diablo-3
Like World of Warcraft, given the same amount of armor, the physical damage % absorbed by your armor diminishes as you fight higher level monsters.
Does anyone know how much this is diminished by for each level of monster? For example, how many more armor points I need to maintain the same amount of absorption when going from fighting level 5 monsters to level 6 monsters?
Unlike in Diablo II, on-hit elemental damage is simply that - bonus damage, with the sole exception of cold damage (which has a small snare). Frost damage does a little less damage comparatively because of this.
While there was originally a more complex critical hit system (as documented below), that functionality did not make it to the final game.
Critical hits just add damage.
More interestingly, in the Diablo III Beta, each type of damage has a different effect on a critical.
Physical: Double Damage
Arcane: Silences targets for 4 seconds (prevents abilities)
Cold: Freezes targets for 2 seconds (Duration can be affected by talents, etc.)
Fire: Sets them on fire, fire DoT (tick rate scales off weapon speed)
Lightning: Stuns targets for 2 seconds (Duration can be affected by talents, etc.)
Poison and Holy presumably have effects on a critical hit also, but I haven't been able to find info on them.
One of the folks over at the Diablo 3 Database Forums has provided a google doc for just this purpose!
And from that data, we get this nifty chart:
That big spike is at Level 50, just before Hell difficulty starts.
Best Answer
The formula in question seems to be:
So, for example, at level 5, with 100 armor, fighting level 5 mobs,
Fighting level 10 mobs, this changes to
Thus, when you gain a level, without increasing your armor, the character sheets displayed damage reduction shrinks slightly, since 'equal level mobs' are better able to penetrate your armor. Among other things, this means that there's no DR involved here, Armor just keeps getting better, the more of it you have.