This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/pathofexile by /u/Silverbells_Dev on 2024-12-27 07:38:28+00:00.
Right now the formula is Armor/(Armor + 12*Damage), which follows the traditional damage mitigation formula of x/(x+n) used in many games, even League of Legends. However, in most games, n is a constant, while in PoE it's a constant (12) and a variable (incoming damage). What if instead we make it a scaling variable?
The most obvious solution is Armor/(Armor + Log(Damage, n)*Damage)). For Log10, 100 damage would have a coefficient of 1, but that would be too powerful. A solution is to have Log base 5, which approximates the curve of the original (16% reduction for armor = damage) while being more lenient towards smaller hits, and harder to mitigate against heavy hits comparatively.
These are the graphs for armor mitigation. First is the corrected curve using my formula. In general, the formula is a buff over PoE 1 in most non-extreme cases: PoE 2 has much higher enemy damage output and far less power creep when it comes down to access to Damage Phys Reduction and Armor values, so it ends up being a huge buff as I believe the armor formula for PoE 2 should be more lenient, not less.
Second image is a comparison of its strength with PoE 1. You'll see that it's worse for higher values of both armor and incoming damage, gives a huge boost early on making armor items feel particularly useful and able not to fall off too quickly, and worse for high end damage.
Third image is a comparison of its strength with PoE 2. Here you'll see that there's a huge buff across values closer to your armor - which honestly, it's desperately needed. It falls off towards insanely big slams (going from a 17% improvement to 6%), but it's still a buff over PoE 2 while being a slight nerf over PoE 1 in edgy cases.
Difference between new formula and PoE 1
Difference between new formula and PoE 2
As a final background since we're armchair designers, I briefly worked in Game Design with Carn on Last Epoch (wherein I was a Technical Artist responsible for optimizing the game, but dabbled in QA and had Design talks with Carn).
I think this new formula can be fine-tuned, but the idea of taking the logarithm of damage and multiplying times itself is the solution to scale against big slams, which is GGG's vision, while improving armor across the board. The reason I kept the damage formula is because I don't think GGG will change it - but I hope this suggestion helps improving it.
Best regards and thank you for reading.
