It turns out gear that has tons of int, vit, and magic find costs a fortune. At least, I assume it does, because I never see any in my price range. So either it costs a fortune or it doesn't exist. This has caused my health to slowly and steadily drop as I buy new items. The thing I've been noticing is I haven't been at any more risk of dying even with only 16k health. I'm sure part of this is because I'm getting gear with armor and resist all on it in addition to the int and magic find. I have 6855 armor and 275 resist all. 403 physical resist! Compared to my post last week I'm down 8500 health but up 3600 armor and 90 resist all. Part of my thinking is that the force armor passive gets better the less max health I have, within reason. But is that actually true? If I was going to add one of the three defensive stats (health, armor, resist all) which one should I add?
As things currently stand I have a combined damage reduction of 83.5%. With the way force armor works, incoming damage actually gets reduced as follows:
| Base Damage | Actual Damage |
|---|---|
| 0-35k | 0-5.8k |
| 35k-135k | 5.8k |
| 135k+X | 5.8k+.165X |
Now, what's the best stat boost you can find on a rare? As far as I can tell... 278 vit, 397 armor, or 80 resist all. The vit is worth 9730 health and I get an extra 65% armor so the armor is really worth 655 armor. With each stat the matrix changes to...
9730 health
| Base Damage | Actual Damage |
|---|---|
| 0-55k | 0-9.2k |
| 55k-214k | 9.2k |
| 214k+X | 9.2k+.165X |
655 armor
| Base Damage | Actual Damage |
|---|---|
| 0-37k | 0-5.8k |
| 37k-143k | 5.8k |
| 143k+X | 5.8k+.155X |
80 resist
| Base Damage | Actual Damage |
|---|---|
| 0-40k | 0-5.8k |
| 40k-153k | 5.8k |
| 153k+X | 5.8k+.145X |
A max resist item is clearly better than a max armor item, but what about vitality? A vitality item will drastically increase the 'safe' range where damage is capped at 35% of my max health. But what if the raw damage isn't in big chunks but instead in constant chunks like fire chains or desecration? Then it may be best to look at 'effective health'. I'm going to include drinking a potion and using a diamond skin in these calculations since I can pretty much always do those at least once in a big fight. Realistically I get to kite a while and keep pounding diamond shield but if they're really that kiteable it doesn't matter what my gear is as I'll win eventually anyway.
EH(base) = 241k
EH(vit) = 300k
EH(ac) = 257k
EH(resist) = 274k
So if the damage is small I want more health. If the damage is really big I want more health. If the damage is in the 'safe' range it really doesn't matter what I do. More health is slightly bad if I am pounding out the healing in that case. But I really don't know how often I'm in that range.
The bottom line is the next item I buy should probably have a large amount of vitality on it instead of bonus armor or resist all. And possibly I should really switch to the +40% resistance rune if I'm really spending most of my time in the bottom range of these tables. I need to do some more searching to see if I can find raw damage numbers for monsters! (Though those numbers will change in the next patch for Inferno Acts 2, 3, and 4.)
3 comments:
278 vit? I've never seen an item with a stat that big... is this including gem slots?
For Act 1 Inferno I think you should be looking at switching to prismatic and gearing accordingly (which just makes resist better). I didn't spend more than around 150k on any piece of gear I have (I paid 300k for one very recently, but it wasn't even much better), and act 1 inferno is not a threat to me at all anymore with just one defensive ability on my bar. I know you are using a two-hander instead of a shield but I don't think that *that* much of a difference (the armor from my shield is reducing damage I take by around 12% - kind of a big deal but it wouldn't make that much of a difference from where I am right now).
Even in act 2 the only things that would be triggering force armor are the thrown bombs from the lacuni (the base damage on those appears to be around 140k).
I did a search on the AH for each stat and kept bumping up the number until I hit the max. That was not including sockets. So while the max could be a little higher I am sure there was at least one item with 278 vit.
Act 1 is pretty much completely trivial with my gear now. I've spent a lot of money on some slots (my hat is insanely good and I think I spent around a million on it, will check when I get home from work) but I still die a fair bit in Act 2. I think that's because of my mere 16k health and I intend on investing as much as it takes into an item with vit soon.
I played a bit in Act 3 with Tom and Sky last night and force armor was proccing on basically every attack. Some guys were killing me in one hit through diamond skin!
My bad. I spent 600k on the hat and 400k on an amulet. The only other slot I've spent a significant amount of money on is weapon.
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