Dexterity, We Have a Problem.

All evasion problems can be solved with just 4 items:

1.Vampire Gaze
2.String of Ears
3.Shaftstop
4.Stormshield

Easy.:P

you know dex adds attack speed....

Suggestions to make dexterity as a stat better.

1. Make a failed evasion roll absorb some damage like armour but to a much lesser degree.

2. Higher Evasion makes it less likely you'll receive critical damage. Higher accuracy makes it more likely you'll deal critical damage.

[Criticals could be worked better. It's just based on your weapon and modifiers, and doesn't take into account what you're hitting when it should. If I'm hitting a humanoid creature or some gelatinous cube, the monster should also modify it. Int should modify critical damage to a higher degree.]

Alternatively dex could also reduce critical damage.

3. On a failed evasion roll, a second roll is make to see whether or not damage is reduced. It more of a DnD supplement of a feat...

Awhile ago I did a little bit of systemic analysis on the issue.

One of the things I learned, or at least seemed to learn based on the data I was given complicates this a great deal. Namely:

One-Hit kills are fantastically rare. Most spikes of damage that most people describe as instant death are probably actually two or more blows that happened to occur at the same instant. Now, feel free to correct me if I am wrong here. That is just what I determined based on my limited knowledge.

Based upon this assumption, you can do a few things to dampen the effect. The easiest one is as follows:

You have a tracked value which is the damage you have taken over the past second. When an attack would cause this value to exceed 90% of your base health, the damage that exceeds this amount is reduced to 10%(by 90%) of the damage it would deal. A 500 damage attack followed immediately by a 400 damage attack against a 600 health player would deal 590 damage - leaving the player with 10 life.

This does not apply to ES at all, only attacks that damage your health. Alternatively it could simply add in ES as a health-equivalent when doing this math. This is a matter of balance more than functionality.


Basically, this would remove the most extreme-case instant deaths from the game, regardless of their source, while still permitting the event if the player received a full 2x their max health in damage over that second.

Sounds to me like the problem with a pure dex build would be completely solved with more health, since it would help you take those random bursts of damage.

So how about littering a bunch of flat health nodes all over the dex part of the tree, much like there are fitness nodes in the int part? Them being flat, like the Olaf buff (+45 health is it?), would make sure that they arn't also dependant on picking strength to be as good as they can be.

You'd still need to actually take those nodes for a pure dex build to work, but they wouldn't be out of the way so you wouldn't be forced to hybrid anymore.

edit: or well, that would solve the evasion rating part, not sure about accuracy.

How about add some passive for DEX branch similar to Iron Grip, which will grant DEX to increas physical damage, but remove physical damage increas from STR.
Also, STR could affect the amount of damage blocked by shield. And DEX - amount parried when dual wielding or use two-handed weapons.
Evasion could be replaced/combined with parry rating which is similar to armour. Then need to remove block chance gain for dual-weild from passives and make parry rating for all melee weapons. And add something like this: if you use sheild parry rating does not count; if you dual-wield you gain double parry rating; if you use two-handed weapons you gain 1,25 bonus to parry. But, there is a problem what to do with ranged DEX classes.

Also to variate builds all stats can add something for each class. Like INT gives crit chance increas for melee and ranged weapons, DEX increas cast speed for spells only (like fireball etc), but not for skills (like flicker strike etc.)

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laian wrote:

you know dex adds attack speed....

I hope you are joking. If not you have been misinformed. Dex = increased evasion, increased accuracy. More specifically: 1 dex = +2 accuracy, 5 dex = +1% increased evasion.

"

RysanMarquise wrote:

Awhile ago I did a little bit of systemic analysis on the issue.

One of the things I learned, or at least seemed to learn based on the data I was given complicates this a great deal. Namely:

One-Hit kills are fantastically rare. Most spikes of damage that most people describe as instant death are probably actually two or more blows that happened to occur at the same instant. Now, feel free to correct me if I am wrong here. That is just what I determined based on my limited knowledge.

Based upon this assumption, you can do a few things to dampen the effect. The easiest one is as follows:

You have a tracked value which is the damage you have taken over the past second. When an attack would cause this value to exceed 90% of your base health, the damage that exceeds this amount is reduced to 10%(by 90%) of the damage it would deal. A 500 damage attack followed immediately by a 400 damage attack against a 600 health player would deal 590 damage - leaving the player with 10 life.

This does not apply to ES at all, only attacks that damage your health. Alternatively it could simply add in ES as a health-equivalent when doing this math. This is a matter of balance more than functionality.


Basically, this would remove the most extreme-case instant deaths from the game, regardless of their source, while still permitting the event if the player received a full 2x their max health in damage over that second.

This is an interesting take on what I said. And when I made my suggestion I was a little worried about such "instant death" scenarios that came from more than 1 "simultaneous" hits. This would solve that problem. I like it!

Interestingly enough, someone has suggested that the problem on Dex's survivability front is the fact that it needs to be balanced around good armor is. I actually agree with this bit. If armor were nerfed, then it would allow GGG to lower the overall damage of monsters thus equalizing the playing field for all methods of survivability.

Here is a quote from Malice in Charan's thread, "You know what happens when your Reflexes turn to Iron?"

"

Malice wrote:

The fundamental balance problem that exists is that there is no direct counter to armour, besides large damage packets. Problem is, large damage packets counter everything else too, not just armour. The player then needs high life to counter the big damage. So now you need armour and high life to survive.

I'd still say armour is the problem, not evasion. Funny thing about armour is the more you need it the less it does for you. It will make you near invincible against weak enemies that weren't a threat anyway, but does almost nothing against dangerous hard hitting enemies.

The previous (before 0.9.3) armour mechanic had a comparison built in (similar to evasion vs accuracy) - but it was never used. At one point I suggested making use of this "armour penetration" stat, it would have allowed GGG to create monsters and player skills that counter armour and armour only. That would make balance a lot easier, and remove a good deal of these problems.

I have to admit that, even though Charan's thread is mainly about the reliance on Keystones to make Evasion viable, Malice makes a very good point that I can't disagree with.

I just had another idea, although this would be quite a big change to the game.

str currently gives you 1 life per 2 str (defensive, total) and 1% melee damage (offensive, percentage).
The defensive one is added primarily by the str stat alone + special nodes and some enhanced equip. The offensive one is a multiplier for a stat that is primarily from a weapon.

Now dex.
dex currently gives you 2 accuracy per 1 dex (offensive, total) and 1% evasion per 5 dex (defensive, percentage).
First of all, this is turned around, but now look at the stat-origins:
The defensive one (evasion) is NOT primarily from a stat, but a multiplier from your armor.
The offensive one (accuracy) is primarily from the dex stat + special nodes and enhanced equip.
Now what if whe turn dex around and make it similar to str.

Dex could give you 2 evasion for 1 dex (defensive, total) and 1% accuracy for 5 dex (offensive, percentage).
For that to work, the stat origins would have be reworked as well.
The defensive (evasion) would now be primarily be a from the dex stat and sometimes enhanced by special nodes and equip.
The offensive (accuracy) would now come primarily from weapons.

ALL THIS MEANS:
1. No Evasion from equip. Str and Dex gear would now BOTH be primarily armour gear.
Str is not influencing the armour rating in any way, SO WHY SHOULD IT BE EXCLUSIVE TO STR BUILDS?

2. ACCURACY FROM EQUIP. I think this would be the most work in all this. All weapons have now not only a damage rating, but a WEAPON SPECIFIC ACCURACY RATING.

The result:

str and dex builds now both use armour gear. str builds stack a lot of armour because the gear that requires str has more armour in general and stack life with their multiplier.
dex builds, here we come. Those have now armour by default. Their evasion comes from a high dex rating and not by using big eva equip. They get accuracy by using accurate weapons, plus their dex multiplier.

Both builds now get TOTAL POINTS for their way of defense and a PERCENTAGE MULTIPLIER on their way of offense.
SINCE NONE OF THEM INFLUENCE ARMOUR, BOTH GET ARMOUR.
One stacks life, the other stacks evasion.

Which is a big difference, because so far it's like this:
One stacks life AND armour, the other just stacks evasion.

This is the only solution I could come up with, that doesn't destroy the neat and tidy way that every one of the mainstats just influences TWO things and nothing else.
But it would need a lot of work on the equip of the whole game.
But I think an accuray stat on weapons make more sense than an evasion stat on armour.
I think this just might work.

Golem, what you wrote makes sense but it would be such a huge change to the game...