Armor and Resistance Stacking?

Mogudesh

Just asking as a newb and couldn't find info elsewhere....
1. Will resistances of the same type stack? Or does it simply choose the strongest?      i.e. Alchemist w/Robes that is a Horkval.

2. Will resistances stack with armor?     i.e. Alchemist Robes for blunt and cutting with armor on.

If the stacking is multiplicative, that's fine but would love to know as much as possible.

Kafziel

They stack. Pretty sure they're multiplicative. Armour is applied differently to other resistances (reduces only a portion of an attack rather than the whole attack), although I think the new cutting/blunt % display is a rough approximation of the resistance.

Mogudesh

Kafziel said:

 although I think the new cutting/blunt % display is a rough approximation of the resistance.

Where can I see that in game?

Anedhel

Exact formulas for how resistances affect different types of damage are not given in-game. Achaea's admins have been pretty adamant against giving out all that information in the hopes that Achaea will not merely become a 'numbers game,' I think is the phrase @Tecton used (frustrating at times, but it keeps Achaea beautiful).

Mogudesh

Well, I can understand that, but at the same time I don't want to do something that just gimps my character (like if resistances do not stack in any way).

I guess in general what I'm getting at is what's the PRO/CON to doing a Horkval Alchemist with robes VS. an Alchemist that can wear ringmail armor and have the robes.

Antonius

Resistances themselves are easy, and the amount of resistance provided is generally known (if not documented in the AB files). There are a couple of exceptions where they don't stack - I think just the damage reduction from high and truefavours, you'll only get the effect of one if you have multiple - but on the whole, resistances will always stack with each other. As Kafziel said, they're multiplicative (or, more likely, applied to the damage individually), so if you have two resistances worth 10% each, you're actually only getting a 19% total reduction to damage; the first reduces 100% of the damage by 10% to 90% of the original damage, then the second reduces that remaining 90% by 10% to 81% of the original damage.

Armour is trickier because, as far as I know, it doesn't apply equally to all attacks. Most attacks have two parts to them: a part that's static (based on stats, weapon stats, artefacts, etc.) and a part that's dependent on the maximum health of the target (the scaling part). Armour's reduction only applies to one of those parts, and each attack has a different weighting between static and scaling parts. You can see an approximation of what armour is worth in terms of actual reduction when you WEAPONPROBE it, or check ARMOURLIST (which will also allow you to see the stats on armour when looking at WARES). Other resistances apply to the full damage.

If you're looking just at Alchemist, I think Horkval resistance and ringmail are about equal in most cases, though there are going to be circumstances where one is better than the other. You can do fine as a Horkval or as another race that wears armour, though, so I wouldn't let it impact your decision too much; pick the race you like the look of best.

Dochitha

Horkval is just a bit better than leather armour. Anything above leather armour is better than Horkval, if you are referring to hunting. But again, they function differently, cos one is armour, another is resistance, so horkval's resistance work a lot better in certain PvP finishers than leather armour.

Cynlael

Horkval is equivalent to scalemail in terms of damage reduction, if Sena's previous tests are anything to go by.

Mizik

Worth noting that most attacks (see: finishers) have a very large maxhealth component to them to prevent one shotting little guys while remaining competitive in the top tier, and also not disqualifying certain classes from being able to combat other classes.

On the other hand, there are other attacks (see: lunge, meteor, star, thurisaz) that hugely respect armour and ignore most other resistances. As a Horkval or Magi (Magi has huge class resistances, no armour) you might take 1200 damage from a lunge, while a Mhun Knight will take pretty much nothing.

Xinna

I played horkval alchemist. The armour and resistances are comparable, as others have said, so you can choose whatever.

BUT horkval gets 13 base Constitution, which is great for alchemist and also gets LEAP which is invaluable for classes that don't have it (which includes alchemist).

Atalkez

Cynlael said:

Horkval is equivalent to scalemail in terms of damage reduction, if Sena's previous tests are anything to go by.

This is false. It is equivalent to leather per Makarios.

Sena

It's not equivalent to anything, except in specific circumstances (like against a certain attack with a certain max health it might be equal to a certain armour value).

Against denizens, I'd say it's about equal on average to ringmail's blunt protection, and nothing really has comparable cutting (it's significantly better than leather's cutting and significantly worse than ringmail's cutting), but they still work differently so it's not really equal to any armour stats. In PvP, there are too many differences to generalise.

Lucianus

Do Horkval resists get better with more health? 

Like... 7400 health with Horkval resist vs 7400 health with ringmail. Which would be better?

Sena

Lucianus said:

Do Horkval resists get better with more health? 

Like... 7400 health with Horkval resist vs 7400 health with ringmail. Which would be better?

Resistances don't get better with more health, but armour might get worse, if the health-scaling portion of an attack isn't reduced by armour. I don't have up-to-date details on any attacks to say at what point horkval resistances surpass certain armour stats (and it will be different for every attack anyways).