Explanation of the DR on armor and the specific damage DR.

[Torm51]

So my plate armor has a flat 14 DR but 26 Pierce, 26 slash and 20 crush DR...When I get hit by say a crush weapon that goes against the 20 DR correct?  What exactly is the 14 DR mean then?  I have read the combat logs and notice that if I get hit with say a slash weapon it uses the 26 DR.  Is the 14 DR for a hit I take against a weapon I don't have any resistance to?

[HoopleDoople]

My understanding is that the 14 DR applies to any damage type that isn't listed individually as being higher or lower. So in your case the 14 DR likely only applies to Burn, Freeze, and Corrode damage (your Shock DR will be much weaker when using plate armor).

[Torm51]

right cause it only has 6 DR.  That's what I figured too but wanted to confirm.  Thanks!  That really makes me think Pale Elfs with their 10 Fire and Freeze DR can be awesome tanks wow.  With improved Plate Armor they can have 10 Fire and Freeze DR....on top of the heavy Slash/Pierce DR.  With an Enchant of Crush DR you could have 20 Crush DR as well...that's nuts.  Only things that can hit you hard is Shock and Corrode which not many enemies have..well corrode you know who hits with it but that's just one enemy lol

Edited July 10, 2015 by Torm51

[HoopleDoople]

I definitely like making my tank a Pale Elf. Burn and Freeze damage are relatively common. In particular the death explosions of Spectres and Flame Blights are way less annoying when they can barely scratch you. As a final bonus you can make better use of cone AoE spells (such as Fan of Flames and Winter Wind) when you don't have to worry about massively injuring your tank. Just be careful about boosting accuracy too much on the spellcaster or you might manage to crit your tank...

 

It is also worth nothing that you can reliably get your hands on a pair of boots with +5 Corrode DR and another with +3 Shock DR. Equipping these when necessary further reduces your elemental vulnerabilities. Corrode is the rarest damage type to encounter, but I some slimes, traps, and spellcasters (Wizard/Druid spells) do utilize it. For whatever reason most of the higher level spells that would fit with Corrode are instead Raw damage, so you won't get punished too badly for neglecting it.

[Luckmann]

right cause it only has 6 DR.  That's what I figured too but wanted to confirm.  Thanks!  That really makes me think Pale Elfs with their 10 Fire and Freeze DR can be awesome tanks wow.  With improved Plate Armor they can have 10 Fire and Freeze DR....on top of the heavy Slash/Pierce DR.  With an Enchant of Crush DR you could have 20 Crush DR as well...that's nuts.  Only things that can hit you hard is Shock and Corrode which not many enemies have..well corrode you know who hits with it but that's just one enemy lol

 

Alright, time to delve into the all-to-common territory of "Why didn't PoE explain that to me?".

 

Let's take the object we have at hand, Plate Armour.

 

Plate Armour has a base DR of 12, a Slash of 18, and a Shock DR of 6.

 

Now, let's say you add Burn-Proofed. This bumps the Plate Armour up to Burn DR 15. Makes sense, right?

 

So, what if we add Shock-Proofed? That'd add 6+3, no? Because that would make sense, after all, cover your weaknesses, right? Eeeeeeeeh! No!

 

The armour system and the special "elemental" DR:s are based on percentages of the full DR. So in fact, when an armour has a base DR of 12, and thus, say, a Burn DR of 12 (unlisted), what it really means is that the Burn DR is at 100%. So what's the effect on the Shock DR? 6 of 12 is 50%. And 18 of 12 is 150%.

 

So in reality, it's:

Base DR = 12 DR.

100% Burn (12 DR)

100% Freeze (12 DR)

50% Shock (6 DR)

100% Corrode (12 DR)

150% Slash (18 DR)

100% Pierce (12 DR)

100% Crush (12 DR)

 

Meaning that when you modify the DR of the armour in any way, this will be taken into account. And unless I'm mistaken, DR can even be applied in fractions, although the displayed numbers are rounded, making it even harder to determine what's going on, sometimes, in terms of actual damage reduced.

 

This is something important to keep in mind when planning armours.

 

For reference, what armour are you wearing, specifically? I have no idea what would have the stats you describe in the OP.

 

Edit: And yes, Pale Elves could make really good tanks.. if fire and especially ice damage was more common. My memory is fuzzy, but I think shades and phantoms deal ice damage, but they're also notoriously hard to tank. Nothing else comes to mind.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Luckmann

[HoopleDoople]

Again, half the reason Burn and Freeze damage is commonly hitting my tank is because my spellcasters are nuking him when need be. I still don't think these damage types are that uncommon as there's more than a few abilities and spells that utilize them.

 

And when it comes to tanks there aren't any racial abilities that provide a consistently useful bonus like Wood Elf does for ranged characters or Hearth Orlan does for melee DPS. Moon Godlike is always a safe choice but it isn't as reliably useful here as on an off-tank and I prefer to avoid stacking this race anyway. Wild Orlan is also going to provide a nice defensive bonus in many of the tougher battles. I just personally hate the concept of a tanking Orlan, as it doesn't feel right to me. The rest of the bonuses are either minor or require your tank to be at low health to make use of them. In anything short of boss battles I'm doing something really wrong if my tank is that injured.

[Nobear]

 

right cause it only has 6 DR.  That's what I figured too but wanted to confirm.  Thanks!  That really makes me think Pale Elfs with their 10 Fire and Freeze DR can be awesome tanks wow.  With improved Plate Armor they can have 10 Fire and Freeze DR....on top of the heavy Slash/Pierce DR.  With an Enchant of Crush DR you could have 20 Crush DR as well...that's nuts.  Only things that can hit you hard is Shock and Corrode which not many enemies have..well corrode you know who hits with it but that's just one enemy lol

 

Alright, time to delve into the all-to-common territory of "Why didn't PoE explain that to me?".

 

Let's take the object we have at hand, Plate Armour.

 

Plate Armour has a base DR of 12, a Slash of 18, and a Shock DR of 6.

 

Now, let's say you add Burn-Proofed. This bumps the Plate Armour up to Burn DR 15. Makes sense, right?

 

So, what if we add Shock-Proofed? That'd add 6+3, no? Because that would make sense, after all, cover your weaknesses, right? Eeeeeeeeh! No!

 

The armour system and the special "elemental" DR:s are based on percentages of the full DR. So in fact, when an armour has a base DR of 12, and thus, say, a Burn DR of 12 (unlisted), what it really means is that the Burn DR is at 100%. So what's the effect on the Shock DR? 6 of 12 is 50%. And 18 of 12 is 150%.

 

So in reality, it's:

Base DR = 12 DR.

100% Burn (12 DR)

100% Freeze (12 DR)

50% Shock (6 DR)

100% Corrode (12 DR)

150% Slash (18 DR)

100% Pierce (12 DR)

100% Crush (12 DR)

 

Meaning that when you modify the DR of the armour in any way, this will be taken into account. And unless I'm mistaken, DR can even be applied in fractions, although the displayed numbers are rounded, making it even harder to determine what's going on, sometimes, in terms of actual damage reduced.

 

This is something important to keep in mind when planning armours.

 

For reference, what armour are you wearing, specifically? I have no idea what would have the stats you describe in the OP.

 

Edit: And yes, Pale Elves could make really good tanks.. if fire and especially ice damage was more common. My memory is fuzzy, but I think shades and phantoms deal ice damage, but they're also notoriously hard to tank. Nothing else comes to mind.

 

You are correct except for one detail: plate armor also has 150% Pierce, not just Slash. Yeah, it's that good.

 

My best guess is that Torm is wearing Fine plate armor and is also wearing the Blunting Belt. That would account for everything but his Crush DR. My guesses are that this would come either from some unique plate armor with bonus Crush DR, or some other item with it, but I'm still in Act 2 so I don't know what items these might be.

 

I concluded that the DR values must be percentage-based too, after I thought "Let's patch up this plate armor's biggest weakness." Fortunately I still had a previous save to go back to when I realized this. Now I am wondering what the best enchant would be. I mean, Slash or Pierce would give the most DR on plate and make you ridiculously well-protected against one of those. With only one Blunting Belt, one of my tanks could go this route.

 

But, to my fellow strategists, what's the most common damage type tanks encounter, and what's the most deadly?

Edited July 11, 2015 by Nobear

[Doppelschwert]

So what luckmann implied in his explanation but did not state explicitly is that if making something damage proof, the multiplier gets applied to the constant +3 from the damage proofed DR as well.

That is, Burn would go to (12+3)*1.00= 15, Shock would go to (12+3)*0.5=7.5 and Slash would go to (12+3)*1.5 = 22.5 .

 

Which is kind of bad IMO, because there is a diminishing return in balancing the low DR while its most effective on the high DR you don't really need that much more from. The implication of this system is that it is more efficient to balance low DR by DR granting items in another slot instead of the proof enchantment.

[Luckmann]

 

 

right cause it only has 6 DR.  That's what I figured too but wanted to confirm.  Thanks!  That really makes me think Pale Elfs with their 10 Fire and Freeze DR can be awesome tanks wow.  With improved Plate Armor they can have 10 Fire and Freeze DR....on top of the heavy Slash/Pierce DR.  With an Enchant of Crush DR you could have 20 Crush DR as well...that's nuts.  Only things that can hit you hard is Shock and Corrode which not many enemies have..well corrode you know who hits with it but that's just one enemy lol

 

Alright, time to delve into the all-to-common territory of "Why didn't PoE explain that to me?".

 

Let's take the object we have at hand, Plate Armour.

 

Plate Armour has a base DR of 12, a Slash of 18, and a Shock DR of 6.

 

Now, let's say you add Burn-Proofed. This bumps the Plate Armour up to Burn DR 15. Makes sense, right?

 

So, what if we add Shock-Proofed? That'd add 6+3, no? Because that would make sense, after all, cover your weaknesses, right? Eeeeeeeeh! No!

 

The armour system and the special "elemental" DR:s are based on percentages of the full DR. So in fact, when an armour has a base DR of 12, and thus, say, a Burn DR of 12 (unlisted), what it really means is that the Burn DR is at 100%. So what's the effect on the Shock DR? 6 of 12 is 50%. And 18 of 12 is 150%.

 

So in reality, it's:

Base DR = 12 DR.

100% Burn (12 DR)

100% Freeze (12 DR)

50% Shock (6 DR)

100% Corrode (12 DR)

150% Slash (18 DR)

100% Pierce (12 DR)

100% Crush (12 DR)

 

Meaning that when you modify the DR of the armour in any way, this will be taken into account. And unless I'm mistaken, DR can even be applied in fractions, although the displayed numbers are rounded, making it even harder to determine what's going on, sometimes, in terms of actual damage reduced.

 

This is something important to keep in mind when planning armours.

 

For reference, what armour are you wearing, specifically? I have no idea what would have the stats you describe in the OP.

 

Edit: And yes, Pale Elves could make really good tanks.. if fire and especially ice damage was more common. My memory is fuzzy, but I think shades and phantoms deal ice damage, but they're also notoriously hard to tank. Nothing else comes to mind.

 

You are correct except for one detail: plate armor also has 150% Pierce, not just Slash. Yeah, it's that good.

 

My best guess is that Torm is wearing Fine plate armor and is also wearing the Blunting Belt. That would account for everything but his Crush DR. My guesses are that this would come either from some unique plate armor with bonus Crush DR, or some other item with it, but I'm still in Act 2 so I don't know what items these might be.

 

I concluded that the DR values must be percentage-based too, after I thought "Let's patch up this plate armor's biggest weakness." Fortunately I still had a previous save to go back to when I realized this. Now I am wondering what the best enchant would be. I mean, Slash or Pierce would give the most DR on plate and make you ridiculously well-protected against one of those. With only one Blunting Belt, one of my tanks could go this route.

 

But, to my fellow strategists, what's the most common damage type tanks encounter, and what's the most deadly?

 

 

Yeah, sorry, I was going off the stats on the Wiki, since I didn't have access to the game at the time, so I couldn't check.

[AndreaColombo]

I've just checked in-game, and plate armor actually has 125% Pierce and Slash DR.

 

Not that it changes how DR works, mind you—just clarifying.

 

 

Nobear—I do not possess any statistics on what damage type is the most used by enemies in PoE, but IIRC the big fellas that aid Thaos in the final fight deal Slash/Crush damage (meaning they'll hit you with the damage type you resist the least between Slash and Crush.) I usually tend to "pump" my DR for both as much as I can because of it, seeing as I can also benefit from it throughout the game.

 

That said, if you make extensive use of elemental AoE spells, you may want to protect your men against the types of elemental damage you use the most.

Edited July 11, 2015 by AndreaColombo

[Torm51]

Ok so for reference at early levels I was using improved plate armor with a base of 12 DR enchanted to fine and crush enchanted as well.

[Luckmann]

Ok so for reference at early levels I was using improved plate armor with a base of 12 DR enchanted to fine and crush enchanted as well.

 

What is a "improved plate armour"? At first I thought you meant that it was Fine, but then you add that it was Enchanted to Fine.

[Torm51]

Fine Plate armor. sorry bud.