DR and AP Analysis

How Does Damage Reduction Work?

I recently re-did a series of tests to determine exactly how DR works. I went into it with the intention of figuring out how it interacts with AP, and how it scales when you stack large amounts of it. The short version is that DR negates both a flat number of AP, as well as a percentage of your total AP. How much of each per point of DR depends on how much DR you currently have, as well as how much AP the opponent has. Due to the relationship between AP and DR, gaining 1 point of DR will negate slightly more damage vs lower AP opponents than vs higher AP

Important note: All DR and AP values shown here are total DR and total AP, which includes character base DR (ranges from 23 to 50), and includes all sources of AP from bracket, to crystals, to human damage * 0.85. The damage number shown is an arbitrary number based on the attack I was using. This is meant to show how the damage you deal/take will vary as you or your opponent change your gear, and not the exact number you will hit.

Visual Representations of the function

Link to full size image:

https://i.imgur.com/GqerxDl.png

What did I test, and how was it done?

Before the test, I had to do a proof of concept test to verify that the damage reduction rate % reduces damage done by that percentage, and does not modify your DR. For example: if you take 100 damage with 0% damage reduction rate, you would take 85 damage with 15% damage reduction rate (100 * 0.85). This was necessary because I had to know how to modify the damage values, as damage reduction rate would interfere with this test. This test can be seen here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1juXDR8ep-W2XlxmkD6WBfNqvY3eu2c1bhMilGpevFDo/edit?usp=sharing

For the actual test, I tested a series of combinations of AP and DR over sufficiently large sample sizes to be able to accurately graph damage as a function of AP and DR.

What does this mean for DR Vs Evasion builds?

Generally speaking, DR builds in a full AP unless you are Ninja/Kuno/Sorc/Lahn/Striker/Mystic. Your buffs make evasion a much more appealing choice.

Pros and cons of DR builds:

Pro: DR is very consistent. It is not punished by classes full of 100% hit rate abilities, and debuffs do not affect it as much (because DR debuffs affect evasion builds too, but evasion debuffs do not affect DR builds)
Pro: DR allows you to build much higher AP than evasion, as evasion often requires you to sacrifice AP to use evasion offhands/accessories
Pro: DR builds can be built with high resistance easier than evasion builds
Con: DR is comparatively weak against high AP opponents compared to vs low AP opponents
Con: DR is less scalable than evasion. If you want to be absurdly tanky, DR is not the way to go

Pros and cons of evasion builds:

Pro: Evasion is very strong against some of the classes that are the biggest threats in 1v1, like Lahn
Pro: Evasion is very scalable. A modest evasion build may be less tanky than a modest DR build, but if you replace your offhand and maybe an accessory or 2 with evasion options, you will be a lot tankier than the DR counterpart of your build
Pro: If you are a strong evasion class (Sorc, Lahn, Hashashin, Ninja, Kuno, Striker, Mystic, and to a lesser extent Maehwa and Musa), evasion builds can in almost every case be stronger than DR ones assuming your gear is high enough

Con: Evasion has high highs and low lows. It is very strong against some classes and in some situations, but very weak in others, such as in large group fights where you will often have a debuff or two on you
Con: You’ll have to get used to full AP people complaining about your evasion build being OP because they can’t 1-hit something purpose-built to counter their build

Clearing Up Misconceptions About Damage Reduction Rate Brackets From Sheet DP:

Damage reduction rate brackets are considered more important than they actually are. Example - going from 316 to 324 DP from getting a PEN armor C2 (from TET armor C3), and a TET narc earring will increase your sheet DP by 8, and your DR by 14. As a result, your Damage Reduction Bracket will go from 16 to 17%. This means you will take around 1.2% less damage from that (100 base damage will now be 83 instead of 84). The increase of 14 DR will result in as much as 10% less damage taken depending on what your DR is, and at worst, around 4-5% less damage taken.

DR Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: Does me being a block class mean I scale better with DR?

A: The strength of your block follows the same DR formulas, as well as the same hit rate formulas as normal combat. Some blocks have damage reduced superarmor though. As a result, these will scale better with DR than with evasion, but the difference will not be huge unless you are significantly below 300 DR

Q: Is DR tankier than evasion/is evasion tankier than DR?

A: This depends on a variety of factors, and there is no simple yes or no answer to the question. Evasion tends to be tankier in fully defensive builds, but DR tends to be tankier in fully offensive builds. Even in this, there are some exceptions, such as a class like mystic/stroker/ninja fighting a low accuracy opponent

Q: Is DR bad against abilities with high multipliers:

A: This has nothing to do with DR, as DR negates damage by negating AP, not by negating damage per skill. Example - One skill that hits 100 damage * 10 against X DR, and another hits 1,000 damage * 1 against the same DR. If you gain enough DR for the first one to hit 80 damage * 10, the second skill will hit 800 damage * 1.

Q: Can I still use special attack evasion items with DR rather than evasion?

A: Special attack evasion has nothing to do with evasion. Special attack evasion is just as effective when used by a DR user as when used by an evasion user.

Q: Is it a lot better to use special attack evasion crystals if you have Gargomoth heart?

A: Each 10% of special attack evasion is extremely valuable. Depending on what class you are fighting, it can be as little as nearly nothing, or as much as >5% reduced damage taken. Gargomoth heart does not increase the effectiveness of special attack evasion crystals by a significant amount, though. Example - 20% sp.att evasion vs a 100% crit class compared with 30% sp.att evasion vs the same class. Average multiplier of damage against you: 1.7 with heart + crystals, 1.8 with crystals alone, 2.0 with none. 1.8/2 (crystals alone) vs no sp.att evasion = 0.9 = 10% reduction in damage taken. 2.0/1.7 (crystals + heart vs no sp.att evasion) = 0.85 = 15% less damage taken when comparing 30% sp.att evasion to none at all.1.7/1.9 (crystals + heart vs only heart) = 0.8947 = 10.53% less damage taken. This means that while adding on a heart will give you in this case 5% more tankiness, comparing how much more tanky you get going from nothing to 2 crystals with the tankiness you gain when going from heart alone to heart + 2 crystals is only around ½ of 1%. This is often misinterpreted as me saying the 10% from heart is not valuable. This is not the case. To clarify, each 10% of special attack evasion is very valuable. What is a small difference going from 10%-->30% Versus 0-->20%. Going from 0 to 10, 10 to 20, and 20 to 30 are all significant. What I mean to say is that going from 20 to 30 is not much more significant than going from 0 to 10 or 10 to 20. The misconception is that crystal + heart is op because going from 10 to 30 was a lot better than 0 to 20 because having 10 already made the next 20% you gained a lot stronger than gaining 20% from zero. This is what was incorrect