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r/Diablo3Monks•
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Is armor equivalent to all resist as far as mitigation goes?

Assuming the overall mitigation % stays the same, is adding armor effectively the same as having more all resist?

If we pretend that I'm at a spot gear-wise where 100 armor adds exactly the same % to my overall mitigation as 10 all resist (not true, but I don't want to run the real numbers for when this would actually be the case), does it matter which one I add?

Plagued, molten, physical attacks from monsters etc etc? None of these cut through have a nerf on armor based mitigation as opposed to all resist based mitigation right?

Ignoring the case where you are under the act 3 and act 4 succubus debuff.

edit: this was kind of a stupid question to begin with, but it started because I found a number of rather sketchy sources that speculated armor was less effective than AR against some things like plague. I'm pretty sure this isn't actually true.

Posted Jun 4, 2013, 12:54 AM UTC · edited

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jlian•

IIRC, 10 armor is the same as 1 all resist, no matter what. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

EDIT: I was wrong

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slackOPDoc Holliday•

They both have diminishing returns though so if you have 1000 armor (a low armor value) and 1000 all resist (a really high AR value), the next 100 armor provides a lot more mitigation than the next 10 all resist.

I'm interested in the case where the returns are the same for the next 100 armor/10 AR and knowing if the mitigation provided by armor is independent of the damage type coming in.

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jlian•

I looked at my d3up profile and you're correct. 10 armor gives me slightly for EHP than 1 all resist. Currently I have 5123 armor and 705 all resist. I vaguely remember that the ideal ratio of armour:resists is 1:10, so maybe if I had 7050 armor I would gain the same amount of EHP with 10 armor or 1 all resist. Can someone confirm?

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slackOPDoc Holliday•

I modified my armor to be exactly 10x my AR in d3up and the EHP gain per stat is exactly the same for 10 armor vs 1 AR. This was never really in question though. All I wanted to do was confirm that Armor itself mitigates all forms of damage equally and is not inherently inferior to AR outside of the succubus debuff. Thus making it effectively a second "resist all" for your character that hits diminishing returns separately. Technically you may be able to achieve higher overall mitigation by getting AR instead of armor as a property in some slots because + 75 all resist would require +750 armor to balance out and I don't think you can get that high on a single property. That part of it is all kinda a pointless discussion due to diminishing returns and the complexity of balancing the stats across your equipment. Ultimately you want a balance between armor and AR based on the return on investment and the effectiveness of each based on your current gearing.

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jlian•

I see. I believe armour mitigates all types of damage and is not inferior to all resist as you thought.

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Tunnelmath•

Pretty much yes, at a 1:10 Armor:Resist ratio. But as mentioned, for most of us diminishing returns generally makes 1 armor better than 10 all resist. The problem is, even with a poor All Resist roll of 65, good luck trying to find some bracers for example with +650 armor in a single stat roll slot.

Edit: I didnt really answer your question. Yes, they both mitigate the same damage types. You can think of Armor itself as a kind of "resist all".

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slackOPDoc Holliday•

Cool, thanks.

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