Tanking Question

[Schwann145]

So there's no "Tanking" forum, so since my tank is a DT, I'll just ask this here:

How, exactly, does Defensive Stance work?
I ask because the tooltip says it increases damage mitigation by +10%, but on my stat sheet I only see my mitigation increase by about 6%.

What's up?

[bogus]

Defensice Stance works.

Mitigation has secrat formula no one exacly know how it looks - probaly even including devs, it was changed so many times. It's dynamic, non-linear and have cap level. With more mitigation you have, you'll see less benefits from next armor items and buffs at character sheet. But also - FC devs don't believe in 'simple is better' - with more mitigation you have any next 1% prevents more damage than previous one.

So yeah, it works like intended when you see +10% on tooltip but only +6% at character sheet.

[-Mith-]

Mitigation has secrat formula no one exacly know how it looks - probaly even including devs, it was changed so many times. It's dynamic, non-linear and have cap level. With more mitigation you have, you'll see less benefits from next armor items and buffs at character sheet. But also - FC devs don't believe in 'simple is better' - with more mitigation you have any next 1% prevents more damage than previous one.

It's simple math. In Defensive Stance you take 7% (10% if feated) less damage than in Normal Stance.

Example:
Mob hits you for 1000 raw damage.
You have 40% armor in Normal Stance (from character sheet) - you take 600 damage.
With Defensive Stance on (10%) you take 540 damage - 60 damage less than without.

[Boesch]

You receive diminishing returns after relatively undisclosed levels of mitigation. It's roughly 50% or so and you start to only get half the benefit that you would have gotten below 50%.

However this doesn't actually mean you necessarily get diminishing returns. Every raid boss (and I actually believe Khitai bosses too) have mitigation thresholds which, if you fail to meet, the damage you receive is multiplied in proportion to how far from the threshold you are. This was confirmed on TL some time back. The system I would imagine, like bogus has said, is probably so archaic and rewritten that it's not understood by many. It can quite obviously be seen on some heavy hitting fights, such as in T4 when tanking the bone golems on the Emperor fight, where 1% or 2% mitigation can turn the fight from being rough to being incredibly easy.

This was a long answer to a simple question, and the reality is, it's all a bit of magic and chicanery.

[Korando-AoC]

Hayde I have one question for you: we know that exists a mitigation amount (or armor amount, this is basically the question) below which char gets an invisible penalty which causes him to get higher damage.

It's an amount linked to the boss, so for example it is different if you tank in Aztel, Flame HM or T3 etc.
It's mostly what makes mitigation not linear.
So for example if you try to tank with 49% mitigation and then with 51% mitigation, and if boss "hidden penalty" sits at 50% (or x amount of armor, that depends on the answer to my question), the difference in damage you get is much higher than 2% mitigation you see on stats.

My question is: is this "penalty amount" related to Mitigation or Armor?
I ask because there are feats (like Improved Defencive Stance") which buff mitigation but not armor.
So for example I could see 51% but still be under the effect of the penalty, because game is checking armor, not Mitigation (so let's say I should check to be above 9k armor, whatever is mitigation shown).

I hope I was clear.
I'd like to know if someone has a proven answer, otherwise I'll try to test myself.

Basically this answer could make Improved Defencive Stance much more valuable if you tank with Talisman or, for not yet geared chars, it could simply allow to tank properly certain bosses.

[Boesch]

Hayde I have one question for you: we know that exists a mitigation amount (or armor amount, this is basically the question) below which char gets an invisible penalty which causes him to get higher damage.

It's an amount linked to the boss, so for example it is different if you tank in Aztel, Flame HM or T3 etc.
It's mostly what makes mitigation not linear.
So for example if you try to tank with 49% mitigation and then with 51% mitigation, and if boss "hidden penalty" sits at 50% (or x amount of armor, that depends on the answer to my question), the difference in damage you get is much higher than 2% mitigation you see on stats.

My question is: is this "penalty amount" related to Mitigation or Armor?
I ask because there are feats (like Improved Defencive Stance") which buff mitigation but not armor.
So for example I could see 51% but still be under the effect of the penalty, because game is checking armor, not Mitigation (so let's say I should check to be above 9k armor, whatever is mitigation shown).

I hope I was clear.
I'd like to know if someone has a proven answer, otherwise I'll try to test myself.

Basically this answer could make Improved Defencive Stance much more valuable if you tank with Talisman or, for not yet geared chars, it could simply allow to tank properly certain bosses.

The post on TL stated what was concerned but I'm afraid I don't have the link to it anymore. However I do know temporary buffs were not part of the equation, but it kind of gets back to the question of some ancient mechanic that probably doesn't work the way that even Funcom thinks it does...

(and yes I did understand your question! I don't know if it's armour or mitigation)

[Korando-AoC]

You receive diminishing returns after relatively undisclosed levels of mitigation. It's roughly 50% or so and you start to only get half the benefit that you would have gotten below 50%.

However this doesn't actually mean you necessarily get diminishing returns. Every raid boss (and I actually believe Khitai bosses too) have mitigation thresholds which, if you fail to meet, the damage you receive is multiplied in proportion to how far from the threshold you are. This was confirmed on TL some time back. The system I would imagine, like bogus has said, is probably so archaic and rewritten that it's not understood by many. It can quite obviously be seen on some heavy hitting fights, such as in T4 when tanking the bone golems on the Emperor fight, where 1% or 2% mitigation can turn the fight from being rough to being incredibly easy.

This was a long answer to a simple question, and the reality is, it's all a bit of magic and chicanery.

I was typing my question while you posted this.

You talked about same thing as me, and used word "Mitigation" instead of "Armor".
Can I assume that's the answer to my question? Did you test it?

I ask cause time ago I found a very old (2008 or so) developer post where word "Armor" was used instead of Mitigation about the threshold.

Any developer can give an hint about this?

[Boesch]

I ask cause time ago I found a very old (2008 or so) developer post where word "Armor" was used instead of Mitigation about the threshold.

The same post I am going off and so old no-one really knows. It's there because everyone has felt that big change from a small % difference in hit rating, combat rating, magic damage, mitigation... but who knows really how it all works.

[Korando-AoC]

(and yes I did understand your question! I don't know if it's armour or mitigation)

Ok, thanks for reply.
I guess it's something to test then.

[bogus]

It's simple math.

It's not. Mob level (together with status) have effect on mitigation formula also. Thing you said _could_ be true for 2 characters (or players and mob) at same level. What's rarity in dungeons (old world only, not single in khitai). And raid mobs should have their own mitigation threshold.

And no, I don't know how exactly raid mob damage is mitigated. But I would say, for each mob (or raid instance if it's same for all mobs there) mitigation should be counted separately based on armor/protection and additional mitigation (called vulnerabilities at character sheet). What more fun it's even hard to start guessing since we can't see raid mob level if they have any.