam reduct or ac gems on important items as they share the same slots.

*puppy dog eyes* @ teker

[*teker*]

I have no idea if this will help in your decision making but I can explain what I see.

Armor class is a measurement of how easy it is to do physical damage to you. It's a combination of how easy is it to hit you and how easy is it to penetrate your armor. The function that determines hits takes the attacker's hit roll and compares it to the defender's AC. It looks to me like every -1.0 of AC you improve is the same as reducing the attacker's hit roll by 1. Once this difference is calculated, it is pumped into a secret formula that determines the final hit chance which is compared against your random roll.

Damage resistance occurs after you've been hit with an attack sufficient to penetrate your armor. The number of resistance points is put into a formula and converted to a percentage. All players get some form of natural damage resistance starting at monk level 10. Monk primes get it earlier and better.

[Gorka]

Thank you!

So in effect Dam Reduction and AC "IS" like comparing apples and oranges. However, apples and oranges are both fruits! AC and Dam Reduction both factor in efficiency.

Take ettins for example, they have a nasty hitroll... it doesn't matter how good the AC of the tank is, the tank is going to get hit... Does this mean that a player whose plan is generally to tank large group mobs and epics (that are quite frankly not going to miss) would this make damage reduction more important for them than AC? Do you agree with my premise, and where would you start to draw the line?

I see that both are important, but can you allude to which stat is probably more important for what kind of player?

Would a monk potentially take less damage from an epic due to it's higher dam reduction, than a warrior would with high ac, who still gets hit?

[*teker*]

If you're going up against a mob that hits any AC 100% of the time, the player with the higher damage resistance will take less damage overall. That doesn't take into account things like the parry skill which might reduce the number of attacks that get through or how max HP may vary depending on class order.

I've never played a prime warrior or monk off Vk so I have no idea in practice the differences in combat between the two.

[cyprimus]

also. remember everyone has some damage reduction.

part of why cy thrived was -13.7 ac, and 16 damage reduction