Yet another active shield blocking DR question

[Sidewaysgts86]

Just want to say, Yes, Ive SEEN the ddo wiki bit on shield blocking and how it effects DR. I get the "Equation" behind it- What i dont get, is what the heck im missing.

What do I mean? Well ill give an example from something I noticed while doing the cove.

This is against a single skeleton-archer on lvl16 just for demonstration purposes. I proceeded to let it attack me endlessly. These are some snips from my combat log:

Not blocking:

Skeletal Archer Ex-Pirate hit you for a total of 4 point of pierce damage after 2 were blocked by Chaotic damage reduction.
Skeletal Archer Ex-Pirate hit you for a total of 5 point of pierce damage after 2 were blocked by Chaotic damage reduction.
Skeletal Archer Ex-Pirate hit you for a total of 5 point of pierce damage after 2 were blocked by Chaotic damage reduction.
Skeletal Archer Ex-Pirate hit you for a total of 4 point of pierce damage after 2 were blocked by Chaotic damage reduction.

Active-Blocking:

Skeletal Archer Ex-Pirate hit you for a total of 1 point of pierce damage after 10 were blocked by Chaotic damage reduction.
Skeletal Archer Ex-Pirate hit you for a total of 1 point of pierce damage after 10 were blocked by Chaotic damage reduction.
Skeletal Archer Ex-Pirate hit you for a total of 1 point of pierce damage after 10 were blocked by Chaotic damage reduction.
Skeletal Archer Ex-Pirate hit you for a total of 1 point of pierce damage after 10 were blocked by Chaotic damage reduction.
Skeletal Archer Ex-Pirate hit you for a total of 1 point of pierce damage after 10 were blocked by Chaotic damage reduction.

Hitting details in my inventory reveals an active-blocking DR of 17. My character sheet shots a dr of 2/chaotic, from my cav plate.

Sooo, what the heck gives? This thing is doing 6-7 "Total" damage when im not blocking, then magically (as far as i can see- again, i know im missing something- i just want to know what) gets a solid 11 damage when I AM blocking (sometimes it does do 0 damage, but mostly it does 1s with 0s being few and far between). Why is this? Whats this 10 chaotic damage reduction? Whats happening to my 17 shield blocking dr?

Any light on the situation would be helpful.

[Dandonk]

It's due most likely to Dungeon Scaling. This effect applies after DR is applied.

So if a mob does 12 points of damage, you subtract 2 from DR and get 10. Then DS applies, and maybe halves it (depending on lots of factors), and you get hit for 5.

Next time your DR is 10. Now you get 12-10 = 2 damage. This is again halved by DS, giving the 1 damage you saw.

[Sidewaysgts86]

Any idea whats happening to the supposed 17 shield-blocking dr then? Does shield blocking have some kind of bypass? Ive always been under the assumption it didnt.

[Lord_kNiels]

As far as I know it is, as stated above dungeon scaling that reduces the damage taken. IIRC all damage at first is calculated as normal (without dungeon scaling), which then applies to you afterwards with dungeon scaling. So the archer would likely have hit you for about 20 damage (don't hang me up on numbers, only trying to give an idea of whats happening), from which the 17 are substracted by blocking DR and the ~3 damage that are left are then subject to dungeon scaling before applied to you.
As for what your combat log states it seems to me that the dungeon scaling affects the numbers shown here. However the combat log doesn't seem very correct to me as it states that all of your blocking DR is chaotic alligned. I guess its because youre wearing the cavalry plate and a chaotic attack would then be subject to less overall damage reduction.

I am not sure the details I stated are correct but this is roughly the idea I have been getting while playing with dungeon scaling, so if anyone knows more please correct me.

One thing I can tell you for sure is that going with 4 people total (you and 3 others) into a dungeon will eliminate the dungeon scaling and you should be getting a better understanding of the active blocking DR.

[MRMechMan]

The active blocking DR is for melee attacks.

For ranged attacks it is 1/2 that.

17/2=8.5, rounded down to 8.

2/chaotic+8active=the 10 you see against ranged attacks.

[Dandonk]

The active blocking DR is for melee attacks.

For ranged attacks it is 1/2 that.

17/2=8.5, rounded down to 8.

2/chaotic+8active=the 10 you see against ranged attacks.

Ooh, I'd totally forgotten about that. +1 for this nice bit of info.

[Sidewaysgts86]

The active blocking DR is for melee attacks.

For ranged attacks it is 1/2 that.

17/2=8.5, rounded down to 8.

2/chaotic+8active=the 10 you see against ranged attacks.

And voila! My idiocy resolved. The embarrassing thing is that I shouldve known that <.< Thanks big time for clearing that up!