Diablo – How do the damage calculations work in Diablo 3

diablo-3

If a player swings an axe that deals 100 damage at a foe how many hit points will the enemy lose?

In Diablo 2 it used to depend on a few things:

  • Attack rating vs defence rating (to decide if it hits or misses)
  • Attacker level vs defender level (to also decide if it hits or misses)
  • Block dodge (again to negate all damage)
  • Physical resist to reduce the damage by a percentage (granted by some unique items)
  • Fixed damage reduction (granted by some items)

For a start it looks like the defense is now a percentage reduction rather than a probability to avoid an attack completely.

Best Answer

I couldn't find much on this but i did find a bit here

Reduced:

Damage can be reduced in Diablo III by various character skills and traits, as well as by equipment bonuses.

Reduction differs from resistance in that it reduces damage by a set amount, rather than lowering the damage taken by a percentage. Nothing is yet known about Diablo III's order of operations in damage calculations, so it's not known how the game will process damage.

In Diablo II, reduce and absorb bonuses were calculated 'after resistance lowered the incoming damage, making them very valuable. For instance, a 100 point fire damage attack would drop to 25 points if a character had 75% fire resistance, and then that 25 points of damage was further lowered by reduction or absorption modifiers.

Blocked:

Blocking is a property granted by the use of a shield, or by other items or weapons, in rare situations.

Blocking works very differently in Diablo III than in past games in the series. In D3, blocking is basically an item based form of absorb, reducing the physical damage of attacks by a set amount, one based on the shield being used and potentially modified by skills or traits. This has the effect of making shields much less protective than they were in Diablo II, when any character could eliminate up to 75% of all incoming physical damage with the use of a shield.

A successful block in Diablo III is calculated much as it was in Diablo II, with the character's dexterity and equipment checked against the attack rating of the enemy. Presumably blocking will not work while running in Diablo III, though this is not confirmed.

Absorbe:

Damage can be absorbed in Diablo III equipment bonuses. There may also be character skills and traits that provide absorption, but none are yet known.

Absorb differs from resistance in that it reduces damage by a set amount, rather than lowering the damage taken by a percentage. Nothing is yet known about Diablo III's order of operations in damage calculations, so it's not known how the game will process damage.

In Diablo II, reduce and absorb bonuses were calculated 'after resistance lowered the incoming damage, making them very valuable. For instance, a 100 point fire damage attack would drop to 25 points if a character had 75% fire resistance, and then that 25 points of damage was further lowered by reduction or absorption modifiers. Absorb was even better than the numbers suggested, since points absorbed were actually added back as healing. Thus a character with high resistance and absorption could actually gain hit points from an attack of that element.

Then you also have the ability to dodge

Dodge chance is a new character property in Diablo III. It's something all characters have inherently, like resistances, defense, critical hit, Attack Rating, etc. Dodge chance can be boosted with stats, equipment, traits, and skills.