Curse

FoxBat · Feb 16, 2009, 06:12 AM // 06:12

The mantra we hear over and over again is that "monsters have way more armor in HM, therefore only armor-ignoring damage is worthwhile" - also arguments that "Searing Flames flattens normal mode but fails in hard" - both claims that don't totally square with experience. For example, SF does indeed flatten NM Nightfall through Kourna, but significantly falters in the realm of torment. I also was curious about the relation between monster armor and level, and whether the armor adjustment in HM was simply related to monster level.

To test I mostly used a Shatterstone ele with 15 water magic, which yields 100 damage vs 60 armor. That base 100 is just a number that makes calculating percentages convenient. I take the damage result, divide by 100, and look at the damage adjustment on the Extended armor rating and damage multiplier table. From this I can get the armor rating of whatever mob I'm facing.

I didn't test a huge range of monsters, but the ones I did arrive at were done fairly randomly. I fought them in both NM and HM. A large number (but not all) of monsters follow a simple baseline:

Level * 3 = Basic Armor

This notably parallels 20 * 3 = 60, which is basic caster armor. You then add the typical bonuses for the class: +10 for rangers with an extra +30 vs elemental, +20 for warriors and and extra +20 vs physical, etc. Caster classes typically get no bonus.

In the calculations to arrive at armor, you may often notice a discrepency of 1 armor point. I assume the game is rounding differently than a human looking at the above chart would. However I'm never off by more than 1 armor point.

Code:

Name		Lvl	Dmg	Arm

Flesh Golem	26	74	77
		24	83	71

Minotaur	20	71	80
		26	53	97

Dune Burrower	22	45	106
		26	37	118

Forgotten	20	100	60
		26	74	77/78

Sand Giant	22	64	86
		31	41	112

Mandrag Smo Dvl	24	41	112
		26	37	118

Pine Soul	28	33	124
		30	30	130

The bottom line is, to find the armor difference between NM and HM, simply find the level difference, and multiply by 3. That will give you the correct armor +/- 1 point.

There may be additional bonuses or penalties based on mob (e.g. titans get -20 to cold), as can be seen here. They still follow the baseline of lvl * 3, such as 28 * 3 = 84, -20 = 64 armor. (+20 again for the burning titan warrior)

Code:

Name		Lvl	Dmg	Arm

Risen Ash Hulk	28	95	63	
		30	87	68
		
Burning Titan	28	67	83
		30	62	88

Still there are some monsters tested that don't follow this system at all: notably enchanted armors in the desert, and avalanches in eye of the north. What's stranger though, is that their armor didn't increase, or not significantly, in HM. Only the enchanted ranger increased slightly to a cap of 100. There's an additional complication with a random armor range on swords, which I assume is a bonus from their randomly generated shields, making them not the greatest test subjects; but something to keep in mind with your armor calculations.

Code:

Name		Lvl	Dmg	Arm

Enchanted Ham	20	41	111/112
		26	41	111/112

Enchant Swo	20	30-32	125/126	
		20	30-32	125/126

Enchant Bow	20	57	92
		26	50	100


Avalanche	28	25	139-141	cold dmg
			76	76	fire dmg
		30	25		cold dmg
			76		fire dmg

Finally I tried this trick on some bosses. Golems followed the expected 3 armor per level, although it matched the monsters' new level. It didn't matter whether it was a "ranger" version (like melandru's cursed) or a caster version, so it appears that armor is determined by the class of the base monster type, not the boss itself.

For the enchanted sword boss, his armor is near the range that's identical in NM and HM- I assume he just got a bad shield.

Code:

Name		Lvl	Dmg	Arm

Golem Boss	28	67	83
		30	62	88

Ench Swo	30	33	123

From this data, it appears there are two types of monsters; the majority, which follow a lvl * 3 baseline, plus class bonii (and occasionally special monster bonii), and this accounts for their armor differences in bosses and/or hard mode. And there are a minority class which have an arbitrarily set armor level that does not scale past 100 (would need to find more enemies like the ranger to really test). Not tested were "special" boss monsters, I wouldn't be surprised if Mallyx or something has an extra armor boost in hard mode, but those kind of bosses are a tiny minority.

So what's the significance of this? For the most part, it looks like level determines armor, moreso than hard mode itself. Now a difference of lvl 20 vs lvl 26 enemies is significant- 18 more armor is about 25% damage reduction for you eles, while it's still zero reduction to armor-ignoring types; but in the more "elite" areas, level 24 vs level 26 enemies is just 6 armor, just a 10% difference.

So for "elite" areas, HM doesn't really add all that much armor. There are other factors though, such as greatly increased hit points, which means you could run out of savvanah heats before your monsters fall over; when enemies don't instantly fall over en masse to one or two AoE spells, suddenly it might make sense to take the time to set up and individually target them with discord spam. That's not to mention that HM enemies both move faster, and they detect AoE quicker and try to escape it.

The other view might be that Eles were never all that amazing damage in the NM elite areas in the first place, and they only really noticed how they were ineffective when going to every single HM lowbie area. Even in Realm of Torment Normal I noticed how much smoother things went going from SF spam to some armor-ignoring setup like sab/discordway or physicals+orders, but of course you have the "call to torment" compounding the AoE issue there. But such setups are really slow compared to how you can blow through NM Kournan insects with fire magic.

TL; DR: most enemies have level*3 + class bonus armor.
Enemies in HM and/or bosses have at most 3*extra levels worth of armor.

Konig Des Todes · Feb 16, 2009, 07:01 AM // 07:01

And thus proving those rumors wrong, that if one can handle a NM Elite area, as long as they can accomidate to the area, builds, and damage, there is no to little problem.

Nicely done.

Don't matter to me much as I've always done armor ignoring/degeneration as a Necromancer and as an assassin I see little difference as well.

Edit: I have forgotten something - health also increases 20*level difference for HM, which also counts to what makes it hard, having 60-240 additional health in the later areas would also be impacting the difficulty, however it does not go against the point of this thread - damage is not that much different due to armor.

Skyy High · Feb 16, 2009, 03:49 PM // 15:49

Quote:

The other view might be that Eles were never all that amazing damage in the NM elite areas in the first place, and they only really noticed how they were ineffective when going to every single HM lowbie area.

I'm going to say that this is most likely the correct interpretation.

FoxBat · Feb 16, 2009, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konig Des Todes

Edit: I have forgotten something - health also increases 20*level difference for HM, which also counts to what makes it hard, having 60-240 additional health in the later areas would also be impacting the difficulty, however it does not go against the point of this thread - damage is not that much different due to armor.

If it's a difference of just 2-3 levels (like it is in most "high-end" areas), and this data is accurate (never looked at it myself or seen someone else), then that isn't a big difference either really. It all comes down to large changes in monster level making something hard to kill moreso than HM itself (and with a large change, extra health and armor together just compound each other's effectiveness). There are other factors like faster movement/better AI, but those can be compensated for with the right setup.

As mentioned though, this really may just mean people need to re-evaluate their damage dealing in high-end NM. The vastly lower damage/speed may make NM monsters less threatening, but it can still take ages to burn through an ether seal or something with Savannah heats.

Age · Feb 17, 2009, 01:15 AM // 01:15

What does it say on it when it drops as I haven't done enough of HM?I can say in NM most lvl 24 have al32 to 35.

Chthon · Feb 17, 2009, 03:03 AM // 03:03

1. Excellent work.

2.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

Now a difference of lvl 20 vs lvl 26 enemies is significant- 18 more armor is about 25% damage reduction for you eles, while it's still zero reduction to armor-ignoring types; but in the more "elite" areas, level 24 vs level 26 enemies is just 6 armor, just a 10% difference.

But...

Quote:

[The claim] "Searing Flames flattens normal mode but fails in hard" [doesn't] totally square with experience. For example, SF does indeed flatten NM Nightfall through Kourna, but significantly falters in the realm of torment.

The places where the NM-to-HM armor difference is the smallest are also the places where armor-sensitive damage was already starting to fail in NM.

Improvavel · Feb 17, 2009, 04:51 PM // 16:51

Its the sum of several factors - a bit less damage, a bit more health, more damage dealt by mobs at a faster rate, etc.

Guess it is just hard to convince people that are used to only do one thing (in this case damage) to also have to provide other.

All elemental damage is affected in the same way, but MB+RI with support builds, Earth and even water/air builds that provide some kind of support work better because it can buy the extra time needed to kill the slightly stronger enemies.