DR, anyone know how it actually works?

[Rawel_San]

Hello everyone I apologize in advance for the noobish questions but strange things seem
to be happening to me.

My understanding of DR: DR x/special should deduct x physical damage from every attack
unless "special" is used to deal it. I.e. DR 5/piercing should deduct 5 from every attack
made by a blunt or slashing weapon.

Now let's move to where I'm confused. I have recently for the first time actually
started experimenting with DR since my Wizard got himself a conc opp item (also
my monk made it to 20 but I don't keep such a close watch on him).

So I've gotten lucky enough to get an epic ward of undeath for those times when I want
to sit around and let something beat on me to get some sp back. The shields description
says Damage reduction:12.

My inventory says blocking DR 19.

When I sit on top of the funny hut in shipwrecked spy letting the red named boss throw
his daggers at me I see the following.

Not blocking 7-8 damage consistently.

Blocking 2-3 damage consistently.

Now to look at combat log.
(Combat): Kondo Solanum hit you for 8 points of pierce damage. (not blocking)

Combat): Kondo Solanum hit you for a total of 2 points of pierce damage after 9 were blocked by damage reduction. (blocking)

Can anyone please try and explain to me how any of this is even remotely consistent/
connected please?

Totally puzzled,
Rawel

[Lorien_the_First_One]

http://ddowiki.com/page/DR

[samthedagger]

Read what Lorien posted.

Or the reader's digest version.

X/yyy

Where X is the amount of damage reduced with each physical (non-magical) attack and yyy is the type of weapon that ignores the damage reduction.

Blocking is a bit more complicated. Read the wiki.

[Jendrak]

OK heres a quick run down

1. there are 2 types of dr passive and blocking.
a.Passive is from items/classes/Pre's like barbarian DR or axeblock items. These are always in effect no matter what you are doing.
b. Blocking is DR that you only get when you are activly shield blocking adn the attack is going through the shield (attacks from behind arent affected).

2. Passive DR does not stack you only get the highest one. So if you have DR6/- from a pre and 5/- from an item you will only get the 6. However, this does stack with you blocking DR (this is not shown on you character sheet)
*there is a semi-stacking effect with DR that can be bypassed (5/slashing, etc...) If your DR gets bypassed then the next one on your list will take over (if you have any).

Here is a quick example from my stalwart defender 6 (from pre) + 33 (blocking) = 39

Hope this helps.

[Angelus_dead]

When I sit on top of the funny hut in shipwrecked spy letting the red named boss throw
his daggers at me I see the following.
Probably a key here is that ranged attacks ignore 50% of blocking DR.

[Rawel_San]

Thank you for replies but please read the actual post first. I understand the way it is
"supposed" to work. What I don't understand is how it actually works because it definitely
does not work the way the wiki states. (see the quotes from my combat log).

I have read the wiki and I sit in such a way that the attacks come
from ahead/go through shield.

Edit: ahh thank you angelus. That explains a little bit but still does not explain why the base damage is
8 non blocking and 11 blocking.

[honkuimushi]

Edit: ahh thank you angelus. That explains a little bit but still does not explain why the base damage is
8 non blocking and 11 blocking.

That may be Dungeon Scaling. When scaling was first implemented, AD mentioned that scorching rays were doing something like 10-15 points of damage in Irestone Inlet without fire resist, but if you got a fire resist 20, it would do something like 20-30 points of damage. Overall, you're taking less damage with the resist, but the overall damage inflicted is increased. So buffing actually caused the difficulty to scale up.

AD asked if that was intended, but I don't remember if he got an answer or if that implementation has changed. But it still seems like the most likely explanation for the numbers not adding up.

[Angelus_dead]

AD asked if that was intended, but I don't remember if he got an answer or if that implementation has changed. But it still seems like the most likely explanation for the numbers not adding up.
There was no answer, but it hasn't changed. What's happening is that a solo character can get a scaling factor (such as 52%) applied to damage after your DR is subtracted.

So if a monster has a 20 damage attack, it becomes 10 after scaling. If I shield block for 11 DR, then it comes out to (20-11)*0.52 = 4 damage, not the 10-11=0 you might have expected by looking at the combat log.

[Rawel_San]

Very interesting. I sort of suspected it might have something to do with scaling. In my
instance I was soloing shipwrecked spy hard so scaling definitely would have come in. I
will check with a few other places on elite.

Again thank you very much for illuminating answers angelus and honkuimushi +1's all
around.

Btw might be worth adding the 50% reduction of DR to ranged attacks onto the wiki.

[Noctus]

Your differing results are caused by the interfering of Dungeon Scaling.

It takes of parts of damage that you would otherwise take, if your not in a full group.

[Corebreach]

Btw might be worth adding the 50% reduction of DR to ranged attacks onto the wiki.
To my knowledge, passive DR functions at full strength versus ranged attacks. Only the bonus DR you get from actively blocking is weaker versus ranged -- sometimes. It might be 50%, 25%, or full, depending on your equipment setup. This info is already in ddowiki.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Active_blocking