Shielding with CP and Minor/Major Ward/Resolve

dpencil1 · November 2018

I wanted to look at how to get the most out of shield strength beyond increasing size via adding health. Since damage to shields and damage to health is the same, increasing resistances benefits a shield user both when a shield is up and when it is down. This is why some players have opted for using heavy armor, but I am looking from the perspective of a 5-1-1 light armor build.

Tested in Lava (considered flame damage over time and therefore using Spell Resistance)
My personal stats: Spell Resistance = 12295, 8 Spell Shield, 31 Thick Skinned, 75 Ele Defender

Damage done by Lava:
No Buffs - 4231
Minor Ward - 4146 (-2%)
Major Ward - 3891 (-8%)
Minor and Major Ward - 3806 (-10%)

Conclusion: Major Ward/Resolve provides about 8% damage mitigation, with diminishing returns as one stacks more into resistances. Combined, the Wards offer about 10% damage mitigation.

Using a PTS character to swap various Champion Points:

Damage done by Lava:
5205 no CP
4752 no CP AND Major Ward (-8%)
4752 w 100 Spell Shield (-8%)
4299 w 100 Spell Shield AND Major Ward (-17%, 9% from Ward)
4425 w 100 Ele Defender (-15%)
4039 w 100 Ele Defender AND Major Ward (-22.4%, 7.4% from Ward)
3904 w 100 Thick Skinned (-25%)
3564 w 100 Thick Skinned AND Major Ward (31.5%, 6.5% from Ward)
3067 w 70 Spell Shield, 100 Ele Defender, 100 Thick Skinned (-41%)
2777 w 70 Spell Shield, 100 Ele Defender, 100 Thick Skinned AND Major Ward (-46%, 5% from Ward)
2844 w 70 Spell Shield, 100 Ele Defender, 100 Thick Skinned, Lady Mundus (7 divines = 4059 resist) (-45.3%, 4.3% from Lady)
2554 w 70 Spell Shield, 100 Ele Defender, 100 Thick Skinned, Lady Mundus, AND Major Ward (-50.9%, 5.6% from Ward)
2482 w 70 Spell Shield, 100 Ele Defender, 100 Thick Skinned, Lady Mundus, AND Major+Minor Ward (-52.3%, 7% from both Wards)

Conclusion: Thick Skinned and Ironclad will have the biggest impact, Ele Defender and Hardy after that, with Spell Shield and Armor Focus being least effective. The benefits of Major/Minor Ward/Resolve continue to diminish in effectiveness as more points/buffs are added. CP has a much more significant impact, offering about 40% damage reduction on its own if maxed toward a particular kind of damage.

Final Note: Bastion does nothing useful. It does not increase shield "effectiveness," only shield size, and not beyond the health cap. Any magicka-based character will easily be able to hit the health cap without any need to invest in this star. I do hope it gets reworked in the future to offer additional shield size OVER the cap.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · November 2018

Actually I will disagree on bastion. It still has uses. It might not in PVE scenario for a non Sorc where your health is already low, but in PVP it’s still a useful tree to spend a few points.

The current build I am running in PvP has me just under 25k health and about 42k magic. I don’t thnk it makes sense to stack wildly into max magic anymore and opted to go for more health and more spell damage.

I only had to spend a few points to ensure I was always at the 50% cap based on my base health, but I actually went a bit above that. Lots of ways to get boosts to your health in PVP. It’s very common to have my health more like 28-29k. I needed some points in bastion to ensure I stay at the cap.

Not saying it’s a tree you should dump 50-60pts into, but saying it’s useless is not quite accurate.

vyrzeden · November 2018

It's also not wasted on a tank looking to get some mileage out of shields. Arguably in PvE, they get the most out of it now since the shields they have access to have some headroom (bone shield) and they will have higher resists to begin with. The math also changes a bit with shields since ONLY resists factor in as opposed to block/CP/resists when damaged directly to health.

WrathOfInnos · November 2018

There’s something strange going on with those numbers, has the mitigation formula changed?

Looking specifically at your lava test, you had 13615 Spell Resistance, which means 20.63% reduction in damage or 79.37% taken (holding base damage and other multipliers like CP constant), and the lava hit you for 3831. Then you added Major Ward, bringing spell resistance to 18895, for 28.63% reduction or 71.37% taken. The new value for the lava tick should have been:

3831 X (71.37/79.37) = 3445

Instead you observed 3491. What is going on here?

Edit: Did you mean 13615 resist after Major and Minor Ward? So about 7015 before buffs. That would make a little more sense with those lava tick values, but also would mean you’re missing some armor pieces or passives.

MartiniDaniels · November 2018

Problem with those calculations is that base resistance works against all types of damage not only against environmental lava

dpencil1 · November 2018

@WrathOfInnos
Yeah, when I listed my spell resistance I forgot I had Bound Aegis up. I corrected it in the OP, and weirdly my damage was also different, so I went ahead and did a whole new set of calculations. I think it's all right now! Thanks for checking.

Illuvatarr · November 2018

This is interesting.

I am curious to know more about your analysis. Specifically, were your resists zeroed out when applying major and minor ward? The reason why I ask is because the damage equation/damage mitigation equation place the highest value due to the location of the resist number in the equation, on penetration and resist. They are mutually exclusive from other damage mitigation numbers (including flat percentage mitigation) and you would need to break them out individually in order to see the net impact of 1 point of resist versus 1 point of percentage mitigation.

There should be a diminishing marginal return to resists as you have shown, however, it doesn't take into account the CP cost as you move past 37 points. That is the apex of the curve and once you get past it as you have noted by your analysis (implicit in your findings) each additional point to any CP add is diminishing. It would logically seem to get everything to 37 to maximize CP point utilization and mitigation. Once that is done, this analysis becomes more relevant.

All of that being said, the percentage addition of resists is inherently diluted because the other mitigation numbers are having an impact as well and their effect appear later on in the equation. Flat mitigation when applied to another player (such as minor maim) is a different matter entirely. I would be curious to see how that is calculated in practice.

dpencil1 · November 2018

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paulsimonps · November 2018

Doesn't this just show things that have been known for several years? Also if you had the resistance first and then add the CP you could just as well say that the CP is giving less the more you put into it. Since they are all multiplicative with each other the order of operation doesn't care which comes first or last(As long as we are talking about only things before the damage shield). There is obviously a point where too much into certain CP stats will give you less overall mitigation than if you were to put them into your resistance stats, finding that balance is how you maximize surviability. So yes, if your character is at max cap for damage shields for either light armor or sorc then resistance or hp is your only option of increasing your survivability, and depending on your class and race one is easier to acquire than the other after a certain point.

dpencil1 · November 2018

@paulsimonps
Yeah, no disagreement with anything you said. I was mainly just working things out for myself and I like using forum posts to do that sometimes. I'd never personally experimented with all the various interrelationships and wanted to make my findings public just in case anyone would benefit from that. And head, if you don't have much CP to spend on resistance then Major/Minor Ward will be a better investment.

paulsimonps · November 2018

dpencil1 wrote: »

@paulsimonps
Yeah, no disagreement with anything you said. I was mainly just working things out for myself and I like using forum posts to do that sometimes. I'd never personally experimented with all the various interrelationships and wanted to make my findings public just in case anyone would benefit from that. And head, if you don't have much CP to spend on resistance then Major/Minor Ward will be a better investment.

Indeed, and a Magsorc for example has easy access to all 4 of them with Boundless Storm and Bound Aegis. As well does Nightblades with Mirage and Shadow Barrier, but depending on set up their Major up times might not always be the best. This is one of the great reasons for having a Support Warden in your group as well for their AoE Major Ward/Resolve, combine that with a healer running Combat Prayer(be it a warden healer or warden tank) you get Major and Minor Ward and Resolve for the whole team regardless of their set ups and class. In a 4 man dungeon at least, in Trials we are obviously limited in how many those can hit from just one source.

Amdar_Godkiller · November 2018

I was actually helping someone on reddit with figuring this out last night.

There is a point where armor focus and spell shield become more valuable than hardy and elemental defender, but unless you're over 29100 resistance before factoring in CP, the latter will always be better.

Everyone should pretty much have at least:

51 CP in ironclad and thick-skinned

27 CP in elemental defender and hardy

At 16500 resistance, you're at 25% mitigation, so Hardy, ele def, TS, and IC are all worth 75% of their normal value.

So 1% gained from ele def and hardy = 75% x 660 resistance (the equivalent of 1% mitigation) = 495 resistance

This means that every jump point with the 4 non-resistance based mitigation stars is equal to 495 from armor focus and spell shield.

resistance though doesn't have diminishing returns in this one capacity. The more resistance you have prior to CP the more you'll get from armor focus and spell shield, and conversely you'll get relatively less from the other 4.

At 33K, max resistance

.5 x 660 = 330 resistance from armor focus/spell shield equals a jump point.

At say, 10K resistance, which is effectively base mitigation at around 15%, you need

.85 x 660 = 561 resistance from spell shield and armor focus per jump point. That means that some light armor builds need 6 points in Armor focus to equal the first two points of ironclad or the first 4 points of hardy.

Now if you are over 29100, you're at 44% mitigation, so

660 x .559 = 369 resistance is equal to a jump point, which means that you get about the same from putting 7 in each of AF and SS (~720 resistance) that you would from investing 7 in ED and Hardy (2%).

As a light armor build, you want 66 in thick-skinned and ironclad, 37 in hard and ele defender,50-60 in resistant, and between 0 and 15 in AF and SS.

Biro123 · November 2018

I'm not sure that view is correct. Surely diminishing returns apply to all sources equally? And the more multiplicive sources you add, the more the effectiveness of all the multiplicive sources is reduced? I don't see why one source (eg resists ) would be immune to that.

paulsimonps · November 2018

Biro123 wrote: »

I'm not sure that view is correct. Surely diminishing returns apply to all sources equally? And the more multiplicive sources you add, the more the effectiveness of all the multiplicive sources is reduced? I don't see why one source (eg resists ) would be immune to that.

You are correct and I did it earlier in this thread as well, you can take any source of mitigation first ir last and say that the last one us weaker cause of the other sources but it's not how it works. The way Amdar showed it is very confusing and missleading. As well one got to remember that the individual sources, most importantly resistance is additive within itself when gaining strenght.

IAVITNI · November 2018

Biro123 wrote: »

I'm not sure that view is correct. Surely diminishing returns apply to all sources equally? And the more multiplicive sources you add, the more the effectiveness of all the multiplicive sources is reduced? I don't see why one source (eg resists ) would be immune to that.

I think he was accounting for diminishing returns from CP investment.

At least that's how I read it.

Also, resistance CP is added to a multiplier (Character Resistance) so he equated resistance to jump points (of which I assume are a full % in Hardy/ED etc.). So technically, resists is not immune to your statement. Solely with respect to CP, it is additive before it is multiplicative.