Is Con > Res?

[l_orion_l]

Starting this conversation because I just feel Con is a much better stat for tanking. In a situation where I can balance the 2 at 10 and 10 or dump Res and max Con.

 

I don't know all the numbers to back this up but it seems like the health and fortitude is worth more than the deflection and concentration. Deflection can be raised easy with talents and a shield and concentration can be made up with a potion of spirit shield at the start of the fight.

 

Again does anyone know the numbers behind this to either make my decision to keep them balanced or dump resolve?

 

Thanks!

[Boeroer]

It depends. If you have a build who wants to have a lot of deflection then RES is superior. Because the higher the deflection already is the more impact every additional point of deflection has. Up to the point where 1 last point can make the difference between "slight chance to get grazed" and "only misses" - where the gain would be infinity.

 

An example would be a paladin/fighter/wizard with shield. 

 

If you have a build that can't reach high deflection numbers anyway but has more base endurance and health you would do better with high CON.

Example: non-shield Monk or Barbarian.

 

I once played a Monk with maxed CON and also a Barb with maxed CON and dumped RES and they can take a beating after several levels (needs some buildup because at low levels high CON doesn't make a lot of difference if you receive crits a lot). But they will be never as tough as sombody who can just avoid getting hit at all. But they will also get interrupted a lot if you don't have other means to prevent that (items, Holy Meditation).

 

Of course it would be best to raise both. Also if you look at Fortitude which is the most important defense when it comes to afflictions (paralyzed etc.).

[Jaheiras Witness]

I always say RES is for concentration more than deflection. People seem to underestimate the importance of concentration and how low RES on a frontline character gets you interrupt-locked. And unless you’re a wizard or priest, you will not have enough Spirit Shields for every fight.

 

CON is also underappreciated (CON and RES are the two 100% defensive stats). I wouldn’t boost CON at the total expense of RES (e.g. I would not go for CON 17 and RES 3) but given the choice I would prioritise CON over RES (e.g. if I have leftover points and my CON and RES are currently 8-10, I would put the extra points into CON rather than RES). That’s partly because the % hitpoint boost is worth more the higher level you are (whereas the benefits of RES are linear, it’s just +1 DEF +3 concentration per point), and partly because FOR is much more important than WIL.

[l_orion_l]

More specifically I am a solo chanter using Dragon Trashed and doesn't mind getting interrupted for trash fights. For harder fights the spirit shield would over compensate for the concentration penalty.

 

Also I'm focusing on healing and using wound binding. By dumping res and increasing Con I would effectively double my health which would make wound binding a lot better. I'm also level 10 as well.

 

I guess it would come down to not being crit all the time. I will be using little savior + weapon and shield style + cautious attack + superior defection. Would that be enough with 3 res to not be crit all the time?

Edited February 5, 2019 by l_orion_l

[Reent]

More specifically I am a solo chanter using Dragon Trashed and doesn't mind getting interrupted for trash fights. For harder fights the spirit shield would over compensate for the concentration penalty.

 

Also I'm focusing on healing and using wound binding. By dumping res and increasing Con I would effectively double my health which would make wound binding a lot better. I'm also level 10 as well.

 

I guess it would come down to not being crit all the time. I will be using little savior + weapon and shield style + cautious attack + superior defection. Would that be enough with 3 res to not be crit all the time?

 

There is a different approach you can use too, a belt with -27% dmg for crits, that together with Shod-In-Faith is enough for easy fights, sure, they crit you all the time, but who cares if the dmg isn't that high...

[Boeroer]

whereas the benefits of RES are linear, it’s just +1 DEF +3 concentration per point

As I showed above the benefits of RES (like any bonus to a defense) are not linear but exponential and coverge to infinity (when it comes to deflection). 

Like the bonus that CON gives to Fortitude. That's because there's an attack resolution that has to overcome the defense - and every additional point of defense makes it more and more unlikely that this will happen up to the point where it can't happen at all (e.g. deflection is so high that the enemy with the highest ACC can't even graze you). 

 

The bonus that CON gives to endurance is linear. With a base endurance of 50 you'll get 2.5 additional endurance with every point of CON.

[Boeroer]

More specifically I am a solo chanter using Dragon Trashed and doesn't mind getting interrupted for trash fights. For harder fights the spirit shield would over compensate for the concentration penalty.

 

Also I'm focusing on healing and using wound binding. By dumping res and increasing Con I would effectively double my health which would make wound binding a lot better. I'm also level 10 as well.

 

I guess it would come down to not being crit all the time. I will be using little savior + weapon and shield style + cautious attack + superior defection. Would that be enough with 3 res to not be crit all the time?

I can only say from experience that the high deflection approach usually is a lot sturdier than the meatshield apporach. I did a Barbarian with 3 CON and max RES and also one with 20 CON and 3 RES. Even though Barbs have bad deflection to start with. But at the same time the meatshield approach can do more dps since he isn't bound to a shield. 

 

But especially when it comes to builds where the defensive setup doesn't gimp the dmg output (e.g. Dragon Thrashed Chanter) the defensive approach is MUCH more effective.

 

Also have in mind that even with a tremendous amount of self healing (which I usually do to increase the meatshield's "virtual" endurace even more) you'll run into health issues which you have to compensate for - while high defense characters usually don't have those issues.

 

But as I said: the high defense char usually pays for this with crappy dps while a meatshield can be build to be rel. sturdy while doing good damage. 

[l_orion_l]

Your experience would be worth it's weight in gold for this game. I do question if your generalizing a bit. Meatshield builds you are referring to don't necessarily use a shield or take all the appropriate talents for deflection. I mean the -7 deflection really means more than 35% more health/endurance + 35% wound binding effectiveness (in tough fights) + another 14 fortitude? I guess I just don't understand the percentage of points of deflection to hit/graze/crit.

 

Edit: to be fair I was generalizing in my original post. In this specific case I guess I should have been asking..

Edited February 5, 2019 by l_orion_l

[claudius]

One thing to consider is that Pearlwood Chicken is long lasting and very cheap.  Dragon Egg and Dragon Meat are a bit more potent but much more expensive.

[Boeroer]

The baseline is: it's more efficient to drive deflection to the max than drivin CON to the max.

 

If you can do both: even better for your tankyness.

 

As long as you don't facetank dragons you don't need Reflex a lot. So for most encounters a tank would be fine with dumped DEX and PER (if he wouldn't want to deal damage but only tank). In case of a Dragon Thrashed Chanter you want highish PER though, so there's that.

 

In most cases going for the highest Deflection also isn't the most effective way to play the game - especially in a party. There are plenty of encounters where you can do with 10 RES and still won't get hit. And for the others you'll have healing. So the theory theat maxing deflection is more efficient than maxing CON is still correct "in theory" - but why do you want to have 200+ Deflecton if 90% of enemies can't even hit you with 150 Deflection?

 

So it's all not set in stone.

 

Higher fortitude is also nice to have, but since even a graze of petrify or paralyze will still hard-cc you (which will most likely be the end for a solo character) it's very difficult to completely avoid the CC just by adding more fortitude (via CON and MIG).

 

So even here you have to look if it actually makes sense to go for maxed CON (besides the higher endurance/health of course). Maybe better to wear an item like Fenwalkers (boots) and Tempered Helm or Wayfarar's Hide and screw the maxed CON - instead go for a more blanced stat approach. 

 

It all depends on your build, how you play and how good your metagaming knowledge is.

 

For example the rel. tanky build "The Anvil" wouldn't make a whole lot of sense with maxed deflection. He wants high CON instead.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Boeroer

[l_orion_l]

Thank you for the long explanation on that. You are right about play style and meta game.

I was just hoping for an answer on whether a build that isn't maximum deflection anyway (but still will be good with talents ), instead of balancing Con and Res at 10 and 10, dumpling Res to 3 and bumping Con to 17 just seems like a better choice. You gain 35% health and endurance and 14 fortitude for what seems like a minor 7 deflection loss(concentration loss to but for dragon thrashed it's not bad) . And if you use percentage based health abilities, wound binding and field triage would be more effective (35%). I just feel like you would be more effectively tanking at that point. And if 7 points of deflection really mean more than 35% more health in this case, hatchets are extremely powerful.

Really I will just try it and see how it feels.  I was hoping someone would chime in with a number example to prove one way or another. Either way thank you for all the responses!

Edited February 6, 2019 by l_orion_l

[MountainTiger]

If you don't have any other health/endurance modifiers, a 35% increase is about equal to a 26% decrease in incoming damage (in terms of how many attacks you can tank). You would need to be pretty high on deflection to get there-in an unrealistically simple example with a single attacker, no other damage modifications, and no damage reduction, I think you need to go from 40 more than the enemy to 47 more to achieve it (basically: at 40 more, 35% of attacks graze and 10% hit, doing 27.5% of the average damage roll per attack; at 47 more, 35% graze and 3% hit, doing 20.5% of the average roll; 20.5/27.5 is about 75%). This is pretty high, though it probably exaggerates what you need because of damage reduction.

 

Let's say the attack's average damage is 40 and you have 10 DR. Now hits do 30 damage and grazes do 10-so grazes are doing only 1/3 the damage of hits instead of 1/2. Now, average damage at 40 more deflection is 6.5/attack, and at 47 it's 4.4, so the increase has reduced damage by more than 30%. At 33 more deflection you would be taking 8.6/attack; pushing that up to 40 is a bit under 25% reduction. So a bit of DR has dropped our target by several points.

 

The real game is obviously a lot more complex-but the basic principles are the same.

[l_orion_l]

This is a great example.  Thank you so much for your time.

 

So if i'm understanding this correctly if i'm not pushing 33-47 more deflection than the enemies accuracy i'm not increasing my ability to tank attacks more than I would if I had the 35% health/endurance increase?  Obviously this is a simple example and is not the end all be all for all builds. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by l_orion_l

[MountainTiger]

IDK how much I'd think about those numbers in particular, but you probably do need to be taking a big chunk out of the enemy's hit range before the deflection is more valuable than the health/endurance. The overall takeaway is that defenses have increasing returns and health/endurance constant returns in terms of how many attacks you can tank. For a Dragon Thrashed chanter, I think putting some effort into deflection makes sense-you do loads of damage without needing to devote many item slots or ability picks to offense, so you can afford to really stack your defenses. Debuffing accuracy helps here, too, and Chanters have some tools you can mix in. But if a beefy Chanter who gets hit a lot and patches up his wounds to keep going is what seems fun, I'd go with that.

[l_orion_l]

I'm trying to do both - even with dropping Res.  I will have all the deflection talents as well as the highest deflection item (+12), as well as healing bonuses ancient memory + beloved spirits, with the ability to patch up his wounds as well.  I'm doing a solo PotD run and I'm just trying to stack as much as possible.  My basic thought process was 5%health/endurance > 1 deflection and fortitude is > will.  Giving a chanter wants maxed Might and Int for dragon trashed you have to balance stats somewhere.  It got me down the rabbit hole of why even bother with Res.  

[Jaheiras Witness]

 

whereas the benefits of RES are linear, it’s just +1 DEF +3 concentration per point

As I showed above the benefits of RES (like any bonus to a defense) are not linear but exponential and coverge to infinity (when it comes to deflection). 

Like the bonus that CON gives to Fortitude. That's because there's an attack resolution that has to overcome the defense - and every additional point of defense makes it more and more unlikely that this will happen up to the point where it can't happen at all (e.g. deflection is so high that the enemy with the highest ACC can't even graze you). 

 

The bonus that CON gives to endurance is linear. With a base endurance of 50 you'll get 2.5 additional endurance with every point of CON.

 

 

I understand the point around DEF gives (relatively) larger % improvements the further you get to 0/100. Though if you look at it from a damage avoided perspective, the % damage avoided is much less relevant. If being hit would mean you take 10 damage, going from 1% chance to be hit to 0% chance to be hit may well be infinity in relative terms, but it actually just means taking 0.1 less damage per attack.

 

Vast majority of the time you are not at the extremes anyway.

 

We must have different definitions of linear. CON gives a % bonus to endurance. So if you have CON 16 (+30%), at level 1 with base endurance of 42, you gain 12.6 extra endurance. At level 16 with base endurance of 252, the same CON gives you 75.6 points of extra endurance. That is not linear by any definition I know. Whereas RES gives you +1 DEF and +3 concentration at any time, in any circumstance, at any level. That is the definition of linear.

[Boeroer]

There are no different definitions of linear. You think it's not linear because you are altering the base and the bonus. But the effect of raising CON is linear: with a base of 50 endurance you don't get +2.5 for the first additional point of CON and +5 for the next one or something like that. If you draw the dots on a chart and connect them you get a line. 

 

Your example about deflection is misleading. The difference between getting hit for 10 damage every once in a while and not getting hit at all is infinity in terms of survivability.

 

If you had 300 endurance and get hit every 100th attack by 10 damage you could withstand 3000 attacks. If you get hit by "10 less" you can withstand an infinite amount of attacks. 

You can repeat that with lower numbers and will see that the curve for every added point of deflection is exponential.

 

The curve for adding CON is not. That's because there will always be defeat if you only get hit enough times. No matter how much CON you add - your survival will never be infinite. Not even if you add virtual endurace through healing - because your health will run out eventually and there's no replenishable resource for fixing that (unlike Deadfire where there is no separated health/endurance and a char with infinite resources or passive healing - like a Chanter or Paladin - can outlast for eternity with low defenses and endless refilling health). And you can't raise the base forever because at some point you are outleveled.

 

With CON there is no "hard cap" like there is with deflection. You will always lose endurance and health when getting hit and no matter how much CON you add (except an infinite amount wich is not possible) you will get defeated in a simulation. You will not if you break the hard cap of deflection where no enemy can hit you anymore. 

 

While I want to insist on the math I agree that those extreme situations aren't that impactful or helpful in the actual game (as long as you don't do ultimate runs maybe - but I did one with a max CON Barb and even that is possible). Yet... in addition to the theory also my experience in game shows that high defense is a much easier way to achieve survivability than high endurance is. It's also paying off much earlier. I'm only concentrating on survivability here. Not the overall usefulness of a character. A supersturdy tank who never gets hit isn't neccessarily a good party character.

Just saying...  

Edited February 7, 2019 by Boeroer

[MountainTiger]

Another piece of practical significance for the math is that defenses are equivalent to multiplicative health and endurance increases (if we care about survivability, not seeing big numbers on a character sheet). But whereas the Con bonus is always 5%, the Deflection bonus increases as your deflection rises.