Synergies

[Tinker]

I've been pondering for a while now what's the right way to look at the interactions of various stuff in DD. While I'm yet to become enlightened, I've at least something half-baked that might be worth a look... Thoughts / alternate philosophies welcome! "Names" may not be appropriate, I just picked a word that I thought was somewhat descriptive, feel free to nit-pick. Tried to make categories more generic, to give an idea. I think a lot of times people tend to value one type of synergy over another, though probably each type can be useful in specific cases.

I. "Boost": You line up stuff that boost the same stat to high levels.
For example: Elf Sorcerer of JJ can reach very high amounts of Max Mana. Dwarf Priest of JJ can get to high levels of Health. Goblin Fighter of TT can amass a lot of extra XP.

II. "Reinforce": You try to improve two related stats, that are multiplied for total effect.
For example: Orc Rogue of Taurog can boost both Damage and Attack%, reaching very high total damage. Gnome Sorderer of Mystera can boost mana to fairly high levels, and then refill it many times. Halfling Priest gets a hefty bonus to Health and to refill effectiveness; and gets a lot of refills.

III. "Enable": You try to push a stat to an acceptable level - working off a handicap, or just boosting it beyond average - to enable another stat to really shine.
For example: Dwarf Rogue eliminates the Rogue's drawback. A Berserker worshipping Mystera works similarly. A Dwarf Assassin who pushes Health just enough to be able to take a single hit from a high-level monster - and then uses poison regen-fighting to wear it down.

IV. "Compliment": You try to push two unrelated stats to allow you to shine in both challenges needing one - or the other - stat. While one stat does not directly impact your ability to take on challenges of the other stat, it may allow you to spend resources more optimally.
For example: a Gnome Priest with +Mana items/boons will have a balanced refill available, maybe getting 400% to both (boosted) bars. An Elf Assassin can focus her spellcasting on higher-level opponents, and save resources on lower-level kills.

V. "Indirect": Perks that have a synergy with the same third thing. Even though they are unrelated to each other, having both might be beneficial to a character who expects to be strong in the third thing they synergise with.
For example: Alchemist Scroll, Trisword and Alchemist Pact have different effects and are only related to each-other in the sense that quaffing a potion will trigger their effects. They have an indirect synergy that is exploited on a Halfling, for example.

[choongmyoung]

Nice topic.

Wondering if the resistance stacking corresponds to type I "Boost". Yes, it certainly do, but resistance stacking is beyond that. You know, if you are able to get 25% resistance, it's a +1/4 boost for resistanceless character but +1/2 boost for characters who already have 50% resistance. So in this perspective this is somewhat more than a simple stat stacking. (Note: there's 65% resistance cap)

Also, I suggest another one, two things synergies with the same thing. Like, Trisword and Alchemist's Scroll. It can be seen as a combination of other synergies, but actually it is beyond that. I assume a single Trisword activation itself is designed to have power worth a single potion, and the same goes for Alchemist's Scroll. But if you have both of them, you can activate both to get power worth a couple of potions with only a single one.

[Tinker]

[Sidestepper]

The interactions between resistance, reduction, and life steal are so idiosyncratic that they are practically their own category.

We've talked to death about how resistance stacking has an asymptotic relationship to damage received, with each additional point of resistance blocking a proportionately higher fraction of the incoming damage. So there's that.

But then there's damage reduction, which interacts strangely with resistance. Reduction happens before resistance. In terms of absolute damage blocked, this means that reduction is less effective when you have resistance.

Example: You are fighting a monster with 50 damage. Having 20 points of reduction means you simply blocks 20 points of damage. Simple. But, if you also have 50% resistance, you end up taking (50-20)/2 = 15 damage. That 20 points of DR only ended up blocking 10 points of damage. Your final DR is effectively reduced by your resistance.

However, the proportionate damage reduction isn't changed. 20 points of DR against a 50 damage monster is a 40% drop in damage. If you have 50% resistance, you take 25 damage without DR and 15 damage with it. That's still a 40% drop in damage. You lose absolute DR because of the order of operations, but the reduction is subtracted from a smaller number, and the two effects exactly cancel out.

Then you have life steal, which ends up being very similar to DR, but it is calculated after resistances, and this makes it very powerful. The proportionate damage that life steal offsets is multiplied by your resistances. 10 points of life steal will cancel 20% of a a 50 damage monsters output, but if you have 50% resistance, you are now canceling 10 points out of 25, or a 40% decrease in damage.

The takeaway is that DR interacts poorly with resistance, but the penalty isn't as bad as it looks. The proportionate reduction always remains the same. Life steal, on the other hand, interacts explosively with resistances. There's a reason that Blood Hunger carries a resistance penalty.

[Tinker]

[dislekcia]

This is a super interesting thing to think about from the perspective of game design. You've also correctly identified that blanket effects (like resists) are way more powerful/impactful than they seem at first. This often happens when you pull stats/systems off enemies that players are supposed to interact with and expose them to the player's min-maxing.

Resists don't just increase your functional health pool, they also boost your comparative regeneration because you refill a much larger percentage of your functional health every time you explore something. Same thing with lifesteal. We debated having resistances directly impact damage to try and even this out, but we couldn't find a good way to make that feel like it enabled more gameplay than it removed.

[Tinker]

[Sidestepper]

I've always thought of melee builds as resting on four pillars. These pillars interact in a multiplicative fashion. You can succeed with only one, but the really outstanding builds have 2-4.

Health: This is the currency of combat. You sell your health for damage.
Damage: This is the price that you place on your health. It has two components (base and percent bonus), but unless you're an orc, you have limited ability to affect your base damage.
Damage Mitigation: This is a discount you get on your health. It is composed of Resistance, Damage Reduction, Life Steal, and Dodge. Dodge is a bit different from the others because it is flaky and can't be relied upon, and it also can't be reliably stacked. Discounted recovery magic (Wizard with HALPMEH, Paladin) could be considered part of Damage Mitigation, but this is dicey because it competes with direct magic damage in a way that the other things on this list do not.
Refills: Health potions, boons, Fire heart, etc. Effects that give you more potions or improve your existing potions go here. I don't consider fast healing effects (Monk, Bloody Sigil) to be part of this category, because they interact with combat in a very different way.

If I am playing a Dwarf, I am usually also taking things like Extra Attack and of keg of health. Humans get priority on health stacking. And so on.

[Sidestepper]

[Tinker]