Change "Reduced Reflected Damage Taken" to "Less Reflected Damage Taken"

The current situation of ailment reflect from either Eldritch Altars or Necropolis/league mechanic negative modifier (especially when it is a no-opt-out mechanic) exacerbates the unintuitive issue of how these sources of increased damage taken modifiers interact with Damage Reflect modifiers. Changing the sources of mitigating Reflect damage to a Less modifier solves this interaction issue while allowing for the ailment reflect to stay just as dangerous.

(Map) Reflect, in my opinion, is fine as a source of danger. As a player, you make the choice of spending your currency to roll over the map, OR take the opportunity cost to overcome the modifier (just like many other defensive choices made in the game). Currently, overcoming Map Reflect means getting 100% reduced Reflected Damage taken (Pantheon, Passive Tree Mastery, Unique item, etc).

However, Reflect's interaction with increased damage taken (eg. Shock) is very unintuitive. Mathematically, yes, an increase and a reduction are additive; however, going out of your way to overcome Reflect AND THEN trying to diagnose why you are still dying in a map as a result of ailment reflect/increased damage taken modifiers (previously on Sextant modifiers) should not be something a player at any level needs to go through.

With this league, where Necropolis cannot be opted out of, monsters can reflect applied ailments back to you. This can also be obtained via Eater of Worlds Altars, but at least you can read the modifier and decide not to choose it (additional opportunity cost). For characters who apply Shock (which is a large percentage of the player base, due to its strength), this effectively re-introduces Rare Monster packs with Reflect a-la 2014, only worse considering the higher density of monsters, as well as the overall speed of the game.

Like 2014, a stray projectile or a monster being activated when being "close" with this mod is not something can be intuitively overcome. In fact, it's worse considering that the player has already gone out of their way overcome Reflect with the above opportunity cost decisions prior to entering the map. Whether you are a veteran of the game or a new player, the only solution when in this situation is to abandon the zone/map; ignoring an entire monster type on the map would otherwise require you to play extremely carefully and--depending on the pack density--effectively be reducing the reward value of the map by a large percentage.

Original Reflect monster modifier removed as an aura in 2015 (2.0.0), and entirely as a monster modifier in 2017 (3.1.0), both having reasoning that Reflect wasn't a modifier that had meaningful player interaction. With Necropolis, we've re-introduced this issue due to being unable to opt out of the league content. If future league content is forced opt-in, then I believe this issue must be addressed and fixed.

The simple fix I propose is changing reduced reflected damage taken to less reflected damage taken. 100% less grants the immunity expected from the investment, while also keeping shock/ailment reflect/increased damage taken modifiers just as dangerous for the player-expected scenarios.

There's already precedence for other map modifiers to do similar--aura effect is a less modifier, player armour & evasion is a less modifier, curse effect is a less modifier. These modifiers are very impactful, but can't destroy a player's decision to invest into those mechanics outright. Similarly, Reflect should be a modifier that can impact a player, but can be overcome via player choices. But there shouldn't be a common edge case where it completely counteracts a player's expectation of their investment (I emphasize common since the above less modifiers can also counteract those player's respective investments, but that comes when the player opts into increased map modifier effect).

Please consider this change, as unfortunately, this isn't a new request/complaint. It would be nice for a mid-league change, but having this come next league is also fine.

The downside of making it a “less” modifier is that those are multiplicative with others of their kind. This would make it impossible to achieve 100% reflect damage reduction by combining bonuses lower than 100%: eg. two 50% reductions would be the equivalent of one 75% reduction.

I say downside because although that’s not necessarily a problem, it doesn’t sound like that’s what you intend.

In that case what’s actually needed is to split off reflect damage into a separate calculation step rather than making it something that can be part of the general “damage taken” step.

True, I always forget that aspect in regards to the game. Intuitively, having multiple sources of the same "less" modifier should total together (additive), but that's not how it actually works.

The purpose of reflect as a mechanic is a sustain/defense check or in some cases a boss mechanic like don't hit it during this window. It has no other game mechanic purpose.

Reflect as a mechanic doesn't work in this game and should be shunned as result.

If PoE had a closer ratio of defense Vs offense then it could work but that's not the case.
As result it's only purpose is to kill the player.

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Xzorn wrote:

The purpose of reflect as a mechanic is a sustain/defense check or in some cases a boss mechanic like don't hit it during this window. It has no other game mechanic purpose.

Reflect as a mechanic doesn't work in this game and should be shunned as result.

If PoE had a closer ratio of defense Vs offense then it could work but that's not the case.
As result it's only purpose is to kill the player.

Yeah. I don't really see what it adds to the game as it is.

If it has to stay I'd really prefer to see it work a bit like leech - something that comes out over a short time in limited but stacking instances so you can more easily make tactical decisions by seeing it build up and backing off. I think borrowing leech's visual indication in your health orb would be good too, a coloured overlay that in this case goes down instead of up.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

Yeah. I don't really see what it adds to the game as it is.

If it has to stay I'd really prefer to see it work a bit like leech - something that comes out over a short time in limited but stacking instances so you can more easily make tactical decisions by seeing it build up and backing off. I think borrowing leech's visual indication in your health orb would be good too, a coloured overlay that in this case goes down instead of up.

Something like this helps the mechanic actually work for sure. Esp when there's a cap.

I'm not sure it's enough given the massive gap in defense Vs offense. The pool would have to be set to enemy level or something quasi static and not our own damage output.

At that point is it even reflect or just reverse leech? Doesn't feel like it's worth saving.

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Xzorn wrote:

The purpose of reflect as a mechanic is a sustain/defense check or in some cases a boss mechanic like don't hit it during this window. It has no other game mechanic purpose.

Reflect as a mechanic doesn't work in this game and should be shunned as result.

If PoE had a closer ratio of defense Vs offense then it could work but that's not the case.
As result it's only purpose is to kill the player.

I think this mechanic better describes Lightning Thorns, eg. Act 4 Shavronne, which is (now) a flat reflected damage when hit. It's also has an "obvious" visual to indicate it being active.

If we're talking about whether Reflect (as a percentage of player damage) should still exist in its current form, then I'm mostly in agreement with removing it entirely. Look back to when Arena map was a popular map, and the bull had a skill to turn on a reflect aura. It served the purpose you described--force the player to stop attacking and defend/play against the mechanic in some form. Realistically, most players just hoped to have enough damage to kill the boss before it even used the skill, or otherwise just died and moved on to the next map.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

Yeah. I don't really see what it adds to the game as it is.

If it has to stay I'd really prefer to see it work a bit like leech - something that comes out over a short time in limited but stacking instances so you can more easily make tactical decisions by seeing it build up and backing off. I think borrowing leech's visual indication in your health orb would be good too, a coloured overlay that in this case goes down instead of up.

Reflect as a DoT is an interesting idea, although it then sort of pushes the issue towards current defenses against DoTs--are there sufficient options for players against DoTs, as well as whether GGG will address DoTs.