How good is Blind?

Blind is pretty strong.
Its main problem is that I usually can't fit it into one of my jewel sockets, I always want other stuff.

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Perq wrote:

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locobilbo wrote:

The first is equivalent to having a 50% evasion rating vs a non-blinded opponent and the second equivalent to having a 75% evasion rating.

That is pretty bad way of looking at it.

Maybe your right. I just meant if you look at it in terms of % chance to evade then blind gives you an additional 50% chance to evade if you have no evasion and an addition 25% chance to evade if already have 50% evasion. I don't know exactly what that translates to in terms of investment in gear/passives though.

Consider this extreme case, however. You are about to get hit (by a boss slam, lets say) for the first time in 6s (so your entropy value is randomised).

Case 1: no evasion - you get hit every time
Case 2: no evasion, blinded attacker - you get hit once every two times
Case 3: 98% chance to evade - you get hit two out of every hundred times
Case 4: 98% chance to evade, blinded attacker - you get hit one out of every hundred times

in which case is blind more valuable?

Blind is stupid strong, and it's why every single character of mine which doesn't otherwise have a means of Blinding foes (Pandemonius amulet is amazeballs for the right builds, my Pandemonius Icestorm character was super fun) carries a Stibnite flask.

A lot of folks don't like Blind as a solo defense, but people shouldn't really like anything as a solo defense. Blind is a very easy layer to apply to existing defenses, and it cuts attack-based incoming damage in half. Combined with any amount of Evasion and Acrobatics (or Block, which is functionally identical in most respects to Dodge as a defense mechanic), Blinding your enemies can reduce their hit chances to a point where you can effectively sidestep everything they throw. C0nsider this:

A character with Iron Reflexes (for whatever reason, these days) has no Evasion rating, but this is not the same as Evasion chance. All enemies are capped at 95% hit chance, so you still have that natural-20 5% chance to avoid being hit.

Now you drop a Stibnite cloud. This reduces your enemy's hit chance, which is in this case 95%, to *0.5 that value. .95 * 0.5 = 0.475. 47.5% chance to hit. You've effectively doubled your EHP against raw DPS (obviously this jumps around when one talks about boss slams, but we're getting there). That's a big number.

Now add Acrobatics, for a 30% chance to dodge. 0.475 / 1.3, reducing the value by 30%, gives us a "chance to be hit by enemy attacks" of ~.365. With one keystone and one flask usage, your Iron Reflexes character has only a 36.5% chance to be struck by any given enemy attack, completely irrespective of the usual entropy-based Evasion system. Adding additional Dodge chance obviously helps even more, or substituting easier-to-stack Block. Hell, let's throw on a typical shield for our Iron Reflexes dodge tank. Typical shields come with 24% block chance, reduced by thirty percent because of Acrobatics, to roughly ~18.5% block chance without any investment other than "equip shield". Apply this to our previous 36.5% "Chance to be Hit" and we drop down to 30.8% chance (though we're also getting into rounding errors here since my calculator at this time consists of Windows Calc. Ugh).

One shield, without any additional investment at all, one keystone, and one flask click has given our Iron Reflexes character a ~70% chance to just outright "NOPE" any attack-based damage packet thrown its way. Consider, now, that nobody with a clue uses Acrobatics and Iron Reflexes together. You're going to have some Evasion chance, which acts as an entropy-based cushion beneath all your straight NOPE chance and acts to guarantee that unlucky streaks which penetrate the NOPE chance only get one stab at you through your Evasion, giving you time to pound a flask and recover.

Imagine all these same calculations except with a character at 10k Evasion, with Enfeeble applied to foes, and with those foes Chilled to slow their attack rate and give them less chances to roll the dice and get through your avoidance.

People crow all the time about how Evasion/Dodge/Avoidance in general is such a horrible survival mechanic, that it'll never see you through difficult content. Personally? I have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. My dodge tanks do so much better than any Vaal Cheesepact nonsense I've ever tried to run. Intensive leech doesn't stop you from getting stunned at the worst times, or from getting hit so often the leech can't keep up.

You don't need to get to 250k Evasion or some stupid number like that. People focus too hard on trying to grind to RidicuNumbers on one single area, when everyone should know that combining synergistic effects is the way to go in PoE. A reasonable Evasion score, Acrobatics, BLIND, and Enfeeble, with any amount of worthwhile recovery, makes you all but immune to attack-based damage that doesn't manage to magically instasplatter you because you gambled on avoiding a slam and lost.

Yeah, all that does nothing for spell damage, but you've got capped resistances, right? Good. Then go to Phase Acrobatics as well if you're worried about spells and pick up some spelldodge gear. Stack your spell defense as well.

excellent write-up there 1453R

blind is extremely strong for amount of investment it requires

if you combine it with evasion/dodge/enfeeble, good luck for enemies with non-machine gun attacks getting a hit on you
I used to laugh at the enraged dog in the village ruin map when its blinded and enfeebled against a evasion toon.

and it used to be like 50% more powerful before the nerf.


this is also why dark seer is a really good weapon nowadays for a ton of spell/rf MoM builds if you can deal with low attack speed (fuck shield charge btw)

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grepman wrote:

excellent write-up there 1453R

blind is extremely strong for amount of investment it requires

if you combine it with evasion/dodge/enfeeble, good luck for enemies with non-machine gun attacks getting a hit on you
I used to laugh at the enraged dog in the village ruin map when its blinded and enfeebled against a evasion toon.

and it used to be like 50% more powerful before the nerf.


this is also why dark seer is a really good weapon nowadays for a ton of spell/rf MoM builds if you can deal with low attack speed (fuck shield charge btw)

Now that you mention it, I might go back to MoM now that I'm utilizing blind...

one caveat is I dont think blind qualifies a layer of defense that can be built around as a staple defense

its definitely a great complement though.

I mean, you can evade the minotaur and make him miss for a while, but if he gets a hit off and you dont have phys mitigation/fast recovery/big pool, youre likely toast.

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grepman wrote:

excellent write-up there 1453R

blind is extremely strong for amount of investment it requires

if you combine it with evasion/dodge/enfeeble, good luck for enemies with non-machine gun attacks getting a hit on you
I used to laugh at the enraged dog in the village ruin map when its blinded and enfeebled against a evasion toon.

and it used to be like 50% more powerful before the nerf.


this is also why dark seer is a really good weapon nowadays for a ton of spell/rf MoM builds if you can deal with low attack speed (fuck shield charge btw)

Oh man dark seer is another unique buffed in 3.0 that is crazy underpriced at least in softcore in my opinion(maybe it's cause the wiki still has the wrong picture I dunno) Especially if you get a +life/+Mana per level one. MoM with that item is very tanky. The chance to blind is kinda low but with a fast hitting spell it works nicely.

Edit: for spell/RF builds do you mean MOM while using righteous fire and a spell? I found that combo very clunky every time I took damage I ran out of Mana and couldn't cast a spell.

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grepman wrote:

one caveat is I dont think blind qualifies a layer of defense that can be built around as a staple defense

its definitely a great complement though.

I mean, you can evade the minotaur and make him miss for a while, but if he gets a hit off and you dont have phys mitigation/fast recovery/big pool, youre likely toast.

That's Evasion in general. The thing with Evasion, though - or rather Avoidance, i.e. every method you have available to make the other guy whiff - is that enough avoidance means you don't necessarily need as much recovery because you don't take hits as quickly as a character with low avoidance. People swear that "VAAL PACT IS LITERALLY THE ONLY WAY TO SURVIVE POE" because they play builds with no avoidance and stand in front of things trying to derptank them. yes, obviously you need intense recovery in that situation, but if you only take significant damage once every five seconds, say? Then you have five seconds between hits to get your healthies back up enough to take the next hit.

That's why Kintsugi is so freaking good. Twenty percent off the top of the first hit every four seconds to get through your avoidance is really good, though Kintsugi does require enough investment in avoidance to get those four-second timers back up frequently. Nevertheless. If you happen to have Fortify up as well, or any other mitigation option, that helps too. The main thrust of it is that investment in avoidance can lessen the need for investment in recovery, and a moderate investment in both is often just as effective as - and much cheaper than - a bonko-bugnuts insane investment in only one.

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1453R wrote:

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grepman wrote:

one caveat is I dont think blind qualifies a layer of defense that can be built around as a staple defense

its definitely a great complement though.

I mean, you can evade the minotaur and make him miss for a while, but if he gets a hit off and you dont have phys mitigation/fast recovery/big pool, youre likely toast.

That's Evasion in general. The thing with Evasion, though - or rather Avoidance, i.e. every method you have available to make the other guy whiff - is that enough avoidance means you don't necessarily need as much recovery because you don't take hits as quickly as a character with low avoidance. People swear that "VAAL PACT IS LITERALLY THE ONLY WAY TO SURVIVE POE" because they play builds with no avoidance and stand in front of things trying to derptank them. yes, obviously you need intense recovery in that situation, but if you only take significant damage once every five seconds, say? Then you have five seconds between hits to get your healthies back up enough to take the next hit.

That's why Kintsugi is so freaking good. Twenty percent off the top of the first hit every four seconds to get through your avoidance is really good, though Kintsugi does require enough investment in avoidance to get those four-second timers back up frequently. Nevertheless. If you happen to have Fortify up as well, or any other mitigation option, that helps too. The main thrust of it is that investment in avoidance can lessen the need for investment in recovery, and a moderate investment in both is often just as effective as - and much cheaper than - a bonko-bugnuts insane investment in only one.

I mean, I fully agree with this AND the kintsugi endorsement

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link1313 wrote:

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grepman wrote:

excellent write-up there 1453R

blind is extremely strong for amount of investment it requires

if you combine it with evasion/dodge/enfeeble, good luck for enemies with non-machine gun attacks getting a hit on you
I used to laugh at the enraged dog in the village ruin map when its blinded and enfeebled against a evasion toon.

and it used to be like 50% more powerful before the nerf.


this is also why dark seer is a really good weapon nowadays for a ton of spell/rf MoM builds if you can deal with low attack speed (fuck shield charge btw)

Oh man dark seer is another unique buffed in 3.0 that is crazy underpriced at least in softcore in my opinion(maybe it's cause the wiki still has the wrong picture I dunno) Especially if you get a +life/+Mana per level one. MoM with that item is very tanky. The chance to blind is kinda low but with a fast hitting spell it works nicely.

Edit: for spell/RF builds do you mean MOM while using righteous fire and a spell? I found that combo very clunky every time I took damage I ran out of Mana and couldn't cast a spell.

I meant spell MoM or rf MoM or both ;)

dark seer doesnt work with attack builds because its crap as an attacking weapon.

keeping your mana with MoM as a subclass that has access to mana regen shouldnt be too hard, and you can always hedge it with spirited response jewel and use rallying cry for even more regen. you also have pantheon mana regen, boot enchant regen, etc.

my trickster gets to like 600+ mana regen when hes hit, even without spirited response, and if patient reaper is up, its over 1k regen per second.