Guide to Damage Reduction (DR)

[Rheebus]

Can someone help me out here? I am venturing into space I have yet to tread, thinking long and hard about damage reduction. I was testing out Vulcano's dr in the PvP pits the other day. I have the Docent of Defiance and a Skyvault Shield. When the Docent procs, I get a 20/- dr and when I block with the shield at the same time, my dr increases to 33/-. Why? The dr listed on my shield is 6. Why would it add 13?

Second, I have dr 3/adamantine from enhacements, but this does not seem to stack with any of the other dr on my toon. Is my observation correct?

Also, Stoneskin's dr/- does not seem to stack with any of my other dr (Docent of Defiance, adamantine body). Is this observation correct?

How the **** does all this dr stuff work?

If there is another thread that explores dr, please let me know. I searched for one, but I only got the cupcake thread and a handful of builds. Can someone point me in the right place?

If there isn't a good dr thread, let's get one started. This seems to be a somewhat overlooked component of DDO that I'd like to explore a little more.

[SolarDawning]

There are two kinds of damage reduction in DDO:
Passive, and active.

Active DR is blocking.
Passive DR is any DR from racial/enhancements/feats/spells/equipment, anything that grants you damage reduction.

In any situation, your best applicable passive DR and your active DR will stack.

What this means is that if you are a Favored Soul with DR 10/silver from your level 20 class feature, and have a Stoneskin spell (10/adamantium) cast on you, and are attacked by a normal weapon hit, you will have 10 damage taken off of the hit. Both the above are passive DR, and so do not stack. However, the most useful one in the given situation applies, so even if an enemy with an adamantium weapon hit you, the 10/silver would still work. 'Course, in that situation, a transmuting weapon would bypass both.

Now, if the above Favored Soul were also blocking, they'd add their blocking DR together with their passive DR, and subtract the total from the hit.

Hope that helps.

[SolarDawning]

For a little clarification on what I see to be your situation:

I'm guessing you're a Warforged wizard, right?

You have 3/adamantine from enhancements. <- This always applies, except when a better DR is in place.

You have 10/adamantine from the Stoneskin spell. <- When Stoneskin is cast, it overrides your enhancement DR, as Stoneskin is superior, thus is the best applicable DR in the situation.

You sometimes have 20 DR from a docent proc. <- When active, this is your best DR, and so it takes the hits, rather than stoneskin or your enhancements.

[Junts]

Your dr spikes to 33 because your blocking dr isnt determined only by your shield; look in the lower right part of your inventory to see your blocking dr with your shield. The shield's block dr is added to a number based on your character:

2 + (bab /2)

So in this case you have 10 or 11 BAB, so you're gtting 7 from your ability and 6 from the shield for a total block dr of 13, which stacks with your highest passive dr source.

If you had stoneskin and not the DoD proc, you'd have a blocking dr of 23.

[Rheebus]

So, if I use a divine power clicky, my active damage reduction will increase?

[Habar414]

It may very well indeed do just that, looking at how the spell and the DR is calculated, I'd say yes, but would have to test that

Best place I have found to learn about DR would be the DDO wiki

http://ddowiki.com/page/Active_blocking
http://ddowiki.com/page/Damage_Reduction

also, somehting that a few people tend to overlook,

against ranged attacks Active DR is reduced by half. Not that it means much though :P

pretty much everything has been covered by Junts and SolarDawning already.

-Habar

[gillilandjoshua]

yes divine power clicky will help
my wf fvs has 15 dr from body and capstone, 15 from shield and 12 from BaB while blocking. total 37

[metalworker]

Im curious as to the general DR e.g. Barbarian DR. Is this the best form of DR since it applies to ANY damage, therefore overriding any form of DR?