Defensive Problems; Melee, Evasion, Energy Shield, Auto Attacks and Physical Damage

Apologies i thought we were discussing defensive forms.

Not "why can't a glass-canon build survive the endgame". Because the answer to that is redundantly simple.

All of the things you mention apply equally to the right side of the tree. They can also go block, armor, endurance charges(easily up to 5), use immortal call etc etc...

I play evasion because i enjoy the play-style. DPS is the last thing on my mind.

If i wanna play a glasscanon, i would make a ranged char.

Peace,

-Boem-

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Boem wrote:

I play evasion because i enjoy the play-style. DPS is the last thing on my mind.

I am talking about defensive mechanics, and in particular the effect the increase on monster physical damage, types and numbers of monsters, and increase in prevalence of very high accuracy or phys spell bosses.

At the end of the day, one could frame this as either an issue with how physical damage is mitigated (for example, end-game elemental damage is balanced around 60-75% resistance), and I would say physical damage is balanced around between 35 and 50 percent reduction with the exception of extraneous affairs that are not exclusively available to either evasion or evasion/es characters or both (MoM, acrobatics, max end charges, etc). With acrobatics and MoM as examples, provided these can be used and sustained, against smaller hits from mobs (which hurt evasion characters quite a bit), you reach at least 30 percent damage reduction. The armor phys reduction not available to evasion; arguably fine until you include the entropy system.

This is less of a big deal for HP users - I rerolled today and I'm edging up to Merc now and I am having no problems with my evasion character because I have high DPS and good aoe clear, I can attack from a distance and I am HP. There is very little required of me at this point in the game, whereas an evasion/ES character would be having significant trouble with Cruel Daresso pits without sufficient clearspeed.

The changes that recently entered the game means that melee is fundamentally more difficult with evasion and energy shield - even if you spend the overwhelming majority of your points on defense. The best solution to run cruel daresso as an evasion, energy shield melee character (particularly if you are not focusing on having high DPS or huge aoe clear speeds), is to use a granite flask.

There is no reason why a granite flask should be more effective for a character that has specialised in an entirely different form of defense in cruel (where a granite with an armor bonus effect will still mitigate a very big chunk of damage from mobs).

I think evasion is better than armor when it comes to bosses that hit for large percentages of health, as it allows you to avoid these more frequently. However, the majority of the time in game is not spent fighting these monsters (it is the significant minority), and most of the heavy hitters of physical damage are slow enough that, with enough skill they can be avoided with the exception of some auto-attacks which may hit you while you move past (Merc Malachai Auto Attack for example, is difficult to avoid indefinately as a melee character).

Block, Evade, Blind and Enfeeble used all at the same time is an extremely effective combination - I would argue overpowered for single enemy encounters (again because of the entropy system). None of these requirements exist for armor to be truly "tanky" all the way up until maps.

A system where partial success evasion granted reduced damage in the same fashion as armor would work better than the current system - you wouldn't be having a significantly harder time as a melee player against white mobs. Likewise, I think the game would benefit from readily available cast on damage taken setups that specifically benefit the right hand side of the tree for survivability in the same way that immortal call - while currently essential for every build - is geared towards the lower-right side of the tree. Something that releases a smoke cloud and automatically blinds for example, as opposed to requiring a cast on damage taken, flame totem, blind, which is no where near as reliable as IC.

I also think there should be some sort of evasion related check to spells that deal physical damage. Right now elemental spells that hit don't necessarily need the check because the reduction is available to everyone (though frankly I disagree with a percentage based reduction, even though it is a staple in these types of games). Phys spells however are massive.

Don't get me started on how drastically different things like puncture are for evasion builds, that often have to move more than armor builds, or other physical DOT effects that require Eva/ES to avoid regening for some time if they do not have access to a bleed potion, and if they have to move will often bring them to death. I mean it's not a problem - except that none of that is actually required for armor users.

I agree completely that the EV/ES arche-type is severely fucked in the current game-state.

However, that's not because armor > evasion.

It's simply because the gear required to pull such a build off is locked behind a shit ton of $$$.

It's a form of extreme late-game defensive potential.(combining a massive hp pool, with an entropy based nullification mechanic that allows the massive hp pool to auto regen)

It's strong when you have the gear for it, but it requires a certain threshold on both value's (es/ev) to shine and succeed.

And for the investment it's a poor choice, since you can easily make similar EHP buffers for a penny compared to the investment required to pull it off.

I always said (in other threads) that ES melee needs a bone thrown to them in the current game state. I was merely pointing out the core difference between AR/EV when looked at in a vacuum.(which they are not)

CI melee is extremely hard to pull off currently, it can be done but i wouldn't suggest it to anybody now since the investment far exceeds the potential.

Peace,

-Boem-

not much of an ES or eva user but removing the ES penalty from acrobatics could probably solve many of the problems ES/eva have

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ihasmario wrote:

...I think that the addition of more physical damage in spell damage and also the general boost to mob damage (compensated for by adding fortify and also more HP per level) has hurt ES/Eva melee characters - and they were already the worst in the game, defensively.

Armor and HP is straight up better than evasion/ES - especially for melee.

In practice, virtually all serious Evasion builds take Dodge as well. Consequently there is no such thing as a viable "Evasion/ES" build. Even if ES was not rendered useless by Acrobatics, the downtimes produced by ES's recharge delays make it an unreliable way to plug Evasion's entropy holes.

The upside of Evasion entropy is that it protects you from taking consecutive hits. Mitigation strategy should thus focus on quick HP recovery and capping max damage taken from individual hits. Life regeneration is one of the major defensive meta's of Patch 2.0, and IME, is even more important for Evasion/Dodge builds than for HP/Armour builds. Assuming at least 200 HP/sec life regen, here are the most effective damage capping techniques I've used:

* Endu Charges, Fortify, Arctic Armour - pretty much de riguer for melee builds
* Shock, bleed, and poison protection - adequately covered by flasks and life regen
* Critical Strike damage nullification - occasionally crucial and often overlooked

Though base monster Crit Multiplier is only 130%, it can be dramatically raised by Assassin's Mark and map mods. Several ways to protect against these threats:

* Life ball buffer - at least 4000 HP, preferably 4500+ for melee
* Enfeeble - 25% reduced enemy critical strike muliplier
* Belt of the Deceiver - 30% reduced extra damage from critical strikes
* Unyielding passive node - 20% reduced extra damage from critical strikes
* Curse dispersal - flasks with Immunity to Curses

IMO, the Unyielding node should be moved from the outer Templar area to the Duelist area, making up for the recent loss of MoM. It's not a popular choice in its current location, as left-side builds are better advised to max Endurance Charges.

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Boem wrote:

Apologies i thought we were discussing defensive forms.

Not "why can't a glass-canon build survive the endgame". Because the answer to that is redundantly simple.

All of the things you mention apply equally to the right side of the tree. They can also go block, armor, endurance charges(easily up to 5), use immortal call etc etc...

I play evasion because i enjoy the play-style. DPS is the last thing on my mind.

If i wanna play a glasscanon, i would make a ranged char.

Peace,

-Boem-

We ARE discussing defensive forms. But you can't divorce DPS from survivability. We all know that EV is heavily reliant on good DPS to survive.

For an EV melee build your entropy counter is a ticking time bomb. Fighting Kole in 2 seconds is better than fighting him for 20 seconds as EV melee. This is especially true once you approach one-shot damage levels. The one-shot damage threshold for an EV build is much lower than for the AR build.


That's my whole point that if your DPS is not significantly higher than an AR build then there really is no point because your net survivability is lower than the AR guy.

I don't know why you think ranged chars are glass cannons - they have access to all the mitigation methods you mention except maybe Fortify or block. In fact ranged chars have even greater survivability than melee simply because they play at RANGE.

There's a reason EV bow users are farming Uber, but EV melee builds (apart from CoC - again, high DPS) really struggle to even complete that map.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh yeahhhhh....

the evasion mechanics wheres all the ground attacks will always hit u, and such attacks it is increasingly common among the mobs......

feels soo "good"... wheres u take a full damage of those attacks and your insanely high evades will not work at all..

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caboom wrote:

not much of an ES or eva user but removing the ES penalty from acrobatics could probably solve many of the problems ES/eva have

Yeah, no.

"

Ceryneian wrote:

"

Boem wrote:

Apologies i thought we were discussing defensive forms.

Not "why can't a glass-canon build survive the endgame". Because the answer to that is redundantly simple.

All of the things you mention apply equally to the right side of the tree. They can also go block, armor, endurance charges(easily up to 5), use immortal call etc etc...

I play evasion because i enjoy the play-style. DPS is the last thing on my mind.

If i wanna play a glasscanon, i would make a ranged char.

Peace,

-Boem-

We ARE discussing defensive forms. But you can't divorce DPS from survivability. We all know that EV is heavily reliant on good DPS to survive.

For an EV melee build your entropy counter is a ticking time bomb. Fighting Kole in 2 seconds is better than fighting him for 20 seconds as EV melee. This is especially true once you approach one-shot damage levels. The one-shot damage threshold for an EV build is much lower than for the AR build.


That's my whole point that if your DPS is not significantly higher than an AR build then there really is no point because your net survivability is lower than the AR guy.

I don't know why you think ranged chars are glass cannons - they have access to all the mitigation methods you mention except maybe Fortify or block. In fact ranged chars have even greater survivability than melee simply because they play at RANGE.

There's a reason EV bow users are farming Uber, but EV melee builds (apart from CoC - again, high DPS) really struggle to even complete that map.

Yes dps can increase EHP levels by virtue of reducing a battles length, but that is not somehow tied to evasion, that's intrinsic to all EHP vs dps balance decisions.

If your not one shotting packs, then you have to compensate somewhere else for that factor.

It's an absurd conclusion that evasion users should have higher dps then their AR counter-parts simply because they are evasion.(since defensive forms are not limited to any part of the tree or intrinsic character development)

Offering a higher investment in certain parts of the passive tree doesn't dictate the absence of other defensive investments.

If a character is pure evasion based, then that's a fail in itself given what the game offers.

Also the conclusion that your "net" survive ability is lower then an AR invested character is flawed. It's your own choice if that's the case since the game offers plenty of defensive forms to allow for this to not be the case.

"What's the point then?"

-Full entropic negation of damage
-higher base resistance against critical hits
-avoidance of hybrid elemental attacks
-lower investment required(more points to spend elsewhere, doesn't have to be dps, but can be yes)

Have a pick?

Peace,

-Boem-