Some while ago, while I was testing some finer details regarding damage mitigation in the game, I stumbled across some curious phenomenon which can occur under certain circumstances. In theory, this phenomenon can be responsible for up to 4% damage mitigation being either applied or not applied, without you noticing which of the two cases it is. I think that I can explain precisely why and when it is happening, and I even have a conjecture where exactly in the programming of the game some part was implemented wrongly, in order for allowing this phenomenon to happen.
Being the uncaring scientist I am, I was pretty much satisfied once I understood how this phenomenon can occur, and didn't think about it much anymore thereafter. However, the other day it so happened that I showed and explained these things to an ingame friend of my mine again, and we had a lot of fun wondering about yet another of the many miracles that ESO has in store for us^^ Following up on this conversation, I decided it might be interesting after all to share this observations with everyone, both to provide some amusement for the community, and in order for ZOS to be able to fix a probably unintended inconsistency in some of their game mechanics. In order to make things a bit more interesting, I will however not explain immediately what is going on, but instead offer to you to follow the subsequent small list of steps to be taken, to first discover for yourself some pretty unexpected details about this game:
- Make sure your Vampire Stage is at least 2 and that it does not change over the course of the following steps
- Log into one of your characters and travel to your home.
- Put your Elemental Defender and Ironclad CP passives to 100.
- Choose some standard PvE Overland mob that deals direct spell damage and travel there (you can take, e.g., one of the Fire Atronachs at Spellscar in Craglorn)
- Let yourself being hit by the mob and write down the damage you received.
- Lower your Elemental Defender CP to 56.
- Let yourself being hit by the mob again and write down the damage you received.
- Think about it.
- EnjoyxD
Finishing this small advertisement and turning a bit more serious, I want to add the following comment: I am currently unaware whether this phenomenon is something that other people discovered before or not, and I am interested to hear feedback on that. Those of you that are here already a while longer might remember some ~2 years old thread of
@Asayre on how the order of spending your CP points in the Warrior category can affect the total damage mitigation you receive. The phenomenon is similar here, and some of the more knowledgeable people among you might already be able to deduce from this earlier discussion and the list of steps that I posted above what is happening. (Actually, I could never confirm the observations discussed in the quoted thread of
@Asayre myself. This might be due to the fact that following the publication of his thread, the game mechanics were changed, and I only tested his observations after the responsible problems had already been patched out. It might also be that the conditions triggering this phenomenon had not been understood correctly at the time, though of course I wouldn't dare to imply that
@Asayre had missed something in his analysis;) It's not really important which of the two cases is correct, the one insight it would provide, however, is whether the formulas for calculating damage mitigation have been flawed in just one place or in at least two places.)
I'll leave another post with an explanation of the phenomenon in a few days;)