Some help for a noob

[Watto44]

10% more armor (adds up to nothing thanks to diminishing returns)
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Sorry to hijack your thread, but I'm interested to here what the lurkers have to say about armor and diminishing returns.

I refer you to one of Mongo's guildies, Drakkdude's post.

Section 6: Armor and "Diminishing Returns"

      The more armor you have, the less Damage Reduction you will gain from each point of armor you add. Let's investigate this idea by taking a look at the Damage Reduction formula:

            Damage Reduction = Armor / (Armor + 85*level + 400)

            http://www.worldofwar.net/guides/damagereduction.php
      Now assuming that you're level 60, here's a chart showing how much of a difference adding 2750 armor will make in terms of damage reduction.

Armor  Damage Reduction DR% Gained Armor Gained

0  0.00 %

2750  33.33 %  +33.33 % +2750 Armor

5500  50.00 %  +16.67 % +2750 Armor

8250  60.00 %  +10.00 % +2750 Armor

11000  66.67 %  +6.67 %  +2750 Armor

13750  71.43 %  +4.76 %  +2750 Armor

16500  75.00 %  +3.57 %  +2750 Armor



      So with the same exact increase in armor, we can clearly see that the Damage Reduction gained is less and less and less for the more armor you have.

      BUT! Let's not wrap this up just yet! Let's take this hypothetical situation:

      Say you have 1000 hitpoints and you're fighting a mob that hits for 100 every second. Knowing how much armor gives a certain damage reduction, we can then figure out how much DPS the mob will actually be doing by simply subtracting 100 - DR%, since it's a simple 100 DPS. Then we can find out how long you will live by dividing 1000 health by the incoming DPS. Here are the results:

Armor DR %  Incoming DPS Time to Live Seconds of Life Gained

0 0.00 %  100.00 DPS 10 sec

2750 33.33 %  66.67 DPS 15 sec  +5 sec of life

5500 50.00 %  50.00 DPS 20 sec  +5 sec of life

8250 60.00 %  40.00 DPS 25 sec  +5 sec of life

11000 66.67 %  33.33 DPS 30 sec  +5 sec of life

13750 71.43 %  28.57 DPS 35 sec  +5 sec of life

16500 75.00 %  25.00 DPS 40 sec  +5 sec of life



      Notice anything between the two charts? Even though the damage reduction % gained is less and less as we add 2750 armor, the time to live is increased by the same EXACT amount each time. And thus, while there certainly is diminishing returns on "Damage Reduction", there is absolutely no diminishing returns on armor itself :)

This matches my play experience, where I can notice the difference when I'm temporary tanking in my mixed gear compaired to tanking in my tanking gear.

What does everyone else think of this?

Again, sorry to hijack. To get slightly back on topic, my advice is to level a bunch of different classes to 15 or 20 just to get the feel for things and see which on you like. :) And don't worry about going slow, enjoy leveling and exploring, it's certainly some of the most fun I've had in WoW. :)

edit. /sigh...mucked up the link again. Note to self: less drink, more think. :blush: