PvP Manashield Discordance

Gameplay Build Help
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Hi, I am trying to figure out what makes builds so good in PvP and manashield made me ask a lot of questions about whether my decision to make a warrior is the right choice…

In layman’s terms, and just so we are on the same page:
(maybe I’m way off, I apologize if so)

There are three primary mitigation mechanics utilized in PvP - Armour, All Resistance, and multiplicative damage reduction (defiant, alchemy, etc.)
There is no way to remove an opponents multiplicative DR - but with the trophy we can penetrate about 20% armour, and with weaken we can penetrate much more all resistance (80%??)

The warrior gains 15 armour per health point?
The Wizard gain 15 all resistance per mana point?
The rogue gains 3% dodge at 11/31/51/71/91 points invested?

Also base armour values for items are:
Warrior - 1000
Rogue - 600
Wizard - 300
??

Resistance totals up to 100 to a single element?
Making the unity mythic worth 100 all resistance? 4/7 of a crystal affix :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Strength and Intelligence affixes (+3) can be increased with Elixir in the MH and OH (+2 skills*2 for +7 to str/int with 4 affixes) and we can easily stack both armour and all resistance on any class using these affixes with battle mage/spell sword/scoundrel/cerebral vortex/plagued/etc. and we can get Strength and Intelligence on every slot, with crystal/obsidian affixes (we can get both on the Gladiator Ring)

Protection and blessed natures are bugged or wth are they doing lol?!

So the Manashield is unaffected by Armour, and multiplicative DR, but with Barrier we can double the effectiveness of our all resistance with manashield (barrier[20])?

There are many good Wizard talents, and +talents from Elixir in the body+helm seem like high value to me

After boosting our resistances to godly values, how effective is weaken versus it in the amounts people typically have (I presume some builds stack a lot of weaken for immortals)

At this point the resource mythics also seemed like a problem… Alchemy won’t work, equivalence sacrifices too much for adaptive DR which will reduce to 0% as equality reaches 0…
Then I see Discordance and think, that is the only thing which doesn’t negatively affect Manashield?

200% OH damage reflect could turn into 500% with skulldraga/shatter and discordance?

This is what gave me hope for manashield despite the ease of countering the resists :hugs:

But it does make me wonder if armour is just superior because of the lack of tools to lower/bypass it - all resistance gets affected by weaken and against that stat it’s like paper - even if we can increase it with more investment, we can’t offset what the builds which stacked weaken can do :sleepy:

But 500% OH reflect from only using discordance and a bracer… I’ve got to see it through haha

Bleed damage with berserker and inferno looks like good DPS but is also mitigated by perseverance…
Does perseverance even apply to dot damage directed at manashield? :thinking:

Obviously the Manashield reflect doesn’t have enough spike damage to deal with high defense chars, but depending on the skills/hit frequencies of those skills it could deal respectable DPS (against ricochet/barrage/storm/whirlwind/etc.)

[If a crater is formed with earth shatter/shatter/enigma - can the damage from the crater apply the reflect dmg from manashield, I assume so?]

Using discordance and spell sword means our comet is strong (use at close range as often as possible so it’s harder to dodge? Is this 750% hit, 750% explosion per cast after discordance??)
But our Meteor is bad (never use in case enemy has reflect damage and avoid reflect from craters?)
Shatter is a good mobility skill with decent damage to switch for Manashield

If we are relying on Manashield here, I’m guessing extra attack/multi attack etc. won’t be good to invest in for meteor(discordance) because it’s just not going to be comparable
But does skilled still work for comet with discordance? 750+750*1.5?

Also is masochism the only way to lower HP and avoid triggering the sureshot mythic, this is important as some deadly strikes can hit hard, and with sureshot they have a good chance (the trophy that reduces crit chance is important for manashield to mitigate it’s biggest weakness??)

I’ll stop before it becomes impossible to interact with :sweat_smile:
I would happily share some ideas about specifically the affix choices I’m thinking of to make this work and anything else really

Thanks to everyone who participated on this forum and shared/compiled their knowledge over the years🙏

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Weaken is a DMG multiplier that works with the monster Element Resist Calculations. against other Players, it’s just another DMG multiplier, because Players don’t have the same Resist system as monsters.

if you have +50% Weaken in Battle Arena, you will have a 50% chance to do x1.5 DMG. DMG Reduction would apply after Weaken affects DMG. Armor & All Resist are different DMG Reductions that are multiplied with all other DMG Reductions.

Discordance only works on MH Weapons.

Armor values are at level 20 Item values. same for the Item Element Resists.

Barrier - Reduce Mana Taken From Manashield by 1.5% per Rank. at Rank 20, an attack that does 100 DMG will reduce Manashield by 70 MP (-30%).

Infusion - Manashield receives +10% of your All Resist. Infusion 20 with All Resist 1000 will give the Manashield 3000 All Resist. Battle Arena is considered a Level 20 floor for DMG reduction calculation purposes.

Manashield Reflect DMG is based on OH DMG. Legend Reflect DMG is a seperate type of Reflect DMG. enemies will take the Manashield Reflect DMG and then Legend Reflect DMG when the Character gets hit. if you use Redirect Mythic, enemies will take both Manashield & Legend Reflect DMG when you Dodge or Block attacks. Electrified Set increases the DMG of Legend Reflect DMG and also causes both Manashield & Legend Reflect DMG to be a 25 yard radius AoE.

Multishot on Staff gives 1050% Weapon DMG to comet and is better than using Spellsword on Gauntlet, which gives 750% from Meteor. I did the math one day because I wanted to make a Discordant Comet Build.

Gauntlet - 750% Comet - 65,212.5 DMG (Base DMG 64)
Staff - 1050% Comet - 65,362.5 DMG (Base DMG 45)
only used BWD and Power 5 for calculations. when using DMG multipliers, the difference only gets bigger in Staffs favor.

Skilled Mythic stays with the Primary Skill when switched with Discordance, so the Comet would be even stronger and you get the Reduced Resource that is part of Comets Skill (-1% per Rank)

I think this is true. with Harmony Mythic, 25% of any healing for Health will apply to MP, so this is another way to keep Manashield filled up.

hope this helps.

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You are generous to share this, thank you very much golem that helps a lot :pray:

Haha you knew i meant infusion , I was typing from memory and mixed them up :yum:
But I guess barrier is pseudo DR for Manashield , because obviously skull shield wont reduce damage directed at manashield :sleepy:

If weaken does not work on PvP that clears a lot of things up for me, and so in that case I wonder if arcanist+ascendant would work to lower resistances , as it’s not “weaken” (though ascendant bonus does grant that)

If not, I can see resists being superior on the Wizard because he can stack it more

The bonus for stats makes no sense, if wizard and warrior get 15 points respectively, but resist is 10x more effective, the choice is obvious… and the Wizard talent has +25 a pop as well

Mmm so discordance still seems like the way to go with mana shield, but if I use battle mage spell sword/scoundrel I am forced to use those skills instead , but you are right, the damage is much lower after dmg bonuses :thinking:

Cosmic Power, Cerebral, etc. then… I guess I don’t use those tanky sets with manashield :sweat_smile:

Without scoundrel I cant get 24% dodge as easily, so maybe id skip that investment and not rely on redirect or evasion natures, I could get skilled to be more consistent?

I didn’t think of using masochism to boost MP regen but that would be great with harmony

Is legend reflect affix = 100%? (250*0.4)
It’s half as much as manashield and requires an affix, but I could stack this and even use electrified?

I think the crux for me now is whether ascendant can lower resists when we apply arcane effect (crit with arcane element), and after that I’ve run out of armour/resist penetration mechanics so it will be safe :joy:

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Barrier is a Damage Resist that only affects Manashield. the max for Barrier 40 is -60%.

Infusion multiplies your All Resist for Damage Reduction for Manashield. if you have 100k All Resist, it would be 500k All Resist with Infusion 40. the downside is floor level is part of the calculation for All Resist DR, so becomes less effective on higher floors. but then, a Manashield Wizard can go farther than a Wizard without Manashield using Damage Reductions

true

Weaken does work in PVP, it’s just that Character Resistance is a different mechanic than monster Resistance.

Clogon
DQMods
Dec 2016
Weaken aren’t necessary.

Weaken reduces player resist! So it can be useful against players that uses Faun’s Gift + Cerebral Vortex + Crystal All Resist.

l just found this, and it looks like Weaken works against Characters just like it does for monsters. I think it would take four or five(?) Crystal Weaken to reach the +80% Weaken cap.

Character Resist (lets pretend 70% DR) & +80% Weaken:
(1 x 0.3) + 0.8 = 80% of attacks do x1.1 DMG while 20% of attacks do x0.3 DMG.

Monster Resist & +90% Weaken:
(1 x 0.5) + 0.9 = 90% of attacks do x1.4 DMG after DR while 10% of attacks do x0.5 DMG after DR. with a 200 cap for Weaken, it can do lot’s of DMG in PVE.

the 40% in PVP is for Cap calculations, and Legend Reflect DMG doesn’t have a cap. Legend RD value is based on a level 20 Item, so closer to +52% of MH DMG. with six you get +312% MH DMG for Reflect DMG.

enemies will take Reflect DMG from Manashield first, and when they break through, they’ll take Legend Reflect DMG from hitting your Character, until the Manashield Regenerates. their DMG only stacks additively when Dodging or Blocking with Redirect Mythic. Electrified increases Legend RD by +50% per Rank. Reflect DMG has no range limit, when you get hit, the enemy gets RD. with Electrified, it causes your RD to have a 25 yard radius AoE centered on the Character. if a ranged enemy hits you from outside the 25 yard radius, they wont get hurt.

if Weaken really does work as indicated by @Clogon , it’s possible that Ascendant could work against Character Resistances in Battle Arena also. this might explain why they have Pierce against Armor but nothing against All Resist.

@Mr_Scooty crafted a 100% Damage Reduction build for Battle Arena a few years ago just to see if it was possible. it looks like Weaken & Ascendant would be its weakness. but this is just speculation on my part.

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I appreciate you doing so much research haha :pray:
I don’t know how I’ didn’t find that post from clogon :sweat_smile:

Hmm there’s a lot to think about :thinking:

If weaken, ascendant+arcanist can reduce all resistance I am not investing into resists :+1:

I remember seeing a post about manashield “you do not take damage when it is active” the shield is taking damage for me and it does not share my stats unless I use infusion/barrier - so when the shield takes damage, I have not, so I can’t activate RD until manashield depletes and my life is hit :muscle:

Does infusion really work like that, it seems too powerful :joy:

Infusion (1) = 110% resists gained by manashield? Or only 10% resists gained at Infusion(1)?

I need to get my head around weaken calcs still, it’s an X% chance, to reduce resists by X%…
I always thought it was 100% chance to reduce by X% :yum:

Hmm, I remember seeing them say their motivation for making those builds was a challenge from someone saying the arena wasn’t hard enough? Let’s try and bring them back hehe :smiley:

I don’t think the OGs are as active now, but do you know if they still pop in now and then?

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I was looking for something else and came across this. I think it’s the first time I read it, or if I did read it, it’s the first time I’m paying attention to it.

there aren’t that many PVP builds with Weaken. it takes so much space to be effective that it weakens a build in other ways. like a damage build weak on defense or a defense build weak on damage.

Redirect Mythic is the only way to get damage from both at the same time, but it requires an investment in high Dodge, Block, or both. I did test this.

yes, it does work like that. so Infusion 1 is 110% of your All Resist. the 10% per Rank used to be lower, so the Dev’s consider 10% to be balanced. also, the higher the floor you’re on, the DR from All Resist & Armor gets reduced. and that’s on top of enemy damage getting higher.

Weaken Chance is also the Weaken DMG, and Weaken has a cap of 200, so a build with Weaken 100+ does Weaken DMG on all hits. check out this post on Weaken :arrow_down:. hope it helps.

some still do. many have moved on in RL, and others have mastered DQ and check in to see if there are any updates or to see who is still active.

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