As I read and calculated the protection formula in this game, I feel like all shred armor/protection mechanism is too weak now in late game.
Basically health + protection = effective health, therefore damage reduction = health/(health+protection). In late game as I observed, rare and boss monsters have 80% or higher damage reduction, and 10K health. So if I calculate correct, that means these monsters have 40K protection. And then I look at the shred armor/protection numbers: 100 per stack by default, and that’s in 4 sec. Ideally I could have around +300% effectiveness with correct gear, and 100% chance to shred per hit with 2 hit per sec. So in 4 sec, that would be 100*(1+300%)24 = 3200 protection. That is great in number, but then compared with the estimated protection: 40,000. Is that really effective? That is less than 10% total damage increase. All the opportunity cost on shred armor/protection for minimal increase? What’s the point in that? Did I get anything wrong?
If the calculation above is correct, I think the mechanism needs some change. I have two alternative formula.
Make shred amror/protection percentage. By default each stack reduces 1% protection.
Make shred armor/pretection reduces base armor/protection. I don’t know how monster protection is conposed of in this game, but for players we have base armor/protection and % armor/protection. In similar games the base armor/protection of monsters indicates the innate stats, and % increase mainly reflects the level/difficulty penelty or map affixes. So if shred armor/protection work on base stats, it could still differentiate heavy armor monster and light amor monster, but reduce the efficiency lost of shred protection from level/difficulty which is what needed.
I just tested out a Shred Armor effect and was stealing like 300-400 armor off mobs…white dmg and crit dmg didn’t even increase at all at max stacks…
I could tell I was at max for the 4s period because it gives me the armor that I shred to my own armor rating…so I just had Stats window open and when it capped out (the number would stop increasing, but keep switching between a lower / higher value every second) my dmg numbers hadn’t changed at all. I don’t think Shred is an endgame viable build either unless it’s coming from tons of minions hitting mob at same time. My buddies Necro build utilizes shred and he melts mobs…but he has a TON of mobs out at once hitting same mob at once stacking it very quickly.
So for a solo char without pets Armor Shred is very lackluster. I actually put out more DPS with stacking Bleed / Ignite chances
There have been many posts bemoaning the apparent uselesssness of shred & EHG did buff some of the skills that applied it though I think it’s more of a mechanical issue rather than a numerical issue.
Edit: Flat protection reduction can’t be balanced in a game with such varying amounts of protection & be useful in early as well as late game. It’ll either be useful in late game (where the mobs have lots of protections so you need lots of shred) and massively overpowere in early game, or vice versa.
Either they need to give it a % mechanic so the small amounts are useful in early game & the % in late game, or make it scale with player/area level the same as mob protection does.
Its weak unless you can stack a lot of it very fast. Which basically means its mass minion necro only due to them having a lot of minions and a passive that make minions apply it.
This is really true if you add Arek’s Bones on top as well for the upto 90% extra shred chance and +200% increased effectiveness. Oh and Rogue bombs as well.
My quick match says just rogues alone can nuke 6000 to 8000 armour shred if they all bomb a single mob.
