Question About The Order of Modifiers

My apologies if this is posted in the wrong section. This is my first post.

I was wondering if there's an official post somewhere concerning the order of modifiers on dmg.

For instance... (And I'll try to keep it as simple as I can)

A 600 build monk, a 16/16 smiter monk and a ritualist with dmg reducing spirits together in a HM dungeon. At what point would the dmg reduction from spirits occur? Before or after smites? Before or after hlth regen? etc. etc. (Would dmg reduction be harmful or helpful to the 600?)

I read the information posted on wiki concerning dmg but the formula doesn't seem to take into consideration effects from other characters but from the amount of damage vs. dmg taker's armor, lvl etc.

Of course I would like to find complete information regarding the order of all possible modifiers but that would most likely be one daunting task to create. Any general information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Deakon

The damage smites occur after all damage modifiers excluding a couple (soa springs to mind). There is no real definitive order, it depends on the skill.

Some like SoA reduce last always, others like shielding hands reduce depending on order of casting.

I don't know all the details about the order of spells, but I can say that damage reduction by Rit spirits is not helpful to the 600/smite. You want the damage 'applied' to the 600 to be basically within a certain range. [Spirit Bond] and [Protective Spirit] will protect the 600 from getting too much damage, while you want the amount of damage 'reflected' back to the target by [Holy Wrath] and [Retribution] to be pegging their built in limits as much as possible.

Just as an example, without getting into real figures, if you reduced the damage to the 600 to as low as, say, 3, then Holy Wrath combined with Retribution would only do 3 damage back to the target. Not likely to kill the target any time soon that way.

If I recall, Holy Wrath and Retribution do their damage (or calculate it) before Spirit Bond and Protective Spirit are applied. But it's been a while since I did 600/smite - it may turn out to be only roughly 60 damage reflected back to source.
The key thing is that the 600/Smite relies upon getting enough damage to make everything work.

Thanks for the responses... Quaker, you say Holy Wrath and Retribution calculate their damage (i.e. redirect it back to the source) before Spirit Bond and Protective Spirit are applied. So it would seem to me that redirected damage would occur before damage reduction. If that's the case, wouldn't damage reducing spirits be beneficial for the 600?

(Not using real situation numbers...) enemy does 60 damage to 600. Smites redirect damage back to enemy. Damage reducing enchants then reduce the damage to the 600?

There's got to be a definitive order for modifiers of damage (inbound and outbound). It would be a mechanics nightmare for the programmers if not. (I used to be a play-tester for TSR) I've scoured many sites looking for info... maybe I'm just a geek? lol

Deakon

I find it hard to believe that it depends on the skill.

Most cases it seems to be that whatever effect is there first does its thing first. If you lay a Union followed by Shelter damage is reduced by 15, then to 10% if need be. Drop them in the reverse order and it's reduced to 10% followed by another 15 damage.

Seeing as how such minor updates break the most random things within this game it wouldn't surprise me if the code is impossible for anyone but their employees to follow.

Well, considering that the 600 has to use minimal armor to increase the damage done, I'd say that damage reduction doesn't help.

The 600/smite build is actually fairly complex and requires a certain amount of damage. The 600 needs to receive enough damage to trigger Spirit Bond to gain health. Prot Spirit and SoA keep the damage from being too much.

At 16 in Smiting the Holy Wrath and Retribution reflect back a maximum total of 74 damage. Because the amount of damage reflected back goes down if you reduce the amount of damage done to the 600 (by wearing the wrong armor, for example, or being in NM), I assume that the damage reduction is done first. I think it's:
Damage >> reduced to 10%, if necessary (~80 with Vital Blessing) >> reflected (74 max)

So basically, no, damage reduction doesn't help the 600. The 600/smite is designed to work as a 2 man team, and does so very well in most places. Any time you might want to add a extra member to the team, it would be to assist the 600/smite in getting by enemies that do things like enchant removal, or massive degen, etc. - not to reduce damage.

If prot spirit etc didnt reduce the damage done by retribution/holy wrath then y bother running a 600? If you ran a 55 with the same build, it would be far better. Therefore it triggers after ps, as I said earlier. It however triggers before SoA as I also said earlier.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "run a 55 with the same build", but a 55 would only reflect about 5 damage back while a 600 reflects 74 - it takes a lot less time to kill stuff with a 600.
A 600/smite has 2 "people" (usually a human 600 and a Hero Smite), so the drops are a bit less, but the 600/smite is a lot faster and can do paces a solo 55 can't. A 55/smite may be possible, but it would do less damage and take longer, so why would you?