Hi guys i’m new to diablo 2 and i wanted to shed some light on my misunderstanding. I know there are two defense values: elemental damage resistances and defense. I remember that in act five on normal difficulty I used many potions to regenerate life but now that I easily go into nightmare returning to those areas the damage they do to me is negligible (the damage is physical so resistances have nothing to do with it), so I wonder why this since the defense is not really a reduction of the received damage but the possibility to “dodge” the attacks but evidently developing my character a reduction of the damage exists. Am I missing something simple, or is there another stat that reduces damage taken? (remember that I am referring to physical damage, not elemental damage which is handled by resistances). Thank you
The defense value simply reduces enemies chances to hit you with physical melee or ranged attacks. It does nothing to reduce the chance of hits from elemental attacks. Also, your total defense is reduced to ZERO while you are running. If you are walking or standing still, your defense will stay the same.
In addition to your defense value reducing the chance of a physical attack hitting you, using a shield grants you an additional chance to block attacks that your raw defense value fails to protect you from.
There are items that give you “Physical damage reduced by %age”, like Stormshield, String of Ears and Harlequin Crest Shako. The maximum value you can reach is 50% physical damage reduction.
https://maxroll.gg/d2/resources/hit-chance-mechanics
Okay firstly the defence value is what percent a monster hits you physically not a elemental attacks. The value diminishs to zero when you move around running only. There are skills to increase that defense value and equipment so the higher the better.
Now as for dodge only the amazon can do this but at a percent value in the skill level.
Damage reduction does exsist on very few gear and a expensive ber rune thats socketable but their is a cap on this so i have been told.
Okay so you want survivability you can acheive this a few ways so the obvious one is high end gear no need defence or anything just kill before they can reach you or hit faster then them so they die.
Now about the damage reduction it is not all that great either. Resistance to all maxed elements also greatly increases survivability.
So having a sheild helps too with block rate but this can be higher if you spend points in dex. So your block chance is higher 75% is the highest and then it will depend on how fast you block.
Coming back to the skills some of the characters have things like bone armour, cyclone armour, mana sĺleild and few others.
If you pick melee characters like barb make sure to pack some life leech and mana leech this helps with survivability
As you level up and get better equip with higher defense your chance to being hit by physical attacks will go down. You can check that on your attribute profile if you hover over your defense. It will show % for last monster you fought.
So it might be case that you just take less hits so in the end less damage.
What also might be happening is that you have damage reduced by X stat on equip. Others talked about % reductio but missed this one. If you have damage reduced by 6 and monster would do 6 damage to you,you will not get any damage at all.
Damage and magic damage stats are one of the most overlooked ones but they are very good.
guys I solved the doubt, I had simply increased the life value so the damages were smaller… thanks for the answers!