Defense Rating

[nameless noob]

Greetings!

It seems to be the popular wisdom these days that Shaftstop, with its 30% DR is the best armor to give to your merc. Combined with Vampire Gaze, it can yield up to 50% PDR. The problem is that, compared to other available uniques, the Defense of Shaftstop is fairly low (~650)... Whereas the defense available on other armors can be as high as ~1800+.

It seems that in using this armor you trade off more hits for less damage per hit. The question is whether the 30% less damage offsets the increased hit frequency.

??

In addition, more frequent hits cause your merc to spend more time stunned/knocked back/in hit recovery, and therefore not dealing damage.

So I guess the questions would be:

Is shaftstop "the best" armor to give to a high level merc?
How big a difference does Defense make at hell difficulties?


Thanks in advance!

[Guest]

Many hell monsters have ITD, and difficult ones that don't have riduclusly high AR's. Somebody else can probably give you numbers, but I am of the opinion that your Merc is probably going to be hit a lot no matter what.

[ryan4nayr]

Aside from a skill/attack that has a Stun effect, any hit that reaches 1/10th or 1/12th of your total hp (forgot which, it's been a while since I've seriously played melee'ers) also stuns/ displays Hit Recovery animation. So if the hit's dmg is significantly decreased (i.e., 50% max PDR, items of Anima/Life Everlasting, etc.), might not even get stunned, merely lose life. Not only this, but certain "elemental" attacks such as Big D's LBoD & Gloam's Ltng have physical aspects that Defense rating cannot stave off.

The good part about tinkering with Defense is that when it comes to CtH%, clvl/hlvl also factors in. And perhaps the player's own crowd ctrl skills have as much to do with the defensive capabilities of the party as Defense ratings. Besides, both Shaftstop & VGaze are excellent ingredients in a certain cube recipe on ladder...

[nameless noob]

certain cube recipe on ladder

One assumes you mean the excetpional unique --> elite unique upgrade? I've considered this (if I could get the runes that is) but am unclear whether it would make enough of a difference to matter. And if it DOES make a big difference, would I be better off trading for armor with MUCH higher defense instead?

Is there a calculator that predicts CtH with different Defense levels and Monster types?

[IKKE]

according to a upgrade calcualter
a 220% shafstop ugraded to boneweave can get 1616 def