Research into mob's total resist/mitigation + possible big conclusion

knightpuppyandreweb17_ESO

I've decided to experiment with ESO's monster armor/spell resistance on the live server to try and determine their armor/%mitigation relation and also possible their maximum armor.

I will present bellow my tests, result and possible conclusion that could have a revelation regarding monsters. Keep in mind this research is not complete, plus I worked mostly with magic/flame damage, and I could be completely wrong in my assumptions or calculation, and if so please do correct or debate why you think so.

Firstly I've accumulated a table of damage from different attacks/skills and with different levels of penetration:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u_6bBfD6ZvoRxo05WRqdrRpx72t7su7TfG0sfSGY5B8/edit?usp=sharing

The quantity of the table is not large but it speaks volume.
Let's take one of those lines and work with it, for example:

Molten Whip's damage
5157(max dmg) -> 100%
4742(with 5080 pen) -> ~91.952%
4229(with 100* pen) -> ~82.005%

*I was using Harven's Extended Stats to keep track of my spell penetration and it showed that my character had 100 phys/spell pen at all times. Bug or not I added it in case it is real, but it should barely impact the numbers if it is not true.

Taking the last two numbers we can result that 4980 monster spell resist mitigates ~9.947% of the damage taken and going further we find that ~500.653 monster spell resist mitigates 1% of the damage taken.
Knowing how much is 1% mitigation in monsters, we can calculate the total spell resist of the monster (Assassin Bettle btw) by comparing the max damage and the 100 pen damage, where 17.995% of the damage was mitigated, resulting in the monster's total resist of 9,009.250 spell resist or ~9k.

By doing the same math for the other 3 skills, we get roughly the same results of 1% mitigation being ~500.653 spell resist and the monster has a total of ~9k spell resist, which is supported by that fact that at 10360 spell pen the output damage of the spells becomes their maximum possible damage and from this it can be said that resistance can not be reduced below 0 and having more spell pen than the monsters total spell resist does not result in increased damage beyond the skills maximum damage.
Also, I am pretty sure the mat is good since my results spanning all 4 skills have an accuracy of ~0.002% which I blame on the game rounding up or down the numbers which can mess with the results in the end.

If it can be agreed upon the fact that the above method is good and can be used in determining monster's maximum armor/spell resist then we can proceed to the next phase of testing it for different types and difficulty of monsters.

While trying to assemble new damage tables for different monsters, a pattern appears. No matter what the monster was: normal, small boss, delve boss, over-world mini boss or world boss, the resulted damage numbers I obtained were identical with the first damage table*. This would mean that all those monster have the same total spell resistance, which we have calculated above as being ~9k. I have even entered several veteran dungeons/trials and tested on the first normal mobs and can confirm they follow the same rule, but I have not managed to test it on actual bosses.

*The exceptions that I have found where mobs that had no resist to flame or magic damage, for example frost atronachs.

In conclusion, I suggest we try to theorize how can this apply to a real in-game situation.
Let us take vMoL for example. If it were to be confirmed that all monsters in vMoL have a maximum of 9k phys/spell resistance and take into consideration that a well-organised group will have around 20k phys/spell reduction it would mean that the group has 2.22 times more penetration than it needs, knowing that more penetration than the monster's maximum resist does not result in more damage. It would mean that your typical DD needs to only have sharpened weapons (not even golden) and a tank with pierce armor to be able to bypass any and all resistance, and all those other resources previously used for resistance reduction can be put to better use.


As a last note into the research, I would like to point to the fact that I have presented the case for only flame/magic damage and it does not mean it will apply to physical damage and it's branches as well, but short test with physical weapons and skill showed very similar results in term of mitigation and possible total armor. But compared to my posted damage table, with flame and magic damage which I have tested multiple times on multiple mobs and delve/world bosses, I can not confirm nor deny it.

Also since I was unable to test my method on dungeon or trial bosses I will not say yay/nay until sufficient test are made, but taking into consideration the fact that all other mobs/bosses I have tested it on showed to prove my theory including normal monsters found at the entrance of veteran dungeons/trials, I can say it leans towards the fact that all mobs in ESO have a base resist of 9k, something that might have even been discovered way back in 2014 but not fully explored: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/110849/armor-of-monsters-how-does-it-work

Edit: Thanks to @Berenhir for pointing out this thread https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/289430/new-mob-mitigation-values-for-one-tamriel that did similar calculation to what I have done since OT, just more in detail and it included dungeon/trial monsters, and more or less this thread and that one support each other in their findings. After doing several damage tests on mobs inside trials and veteran dungeon, I have also come to the conclusion that they have roughly 18k resist.
But there is one mention that I will make. In my tests of World Bosses I have yet to find one that had 18k resist, as presented in the other thread, but that most of them have 9k resist unless they are resistant or vulnerable to certain types of damage, i.e. the frost atronach in Nilata Falls, Bangkorai has 9k resist to magic but 0 resist to flame, and so I believe WB's belong in the Overland category and not the Dungeon one.

For those that have questions or proof to further approve or disapprove what I have presented above, please leave a comment here and I will try to get to respond to each and one of them.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Well it is good to show the number in more then one way and I appreciate the math you used to find this, you could have came to this conclusion faster by using the two hander ulti that gives you the armor you bypass.

Berenhir

Edit:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/289430/new-mob-mitigation-values-for-one-tamriel

Asmael

Trial mobs have 18k resistances (double that of Overland mobs). Another thing to take into account for penetration in a 12-men situation is that not all buffs have a guarantee 100% uptime. Sharpened + Major Fracture/Breach (+ Light armor passive if applicable) have (close to) 100% uptime, Alkosh, Minor fracture/breach - not so much.

Berenhir

Asmael wrote: »

Trial mobs have 18k resistances (double that of Overland mobs). Another thing to take into account for penetration in a 12-men situation is that not all buffs have a guarantee 100% uptime. Sharpened + Major Fracture/Breach (+ Light armor passive if applicable) have (close to) 100% uptime, Alkosh, Minor fracture/breach - not so much.

Dungeon mobs have 18k since OT as well.

MartinDeShade

I thought when One Tamriel came out people found all mobs in dungeons had 18200 resists, but had half that for everything else.

Ahzek

Now I dont want to *** on all your hard work here, but you could also just get naked and use the 2H ult on all targerts you want to test the mitigation of.

knightpuppyandreweb17_ESO

Asmael wrote: »

Trial mobs have 18k resistances (double that of Overland mobs). Another thing to take into account for penetration in a 12-men situation is that not all buffs have a guarantee 100% uptime. Sharpened + Major Fracture/Breach (+ Light armor passive if applicable) have (close to) 100% uptime, Alkosh, Minor fracture/breach - not so much.

I have read other posts about this subject and will entertain the trails/dungeon mobs having 18.200 phys/spell resistance. Subtracting the values of 5160 (sharpened gold) and 5280 (major breach/fracture) then we have 7,760 resistance remaining and 2,876 spell resistance if we take out the bonus from Concentration (4884), to make it even let's say most stam dd's run twice fanged (5000) which results in 2,760 phys resistance in the end.
In this case, if the tank has alkosh(3010) it would mean that the resistance will be most of the time at 0 and there is no need for crusher, minor breach/fracture, kra'gh or night mother since they will be just an overkill in both single and mostly aoe situations.

The point that I am trying to get here is the fact that, from my knowledge, most groups will run more penetration than needed. Also, my presented situation might not be the most optimal but I wanted to prove that 0 resistance can be obtained without needing all those tools, but just a couple, plus the fact that if we take into consideration that most dd builds have around 10 cp points into pen (~700) it would mean that even alkosh is a bit too much.