Determination

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globbi wrote:

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But hey, if it earns a buff? You won't see me complaining. GGG will probably nerf granites (or the iron skin affix on flasks) to compensate.

That's reasonable. Right now however (with the mentioned iron skin and granite flasks as addition to some %IAR from passives) determination is rarely useful and other auras are simply better choice if you can't have them all.

I feel quite the same as the Globbi guy :D. I really hope that granite flasks are looked at - maybe a reduction to only +2k - +5k or so. I hate the granite mechanic, it is unfair to my tanky marauder when my shadow (RIP, long time ago) just can pop a flask and rule with his 4k ES with 3x the dmg.

True, but what does that have to do with determination?
Granite Flasks can make Determination less necessary, but they don't make it worse.

Great buff and a well deserved increase in armour it got.

However, after 6K armour, damage mitigation returns are so ridiculous that it simply isn't worth the 40% mana reserved.

Using Inner force and a reduced Mana Support gem, you can 40% more armor for 30% Mana.

So just to be clear with all of the awesome posts defining Determination.

Determination is calculated after all other armor calculations, including passives. Is that right?

Maybe this is pretty good on full AR gear, but using ES/AR hybrid gear I can't get enough damage mitigation to survive more then a 1-2 hits before I die. This is on my level 65 EB witch, as she has leveled up and her determination gem has leveled up she is getting better evasion without grace then damage mitigation using determination.

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YellowMage wrote:

I feel that armour and mana reserved should both be flat amounts and not percentages.

I agree. I also think it should use a mana integer, and not a mana %.

The cons of this gem far outweigh the pros, in my opinion. I'll just use Grace instead.

For record purposes, I'm running a Witch summoner with Eldritch Battery my mana pool is nice (1603 mana unbuffed at level 56). But, by the time I put on Clarity (for me) + Discipline (for me + minions) + Wrath (for minions) + Purity (for minions), I really don't care to further gimp my mana pool for Determination, even though Armour is better than Evasion and I need some kind of mitigation. This is, of course, with all auras running Reduced Mana.

I feel the same way with Vitality. I would easily take Vitality over both Determination and Grace, as it would give a HP regen to my minions too, which is very positive. But alas, the cost outweighs the benefits.

So, Grace it is. Decent effectiveness, low mana cost, helps minions. Only drawback for Grace is its high Dex requirement.

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Azidonis wrote:

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YellowMage wrote:

I feel that armour and mana reserved should both be flat amounts and not percentages.

I agree. I also think it should use a mana integer, and not a mana %.

The cons of this gem far outweigh the pros, in my opinion. I'll just use Grace instead.

For record purposes, I'm running a Witch summoner with Eldritch Battery my mana pool is nice (1603 mana unbuffed at level 56).

Not everyone has a huge stack of mana like that, and summoners are quite different to other characters in how they use auras. Determination is actually pretty good value on an Armour-based character with a moderate mana pool. With Iron Reflexes, you can use Grace AND Determination for an enormous Armour boost.