Why I think that armour will always be better than evasion for a Hardcore character

"

Pathological wrote:

"

Grokken wrote:

"

anubite wrote:

--> http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/89113

Evasion >= Armor.

If you are being one-shot in evasion you will be one-shot in armor. If you are taking enough damage to be one-shot in evasion, you either don't have enough life, or the attack is soooooo powerful that armor would only mitigate it by 5-10% AT MOST.

You need 12 times as much armor to reduce an attack's damage by 50%. That's how the formula works.

To mitigate Brutus' 3k slam with armor by 50%, you need 36k armor. Nobody has this much armor without determination+granite flask+endurance charges. And that's if it does exactly 3k damage. if it does 3.5k damage... you need 42k.

If you have even 1000 less armor than 36k, you will take significantly more damage.

The argument that evasion is weak to RNG is bullshit. Armor is actually MORE weak to rng, because it's completely random when brutus will crit for 4.5k damage. It's not completely random when you will evade an attack. If Brutus crits, you will need 50% more armor to mitigate the same % amount of damage, at least (I dunno Brutus' exact crit mult).

--

OP, make an evasion character. Get it to maps. If you can't even do that, make a thread about it and then we'll talk. It's threads like these that create toxic fallacies that break down the popular understanding of game balance.

having 1000 less armor would not have a significant effect on reduction in the case you stated:

Damage Reduction = Armour / ( Armour + (12 * Damage) )

36000 / (36000 + (12 * 3000) = 36000/72000 = 50.0% reduction
35000 / (35000 + (12 * 3000) = 35000/71000 = 49.3% reduction

3000 * 0.50 = 1500
3000 * 0.493 = 1479

lets say he crits for 4500 and you have 36k armor:

36000 / (36000 + (12 * 4500) = 36000 / 90000 = 40% reduction

This is still a significant amount of reduction, enough to save you from getting oneshotted.
36k should be attainable on a character with a lot of armor nodes using a granite flask.

More importantly, if he is hitting you for 4.5k you should not be GETTING 1 shotted, because you should have more than 4.5k hp by that point. This is the thing armor-afficiandos seem to miss. Armor is only valuable on a per-mob basis for a very specific damage range delta, the values of which we don't currently know. Anything below that, and evasion is "more valuable", but only theoretically. Anything above that and below a 2 shot, and evasion is massively more valuable, until armor would again save you from a 2shot where evasion wouldn't.

I made a spreadsheet to make it easier to calculate for your character where these inflection points are, it's in the thread here. Even that is of limited use though, because you are effectively making estimated guesses at the base damage ranges of the monsters you fight.

Okay, lets assume a 6k hit, a hit that would kill almost any character that doesnt have reduction, no matter how much life they stack:

36000 / 36000 + (6000 * 12) = 36000/108000 = 33.3% reduction, reducing the hit from 6k to 4k

There is a limit to how much life you can stack. The thing is that there are attacks in this game that can do enough damage to oneshot you even if you stack life.

"

Grokken wrote:

Okay, lets assume a 6k hit, a hit that would kill almost any character that doesnt have reduction, no matter how much life they stack:

36000 / 36000 + (6000 * 12) = 36000/108000 = 33.3% reduction, reducing the hit from 6k to 4k

There is a limit to how much life you can stack. The thing is that there are attacks in this game that can do enough damage to oneshot you even if you stack life.

As I said in my post on page 4 - if you cherry pick data points for armor, life and hp that allow armor to let you live where evasion would not, then of course, armor is much stronger. I could just as easily cherry pick a point on the damage table where you die regardless of armor, whereby evasion becomes infinitely more valuable to possibily survive the hit. Thenm you could pick a lower point where armor allows you to survive a 2shot and evasion wouldn't. Then I could pick a point where it would. Then you could pick a point where armor again saves you from a 3 shot. Then I could pick a point where you would have lived with evasion anyway, rendering armor valueless comparatively valueless

See what I am getting at?

The perpetual value of damage saved over time is almost valueless to a hardcore character; what specifically matters is the ability to live through discrete events of damage that put you at risk, and those events are not statically handled better by armor OR evasion in any given scenario. Which is better depends entirely on the _SPECIFIC_ incoming damage range of that particular attack, whether or not it crits, and the full gamut of your stats to counter it. There are points where armor will save you and evasion might not have. There are points where evasion might save you and armor could not have. Until we have damage logs, it is close to impossible to know which is occuring against what mobs.

There is one thing we can say for certain right now:
Evasion ALWAYS has a chance to save you, regardless of how hard the mob hits.
Armor has SOME incoming damage values where it will DEFINITELY save you, and SOME values where it definitely WON'T save you.

Both are significantly RNG based.

"

Pathological wrote:

"

Grokken wrote:

Okay, lets assume a 6k hit, a hit that would kill almost any character that doesnt have reduction, no matter how much life they stack:

36000 / 36000 + (6000 * 12) = 36000/108000 = 33.3% reduction, reducing the hit from 6k to 4k

There is a limit to how much life you can stack. The thing is that there are attacks in this game that can do enough damage to oneshot you even if you stack life.

As I said in my post on page 4 - if you cherry pick data points for armor, life and hp that allow armor to let you live where evasion would not, then of course, armor is much stronger. I could just as easily cherry pick a point on the damage table where you die regardless of armor, whereby evasion becomes infinitely more valuable to possibily survive the hit. Thenm you could pick a lower point where armor allows you to survive a 2shot and evasion wouldn't. Then I could pick a point where it would. Then you could pick a point where armor again saves you from a 3 shot. Then I could pick a point where you would have lived with evasion anyway, rendering armor valueless comparatively valueless

See what I am getting at?

The perpetual value of damage saved over time is almost valueless to a hardcore character; what specifically matters is the ability to live through discrete events of damage that put you at risk, and those events are not statically handled better by armor OR evasion in any given scenario. Which is better depends entirely on the _SPECIFIC_ incoming damage range of that particular attack, whether or not it crits, and the full gamut of your stats to counter it. There are points where armor will save you and evasion might not have. There are points where evasion might save you and armor could not have. Until we have damage logs, it is close to impossible to know which is occuring against what mobs.

There is one thing we can say for certain right now:
Evasion ALWAYS has a chance to save you, regardless of how hard the mob hits.
Armor has SOME incoming damage values where it will DEFINITELY save you, and SOME values where it definitely WON'T save you.

Both are significantly RNG based.

I'm not trying to say armor is better than evasion. I was responding to these statements:

"

If you are being one-shot in evasion you will be one-shot in armor. If you are taking enough damage to be one-shot in evasion, you either don't have enough life, or the attack is soooooo powerful that armor would only mitigate it by 5-10% AT MOST.

As I have shown, there are attacks that would definitely oneshot you without reduction, where armor reduces the damage by a lot more than 10%

and:

"

If you have even 1000 less armor than 36k, you will take significantly more damage.

You take 21 more damage from a 3k hit with 1000 less armor, which is not significant in any way.

"

Pathological wrote:

There is one thing we can say for certain right now:
Evasion ALWAYS has a chance to save you, regardless of how hard the mob hits.
Armor has SOME incoming damage values where it will DEFINITELY save you, and SOME values where it definitely WON'T save you.

Both are significantly RNG based.

Armor may be RNG based but it's not SIGNIFICANTLY RNG based. Armor does not become useless just because a monster crits. A 150% Crit would turn a 50% Reduction into a 40% Reduction. A monster would need to deal 3x it's normal damage to turn the 50% into 25%. Armor is fairly consistent, the downside is obviously the fact that it does nothing against Elemental or Chaos damage.

"

Grokken wrote:

As I have shown, there are attacks that would definitely oneshot you without reduction, where armor reduces the damage by a lot more than 10%

and:

"

If you have even 1000 less armor than 36k, you will take significantly more damage.

You take 21 more damage from a 3k hit with 1000 less armor, which is not significant in any way.

You are going from one end of the scale to the other though, arguing with extremes.

Only the most armor-stacked builds around will get to 36k armor with a perfect granite; most armor builds simply don't stack modifiers to that extreme. You can't and won't always have your granite available, or get to it in time if you get pulled by brutus.

On the other hand, you discuss a 3k hit, which is barely enough to threaten any sort of build, let alone an armor-stacking build. 3k hits aren't enough to come remotely close to 1 shotting an armor build; most people with 36k armor probably have the hp to soak two 4.5k crits and still be standing, let alone a 3k hit. This is not what kills hardcore characters, this is not what you base your survivability on.

"

Porkeh wrote:

"

Pathological wrote:

There is one thing we can say for certain right now:
Evasion ALWAYS has a chance to save you, regardless of how hard the mob hits.
Armor has SOME incoming damage values where it will DEFINITELY save you, and SOME values where it definitely WON'T save you.

Both are significantly RNG based.

Armor may be RNG based but it's not SIGNIFICANTLY RNG based. Armor does not become useless just because a monster crits. A 150% Crit would turn a 50% Reduction into a 40% Reduction. A monster would need to deal 3x it's normal damage to turn the 50% into 25%. Armor is fairly consistent, the downside is obviously the fact that it does nothing against Elemental or Chaos damage.

Seriously, read the thread. It's got nothing to do with needing to triple damage to render armor obsolete. All that needs to happen to render armor obsolete in terms of surviving a period of burst damage when compared with evasion stacking is for the damage reduction to reach a threshold where either:

a. the armor won't save you anyway given your current HP, or
b. you would have lived despite the armor, thereby drastically increasing evasion's value to avoid and survive the following attack.

These are the only two things that matter. At any damage value that falls between these two points, armor is better. No question. Anything that falls below b, evasion has the capacity to save you significantly more damage across 2 attacks, and anything that falls above a, evasion infinitely increases your chance of survival (since you cannot survive the hit via armor).

These two points, damage thresholds if you will, continue to cycle onward to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th attack and so on. However, only the first, second and occasionally 3rd should really matter - if you are still in danger after that long a period of time, you are probably going to die anyway because you are either having a stroke or you disconnected.

Ok, I added another sheet to my spreadsheet so you can work out for yourself the range of values at which armor because functionally useless and again useful for you in terms of your current stats vs. any given incoming (physical) damage.

Here are three screenshots to show you exactly what we mean:

All assuming 5000 life.

At 36000 armor vs. 9000, these are the incoming physical damage values where you are better served by either armor or evasion:
http://i47.tinypic.com/o6zb5y.jpg
With these stats:
Any damage value below ~4200 is safer with armor, however the majority of these are not threatening, with over half requiring 3 hits to kill you.
Any damage value between ~4200 and 5600, you are better served by evasion, because you can survive 1 hit regardless of evasion stacking, and armor won't save you from the second attack.
Any damage value from ~5600 to ~7200, you are better off with armor, because you won't survive a 1shot stacking evasion.
Any damage value over 7200, armor is completely useless and you are much better off with evasion.

At 25000 armor vs. 9000, these are the incoming physical damage values where you are better served by either armor or evasion:
http://i45.tinypic.com/2nbsz0z.jpg
Any damage below ~2800 you are better off with armor, but this damage is non-threatening.
There is a small pocket of damage around ~2800-~3200 where you are safer with evasion, but this is in a 3hit-death range.
From ~3200 to ~4000, you are better with armor to survive a 2hit.
From ~4000 to ~6000, you are better with evasion, because you can't survive a 2hit with armor.
From ~6000 to ~6800, you are better with armor, because armor will ensure you survive a 1hit.
From ~6800 onward, you are better with evasion, because you can't survive a 1 hit with armor.

At 8500 armor vs. 0, these are the incoming physical damage values where you are better served by either armor or evasion:
http://i47.tinypic.com/sxyeyh.jpg
I won't go over it again, you can see what is happening.

As you can see, there is great variation in the damage ranges where you are better off having stacked evasion instead. Endurance nodes change where these ranges begin and end, but don't change the size of the range. Without knowing explicitly what incoming damage values you are receiving, you cannot make an informed choice as to whether armor or evasion is better. Anything less than a complete armor stack leaves armor with some serious holes in its coverage of "safety" from being bursted down. These holes become SIGNIFICANTLY larger as you move away from "perfect" armor builds reaching 35k or more armor - that is to say, if you aren't stacking the hell out of armor, the holes in your coverage are likely a lot bigger.

I hope these tables help people understand why armor is not dependable. You don't have to have all of your armor cancelled to make it less valuable than evasion. In terms of surviving burst damage, what is important is the number of hits you can take before you die. When armor will NOT gain you a gaurunteed extra hit before you die, evasion gives you a chance to survive that hit.

"

Pathological wrote:

Ok, I added another sheet to my spreadsheet so you can work out for yourself the range of values at which armor because functionally useless and again useful for you in terms of your current stats vs. any given incoming (physical) damage.

So a character with 9 endurance charges, 5000 Life, and 36,000 armour can survive attacks up to 13,555 damage. Seems pretty open-and-shut as to which form of defense is best against burst damage.

"

Strill wrote:

"

Pathological wrote:

Ok, I added another sheet to my spreadsheet so you can work out for yourself the range of values at which armor because functionally useless and again useful for you in terms of your current stats vs. any given incoming (physical) damage.

So a character with 9 endurance charges, 5000 Life, and 36,000 armour can survive attacks up to 13,555 damage. Seems pretty open-and-shut as to which form of defense is best against burst damage.

Against burst damage above 9200? yes.
Against burst damage between 8600 and 9200 per attack? No.
Below 8600 damage per attack? Yes.

Again though, talking in ludicrous extremes here. It takes a very specific build to get 9 endurance charges, 36k armor and 5k health. Attacks up to 13.5k are also getting ridiculously high - if we are going that crazy, what's to stop them getting to 13.6k, where evasion becomes stronger again?

Ultimately, anything hitting that hard probably isn't designed to be tanked. It's probably cool that you could do it with those stats, but that would preclude 95+% of builds in the game.

"

Pathological wrote:

"

Strill wrote:

"

Pathological wrote:

Ok, I added another sheet to my spreadsheet so you can work out for yourself the range of values at which armor because functionally useless and again useful for you in terms of your current stats vs. any given incoming (physical) damage.

So a character with 9 endurance charges, 5000 Life, and 36,000 armour can survive attacks up to 13,555 damage. Seems pretty open-and-shut as to which form of defense is best against burst damage.

Against burst damage above 9200? yes.
Against burst damage between 8600 and 9200 per attack? No.
Below 8600 damage per attack? Yes.

Again though, talking in ludicrous extremes here. It takes a very specific build to get 9 endurance charges, 36k armor and 5k health. Attacks up to 13.5k are also getting ridiculously high - if we are going that crazy, what's to stop them getting to 13.6k, where evasion becomes stronger again?

Ultimately, anything hitting that hard probably isn't designed to be tanked. It's probably cool that you could do it with those stats, but that would preclude 95+% of builds in the game.

"

Attacks up to 13.5k are also getting ridiculously high - if we are going that crazy, what's to stop them getting to 13.6k, where evasion becomes stronger again?

That's my point. If armour can mitigate attacks that are more powerful than any attack has a reason to be, then there's no situation where evasion has the advantage.

"

Ultimately, anything hitting that hard probably isn't designed to be tanked. It's probably cool that you could do it with those stats, but that would preclude 95+% of builds in the game.

Another good point. Melee builds already invest the overwhelming majority of their points into survivability anyway, only to do a pittance of damage. Why not just forego all semblance of doing damage and be a tank that can actually be useful to a group?

"

Strill wrote:

That's my point. If armour can mitigate attacks that are more powerful than any attack has a reason to be, then there's no situation where evasion has the advantage.

Did you actually look at the tables at all? The point that has been made from page 1 in this thread, and through the 20-odd pages in the other thread is that armor CAN'T mitigate attacks more powerful than any attack has a reason to be in all situations. No matter the build, there is always an inflection point where evasion becomes infinitely better, which then flicks back to armor later.

"

Another good point. Melee builds already invest the overwhelming majority of their points into survivability anyway, only to do a pittance of damage. Why not just forego all semblance of doing damage and be a tank that can actually be useful to a group?

Why do you think melee do a pittance of damage? Furthermore, why do you think you need to be able to face tank 15k hits to be "useful" to the group?

Ultimately, we are talking about different things here. You are talking about the extreme, perfectly build character with 100% defensive nodes, all the right gear, and so forth. Almost by definition, not everyone has access to the resources and time to build this character, nor can it be done on every build. On builds that cannot afford the points to go full armor-specced, such as pretty much all witch builds, most shadow builds, many templar builds (especially caster templars), or for builds that can't feasibly reach all endurance charges and armor nodes, meaning most witches, shadows or rangers, armor stacking with iron reflexes will be considerably less strong than with all of the above.

I guess the TL;DR is that I don't really get what your point is. Most builds in the game can't afford to stack defenses to that degree, and most players will never have the resources to reach those heights. Being capable of tanking the highest theoretical damage possible with the most extreme defensive gear and spec is only theoretically interesting, and not particularly pertinent, in my opinion. Honestly, how many people do you see running around with 9 endurance charges?