Protection

Details about Protection shields and how they scale.

"Protection" refers to the shield buff that Protection Potions, Cleric's Protection spell, and Wizard's Arcane Shield Skill & Reactive Shield Perk provide. These instances of Protection offer a temporary boost to defensive capabilities, but the way they work is very specific.

Protection "Health" Scaling

All Protection instances have a hidden Attribute Bonus Ratio value that impacts whether or not their health pool will scale. Currently, the values are as follows:

• Protection Potion: 0%
• Protection Spell: 0%
• Reactive Shield: 0%
• Arcane Shield: 50%

The stat that scales the HP of the shield is Magic Power Bonus. Most shields have an ABR of 0%, meaning no scaling will occur at all. However, Wizard's Arcane Shield has an ABR of 50%, meaning that the shield's HP will be multiplied by 1 + (Magic Power Bonus/2)

Example:

Default Wizard has a Magic Power Bonus of 15%. Arcane Shield's base HP is 20. Final shield health is:

20 * (1 + (0.15/2) = 20 * 1.075 = 21.5

Interactions with Damage Calculation

Protection instances interact strangely with some of the game's damage calculation mechanics. Notably, Protection will not interact with damage reduction or headshot/limb multipliers. Protection instead subtracts from the user's total damage before applying these multipliers. This is best explained with an example.

Example:

Exactly 25 damage is dealt to someone with a 20-HP Protection shield.

If a bodyshot, damage is:

25-20 = 5 * 1 = 5

If a headshot, damage is:

25-20 = 5 * 1.5 = 7.5

If a limbshot, damage is:

25-20 = 5 * 0.5 = 2.5

Things Protection Does Interact With:

• Combo Multiplier
• Weapon Impact Zone Multiplier
• Weapon/Additional Damage

Things Protection Doesn't Interact With:

• Headshot/Limb Multipliers
• Physical/Magical Damage Reduction

Unknowns:

• True Damage

Overflow damage is calculated as normal. The exception seems to be Traps, which even when breaking the Protection shield, will not inflict any overflow damage. This means that a Wizard drinking an 8 HP Protection Potion can walk through a 20 damage trap and be left unscathed.