Hello everyone, big change came to us with Murkmire so time for an update in ESO Damage Mitigation Explained. Cause you know, they don't make it easy on us. Will rewrite some of the explanations but most things have stayed the same.
CALCULATIONS:
First off I would like to start of with saying that there are 2 main ways that mitigation can work, that is does it apply the mitigation BEFORE, or AFTER any possible damage shield gets damaged. So what I mean by that is if you have multiple sources of mitigation and at the same time have an active damage shield then some of the mitigation will be applied before the shield takes damage and some will mitigate the damage that overflows from the shield if it gets depleted. This is really important cause it heavily changes the strengths of the different sources. As of the Murkmire update the only known source of damage mitigation AFTER the damage shield is blocking and blocking related mitigation, this makes damage shields closer to an extension of your Health bar than previously.
Now lets talk numbers. The way that mitigation is calculated is as following:
MITIGATION=100-(100*(1-((Resistance/660)/100))*(1-(Mitigation #1)/100)*(1-(Mitigation #2)/100)*(1-(Mitigation #3)/100))*etc etc)
DAMAGE TAKEN=Base Damage*(1-((Resistance/660)/100))*(1-(Mitigation #1)/100)*(1-(Mitigation #2)/100)*(1-(Mitigation #3)/100))*etc etc
The way you would use this formula is to replace the place holders with the percentage numbers that is show in the tool-tips in the game and obviously the resistance should be the number of which ever resistance you want to test with. If you have more than 3 sources than just add more to fill your needs. Now something you might notice is that this way of calculating will result in diminishing returns, what that means is that for each added mitigation source the usefulness of each individual source gets reduced. As an example, having 2 sources that give 50% mitigation will give you a total of 75% mitigation.
Lets do some examples using things the average tank would use. Lets make it a Dragonknight, for obvious reasons. So they would have 50% from blocking, lets say 30% from resistance, 15% from minor maim, 8% from Absorb Magic, 10% from the Iron Skin Passive and 20% from the Sword and Board Passive. The calculations would look like this:
100-(100*(1-(19800/660)/100)*(1-(50)/100)*(1-(15)/100)*(1-(8)/100))*(1-(10)/100)*(1-(20)/100))=100-(100*(0.70)*(0.5)*(0.85)*(0.92)*(0.9)*(0.8))=80.2936%
So with all of those sources added together we ended up with a total of 80.2936% of the damage we take being mitigated. Now if we want to apply these calculations to see how much damage we would be taking from a hit we would just change it to be like this:
23549*(1-(19860/662)/100)*(1-(50)/100)*(1-(15)/100)*(1-(8)/100))*(1-(10)/100)*(1-(20)/100)=23549*(0.70)*(0.5)*(0.85)*(0.92)*(0.9)*(0.8)=4640
So the example number I used there was picked by randomly smashing my keyboard, but as you can see it doesn't take a lot to reduce very high damage numbers to something very manageable. Now I want to show you guys how this type of calculations would work if a damage shield was involved, cause as I previously explained blocking only mitigates damage that overflows from a depleted damage shield, while everything else will mitigate damage before the shield gets hit. I will be putting a list of all known sources down below but for now if we use our previous example as our base but then add in a damage shield with the strength of 5000 it would look like this:
(23549*(1-(15)/100)*(1-(19800/660)/100)-5000)*(1-(8)/100))*(1-(10)/100)*(1-(20)/100)*(1-(50)/100)=(23549*(0.85)*(0.70)-5000)*(0.92)*(0.9)*(0.8)*(0.5)=2984
In this case Minor Maim will hit first, as it applies to the attacker rather than the caster, secondly we have the resistance which was previously grouped with blocking but has since Murkmire been moved to be BEFORE the damage shield takes damage. Everything else mitigates damage AFTER the damage shield, the rule of thumb here is that anything that says "Increases the amount of damage you can block" or similarly will be grouped with the base block mitigation. Now on to the next bit in terms of calculations:
VULNERABILITIES:
Right now there are not that many ways for us to take increased damage to attacks but since minor vulnerability is something even mobs can apply now I wanted to make a specific section addressing Vulnerabilities of all kinds. The most known and talked about is the vampire fire vulnerability and the werewolf's poison vulnerability. I will be adding these as its own list under the mitigation options at the bottom of the thread. But now to the math, difference here is that the extra damage taken is additive and not multiplicative/exponential.
VULNERABILITY=Vulnerability #1+Vulnerability #2+Vulnerability #3+etc etc
DAMAGE TAKEN=Base Damage*(1+(Vulnerability #1+Vulnerability #2+Vulnerability #3+etc etc)/100)
One thing to remember here if you want to play around with damage shields in your calculation is that Vulnerabilities always comes first. But moving on. We have talked about calculating mitigation and to calculate mitigation in combination with vulnerabilities and damage shields, now I want to delve a bit deeper into something we have already been seen used but not really had explained yet.
RESISTANCE:
So there are two main types of resistance which are Spell and Physical, but each of them also have sub categories. Spell resistance has Flame, Frost and Shock resistance and Physical has Poison and Disease resistance. Now one important thing to know about resistance is that there is a Hard Cap, that means that after you reach a certain point it won't give you anything extra. For Champion point 160+ characters the hard cap for resistance is 33,000, or 660 resistance per 1% mitigated, which then tops it of at 50%. You can have more resistance than what the hard cap allows but it won't give you more mitigation, however, in PvP if someone debuffs you then having resistance above the hard cap can sometimes allow you to stay at hard cap if the debuff is to weak or your buffed resistance is strong enough.
Another thing we need to address now is how those sub categories work with the main resistance types. Sub categories adds to their main type whenever the attack element is of the same element. As an example, if I have 15000 spell resistance and 5000 flame resistance then if I get attack with a fire spell then I will have 20000 spell resistance against that attack. One thing to note here is that if your Spell or Physical resistance is already at hard cap then your sub categories will not add anything, since they are just temporary increases to the main type if attacked by the right element. But again if you get debuffed then anything above hard cap will help you stay up. Last thing to note about the sub categories is that since they are in its base form just adding to their main type then if someone penetrates your Spell or Physical resistance then they will penetrate your sub categories too. But now on to the next part of this thread and last form of resistance.
CRITICAL RESISTANCE:
Now critical resistance works very differently from the other forms of resistance. What it does is it lowers the enemy players critical hit damage modifier. A characters base modifier is 1.5 which means that if you land a critical hit then you deal 50% more damage. There are ways to improve this, such as minor and major force or the Champion point system. What we are gonna be looking at of course is how we can reduce that modifier. This one is very special cause unlike mitigation that is a multiplicative reduction this one is actually a subtractive one. This is the formula:
CRITICAL MODIFIER=1.5+(Critical Damage Buff #1/100)+(Critical Damage Buff #2/100)+(etc etc)-(Critical Resistance/68/100)
DAMAGE TAKEN=Base Damage*(1.5+(Critical Damage Buff #1/100)+(Critical Damage Buff #2/100)+(etc etc)-(Critical Resistance/68/100))
If a player has base critical modifier and they hit an enemy player that has 100 points into Resistant then their modifier will be affected like this:
1.5-(1650/68/100)=1.5-0.24264705882~1.5-0.24=1.26
Finding out what the % per resistance was was not easy but from my testing I have found that it is 68(if someone else has a different number I would love to see it.). This means that 100 points into Resistant gives you ~24% critical hit resistance. The total amount of critical hit resistance possible is 7518 or 110%. I now want to make something perfectly clear, THERE IS NO CRITICAL RESISTANCE HARD CAP! Ok? Ok! There isn't even enough critical resistance available to justify having it. Max resistance is 110% and highest possible critical damage modifier is 115%.
We have now gone through everything you need to know to calculate mitigation on any character you want or any situation you want. But before we get to the list of all the different sources there is one special ability I want to address cause the rules that it uses are not very straight forward, that ability is...
GUARD:
Instead of redoing the section I had for Guard I am gonna leave you with a link to my feedback thread on Guard, this bane of an ability that is very very inconsistent.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/431078/guard-feedback-thread
CALCULATOR:
So I know I have been lazy, but also busy, I have a calculator in the works again, many already know this but I thought I would start posting it here now instead and hope to get back on it soon and update it and finish it. Feedback on it has been great and I would love some more once I get back in it. For now I leave you with the link to the current build of it which is still unfinished.
Newest build:
https://jscalc.io/calc/3OJGVPl8vmhIsek3
Original calculator thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/427251/optimizing-mitigation-calculator/p1
Well that ladies and gentlemen concludes this explanation on how damage mitigation works, below you will find a list of all possible ways to increase your mitigation and the possible way that vulnerabilities can be applied to you. Note thou that if I have missed a source then please don't hesitate to tell me in the comments below so that we can all help each other gain more knowledge about the game.
MITIGATION BEFORE DAMAGE SHIELD:
- 0-50% Physical Resistance (Physical, Poison, Disease)
- 0-50% Spell Resistance (Magicka, Shock, Fire, Ice)
- 30% Major Maim (All)
- Dawns Wrath Ultimate: Nova
- Winter's Embrace Ability: Frozen Device
- 15% Minor Maim (All)
- One Hand and Shield Ability: Low Slash
- Draconic Power Ability: Choking Talons
- Shadow Ability: Summon Shade
- Shadow Ability: Mass Hysteria
- Alchemy Poison Effect: Maiming
- Alchemy Poison Effect: Brutality-Draining
- Armor Set: Knightmare
- Armor Set: Wizard’s Riposte
- Secondary Elemental Effect: Chilled
- 30% Major Protection (All)
- Winter's Embrace Ultimate: Sleet Storm
- Shadow Ultimate: Consuming Darkness
- Armor Set: Pirate Skeleton
- Armor Set: Coward's Gear
- Armor Set: Daedric Trickery
- 8% Minor Protection (All)
- Winter's Embrace Ability: Ice Fortress
- Restoring Light Ability: Restoring Focus
- Fighters Guild Ability: Circle of Protection
- Shadow Ability: Dark Cloak
- Alchemy Potion Effect: Protection
- Armor Set: Vampire Cloak
- 15% Major Aegis (Dungeon and Trial Dmg)
- Armor Set: Automated Defense
- Armor Set: Inventor's Guard
- 5% Minor Aegis (Dungeon and Trial Dmg)
- Armor Set: Lunar Bastion
- Armor Set: Eternal Yokeda
- Armor Set: Twilight Remedy
- Armor Set: Automated Defense
- Armor Set: Inventor's Guard
- 25% Major Evasion (AoE)
- Dual Wield Ability: Blade Cloak+Morphs
- Medium Armor Ability: Evasion+Morphs
- Assassination Ability: Blur+Morphs
- Armor Set: Hist Bark
- Armor Set: Adept Rider
- Armor Set: Specter's Eye
- 10% Minor Evasion (AoE)
- Animal Companions Ability: Deceptive Predator
- 6% Nord Passive: Rugged (All)
- 0-33% Vampire Passive: Undeath (All) (Increases incrementally by 1% per ~1.5% hp lost below 50% hp)
- 75% Vampire Ability: Mist Form (All)
- 0-15% CP Passive: Hardy (Physical, Poison, Disease)
- 0-15% CP Passive: Elemental Defender (Magicka, Shock, Fire, Ice)
- 0-25% CP Passive: Thick Skin (DoT's)
- 0-35% CP Passive: Expert Defender (Light, Heavy attacks(PvP))
- 0-25% CP Passive: Ironclad (Direct Damage)
- 25% Dual Wield Ability: Blade Cloak (AoE)
- 20% Ardent Flame Ultimate: Standard of Might (All)
- 15% (+4% per target, multiplicative) Aedric Spear Ultimate: Empowering Sweep (All)
- 5%/20% Armor Set: Bastion of the Heartland (Player Dmg/Siege Dmg & Player AoE Spells)
- 5% Armor Set: Shield of the Valiant (Player Dmg)
- 5% Armor Set: Buffer of the Swift (Player Dmg)
- 25% Armor Set: Leki's Focus (AoE)
- 15% Armor Set: Light of Cyrodiil (All while Casting or Channeling Spell)
- 35% Armor Set: Reactive Armor (All while CC'ed)
- 50% PvP Effects: Battle Spirit (All)
- 30% Support Ability: Guard (All)
MITIGATION AFTER DAMAGE SHIELD:
- 50% Blocking (All)
- 20% One Hand and Shield Passive: Sword and Board (All, while blocking)
- 15% One Hand and Shield Passive: Deflect Bolt (Projectile and Ranged Dmg, while blocking)
- 8% One Hand and Shield Ability: Defensive Posture (All, while blocking)
- 20% Destruction Staff Passive: Ancient Knowledge (All, while blocking with a Frost Staff)
- 10% Draconic Power Passive: Iron Skin (All, while blocking)
- 15% Aedric Spear Passive: Spear Wall (Melee Dmg, while blocking)
- 20% Daedric Summoning Ability: Bound Aegis (All while blocking)
- 8% Armor Set: Footman's Fortune (All, while blocking)
- 8% Armor Set: Ward of Cyrodiil (All, while blocking)
RESISTANCE:
To be updated later
CRITICAL RESISTANCE:
- 2000 Armor Set: Impregnable Armor
- 1304 Armor Set: Robes of Transmutation
- 258/p Armor Trait: Impenetrable
- 0-1650 CP Passive: Resistant
VULNERABILITY:
- 8% Minor Vulnerability (All)
- 15-20-25% Vampire Stages (Fire)
- 25% Werewolf form (Poison)
- 10% Armor Set: The Morag Tong (Poison)
- 10% Ardent Flame Ability: Engulfing Flame (Fire)
- 10% Armor Set: Way of Martial Knowledge (Next attack after proc)
