GG variant dmg reduc issue

I’ve been working the last couple days on a Green garden variant build, which admittedly needs some tweaking, but the issue I’m having shouldn’t be related to the shortfall of Crit dmg I wouldn’t think. The problem is I’m taking damage way faster than my farm build, and the GG variant has Equivalence! I should be getting 50% Dmg reduce from Equivalence, yet it isn’t showing up in the defense tab, and where I struggle with keeping up my MP in the GG variant build with much more resists and dmg reduce than my farm build which hardly sees any dmg to my Manashield!
In the pics attached you see both equipment sets, farm gear equipped (left side), GG variant set to compare (right side). The last 2 screenshots are the defense tabs with each set equipped, GG variant with more resists and dmg reduce (yet not what I expected). Any advice would be appreciated!









Im no wizard expert, have very little experience in that class but didn’t someone typed manashield do not have any reductions applied, and only resists work if the right talent was chosen? That would mean you are ~30% weaker with equivalence. Maybe you should try alchemy mythic instead of manashield that would also leave you one skill free but you need to not have any glasscannon. Also you should get the Equality ring too and you will have this 2k regeneartion affix which is better for druidic than crystal affix regen and would free the affix for something more useful, for example critical chance which would free some slots.

Equivalence is a fundamental part off Green Garden build, so if the dmg reduc doesn’t apply, then I can compensate. Still doesn’t explain why the other set is taking less dmg though…
As for Equality, check the Eternal Necklace. Got over 3300 regeneration.
Once I get a Crit dmg crystal affix, then I can use natures to top up Crit Chance, as I said it’s a work in progress.
Also… I Re equipped the Crystalline Sword (so Reactor gone), and I’m surviving a little better (maybe something on the sword was messing up the Manashield??).

Equality set for my information is based on % of hp and mp pool not the raw numbers. So you can have 1k hp and 100k mp if both are full, your mana and hp is equal. As for regeneration affix read again :stuck_out_tongue: Change crystal affix 3000 regen for 2000 legend affix regeneartion. 2000 mp regen + 2000 hp regen = 4000 regen which is higher than 3000 crystal affix regen (max you can get 4000>3000). Doing that on ring you can now change epic crit chance to crystal crit chance. Those operation will result in a 1000 more regen, 15% more crit chance and one free affix slot on your off hand.

For the damage reduction in mana shield i can’t help becouse i dont know how it is working. Personally i don’t like equivalence becouse it gives you too much mana, and you can’t use that mana if you aren’t using manashield. So it’s only for wizard imo. With alchemy tough you won’t need manashield becouse with your big mp pool and small hp pool you will get hits to higher current mp/hp.

I KNOW… I was pointing out I HAVE an item with Equality and a LEGEND affix regen.

As for equivalence, your description and the codex and forum guide I find all a little hard to understand. You’re implying it’s based on what % of full MP and HP are in relation to each other? If that’s true then why wouldn’t the devs fix the description in the 2 years it’s been out?

Equality is from what i know based on % values. It’s the percent difference between MP and HP, subtracted from 100% (so absolute value).

Also Refia said:
Equality uses 2 different formulas depending on which value is greater than the other:

  1. if HP>MP, then (HP-MP)/HP
  2. if MP>HP, then (MP-HP)/MP

Also on your ring:
I didn’t say you need second Equality item and i know you have one. What i said is that you are wasting your crystal affix while you can get legend affix which is better and don’t take the crystal affix slot. Your ring doesn’t have any affixes that are from drop only and the regeneration affix is from drop only. You have crystal regeneration on ring which should be switched to legendary regeneration (if you want regeneration on ring and i think you want if you invested crystal affix into that). You can change Equality to Druidic without problem. The only problem of the change is the crystals and items you need to craft new ring. Don’t know why it is bad if it gives you better results without sacrificing anything besides resources.

In short my proposition on ring affixes was:

Equivalence
Druidic
Crit Chance 45% (crystal)
+2 all sets
Stun Immune
2000 legend regeneration.

Same amount of affixes and your build is still the same but gains 30% crit chance and 1000 more regeneration while every set and whatever mythic you want stays the same. Nothing changes besides that you have more crit and regen.

Ok, first off, thank you for the elaborate breakdown :).
Secondly, with Equivalence both hp and mp are equal, thus regardless which formula Equality uses I would gain 100% damage and HP/MP regen. Equivalence also is supposed to reduce damage by 60% HP/MP Equality, so at full HP and MP I should see an added 60% damage reduction on the stats page, but instead I’m seeing 44.9%.
Lastly, the title of this thread as well as the question I posed from the start, is why I am taking more damage with the GG variant build equipped when despite having higher Total Damage Reduction and the Equality/Equivalence combo.

I appreciate your tips on the build, suggestions regarding what affixes to change, and as I’ve mentioned twice there is admittedly fine tuning to do, yet it requires more crystals than I have, and if Crit chance or damage would have been a choice offered when I used my last obsidian I obviously would have chosen it. As it was HP regen was the best option offered over other affixes, and I have no intention of keeping it once I get a dozen more obsidian to try getting the crystal affixes I want.

I didnt ask for advice tweaking the build, I already have enough understanding of what needs tweaking. What I asked about was WHY I am taking more damage despite better damage reduction, defenses, resistances and the Equivalence/Equality combo. And as I added in reply, for reasons I don’t understand, once swapping back in the Crystalline Sword (and losing Reactor and Discordance) it seems to be surviving better. If you have an understanding of WHY this is, I’m all ears :wink:

Mythic bonuses are not listed in the stat page calculations. They are calculated every time you take damage or use a spell as they are ever changing.

You have not given enough information to determine why you are taking less damage. You may or may not have different affixes, be playing on different floors/difficulty. I recommend removing all of your affixes and just test out equivalance if you doubt it’s abilities. Also equivalance works on the same HP/MP comparison as Equality.

It’s that I’m taking more damage when I should be taking less. If I knew what more is needed to understand, I wouldn’t need to ask…
As for difficulty, both were tested at floor 200 MP3. All of my affixes are in the screenshots above.

One thing suggested was that damage reduction wouldn’t apply to mana shield, although I thought mana shield would merely lose mana after the damage calculation (including dmg reduc) equal to final damage. I would love confirmation regarding that, although I am suspecting the issue has something to do with the Discordance mythic or Reactors Proc?
What else would you like to know?

Msiiek already told you that damage reductions are useless when using Mana Shield. What makes you think that it applies after reductions? The skill says “Summons a shield that takes mana when hit”. It doesn’t say you will lose MP instead of HP when taking damage. Mana Shield summons a shield around you. It is taking damage, not you. The Infusion talent says “5% per rank of your All Resists applies to your Mana Shield”; this means, that without Infusion, your All Resists (and by implication every other damage reduction you have) does nothing. If an attack does 100, that shield will take 100 mana from you (Unless you have Barrier or Infusion). Please tell me what caused this confusion so I can help prevent others from doing the same.

Damage reductions are meaningless as you are taking no damage (the shield is). Once your mana depletes, THEN it gets reduced and you will take damage into your HP. For balance reasons, It does not prevent on hit effects so DoT’s, debuffs and stuff will still apply. Also for balance reasons, the full unreduced damage of DoT’s is taken from Mana instead of you dying from Bleed, Poison and Fire. There are still many effects that bypasses manashield but most of them are not encountered in PVP.

Not Mana Shield related:
ALL damage varies by a range of 50% (75%~125%). You will need many samples as you can easily observe somehting do 75% of its damage then 125% and think that damage reduction is not working.

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Ok. Thanks for the confirmation.

That being said, I still don’t understand why the set equipped in the pictures above seems to be more survivable then the GG variant seen on the right side of the above pictures. If damage reduction and such don’t apply, and neither use Infusion, the only difference I see is one uses cold and the other poison, although both are prismatic 50%. I guess when using cold as a primary damage instead of poison I must be freezing more enemies before their attacks start? Only difference I can find, as the 2 have comparable mana pools to work with.

The difference is in your farm set you have more mana so your mana shield is stronger.

Also, ice places a debuff that slows and reduces the enemy attack. And yes you probably freeze the enemies before they can attack.

Also please answer my question so I can help prevent other people from thinking manashield uses damage reduction like you did.

I guess it was based on assumptions drawn from vague descriptions. The codex describes Damage Reduction as simply “Total Damage reduced”, and Damage only says “Damage”.
" “Summons a shield that takes mana when hit”. It doesn’t say you will lose MP instead of HP when taking damage." - but when you are hit without manashield you lose HP, so by implication yes you lose MP instead of HP.
In no direct way does the dictionary description for damage reduction say it applies to only HP, so I assumed it would reduce damage before it applied to manashield, as it’s my manashield and MP, just like it’s my HP. What I have gained from this thread is damage is calculated on hit, then applied to manashield and if manashield depleted then damage reduction and resists would then affect remaining damage.

Regarding asking for confirmation, Msiiek wasn’t certain, only made reference to having thought he read about it somewhere:
“Im no wizard expert, have very little experience in that class but didn’t someone typed manashield do not have any reductions applied, and only resists work if the right talent was chosen?”
I only asked for confirmation, it’s not like I said he must be wrong.

How would you change the description while keeping it simple? The word “summon” indicates that it is not part of “you” (it is a summoned thing) and the description also tells the reader that it is the one taking mana not the attack/projectile. You are right. It is your manashield taking your MP, not you taking damage and losing MP instead of HP. I still don’t understand why you think a summoned shield is part of your “body”.

The description for damage/damage reduction has nothing to do with how manashield works. The Alchemy mythic clearly tells you that you lose MP instead of HP depending on which is higher when YOU take damage.

What can we say to make it clearer that the manashield and you are separate entities?

Edit:
Damage calculation in almost every game with projectiles are calculated in separate parts (when the projectile is launched and when it hits something), this one is no exception.

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I dont know, as manashield wasn’t the reason for my post, and despite you focusing on that part of my misunderstanding, I haven’t doubted you. Simple clarification was all that was needed. I came here looking for a reason why I seemed to be taking more damage, even though I had what I thought to be extra defenses. You’ve clearly outlined how I was misunderstood, thank you.

If you sincerely want a suggestion from me regarding what must have also been misunderstood by others at some point, it could be added to manashield: “, unaffected by all damage modifiers.” or something to that effect, but I’m not asking for the game to be changed for my benefit exclusively.

Since you mentioned Alchemy mythic, does damage reduction apply when MP is being consumed by damage?

Heres a reason why equivalence was used in the green garden build. Since cronos added a lot of mp, it is meant to equalise both hp and mp for the equality set affix. What I noticed from equivalence is that if you have high enough mp, your mp regen can go up to max. It increases mp regen by a huge amount and regen is extremely crucial in green garden for druidic to be the most potent with plagued.

It wasn’t meant for damage reduction even though it can be used for damage reduction, at super higher floors, particularly above 1000, dmg reduction may be useless because the the enemies will guaranteed to one shot you or just tear you apart very quickly.

I don’t do sarcasm so yes I am sincere in my desire to prevent others from making the same assumptions you did. I am focusing on it because it was the reason why you posted (you did not understand that manashield was the cause for the higher damage of the enemies). I was trying to avoid a simple description from being too technical but will have to face it I guess.

Alchemy increases the damage you take depending on the pool comparison and removes the amount from which ever pool is highest.

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But does damage reduction apply with alchemy? Or just when it’s using hp?

I already mentionned above that YOU take damage when you use Alchemy. So yes any effect that affects you, including damage reduction, will apply. Manashield is a summoned entity that is not you.