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Like World of Warcraft, given the same amount of armor, the physical damage % absorbed by your armor diminishes as you fight higher level monsters.

Does anyone know how much this is diminished by for each level of monster? For example, how many more armor points I need to maintain the same amount of absorption when going from fighting level 5 monsters to level 6 monsters?

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  • You're looking at it the wrong way. If you are level 5 and your armor gives you 30% reduction against physical damage from equal level monsters, leveling up to 6 means you will still have 30% reduction against physical damage from level 5 monsters. All leveling up does is change which level is displayed.
    – Raven Dreamer
    May 17, 2012 at 0:26
  • I slightly reworded the question. The question still stands I believe.
    – deutschZuid
    May 17, 2012 at 0:34

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The formula in question seems to be:

DR = Ak/(1+Ak) where A = armor, k = 1/(50*moblevel)

So, for example, at level 5, with 100 armor, fighting level 5 mobs,

100*.004/(1+[100*.004]), or .4/1.4, or roughly 28%.

Fighting level 10 mobs, this changes to

100*.002/(1+[100*.004]), or .2/1.2, or roughly 16%.

Thus, when you gain a level, without increasing your armor, the character sheets displayed damage reduction shrinks slightly, since 'equal level mobs' are better able to penetrate your armor. Among other things, this means that there's no DR involved here, Armor just keeps getting better, the more of it you have.

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  • My math-fu is weak, but does this mean that there are increasing returns on armor, or is it only non-diminishing?
    – Raven Dreamer
    May 17, 2012 at 0:49
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    Mine is as weak as yours, I'd have to sit there and plug in the numbers a bunch of times to notice the trend, but the real takeaway is that it doesn't actually matter if there are - there's no viable way to stack armor anyway, so realistically, all that increasing returns does is punish you for using that outdated pair of boots because they have magic find - which seems like a desirable design goal actually.
    – LessPop_MoreFizz
    May 17, 2012 at 0:52
  • However did you work that out. You are an amazing mathemagician! Tested with 2 levels and the math is absolutely right.
    – deutschZuid
    May 17, 2012 at 11:18
  • @JamesJiao Can't take credit for having worked it myself, some friends elsewhere did.
    – LessPop_MoreFizz
    May 17, 2012 at 12:58
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Building on the answer of LessPop_MoreFizz, to answer the follow up question of whether there are increasing returns. The stated equation for absorbtion rate is: 

DR = Ak/(1+Ak) where A = armor, k = 1/(50*moblevel)

Id rather like it on the form:

 DR=1/(1+(50 lvl)/A)

with lvl being moblevel. If you do the math and take into account that the raw amount of damage you can take with fixed health(and dodge and other modifiers) is 

 raw=life/(1-DR)

and you insert Dr and reduce you end up with:

 raw = (1 + A/(50 lvl))*life

So if your armour is 50 times the level of mobs you meet, you double your "effective life", if your armour is 100 times the level of mobs you meet, you triple it. I think that mostly fits the description of constant returns, you effectively get as much +vit as your current life for the cost of 50*lvl armour points. This also shows that if you are high on life, you should invest in armour, if you are high on armour, invest in life. Which is a funny mechanic, which isn't exactly diminishing returns, just a case of "better returns elsewhere".

And to answer the question of "If you go from level to level+1 how much more armour do you need to have constant absorbtion?" well, the math works out to

 Anew = lvl/(lvl-1)*Aold

So if you go from level 5 to level 6 mobs, you need 1/5 more armour to retain absorbtion. If you go from level 50 to level 51 you need 1/50 more armour to retain absorbtion. I think this is quite easy to remember.

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