Adding HP Vs Adding Defense

GilgamCly - Raging Tide · February 2012

I am wondering about the difference between adding HP vs some defense to a character's stats. It seems everyone adds HP in there sockets to build up there resistance to damage, to stay alive. What is better more HP or more defense.

But I want to know what happens when an attack is made. What is the effect of physical defense and/or Magic defense against an attack, What happens? Does the defense absorb the attack, and how much, is there damage over flow and how much?

I would think it wou;d work like this;
Our Character has 1000 Physical defense and 3500 HP.
An attack by a mob deals 2500 hit points.
In straight theory 2500-1000= 1500 over flow damage reducing characters HP to 2000 (3500-1500)
But I realize it is probably more complicated than that. It could have factors that effect the efficiency of both the defense and the character's HP pool which would improve or deplete the effect of the attack. So many factors could effect the out come; like character's Class, Level, STR, DEX, VIT, MAG, each type and grade of equipment just to name a few.

If anyone has knowledge of how this work I really would like to know. I would like it better if adding defense was better than adding the HP because that is the way I would make it.
Is there a better way to do things or do I just keep adding all the HP I can get (which doesn't seem like a lot at higher levels anyway)?

Bobobejumbo - Raging Tide · February 2012

GilgamCly - Raging Tide wrote: »

I am wondering about the difference between adding HP vs some defense to a character's stats. It seems everyone adds HP in there sockets to build up there resistance to damage, to stay alive. What is better more HP or more defense.

But I want to know what happens when an attack is made. What is the effect of physical defense and/or Magic defense against an attack, What happens? Does the defense absorb the attack, and how much, is there damage over flow and how much?

I would think it wou;d work like this;
Our Character has 1000 Physical defense and 3500 HP.
An attack by a mob deals 2500 hit points.
In straight theory 2500-1000= 1500 over flow damage reducing characters HP to 2000 (3500-1500)
But I realize it is probably more complicated than that. It could have factors that effect the efficiency of both the defense and the character's HP pool which would improve or deplete the effect of the attack. So many factors could effect the out come; like character's Class, Level, STR, DEX, VIT, MAG, each type and grade of equipment just to name a few.

If anyone has knowledge of how this work I really would like to know. I would like it better if adding defense was better than adding the HP because that is the way I would make it.
Is there a better way to do things or do I just keep adding all the HP I can get (which doesn't seem like a lot at higher levels anyway)?

Everything you need is here.

StormHydra - Sanctuary · February 2012

Adding defense is only good if you already have low defense of that stat because of diminishing returns. i.e. The higher phys defense you have, the more phys defense you will need to add to raise the % damage reduction.

e.g. Physical defense shards are better on robe classes because they have really low phys defense already.

But at higher levels when you have high defenses of everything, it's probably better to add HP shards, because HP doesn't have any diminishing returns at all.

Aracnius - Dreamweaver · February 2012

Bobobejumbo - Raging Tide wrote: »

Everything you need is here.

yet pokemon equations ares till more complex...

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973 · February 2012

StormHydra - Sanctuary wrote: »

Adding defense is only good if you already have low defense of that stat because of diminishing returns. i.e. The higher phys defense you have, the more phys defense you will need to add to raise the % damage reduction.

e.g. Physical defense shards are better on robe classes because they have really low phys defense already.

But at higher levels when you have high defenses of everything, it's probably better to add HP shards, because HP doesn't have any diminishing returns at all.

Defense and HP have the same linear returns

DemansPsy - Lost City · February 2012

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

Defense and HP have the same linear returns

....Technially they both have dimishing returns (% wise anyway), the pure amount they give is the same but % amount of increase to p def or hp max decreases with each additional point added, the difference being that on top of that the actually p def amount added also counts for less as well while the hp added always counts for the same, making sharding p/m def shards at high level nearly worthless.

MiniST - Sanctuary · February 2012

DemansPsy - Lost City wrote: »

....Technially they both have dimishing returns (% wise anyway), the pure amount they give is the same but % amount of increase to p def or hp max decreases with each additional point added, the difference being that on top of that the actually p def amount added also counts for less as well while the hp added always counts for the same, making sharding p/m def shards at high level nearly worthless.

when you add defense, there is a diminishing return relative to the % def, but in reality you have to take into account that it's the 1-%def that really matters since that's the portion of the damage you will take. The higher the defense, the smaller the returns for increased def in the %def part, but since you have a very small 1-%def, the relative increase in def is pretty much linear.

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973 · February 2012

DemansPsy - Lost City wrote: »

....Technially they both have dimishing returns (% wise anyway), the pure amount they give is the same but % amount of increase to p def or hp max decreases with each additional point added, the difference being that on top of that the actually p def amount added also counts for less as well while the hp added always counts for the same, making sharding p/m def shards at high level nearly worthless.

I can't tell why you think sharding pdef shards at high level is worthless... it's obviously not.
Way too many people think sharding defense has diminishing returns while sharding HP does not.

They both have constant returns. Both are only diminishing in the sense you are comparing a constant value to an ever increasing base.

Hurrdurr - Lothranis · February 2012

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

I can't tell why you think sharding pdef shards at high level is worthless... it's obviously not.
Way too many people think sharding defense has diminishing returns while sharding HP does not.

They both have constant returns. Both are only diminishing in the sense you are comparing a constant value to an ever increasing base.

That post is missing some mathematical proofs!

Olbaze - Sanctuary · February 2012

Hurrdurr - Lothranis wrote: »

That post is missing some mathematical proofs!

I used to do that: I took a simple question, spend 30 minutes on the math, posted it and it ended up with people pretty much not giving a damn. And it was particularly annoying when unsuspecting noobs got caught by trolls who quoted me and went "Lol, wrong."

Hurrdurr - Lothranis · February 2012

Olbaze - Sanctuary wrote: »

I used to do that: I took a simple question, spend 30 minutes on the math, posted it and it ended up with people pretty much not giving a damn. And it was particularly annoying when unsuspecting noobs got caught by trolls who quoted me and went "Lol, wrong."

I can't get my head around how defences are linear when the %reduction requires more defences as the %reduction goes up.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver · February 2012

Hurrdurr - Lothranis wrote: »

I can't get my head around how defences are linear when the %reduction requires more defences as the %reduction goes up.

Because 1% of a really freakin huge number is still better than 1% of a small level 10 number.

There was a nice graph somewhere, it boiled down to wanting a straight multiple of defence to hitpoints - prefer to increase whichever is lower.

Hurrdurr - Lothranis · February 2012

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Because 1% of a really freakin huge number is still better than 1% of a small level 10 number.

There was a nice graph somewhere, it boiled down to wanting a straight multiple of defence to hitpoints - prefer to increase whichever is lower.

I still don't get it. Surely that's against defences are linear? 1% off 10,000 damage is surely better than 1% off 5,000 damage assuming in the 2nd case you have 50% damage reduction due to existing defences only?

ITzDevious - Lost City · February 2012

Lots of derpin' going on. You guys need an archer OR that one cleric who knows these fancy numbers in which you seek.

I do not know them, I am a simple mud skipper. b:surrender

Evilsnare - Lost City · February 2012

Both are good but PDEF shards are better on Caster Classes because they lack PDef (talking about casters that use Arcane Armor) but a mix of HP and PDEF shards works out well. LA users are pretty balanced in terms of defence because they have average PDef and average MDef, but a mix of HP and PDef is also good because they have more MDef than PDef and (Assassins and Archers, there are LA venos with a lot of HP) they are squishy so they need HP. HA users lack MDef so a mix of HP and MDef shards work well.

As for endgame, I don't think you should put any HP shards because endgame gears are usually very highly refined which gives alot of HP already.

b:pleased

Plus there are many things that change the damage that mobs deal, for example, the more PDef you have, the less damage Physical Mobs will deal to you.

Hurrdurr - Lothranis · February 2012

Evilsnare - Lost City wrote: »

Both are good but PDEF shards are better on Caster Classes because they lack PDef (talking about casters that use Arcane Armor) but a mix of HP and PDEF shards works out well. LA users are pretty balanced in terms of defence because they have average PDef and average MDef, but a mix of HP and PDef is also good because they have more MDef than PDef and (Assassins and Archers, there are LA venos with a lot of HP) they are squishy so they need HP. HA users lack MDef so a mix of HP and MDef shards work well.

As for endgame, I don't think you should put any HP shards because endgame gears are usually very highly refined which gives alot of HP already.

b:pleased

Plus there are many things that change the damage that mobs deal, for example, the more PDef you have, the less damage Physical Mobs will deal to you.

I lol'd and realised either the poster is in 4x or a troll.

Olbaze - Sanctuary · February 2012

Hurrdurr - Lothranis wrote: »

I still don't get it. Surely that's against defences are linear? 1% off 10,000 damage is surely better than 1% off 5,000 damage assuming in the 2nd case you have 50% damage reduction due to existing defences only?

See here.

SashaGray - Heavens Tear · February 2012

The simplest way i can think to demonstrate linear returns on defenses is

you need 50% to reduce phys damage taken by 1/2
you need 75% to reduce phys damage taken by 3/4

while you need twice as much pdef to be 75 as you do 50%. the damage recieved is half as much.

Michael_Dark - Lost City · February 2012

DemansPsy - Lost City wrote: »

....Technially they both have dimishing returns (% wise anyway), the pure amount they give is the same but % amount of increase to p def or hp max decreases with each additional point added, the difference being that on top of that the actually p def amount added also counts for less as well while the hp added always counts for the same, making sharding p/m def shards at high level nearly worthless.

I used to argue the same as you're doing, I've given up because it's a losing argument. Technically, you get the same damage decrease adding 1000 pdef/mdef to a character with 1000 def or as you would to a char with 10000 def, so Asterelle is actually correct.

The reason why I argued that it was a diminishing return is because you can't just keep adding defenses however you want, it comes at a cost and at some point going higher than you are would cost more. So for a cost analysis, it's a diminishing return, but not for point statistics only.

The same is true with HP as well though. The cost of an Immaculate compared to a Vit stone, you're paying far more per point for a Vit stone than you are an Immaculate. So there is a diminishing return in cost.

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973 · February 2012

SashaGray - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The simplest way i can think to demonstrate linear returns on defenses is

you need 50% to reduce phys damage taken by 1/2
you need 75% to reduce phys damage taken by 3/4

while you need twice as much pdef to be 75 as you do 50%. the damage recieved is half as much.

This is close to correct but you actually need 3 times as much defense for 75% than as for 50%.

Suppose you have like 5000 hp and 0 pdef... you can take 5000 damage before you die.

4000 pdef gives you 50% reduction (an "increase of 50% from 0%")
So at 5000 hp and 4000 pdef you can take 10000 damage before you die...
- the 4000 additional pdef gave increase of 5000

8000 pdef gives you 66% reduction (an "increase of 16.6% from 50%")
So at 5000 hp and 8000 pdef you can take 15000 damage before you die...
- the 4000 additional pdef gave increase of 5000

12000 pdef gives you 75% reduction (an "increase of 8.3% from 66%")
So at 5000 hp and 12000 pdef you can take 20000 damage before you die...
- the 4000 additional pdef gave increase of 5000

You would have seen this same pattern by leaving pdef at 0 and adding chunks of 5000 hp.

Of course the smart thing to do is to increase both at the same time but they both give constant returns.

TCHP - Lost City · February 2012

i think you also need to look in to the main job your class will play. I've been playing a cleric for a while ( since start ). I started has a LA cleric. While every one told me it was fail, they were a bit surprise when they got in a fight whit me. Back then there was no sin and Lunar was the best gear. At LV 80 i could hold a 90 BM for 15 minute until 1 of us finally 3 spark crit the other. My LA build was +5 refine on HH80 gold. All my shard were HPG7 cause I had no point to put in vit for the requirement. If I had been AA and had wanted the same effect I would probably have put 50 to 70% of my shard in P def and the rest in HP. Giving me mostly the same build except for the damage output.

recently I have been building a veno to farm HH old style. Most experience Veno player suggested I use HP gem instead of P def. The job here being different, is that the veno need More HP to survive massive AOE form some boss. Witch probably deal magic AOE damage. ( I haven't done any playing on this yet. Making an educated guess from my cleric experience)

i would say the same goes for the barb, whit his vit build. were the true goal of the huge HP is to give other players time to help him survive. Has the Sin use blood paint to gain time over damage.

Deciding how your going to play your class is gonna influence the gem you need. My old cleric is now AA ( Because the game lack good LA gear for caster ). At 1st I went all HP and no P def but I soon found out it was not my style. So I started farming Gear whit P def attribute. At high level you have to chose an other important side for caster. Toughness vs Damage speed. Most gear are channel vs defense. if you ask a barb VIT build barb how much he likes his low M def, Caster will give you the same answer.

Unless you can afford end of game +12 refining And lol when normal people best spell remove only 25% or a lot less HP, I'm thinking you should try to find a balance for your style of playing.

IMO I favor HP gem over P def. But I do seek other ways to increase my P def. i think around LV 80 you could test the option at relatively low cost whit G7 shard. And decide what is best for your class and style.

Michael_Dark - Lost City · February 2012

TCHP - Lost City wrote: »

i think you also need to look in to the main job your class will play. I've been playing a cleric for a while ( since start ). I started has a LA cleric. While every one told me it was fail, they were a bit surprise when they got in a fight whit me. Back then there was no sin and Lunar was the best gear. At LV 80 i could hold a 90 BM for 15 minute until 1 of us finally 3 spark crit the other. My LA build was +5 refine on HH80 gold. All my shard were HPG7 cause I had no point to put in vit for the requirement. If I had been AA and had wanted the same effect I would probably have put 50 to 70% of my shard in P def and the rest in HP. Giving me mostly the same build except for the damage output.

LA was good back then. However, even the most prolific PvP LA Cleric that I knew of, Pharoah, he even restat to arcane when higher level shards became available. LA was a great choice when Beautiful shards were considered OP.

Burnout - Harshlands · February 2012

Ok, I'm gonna try to put this into the absolute simplest terms so that anyone can understand it, with the minimum amount of math possible.

Adding defense does not give diminishing returns.

Why is this so?

Each 1 additional point of P. def reduction ALWAYS reduces the damage you take by the SAME amount, for any given attack. If you subtract 100 from 1000, you get 900. If you subtract 100 from 101, you get 1. The 2nd example takes away a bigger chunk of the damage because the number is smaller.

P. def works in a similar way. Since each 1% of p. def subtracts the exact same damage as any other 1%, it will have a bigger effect on smaller numbers.

Put in another way...

Suppose you had 10,000 people in a stadium. If security removed 5 people, no one is likely to notice. But now suppose security repeated this procedure 1998 times. You now have 10 people. If security removed 5 more people, it would now be a LOT more noticeable.

P. def works in a similar way. Each 1% reduction is like security removing 5 people from the stadium and never letting them come back.

The smaller the number, the greater the effect 1% p. def will have on damage. If you have 98% p. def, that means security removed 5 people from the stadium 98 times, and the number you have is very, very small, and the effect is very, very large by comparison, because each 1% p. def reduces damage by the same, static amount for any single given damage number.

For this reason there are no "diminishing returns" on p. def, because the effect gets GREATER the more p def % reduction you have. PWI just balanced it out so that it gets harder to get that extra 1% as the effect becomes greater.

GilgamCly - Raging Tide · February 2012

Wow thanks for all the replies, i often wondered if anyone ever read my questions LOL
There seems to be opinions about how Phys Def and HP actually works when those values increase and more is added but I get the basic idea. Also I would like to know where you get all the information to back up your claims and to do the math, not that I want to but it good to look at to make an estimate what will be the result.

Now, how does each compare during an actual attack? ie what is the resistance of Physi Def during an attack and what actual HP is effected by the remaining unchecked damage, is it 1 to 1 on the HP loss. An example for the sake of numbers; a Phys Def of 500 and HP of 5000 is hit with 1500 by a mob. Using a simple straight forward calculation with nothing extra what happens here? What damage is reduced by the Phys Def and what HP is loss?

Bobobejumbo - Raging Tide · February 2012

GilgamCly - Raging Tide wrote: »

Wow thanks for all the replies, i often wondered if anyone ever read my questions LOL
There seems to be opinions about how Phys Def and HP actually works when those values increase and more is added but I get the basic idea. Also I would like to know where you get all the information to back up your claims and to do the math, not that I want to but it good to look at to make an estimate what will be the result.

Now, how does each compare during an actual attack? ie what is the resistance of Physi Def during an attack and what actual HP is effected by the remaining unchecked damage, is it 1 to 1 on the HP loss. An example for the sake of numbers; a Phys Def of 500 and HP of 5000 is hit with 1500 by a mob. Using a simple straight forward calculation with nothing extra what happens here? What damage is reduced by the Phys Def and what HP is loss?

Assuming lvl 100, 11% reduction and 1335 HP is lost.

Nymphali - Dreamweaver · February 2012

GilgamCly - Raging Tide wrote: »

I am wondering about the difference between adding HP vs some defense to a character's stats. It seems everyone adds HP in there sockets to build up there resistance to damage, to stay alive. What is better more HP or more defense.

But I want to know what happens when an attack is made. What is the effect of physical defense and/or Magic defense against an attack, What happens? Does the defense absorb the attack, and how much, is there damage over flow and how much?

I would think it wou;d work like this;
Our Character has 1000 Physical defense and 3500 HP.
An attack by a mob deals 2500 hit points.
In straight theory 2500-1000= 1500 over flow damage reducing characters HP to 2000 (3500-1500)
But I realize it is probably more complicated than that. It could have factors that effect the efficiency of both the defense and the character's HP pool which would improve or deplete the effect of the attack. So many factors could effect the out come; like character's Class, Level, STR, DEX, VIT, MAG, each type and grade of equipment just to name a few.

If anyone has knowledge of how this work I really would like to know. I would like it better if adding defense was better than adding the HP because that is the way I would make it.
Is there a better way to do things or do I just keep adding all the HP I can get (which doesn't seem like a lot at higher levels anyway)?

Look, you need at least 6k hp, the squishier you are, this is the minimum you'll need at end-game.

Now, when it comes to HP vs Defenses, use Vitality stones, they add both b:avoid

EDIT:
Now seriously, higher defense means your pots will be more effective, hence why EVERYONE uses Jades of Steady Defense.

Toliman - Raging Tide · February 2012

GilgamCly - Raging Tide wrote: »

Wow thanks for all the replies, i often wondered if anyone ever read my questions LOL
There seems to be opinions about how Phys Def and HP actually works when those values increase and more is added but I get the basic idea. Also I would like to know where you get all the information to back up your claims and to do the math, not that I want to but it good to look at to make an estimate what will be the result.

Now, how does each compare during an actual attack? ie what is the resistance of Physi Def during an attack and what actual HP is effected by the remaining unchecked damage, is it 1 to 1 on the HP loss. An example for the sake of numbers; a Phys Def of 500 and HP of 5000 is hit with 1500 by a mob. Using a simple straight forward calculation with nothing extra what happens here? What damage is reduced by the Phys Def and what HP is loss?

Use Asterelle PWI Socket Calculator to calculate what you want.

Also don't forget, that damage reduction dependent from level of enemy (attacker level).

Baalbak - Dreamweaver · February 2012

according to some calculations that ive run in the past on a cleric.. sharding X amount of g9 citrines gave the same effective health return approximately as sharding the same amount of g9 garnets (when referring to physical endurance only). On the other hand, garnets do nothing for magical defenses - whereas sharding fully with citrines provided better effective health overall - as is generally the case.

to answer your question though - Defense is Better than Raw HP. This can be seen in Jades of Steady Defense being used in a full set - and usually accompanied by a blessing and gear set bonuses.

ravenleandra · February 2012

It's the same as asking a barb hp or mag rez....Altho u dont get a benifit from his hp buff the mag rez makes up for it mostl;y during instances with magic bosses.Learned my lesson back in the day with my old hp barb against wiz b:laugh

Just my thought.I prefer mag rez before hp makes his weakness his advandage b:victory

Toliman - Raging Tide · February 2012

ravenleandra wrote: »

It's the same as asking a barb hp or mag rez....Altho u dont get a benifit from his hp buff the mag rez makes up for it mostl;y during instances with magic bosses.Learned my lesson back in the day with my old hp barb against wiz b:laugh

Just my thought.I prefer mag rez before hp makes his weakness his advandage b:victory

Barbarian has more than enough HP.

Caster, especially Wizard has not.

So, if you don't want to be killed by one hit, you must have some HP.

If you have some HP, you can increase defense.

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary · February 2012

Huh...

I had lots of vit on my Sin in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. Indeed, the vit gave me a lot of HP in comparison to others of those levels, so I sharded for PDef.

Once I hit 100, I began to stat the vit points into Dex, and my defenses and HP dropped. Like, a lot. So instead, on my endgame gear, I sharded with vit shards, and now I have a lot of HP and somewhat good defenses.

So why not shard for both at the exact same time?

Adding HP Vs Adding Defense

Comments

Categories