Analysis of hybrid vs single stat armors at max level

I do not see one stat to rule them all in the passive-tree as a good solution to anything. However, I see a need for changing the stat-bonuses from pure 10 str/dex/int to 5/5/0 or even in some cases 3/3/4. It will make the need for early specialisation a lot less of a pain since the 5/5/0 does not commit you that much to one single attribute and it will not make cross-overs from other classes that much, if at all, worse.

At the same time damage-reduction passives should probably stay as they are atm.
The biggest issues are on the gear at first, when it comes to damage-reduction. The skill-tree will be twisted and tweaked the coming months and I have been surprised at how much it has changed without becoming pure cookie-cutter.

Diminishing returns, equations, etc.

I think GGG could review their mathematics/equations of how Energy Shield, Evasion and Armor progress.

Maybe higher values of the same defensive attribute (Evasion, Energy Shield, Armor) progress too well and end up overcoming a comparable sum of those attributes spread through Evasion, Armor and Energy Shield by far. I'm talking about diminishing returns. What I mean is:

>> If a certain amount of Armor concedes overall X physical survivability and costs A points of "gear budget" (total gear power level), then this same A gear budget should grant comparable physical survivability, no matter how it's spread among Energy Shield, Armor and Evasion.

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markus7 wrote:

I think GGG could review their mathematics/equations of how Energy Shield, Evasion and Armor progress.

I've been wondering about this formula myself. It's one of the hidden numbers we don't get to see because it is "complicated". And that's fine.

The problem is that I suspect (much as you do) that this is not a linear progression. I'm worried that 50 AV 50 EV is not equal to 100 AV and with how the current growth for these hybrid armors is inferior as well I seriously doubt it can be balanced as things are currently.

It could just me be worrying over nothing though. I don't know what the formula is under there. But even if it is nothing, this is not something that the average users will perceive as nothing.

I vaguely recall a big uproar much like this regarding diablo 2 where like here, the numbers the players could see didn't LOOK like they were good enough in some areas. It was a debate that went on for a good long while despite the fact that the actual performance of each class was actually balanced reasonably well.

The final solution ended up being to rescale the visible numbers so that they looked better, while quietly adjusting the more complex hidden formula to keep balance right.

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DoctorZuber wrote:

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markus7 wrote:

I think GGG could review their mathematics/equations of how Energy Shield, Evasion and Armor progress.

I've been wondering about this formula myself. It's one of the hidden numbers we don't get to see because it is "complicated". And that's fine.

The problem is that I suspect (much as you do) that this is not a linear progression. I'm worried that 50 AV 50 EV is not equal to 100 AV and with how the current growth for these hybrid armors is inferior as well I seriously doubt it can be balanced as things are currently.

It could just me be worrying over nothing though. I don't know what the formula is under there. But even if it is nothing, this is not something that the average users will perceive as nothing.

Well, if you assume that:
1. The accuracy and armour formulae listed in the mechanics thread are correct
2. The accuracy equation against monsters is equal to the equation used against players, therefore it can be inverted to yield an evasion formula
3. We're using an average enemy such that armour and evasion yield relatively similar mitigation values for similar integer values

...then we can do a little bit of math. Provided you have an arbitrary amount of evasion such that you get exactly 25% evasion against our average enemy, then you double that arbitrary value, you'll end up with roughly 36.72% evasion. If you instead decided to invest that additional evasion into armour, you'd end up having a total mitigation of roughly 43.75%. If we did the same for armour, we would also benefit from the default 5% evasion, yielding ~39.88% mitigation versus, once again, 43.75% hybrid mitigation.

So, essentially,
x Armour + x Evasion > 2x Armour
x Armour + x Evasion > 2x Evasion

But in reality, it differs quite substantially based on what type of enemy you're fighting. Perhaps that helps with the argument of whether hybrid equipment is inferior or not, despite my math being a tad oversimplified.