# FYI Potion of Armor stacks with existing skull damage reduction **URL:** \ **Category:** Gameplay Chat (PC/Mobile)\ **Created:** [August 29, 2020, 12:55am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/fyi-potion-of-armor-stacks-with-existing-skull-damage-reduction/65733 "2020-08-29T00:55:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![igniteice](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/igniteice/32/67904_2.png) [@igniteice](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/igniteice)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 12:55am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/fyi-potion-of-armor-stacks-with-existing-skull-damage-reduction/65733/1 "2020-08-29T00:55:41Z")
For those who don’t know, when you purchase Potion of Armor and get 25% Skull Damage Reduction, this stacks with any existing skull damage reduction on the troop or your hero. It is not additive however. So if a troop already has 25%, it won’t have 50%. Instead, the incoming skull damage is reduced twice. Here’s a table showing the amount of damage blocked at various skull damage reduction levels based on 100 incoming damage: | Base Skull Damage Reduction | Incoming Damage | Potion of Armor Reduction | Total Skull Damage Reduction | Flat % Increase | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 0% | 100 | 75 | 25% | 25% | | 20% | 80 | 60 | 40% | 20% | | 25% | 75 | 56.25 | 44% | 19% | | 33% | 67 | 50.25 | 50% | 17% | | 40% | 60 | 45 | 55% | 15% | | 50% | 50 | 37.5 | 63% | 13% | | 65% | 35 | 26.25 | 74% | 9% | | 80% | 20 | 15 | 85% | 5% | Potion of Armor is clearly most effective for troops/heroes that have no skull damage reduction, because it reduces the damage by 25% when it wasn’t being reduced at all. So the total reduction increases a full 25%. However, as your base skull damage reduction increases, the “effectiveness” of the 25% decreases. For instance, Stonehammer has 80% skull damage reduction. So the amount of damage that gets reduced from Potion of Armor is already really low. That’s easy to see: if you get attacked for 100 and it’s reduced by 80%, you have 20 incoming damage. If it gets reduced another 25%, it only gets reduced by 5, down to 15. But if your original skull damage reduction is only 40% (Holy Armor), then your damage taken is 60, and 25% reduction on that is 15, so you only take 45. This means for instance that if 50% skull damage reduction normally is good enough, then you could get by with a troop that has only 33%, because with the 25% Potion, that’s a total of 50% damage reduction. Of course, at higher delve levels, you’ll want all the damage reduction you can get… ---
**Author:** ![awryan](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/awryan/32/74650_2.png) [@awryan](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/awryan)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 1:25am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/fyi-potion-of-armor-stacks-with-existing-skull-damage-reduction/65733/2 "2020-08-29T01:25:56Z")
Do you know for a fact that it’s happening as you describe? Because if the troop does have 25% skull reduction. And you stack on potion of armor. Then it’s supposed be 37.5% reduction not 50%. ---
**Author:** ![cyberkiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8dc957/32.png) [@cyberkiwi](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/cyberkiwi)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 1:44am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/fyi-potion-of-armor-stacks-with-existing-skull-damage-reduction/65733/3 "2020-08-29T01:44:37Z")
> [@awryan](#): > > Because if the troop does have 25% skull reduction. And you stack on potion of armor. Then it’s supposed be 37.5% reduction not 50%. If you follow igniteice’s post, your damage is reduced effectively by 43.75% (3rd row starting with 25% in the “100” column). Not sure how you worked out your percentage, but it should be - reduced by 25% from troop (75% left) - reduced by 25% from potion (75% left of 75% = 56.25% damage taken) ---
**Author:** ![Karatori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ac91a4/32.png) [@Karatori](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Karatori)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 1:46am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/fyi-potion-of-armor-stacks-with-existing-skull-damage-reduction/65733/4 "2020-08-29T01:46:06Z")
I think he said it won’t have a 50% reduction. If the troop was armored (25%) and had the potion too, they would normally take 3/4 damage… But with the potion, they savr another 1/4 off that 3/4 or 3/16 worth for a total protection of 1/4+3/16 or 7/16 or 43.75% so taking 56.25% as mentioned above… Unless OP edited things and I missed that… And ninja-ed. ---
**Author:** ![igniteice](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/igniteice/32/67904_2.png) [@igniteice](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/igniteice)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 1:51am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/fyi-potion-of-armor-stacks-with-existing-skull-damage-reduction/65733/5 "2020-08-29T01:51:49Z")
No I haven’t edited anything. In game works exactly as I described. It doesn’t matter the order you do the reductions in, since it’s multiplicative, but it doesn’t stack them, it instead reduces the incoming damage twice: first by one damage reduction, then by the next one. I’ll edit the column titles though to be easier to read. ---
**Author:** ![cyberkiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8dc957/32.png) [@cyberkiwi](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/cyberkiwi)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 1:56am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/fyi-potion-of-armor-stacks-with-existing-skull-damage-reduction/65733/6 "2020-08-29T01:56:03Z")
Here’s courtesy of Tacet ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/gemsofwar/original/3X/6/0/60ba6cffdb7aa9f13442754c1e0696aba5444939.jpeg) Damage of the skull block should be 127 + 5 + 1 = 133 Reduced twice (133 x 75% x 75%) = 74.81 Let me know where I went wrong there, otherwise it seems to round down ---
**Author:** ![igniteice](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/igniteice/32/67904_2.png) [@igniteice](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/igniteice)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2020, 2:07am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/fyi-potion-of-armor-stacks-with-existing-skull-damage-reduction/65733/7 "2020-08-29T02:07:03Z")
Having tested it with Stonehammer, there must be an internal limit, because it’s not stacking with Stonehammer. See video here: [![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/gemsofwar/original/3X/7/e/7e0b6176af7460d822b787a50b84ffbddb76db28.jpeg "Stonehammer") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beSUDH9qfVA) 101 x 0.2 = 20.2 \* .75 = 15 damage, but Stonehammer takes 20 damage. Maybe there’s an upper limit to how much damage can be reduced? Okay… something is bugged. I just tested it again with Stonehammer, this time it worked: [![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/gemsofwar/original/3X/c/5/c5d8be4fed1feec710c1568615f5bdb61705e67f.jpeg "Desktop | Shot with GeForce") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frqULT-D_iE) 138 x 0.2 = 27.6 \* .75 = 20.7, and Stonehammer takes 20 damage. So Potion of Armor didn’t work in the first room of the delve, but worked in subsequent rooms. Hi devs? Bugged much?