You know what happens when your Reflexes turn to Iron?

A fair clarification, Malice.

I dunno. If we could simply remove Iron Reflexes, here and now, what do you think would happen? That's really the question I need answered.

"

Charan wrote:

A fair clarification, Malice.

I dunno. If we could simply remove Iron Reflexes, here and now, what do you think would happen? That's really the question I need answered.

Simple. I'd stop playing Ranger. That's how important Iron Reflexes is or how screwed up evasion is depending on how you look at it.

"

Islidox wrote:

"

Charan wrote:

A fair clarification, Malice.

I dunno. If we could simply remove Iron Reflexes, here and now, what do you think would happen? That's really the question I need answered.

Simple. I'd stop playing Ranger. That's how important Iron Reflexes is or how screwed up evasion is depending on how you look at it.

So even as a ranged character with a fair chunk of damage output being delivered outside melee range, you need that much armour to survive? Hm.

IR is a terrible keystone. I agree in those regards with Charan, however there doesn't appear to be a great fix.

You cannot negate criticals imo, because criticals determine procs... unless you allowed the proc to continue but simply rolled regular damage.

IR destroys the integrity of the evasion concept and the dex defense system entirely and does need to be removed, and evasion needs more thought put into it so that people don't feel that their characters that rely on it are unplayable without it.

I think we just have to accept that if you want to use Evasion, especially at a melee level like me, stacked life is the key.

I still don't see how evasion for a ranged character could be that much worse than armour. Armour is all about melee hits and maybe archery, but you have Arrow Dodging there.

The Duelists might not like the removal of IR, but I think their Armour/Evasion gear is pretty damn sweet in itself.

Still not seeing a compelling reason to keep IR.

"

Charan wrote:

"

Islidox wrote:

"

Charan wrote:

A fair clarification, Malice.

I dunno. If we could simply remove Iron Reflexes, here and now, what do you think would happen? That's really the question I need answered.

Simple. I'd stop playing Ranger. That's how important Iron Reflexes is or how screwed up evasion is depending on how you look at it.

So even as a ranged character with a fair chunk of damage output being delivered outside melee range, you need that much armour to survive? Hm.

It's my nature to err on the conservative side. I simply don't like the way evasion works as I deem it riskier than having low damage reduction through armor.

On top of that, the one thing that I hate are monsters that outrun me and already in front of my face before I can kill it/them even if I get shot off a shot or two.

I've played melee Rangers, and for those builds, armor is so much more important than evasion because they're taking the full brunt of damage, and hits WILL land.

What if the evasion cap went up to 85%+ and was easier (read: possible) to attain?

I have few problems with evasion currently (most naysayers have still yet to try it out since the changes). It's true that you need either HP or ES underneath for the defense to be worthwhile, which directly corresponds to needing strength or intelligence (the stats that affect hp/es) as opposed to evasion's primary stat.

Raising the evasion cap would mean you'd need less hp/es to deal with attacks (still need enough to deal with chaos damage), and as a result would no longer be shoehorned into the other two stats. You'd also need to invest into dexterity to reach the cap.

The only real solution would be a massive change to the stat system where you get some form of "dex hp" (such as a chance to survive any attack with 1hp, or glancing blows, etc). I don't see this happening.


Now for IR. "When I want to max my armor, I wear evasion gear" is the most terrible game balance decision and will remain so until IR gets the nerf or the boot. It's counter-intuitive at best and the keystone itself is completely flavorless. The sooner it gets removed the sooner we can test actual fixes to dexterity/evasion.

"

Islidox wrote:

It's my nature to err on the conservative side. I simply don't like the way evasion works as I deem it riskier than having low damage reduction through armor.

On top of that, the one thing that I hate are monsters that outrun me and already in front of my face before I can kill it/them even if I get shot off a shot or two.

I've played melee Rangers, and for those builds, armor is so much more important than evasion because they're taking the full brunt of damage, and hits WILL land.

Erring on the conservative side should result in stacking life, I'd think. Were I that concerned as an archer, I'd go Armour/Evasion gear. It's fairly traditional for an archer to have low armour, high mobility, and to me the idea of an archer with super high armour (either in plate or with some magical evasion-->armour conversion) is pretty broken.

I think that building against those faster monsters (especially the flicker strikers) would be part of the challenge of an archer living in a post-IR world. :)

Melee 'ranger' isn't really relevant here -- you can build any class any way you want, really. What we're discussing is a build type, not a class. The archer, specifically, for whom evasion should be the primary defence if you play it by the books.

Going evasion for melee, well, I've done that, but I acknowledge it's probably not as 'smart' as going armour (true armour, not IR) or energy shield+ghost reaver.

"

Charan wrote:

Erring on the conservative side should result in stacking life, I'd think. Were I that concerned as an archer, I'd go Armour/Evasion gear. It's fairly traditional for an archer to have low armour, high mobility, and to me the idea of an archer with super high armour (either in plate or with some magical evasion-->armour conversion) is pretty broken.

I think that building against those faster monsters (especially the flicker strikers) would be part of the challenge of an archer living in a post-IR world. :)

Melee 'ranger' isn't really relevant here -- you can build any class any way you want, really. What we're discussing is a build type, not a class. The archer, specifically, for whom evasion should be the primary defence if you play it by the books.

Going evasion for melee, well, I've done that, but I acknowledge it's probably not as 'smart' as going armour (true armour, not IR) or energy shield+ghost reaver.

Stacking life shouldn't even be considered conservative. It's mandatory considering the rather overabundance of chaos damage in Act 2. For every Ranger build I've made, they all have a minimum of 2k HP and upwards, which is my buffer on top of DR. It's a matter of perspective, and I like having a static defense than a chance at defense so to speak.

I used melee Ranger as an example of melee builds that utilize IR, not so much that it requires the Ranger class. And I agree a traditional Ranger should not need armor whatsoever, but since IR exists, I'll take it every time.

@Zeto: that's exactly what I mean. On the chance that an attack (which happens to be a critical attack) lands, the crit damage is negated resulting in standard attack damage. This keystone would not negate critical chance but the critical damage that would've resulted if evasion failed and reverting to standard attack values.

I liked pure evasion on an archer, but there it is again: I wasn't melee. And the unfortunate bit about it is a 7-multi-projectile merveill's freezing pulse insta-gibbed my archer in a level 64 map. So every time I've brought this up the one response I could count on has always been: "but you died." Even though evasion has nothing to do with spell damage x.x

Up until that point, I felt pretty damn safe.

All the arguing about numbers won't prove my point, I have to demonstrate it. But >50% evasion with 24% acrobatics on top, and blind - it feels pretty safe, if you build it right.

I think one of the big mistakes people make is building into regen as a pure evasion character. You take damage in large chunks, not gradually. It's no surprise to me that the easiest "healing" nodes to reach from the ranger tree are the %flask nodes. They provide healing in large chunks to match the damage patterns you'll face. Other mistakes - deleveled lightning arrow? 5-hit LA with 90% or better pierce is the best way to AoE blind in the game currently. If you can leech enough mana, level 15 LA is a good investment.

I know melee doesn't have an analog.

Anyway, high evasion with acrobatics, plus healing through 45% larger reflexes bubbling flasks - this felt very safe to me. Yeah, I stacked my life pretty high.

Anyway, charan, you and I are always going to disagree on this. Pure evasion can work, and you don't have to do the waves build (nothing but life). Kiting from melee, though? I'm not sure about that. Kind of a different arena.

But, from my perspective, I shouldn't see everyone taking IR. From my point of view, it's an inefficient choice. So either I'm wrong, or everyone else is wrong. What are the odds? :p