Survivability Comparison Sheet
Change one defensive stat at a time and write down the effective health. The absolute number matters less than which row wins.
BFCBrilliance · bfcbrilliance.com/tools/effective-health-calculator
The character
- Game
- Character / class
- Date
- Health
- Damage reduction %
- EFFECTIVE HEALTH
- Resistance cap (if any)
One row per variant — change ONE stat
| What changed | Health | Reduction % | EHP | Hits survived |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The arithmetic
- Effective health
- health / (1 - reduction)
- Multiplier
- 1 / (1 - reduction)
- Damage taken
- hit x (1 - reduction)
- The real question
- how much gets THROUGH, not how much is blocked
What reduction is actually worth
- 0%
- x1 — your health bar
- 25%
- x1.33
- 50%
- x2
- 75%
- x4
- 80%
- x5
- 90%
- x10
- 95%
- x20
- ⚠ 40 → 50%
- at 5000 hp, +1,667 EHP
- ⚠ 80 → 90%
- at 5000 hp, +25,000 EHP — 15x more
Before trusting a comparison
- Percentage taken from the character sheet, not a raw armour rating
- Resistance cap checked - points past it are worth exactly nothing
- Only ONE stat changed between rows
- Same incoming hit used for both builds
- Remember avoidance (dodge/block) is NOT included and behaves differently
- Separate resistances per damage type worked out separately
- Sanity-check against a real fight if the game allows it
It is about what gets through
Every counterintuitive thing about resistance follows from one reframe. Do not ask how much you block — ask how much reaches you. Going 80% to 90% sounds like a tenth more blocking; it is actually HALVING the incoming damage, and halving it again is what doubling effective health means.
Buy both, not one
Reduction has increasing returns and health has flat ones, so people conclude reduction always wins. It does not — reduction MULTIPLIES health, so it needs something to multiply. The strongest builds move both together, and the weakest are the extremes of either.