Prot Warrior Damage Reduction Question

[EarlyBird]

Hey Guys,

I'm somewhat new to tanking and I have a question about how Prot Warrior Damage Reduction works. From what I've read pretty much all tank damage reduction stacking is multiplicative and not additive, which makes sense because otherwise it'd be way too easy for most tank classes to have 100% damage reduction up fairly often.

My question is, since it is multiplicative, what is the order in which damage reduction is calculated? Does it go Armour > Block (Shield Block/Nelth's Fury) > Absorbs (Ignore Pain/Prydaz) or does it follow a different order? Additionally, where do additional damage reduction cooldowns like Shield Wall, Barksin, or SaC fall into order?

As an example let's say I take a melee that baseline does 1,000,000 damage, would the damage reduction math turn out as shown below or does it follow a different order for the various damage reduction methods?

1,000,000 > Reduced by armour (lets say my armour is currently 55%), new damage value = 450,000

then

450,000 > Reduce by a non crit block (30% if I'm not mistaken), new damage value = 315, 000

then

315,000 > 90% absorbed by ignore pain, new damage value = 31,500

So in the end from a 1,000,000 baseline melee attack I only actually suffer 31,500 damage?

Thanks for any information in advance.

[KrotosTheTank]

Yes, in the end you can get a number that low.

A point to make though, when dealing with things that are purely multiplicative, it doesn't matter what order you do them in, the end result will be the same.

Edit: Also, your blocks, with the new traits, block 38% of incoming damage, up to 40% if you get the new KJ relic, making our critical blocks 76% and 80% respectively.

[EarlyBird]

Yes, in the end you can get a number that low.

A point to make though, when dealing with things that are purely multiplicative, it doesn't matter what order you do them in, the end result will be the same.

Edit: Also, your blocks, with the new traits, block 38% of incoming damage, up to 40% if you get the new KJ relic, making our critical blocks 76% and 80% respectively.

Hmm ok, well then I suppose my question should be, is everything purely multiplicative or are there any specific damage reduction abilities and or external cooldowns (Barkskin, SAC, etc....) that are actually additive?

Edit: And actually, wouldn't order of damage reduction actually matter for prot warriors because Ignore Pain has a limit on its max absorb? Please correct my math if it is wrong, but let's say I'm going to take a 5 million melee and based on my current health my max Ignore Pain absorbs 3.1 million damage.

Ignore Pain Damage Reduction First:
5,000,000 > 90% IG (3,100,000 max) = 2,400,000 New Damage Value

2,400,000 > 60% Armour = 1,440,000 New Damage Value

1,440,000 > 30% Block = 432,000 Final Damage Value

Ignore Pain Damage Reduction Last:

5,000,000 > 60% Armour = 2,000,000 New Damage Value

2,000,000 > 30% Block = 1,400,000 New Damage Value

1,400,000 > 90% IG (3,100,000 max) = 140,000 Final Damage Value

[Anuibus]

Damage Reduction is almost always going to be multiplicative and will come before absorb shields are considered.

[XDurionX]

Multiplication is commutative, order doesn't matter in the slightest.

[KrotosTheTank]

Multiplication is commutative, order doesn't matter in the slightest.

His example is one moment when it would though. You are correct EarlyBird that the 90% only works to a point, but just put that at the end and you're hit with what's left. There's really no reason to ever have to worry about that stuff, but it's nice to know i guess.

[Heladys]

His example is one moment when it would though. You are correct EarlyBird that the 90% only works to a point, but just put that at the end and you're hit with what's left. There's really no reason to ever have to worry about that stuff, but it's nice to know i guess.

multiplication is always commutative, but what's being shown is multiplications with caps which is not.

[Larynx]

General rule of thumb:

Armor -> Any multiplicative damage reductions -> Absorbs.

I'm unsure how Ignore Pain interact with other absorbs. Typical rule for absorbs is Smaller -> Greater, at least back in MoP when I played Disc and tracking this stuff mattered. Ignore Pain isn't a normal absorb though. I'd guess it would go Ignore Pain -> Absorb for the 10% that gets through.

Block, Shield Wall, etc order is irrelevant. 100 * 0.4 = 40. 40 * 0.3 = 12. Or, 100 * 0.3 = 30. 30 * 0.4 = 12. You could even combine them for simplicity, which is just 100 * 0.12, or 12 again. Ignore Pain is not true damage reduction, which is why it's last in the order. Fundamentally, damage reduction that's capped is just an absorb shield.

[potis]

Hmm ok, well then I suppose my question should be, is everything purely multiplicative or are there any specific damage reduction abilities and or external cooldowns (Barkskin, SAC, etc....) that are actually additive?

Edit: And actually, wouldn't order of damage reduction actually matter for prot warriors because Ignore Pain has a limit on its max absorb? Please correct my math if it is wrong, but let's say I'm going to take a 5 million melee and based on my current health my max Ignore Pain absorbs 3.1 million damage.

Ignore Pain Damage Reduction First:
5,000,000 > 90% IG (3,100,000 max) = 2,400,000 New Damage Value

2,400,000 > 60% Armour = 1,440,000 New Damage Value

1,440,000 > 30% Block = 432,000 Final Damage Value

Ignore Pain Damage Reduction Last:

5,000,000 > 60% Armour = 2,000,000 New Damage Value

2,000,000 > 30% Block = 1,400,000 New Damage Value

1,400,000 > 90% IG (3,100,000 max) = 140,000 Final Damage Value

Not sure why you are confusing stuff, Ignore Pain only exists so Protection Warriors would get something new, same with its predecessor Shield Barrier so we wouldnt remain with the same 10 abilities for 12 years.

Only problem with Shield Barrier, after a certain gear level, you could refresh it before easier mobs consumed it, making it rather brokenly OP despite being irrelevant content.

So Ignore Pain got created, basically Shield Barrier + Vengeance scaling math but to 90% = Ignore Pain.

This is all just for "BUT MY GAME ELEMENTS, MY UNIQUENESS" bullshit surrounding WoW the last 2 expansions, if you havent noticed the difference in achievable Armor and the scaling of it, the last few years versus how it used to be.

So back then you had just a few % less Physical reduction than a bear dudu, and Block to balance the difference, while they had more HP.

Now you have 30% less reduction than them in Physical, and Shield Barrier version 2.0 for the rest.

And its always

Reduction by stats, aka Armor or anything else providing reduction through stats like neck enchant 3k armor etc-->Multiplicative reduction mechanics-->Absorbs.