I have always been under the impression that MDR is very powerful in a battle against Diablo due to the dmg/sec nature of his flame spells, but I am starting to question that as Resists and Absorb seem to dominate the equation. Am I missing something? Has the beefed up damage scale of this mod negated the common wisdom of b.net gameplay?

For those who don't know, here is the formula for how damage is calculated:

Elemental Damage Taken = (Monster Damage - MDR) * (1 - %Resistance) * (1 - %Absorb)

Using those numbers on a 400 damage attack, I get:



From this it shows me that I would need 80 MDR just to match the benefit of 20% absorb. Getting 80 MDR is a serious pain compared to the simplicity of getting 20% absorb from just a Dwarf Star.

I don't see how attack speed will really impact this other than to amplify everything across the board. I ran the numbers with a 5 frame attack and absorbs still beat it in a big way. I don't think that I am over-estimating my damage values either, seems very feasible to me that damages in this game are in the 400 dmg ballpark (in other words for example, Diablo's flamewave does 400 dmg per frame)

Am I missing something or is MDR just irrelevant in this game outside of Act 1 and maybe 2?

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

i notice a big difference in my physical damage and ele damage taken with the mancers belt and helm 25dr/25mdr with 50% dr and 20% sorbs.if u can up to 50dr or 50 mdr then u can see the results better

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"Don't date girls that work at Gamestop. They insist it's new, but it's not new when the seal is broken."

with an overall damage hike per attack it would make sence that mdr/pdr would not reduce damage as much as a % reduce would. MDR works on a diminishing returns system and absorb works on an increasing returns system.

MDR is more important in normal than absorbs and visa versa in nm and hell. If you scale the numbers down MDR is more powerfull, If you scale them up the absorb becomes stronger and stronger while MDR geat weaker and weaker. A factor at the end of a formula is always more potent than a factor at the start, even more so when its a % vs base number. If MDR was calculater last it would be far more potent

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It also depends on the spell type.

Firewall and similar attacks do high damage per second, but in large numbers of "attack" hits. So even if you do 1000 attacks for 100 damage (10,000 listed dps), you are reducing each 100 by your MDR, so you can end up taking almost no damage very easily.

Of course, versus something like firebolt where it is one spell hit, it is not as effective.

Sorry if I didn't make that clear in the original post, but yes - that is the theory behind the value of attacks on b.net.

The question is whether there are really any attacks like that outside of normal difficulty? Your numbers aren't exactly realistic since there isn't any way to do 1000 attack per second and if there was actually a boss out there that did 10k dps it would flatten every player out there.

Here are a few more series of numbers for people to chew on and this time I included the frame rate in to the calculation so that you can see the Damage per Second (DPS).


100 damage attack done at 5 FPA (my reasonable guesstimate for spell dmg rates)



200 damage attack done at 5 FPA (my reasonable guesstimate for spell dmg rates)



It is possible I suppose that things like firespell damage or other wave type attacks do dmg every frame for a 1 FPA in which case the base damage would be much lower and still provide the type of damage seen in NM and Hell.

Here is the DPS table with 200 dmg at 1 FPA



Chunks of over 1k taken out of your life every second would be pretty noticiable, so perhaps this is a reasonable scale of attack for NM. That assumes that the dmg is done at 1FPA, which I just find to be improbable

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

MDR is applied to each frame of the damage-over-time spells. Your numbers would be perfect if Diablo's fire did 10k dps (400 times 25 frames). Thankfully his damage is a lot lower, but I'm not sure what it is.

I'm really fuzzy on these numbers, but I think it took me about 30 MDR to be nearly immune to Diablo's fire in Normal, so in normal he should be doing less than 750 dps. In NM I noticed I was nearly immune, but I had an aura-healer around, so I'm not sure what effect he was doing. I had about 50 MDR, so he's probably doing about 1500 dps. I haven't fought him in hell this ladder, but I'd be surprised if he did more than 4k dps. 160 MDR would make you immune to that.

<edit>Removed some changes to put them in another post</edit>

Resists and absorbs are applied to each frame though as well. I guess the only issue is that I do multiply everything by 25 for fire based attacks that hit repeatedly.

Knowing that it multiplies by 25 does allow me to ballpark the numbers a lot better though; and it makes them a lot lower which allows MDR to play a larger role. That's a good thing as I had ballparked 100 MDR as "strong" in Hell. Nice to have that sort of confirmed with math.

The 25 multiplier is also a good demonstration while MDR is great against some attacks and not others as it makes a very strong impact on the math. Example - MDR won't really do jack if you are having problems against Nihla's Thunderstorm.

I have uploaded the excel file I used to tinker the numbers in case anyone wants to play with it.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

Crap. ok, fixed up and a new excel file is attached. For those who don't want to wait though, here are two great DPS tables that show a real difference in damage mechanics

50 damage attack



100 dmg attack



200 dmg attack



The 200 dmg one is great as it shows that a simple 20% absorb will compensate for the much more difficult 80 MDR gear configuration. This was not the case at all for the 100 dmg attack.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

Here's some spells that should be greatly affected by MDR: FWall, Blaze, Meteor, Inferno, ActicBlast, WakeOfFire, WakeOfInferno, ImmoArrow, ChargedBolt, ChargedStrike

The spell list highlights the fact that most monsters in HU don't attack many times for low damage. If anyone can think of other spells with lots of fast hits, feel free to mention them.

The calculation involving 50 damage is incorrect when it comes to absorb 40%. Negative damage is impossible in HU. Just modify your excel formula to take the Max(0,Dmg-MDR).

I thought with enough absorb you can get healed? Doesn't that effectively mean negative damage?

That only applies with direct +absorb which was removed in this mod but exists on b.net.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

yea only with integer sorb can you be healed by a spell. with % sorb, i think you would need over 50% sorb to be healed by a spell, and thats not possible if the cap here remains 40% like on regular d2

I think he has been buffed then. I did a test run against him in normal with my paladin and even with max res and double dwarf his flame was still hitting me with damage. I wasn't suprised that the red hose was damaging me since it is 1/2 physical, but I was suprised to see how much the fire attacks were hitting me for despite my high MDR and max res.

Was wearing:
2x dwarf = 30 MDR + 40% absorb
Gladiator's bane = 30 MDR
Hellmouth = 5% fire absorb, 10% light absorb
String of ears = 15 MDR

For a total of 75 MDR and I wasn't immune to his attacks.

By the way, this was also a sad display of how overpowering physical dmg is. Maxed vengenance was sad compared to a single point in zeal and 15%crushing blow combined with Atma's.

I FRAP'd the fight and will optimize it and upload it in case anyone wants to give it a watch.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

vengaance is just a shit skill, you already knew that, its far to slow and zeal outdamages it every single time simply due to the speed.

Diablo was buffed this patch, it's in the patch notes, as was izzy, chimera, hf dragon etc. the others "buff" is pretty much useless as they are no harder than before

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I'm not sure why our playing experiences differ, but I just ran normal diablo with my Sorc (40 MDR, 26 PDR) and took nearly no damage from his fire again. The fire I'm considering is his FireStorm type spell, not the Flame Wave or Armageddon since neither of those are strongly affected by MDR. I did notice that his lightning attack did respectable damage despite my damage reductions. I thought that was another spell that would be strongly affected by MDR/PDR. I took a look at the lightning spell in Skills.txt, but was more confused by it than anything else.

In the test, I stayed at range until he cast his FireStorm, then I walked through it while trying to avoid his lightning attack. I wouldn't have been in the fire very long, maybe a couple seconds, and I didn't watch my char screen HP, but I think my red bulb changed less than 5%.

This post just about sums up the whole topic.

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