Interesting MS/MgS Comparison (in General)

I have always wanted it to be better to use an MS instead of an MgS, since the AC of the former would deal with physical attacks as well.

Now I can.

Almost.

I was thinking about the supporter-item nature of the MgS, and I realized that it might still be an old-school style supporter item. It turns out -- it is. Almost.

Since the damage reduction of the MgS and the AC enchantment get multiplied together, the effect of the MgS shrinks as the total AC of the user grows. I picked a point at which the NW is roughly equal -- a +60 MS and a +49 MgS. Now, granted, naming bonuses throws this off. Ignore that for now. Here's what I found:

There's a crossover point at 358/359 AC where the MS starts doing more reduction of DD than the MgS. With 358 AC, adding a +60 MS will give you a total DD reduction of 0.1222, whereas the +49 MgS will yield 0.1216. At 359, these values become 0.1201 and 0.1205, respectively.

Does this help at all? Maybe. If you can get an AC of 358 with no shield, and you have a large MS at +60, you can equip that instead of a MgS +49 and get an extra 0.0004% damage reduction (and a lot less PR) out of the MS. Plus, you can use the PR to block physical attacks, including GA, as well.

Now if only getting 358 AC with no shield was slightly less Herculean........

358 isn't so hard to reach NS, i have 392 AC and there are a few that have even more than that.

Ed, that's 358 enchantment (+) AC, before +60 from a MS. ;) Not so easy.

So if you invested a couple hundred million in the Wall armor set, you could theoretically come up with a set that allowed the MS to be more useful against mages than the Mage Shield, blocking a little over 87.5%.

Interesting factoid, at least. Though I guess you can't count out the possibility of someone with deep pockets reaching that kind of NW...

ah 358 on just the + is a different story

Or you could just break the game by getting a MgS to +51. ;)

doesn't the Mage Shield still block 1% of DD damage per + ? so wouldn't a +49 Mage Shield block 0.49 instead of the 0.1216 you have?

It blocks a % of a %.

I think what he is trying to say is:
assume 1000 DD damage
With (+358) AC, that would block 0.7518 or 752 DD damage.
Adding a +60 MS would give (+418 AC), that would block 0.8778 or 878 DD damage.
This means that the MS blocks and addition 126 DD damage or 0.126.

An MgS at +49 would block 0.49*(1000 - 752) = 121.52, or an extra 122 DD damage.

Thus the MgS would block 0.122, while the MS would block 0.126.

My numbers are slight different than NightStrikes, but we both arrive at the same conclusion: If you managed to get 358 AC of (+), then a +60 MS is more economical than the +49 MgS.

And I'd like to point out that +358 is basically impossible...
Using the armor with the cheapest upgrades (and without a shield):
+256 would cost $124,000,000 CBD (or $1240 USD) (after that there is no more data in the wiki).

Each +1 AC after this costs at least $3,000,000 CBD. Since armor upgrades increase in cost in a non-linear fashion, that price would skyrocket. Even assuming that each AC from then averaged only $10M per + (an underestimate), that stills brings the total NW to a minimum of $1,020,000,000 CBD (which is still a ginormous underestimate, but about the same NW that The End of Days currently has)

Basically, NightStrike makes a neat observation, that is utterly impractical, but still a very cool observation.

Perhaps you could tweak the sizes of the shields to make it slightly less impractical.

MgS blocks only DD... MS blocks both (but less DD), why are you trying to change that to make MS better at blocking DD than the DD blocking shield? It's a piece of metal...

CMM, I don't think you understand my post entirely.....

Could very well be the case... mind explaining where I was mistaken a bit, in laymans terms without all the math?

Well, basically, I wasn't trying to change anything. I just happened to notice that a mage shield doesn't necessairily reduce X% of the DD damage inflicted, where X is the plus on it. I also noticed that the DD reduction of the MgS and the MS were starting to converge, so I plotted it out and found the convergence point -- the point at which both items actually block the same amount of DD. Therefore, past that point, you actually get MORE DD blockage from a mithril shield instead of a mage shield. Does that make a little more sense?

Indeed, but it seems that the crossover point is so far up on the NW curve that it seems unlikely that the situation will ever be encountered in the game. Given that this is the case, I think that it is safe to say that the MgS still retains its place as a supporter item ;-)

Though, it would be interesting to see all such convergence points.
There must be a mathematical "best strategy" for any given NW/MPR combination (in terms of wins/draws/losses/stales)...

Cheers,
muon.

One thing to consider is the minion wearing the MgS. Swap that to a MS and they can train ED. If they trained Protection, that might lower the gap...