question about min and max items

hello there,

as you all know, d2 is a game of range values and capped values and there are only little flat numbers.
I'm wondering how big the difference between a character with the lowest rolled items possible vs. the same character with the same items but with the highest rolled values possible is.
do you guys have any information about that or a place where I can find some info?

I was wondering about that because values to choose from often look very big but in fact they make a difference of hundreths of a percent (assuming I did the math correctly )

I was thinking about something like this:
if you have let's say a pally with 7423 defence and you have a

Monarch with 136 def and one with 148 def to choose from. now, the difference between these two with this defence value at hand would be 12. compared to the defence value of 7423 it would be 0,16166 percent.
so, the better shield would contribute 0,16% to the defence of the character.
did I get that right?
if I am correct I'm wondering why people always grab the highest value stuff if the differences are so minuscule. I was wondering what the biggest difference in items are as there are so many.

The answer to that depends entirely on your build and which item/stat you're looking at.

For example, say you're a caster. Say you're looking at your

Boots. Typically, you will never notice any difference between min and max because it is (for the most part) just a handful of defense points which for you as a caster will always suck either way. Your damage is from skills and potentially -res so no effect there, you may

Teleport so even differences in run speed wouldn't matter (though I believe there isn't any with a range on that to begin with, unless you look at rares). And so on and so forth.

Now, say you're that same caster. And say you're looking at your crafted amulet. Getting a max FCR roll on that may be the exact one last point you need to hit the next FCR breakpoint. In that case, the difference is VERY noticeable. The same is true for things like the fana lvl on Faith which may make or break your IAS breakpoint.

If you look at various weapons, some have a dmg range that is so small that it hardly matters. Or if you're a kicksin, you couldn't care less as no weapon ED applies. Others however have ranges that make a VERY noticeable dent in overall dmg output. Oath for example, between min and max, results in an overall phys dmg difference of over 40%..that's massive.

And if you look at things like resistances, the difference between say 70 and 75 doesn't sound like much "mweh, 5%" but since you're taking 25% instead of 30% dmg, that's actually a reduction of ~17% which is quite noticeable in a lot of cases.

Basically, whether or not you will notice an actual difference in gameplay cannot be covered by a blanket statement as it simply varies based on a multitude of factors. If you have a specific build/gear setup in mind, you could just plan out both versions on maxroll to see how big the difference really is (assuming it is one of the builds that it does calculate correctly ^^).

All that having been said, it is also simply a matter of Principle. If you have full BiS for your character as is, the only thing you have left to achieve for that char (other than maybe hitting 99 still) is to replace the existing BiS with perfect roll BiS. So..even if the difference may be minimal, a lot of people still want to achieve that.

That's not yet considering PvP where a difference of 1 life point - unlikely as it is - may well be the difference between winning and not winning an entire tournament.

Independent of the general response above, there's also a mistake in your pally shield assumption/example:
If you go from a 136 def shield to a 148 def shield, especially on a pally, you won't increase your def by 12. You will increase your BASE def by 12. That then gets amplified by

Holy Shield, syn, maybe

Defiance and all sorts of goodies and ultimately is significantly more than 12 (albeit still not a massive boost in the overall context most likely).

The same is true for weapon dmg where 1 more base dmg doesn't mean you do 1 more dmg in the end but you actually move up by what is sometimes a surprisingly high amount as it gets amplified by stats, gear and skills as well.

yeah, with the ias breakpoints I noticed the change. I am over the 72% breakpoint with my tesladin and if you go below 72% percent you can even see that he is slower.
as I thought, this is getting very complicated and I assumed that there is no general statement possible

It is not about min/max the build. It is the perfection that people want.
Let say you already have all end-game gears and still have 100

Ber in your stash. What would you do with them?
Well, spend 1

Ber to buy 1 perfect Spirit with 35 FCR, 112 To Mana , 8 Magic Absorb is what people will do.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

Independent of the general response above, there's also a mistake in your pally shield assumption/example:
If you go from a 136 def shield to a 148 def shield, especially on a pally, you won't increase your def by 12. You will increase your BASE def by 12. That then gets amplified by

Holy Shield, syn, maybe

Defiance and all sorts of goodies and ultimately is significantly more than 12 (albeit still not a massive boost in the overall context most likely).

The same is true for weapon dmg where 1 more base dmg doesn't mean you do 1 more dmg in the end but you actually move up by what is sometimes a surprisingly high amount as it gets amplified by stats, gear and skills as well.

yeah, I thought about the base def and the added stuff after the base dmg.
in that regard I was wondering if 15% ed make big of a difference and I think in base damage no and it depends on the char if yes after all the added dmg calculations. I presume a big yes for things like Grief where it is an addition of flat damage instead of a percentage.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 1 year ago

It is not about min/max the build. It is the perfection that people want.
Let say you already have all end-game gears and still have 100

Ber in your stash. What would you do with them?
Well, spend 1

Ber to buy 1 perfect Spirit with 35 FCR, 112 To Mana , 8 Magic Absorb is what people will do.

I tend to believe that.

Crispin wrote: 1 year ago

if I am correct I'm wondering why people always grab the highest value stuff if the differences are so minuscule. I was wondering what the biggest difference in items are as there are so many.

For the same reason some people buy $10,000 suits when others have similar ones for $200; They can afford it.

Once you've been playing this game for a while, you'll have more than enough to buy pretty much everything you want, at it's "minimum value".
So if you buy all that gear, what will you do with the rest of your currencies?

What if you fully gear your character, then you find a

Ber? Well, you upgrade one of his item.

It is worth it to spend a

Ber to get 100 defense?
Depends, I suppose..

But is it worth it to spend a

Ber just to 'keep a

Ber in your stash forever without spending it on anything'? Definitely not.

mishabg wrote: 1 year ago

Crispin wrote: 1 year ago

if I am correct I'm wondering why people always grab the highest value stuff if the differences are so minuscule. I was wondering what the biggest difference in items are as there are so many.

For the same reason some people buy $10,000 suits when others have similar ones for $200; They can afford it.

Once you've been playing this game for a while, you'll have more than enough to buy pretty much everything you want, at it's "minimum value".
So if you buy all that gear, what will you do with the rest of your currencies?

What if you fully gear your character, then you find a

Ber? Well, you upgrade one of his item.

It is worth it to spend a

Ber to get 100 defense?
Depends, I suppose..

But is it worth it to spend a

Ber just to 'keep a

Ber in your stash forever without spending it on anything'? Definitely not.

true, the digital equivalent.

Great examples from Schnorki, thanks. There is one more thing, often overlooked: damage also has (soft) breakpoints.

To illustrate that, suppose I'm fighting a creature with 12000 life and I'm dealing 3k dmg per attack. To kill it, I need to perform 4 attacks. Increasing my damage by, say, 500 improves nothing - I still need 4 attacks. Only after improving my damage by 1k it is noticeable: 12k HP / 4k dmg = 3 attacks.

In real game this effect is often masked by the fact that different creatures have different HP pools, regeneration rate, resistances and, the most importantly, the ubiquitous random factor.

Once a high level character with endgame gear kills most monsters with 1 attack, there is little to improve damage-wise (not counting the variability listed above). It's probably better to focus on other aspects, such as survivability or mobility.

Schnorki wrote: 1 year ago

And if you look at things like resistances, the difference between say 70 and 75 doesn't sound like much "mweh, 5%" but since you're taking 25% instead of 30% dmg, that's actually a reduction of ~17% which is quite noticeable in a lot of cases.

It emphasizes how important are +max res bonuses. The difference of damage received between soft (75%) and hard (95%) max is 5×.
I wish we had, instead of resistances (or in addition to), displayed damage received. And, even better, the change of it when comparing items, since mentally calculating (1 - current res) / (1 - new res) on the fly is quite demanding.