Moved this out of the class DPS thread, since this isn't DPS related, but still interesting enough to keep around.  Just a copy/paste job.

A quick overview of what led to this post: I said that storm dragon stance doesn't lower mitigation by as much as it says it does and that bear shamans have noticed similar things with their mitigation effecting powers.  That got questioned, and so I wrote up the following, more or less:

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The power description for the 2nd Storm Dragon stance says it lowers mitigation by 15%.

My monk, in dragon stance, has 17.90% mitigation at the moment.  Kick it over to Magnificent Storm Dragon stance and my new mitigation rating is 6.36%, an 11.54% drop.  So I'm only losing 77% of what I should be.

When I was lower level, using the first version of the stance, plus was grouped and had buffs, the debuff amount was also less than the stated amount.

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actually i have a 25 shaman and im not aware of any penalty, especially for the bear shaman (since thats what i am) infact bear form adds hp regen, energy rege, ac, and dmg.  the only penalty is they dont have a pet to tank

The powers in question are Sunder Claw, the mitigation debuff, which is supposed to debuff by 15%, but only appears to do so by ~11.25%, 85% of what it should, and Boon of Tuurgin, which is supposed to be a 5% buff, but only raises target's mitigation by 4.25%, or 85% of what it should, from what I've read, my shaman isn't at that level yet..

Now, toying with my shaman a bit...

My shaman with an AC 137 shield has 10.04% mitigation and an armor class of 1169.

Without the shield, I'm sitting at 8.86% and 1032.  So 137 AC made a 1.18% difference in Mitigation.

To see if AC to mitigation is linear, I strip off more, gear, dropping AC to 201.  New mitigation amount, 1.73%.  201/137*1.18?  1.73%  Going back to the shieldless number, 1032/137*1.18 = 8.88, pretty close to 8.86.  So, yah, I think we can say AC is linear in its relationship to mitigation.

In bear form, with shield, AC climbs to 1709, with an 18.92% mitigation.  I've gained 540 AC and 8.88% mitigation.

540/137*1.18 = 4.65% mitigation from AC.  Remove that from the 8.88% mitigation gain and we wind up with 4.23%, a number that is very close to 85% of the 5% mitigation buff bear form should have.

Maybe there's a soft cap on AC, so a quick test to see if that's the case.  By happy coincidence, my shield + pants + BP add up to exactly 540 AC.  Take them off in bear form, AC is at 1169, mitigation at 14.29%.  4.25% over what I started with, 85% of 5%.

Makes me curiout about something.

My shaman, at 33, gets 0.86% of AC as mitigation, a number suspiciously close to that 85% again.

Let's see how that plays out with the monk.  236 AC bp removed changes mitigation from 18.94% to 17.08%, a drop of 1.86%.  1.86/236 = 0.78.8%, pretty close to that 77%.

Far on what I've seen from my shaman and my monk, I'd say there's some sort of class based AC/mitigation modifier and it hits buffs and debuffs.  Due to this, any numbers shown in the info of powers is wrong.  It would not surprise me that if a Harmonious monk were to explore their mitigation debuff, they'd find it is 77% as effective as it should be.

Interesting.  Might have to test this some more, make a bunch of newbies of various classes, non-large, and slap some gear on them, see what each class's factor is and if it changes as we level.

Im not 100% sure i even understand what your trying to prove, but to clear a few things up

1) You realize the mitigation % you gain from armor class is level dependant right?  As in at lvl 50 1916 armor class is 12.8% mitigation?

2) If you look at your armor class, you gain exactly the armor class you read on the item.  ALA 378 ac bp adds 378 armor class.

3)Ac and mitigation are linear, but are level dependant.
1916 ac - 12.8% mit
1538 ac - 10.3 %mit
152 ac = 1% mit at 50

I'm aware of that stuff, hence why it is mentioned in my posts


What I'm interested in is the defense window, as it includes things that modify mitigation beyond AC.  Things like Storm Dragon stance, pure mitigation buffs, and so on, which do not modify the defense window's mitigation by the amount the powers state they do.

The problem here though is that the defense window is a bit wacky.  Give a monk and a shaman the same AC at level 1 or 2 and their mitigation percentage according to the defense window is vastly different.  As in a shaman has over 20% mitigation while the armor window says he has squat.  Another issue I've got is that the defense windows for my characters screw up a lot of skills, showing my dodge and block skills as 4% lower than they should be, maybe others as well, but I haven't checked into that.  If you can't trust the defense window, then you've got to parse, looking at how much it actually impacts average damage taken.  More effort than I want to put into it though.

Wonder if there is some easy to use attack, that always does the exact same damage, that'd make it easier when combined with a duel.

But beyond that, I'm also interested in things like:

How does this modifier scale?  At 50, you say 152.  48 cleric buddy, 144.26   With my 45 BMG, 134.5.  My monk at 40, its 120ish, according to the AC info.  Shaman is at 105 at 35.  Seems like it crosses class bounds and mostly linear.  Breaks down when I look at my 23 warrior though, at a 61.3.  Formula shifts as you level?  Warriors get some sort of bonus?



That's the class modifier I was talking about.  85% for shaman.  95% for monks.

My cleric bud shows  slightly under 85% of what his armor says he should have.  My shaman, whose AC window shows 17%, has 85% of that in his defense window.  My warrior, 95%.  My monk, if i remove the 2% for racial gets 95% of his AC mitigation.  100% for my BMGs.

I'd hazard a guess that your monk also has a 2% racial mitigation mod.  Remove that and you're looking at getting about 94% of your AC's mitigation, close enough to 95% allowing for wacky rounding.

So if you buff a shaman's, monk's, and warrior's, and BMG's AC by enough to add 10% mitigation according to the AC window, the defense window should show the shaman should increase by 8.5%, the monk and warrior by 9.5%, and the BMG by 10%.  Adding a pure mitigation buff worth 10% should have the same results.  The shaman research done by Cas ties into those numbers, at least the 85% for shamans and 95% for warriors..

What I don't get it is why storm dragon stance takes my mitigation from 12.48 to 0.94. If it was consistent with shaman findings,  I'd expect it to be 95% of 15%, or a 14.25% drop.  Instead, I get an 11.54% drop.  About the only way that makes sense is if Magnificent Storm Dragon Stance is 12% instead of 15%, then I"d expect an 11.4% drop, still off a bit, probably too much to blame on rounding..

I'm curious as to how the defense window changes for your monk at 50 when you go into storm dragon stance compared to how much it says it will.

Anyway, either the defense window or the AC window is wrong for most characters.  And that amount doesn't explain the numbers I see for Storm Dragon Stance.

Okay so i switched back to dragon to make sure i wasnt nutty.

With Dragon stance ( 72 hp regen)
armor class mitigation - 12.9
defense mitigation - 14.12

With Legendary Storm Dragon (-10%)
armor class mitigation - 12.9 (nothing lost since armor class is the same)
defense mitigation - 4.53 (9.59% lost....95.9% of the 10% it says)

So Im not sure how your getting only 77% loss.  Im getting 95.9% of the loss they claim.

Well, the most likely possibility is that the tool tip is wrong and that the 2nd version is actually around a 12% loss, not the 15% stated.

If I remember right, my monk was able to keep some mitigation in storm dragon stance even with the first version of it, when buffed by a group.  Not much, but just a little (but he was sporting tier 3 UR armor + HL bp and legs).  No way that ought to be possible if the actual percent were 20%. 

So what we need now is a Dragon monk on the first one buffed up enough to have mitigation left in the defense window afterwards.  Just to see how those numbers work out.

Give Quinn some fun stuff to query the devs on

I would have though so too, but in fact it takes it away from the defensive (actual) mit.

The mitigation on the ac tab is in fact just the mitigation you get from ac alone, aka if you have 2000 ac, then you should have XXX mitigation, at a straight and even translation regardless of class.

The mitigation on defense is the sum of ac mit + modifiers to mitigation from gear and class based ac modifiers.    This is where you lose your overall mitigation from when you use storm dragon stance, and the reason is because this is the actual mitigation a mob checks when it determines how hard it hits you for.   


Mitigation is linear to ac.  And defensive mitigation should be higher then ac mitigation because its is just AC mit * constant number   (aka 1000 * 0.75) = monk defensive mit  (1000*1.0) = heavy plate defensive mit.

Yah, the shaman mitigation in the defense window for the first 2 or so levels is way out there.  It settles down later.