You know what happens when your Reflexes turn to Iron?

I probably get annoying with all the late edits. I'll see what I can do about that. But I always feel done with my post, hit submit, and realize I missed something.

I'm pretty build-share shy, because I believe that if a build works for me, it requires no real input, especially from people likely to point how inefficient and silly I can be.

But I think I've found a good configuration that gets almost *every* evasion node, A/PA/AD and a craptonne of life. What this means is I might just have my cake and eat it too, finally -- the issue has always been, with me, 'why take evasion nodes if they'd just be better spent as life?'

We'll see.

PS I still hate Iron Reflexes.

Edit: I've just tried this on Alpha, which is still at qq I believe. The tree is different, significantly. So I think I was right: these changes that make a full life/evasion build possible came with r.

Well I agree on the point about regen. I've never bothered with it, I'll skip the regen nodes in favour of more % life instead, flasks are more than enough for top-up. The only time I wish I had regen is in boss fights if I've run out of flask charges and not using much crit (for surgeons).
Regen does start to make sense with really high amounts of life though, especially with blood magic. A ranger going for troll's blood sounds horribly point-inefficient though.

I find your comment about the oak reward curious. It's only 45 life, if there were life nodes within reach on the passive tree, the +1 skill point would be much more beneficial. Using that same example character from my last post, an 8% node is worth 86 life. Of course if you've already taken all the reachable life nodes then the oak reward makes sense.

I'm just not understanding (not understanding, rather than disagreeing with) your point about a shitton of life, whatever it may be, but no matter. 130% for me is a baseline minimum, and I play default (although I don't like to die, and rarely do). I'm confused because first you say it's a shitton, then you say it's a glass cannon.

You've taken me out of context, though. I never said "I have a shitton of life". I said A/PA builds need a ton of life; that my life is low for HC; that 15 points spent on life is a little too expensive for a build to still be considered low life.

Well, anyway, the context is there for you to examine if you wish. Can't force the issue any farther without really going off the deep end into semantics.

About oak: I used to think the same thing you do. If you get really precise with it, though, you'll find out that oak is almost always better, in almost every build, than an 8% incr life node. That only starts not being true after you have really amazing gear, at which point you've trivialized the content anyway. Or, if you have very little %life in your build.

Use this equation:

Total life = ( 50 + 6*(level-1) + bonus from passives + str/0.5 + #oak*45 + life from gear ) * (1 + %incr life)

Substitute values from your character. Set oak = 0.
Next add .08 to %incr life, find the value again.
Next set #oak=1 and go back to your build's %life. Find the value again.

My 20% more idea doesn't work, I've admitted it. It's too complicated for the average player. I still wish I could have 3 of my life skillpoints back in this A/PA build without losing any of my life.

I had an idea while driving around, as I do...

Maybe we could lose Phase Acrobatics, make 'Acrobatics' a simple '20% chance to dodge attacks and spells/lose all energy shield and armour', and replace PA with something along the lines of what Z's discussing. Some sort of keystone that explains how a pure evader makes what life he/she has worth more.

And just to make sure it's a true keystone with a plus and minus, I'd suggest it has the malus of 'cannot block.'

If you're THAT nimble and you're dodging that much, you're not going to block.

Maybe the dodge bonuses in those 4 nodes between would have to be increased somewhat to justify it.

Flavour text? Something like:

"When you live life on the edge, every moment is worth that much more."

It can't be any more ridiculous than Iron Reflexes.

a trap is for the rabbit. once you catch the rabbit you can forget the trap. words convey meaning. once you grasp the meaning you can forget the words. now who would find me a person that forgot the words to have a word with?

words are empty, and are meant to be played with. where you see reflexes as hard as iron in the meaning of stiff, i see reflexes as strong as iron, the universal metaphor that exists for a few years now, a few thousand of them, meaning strong, as iron was the strongest material known. strong reflexes not stiff is the meaning i read, and the meaning i assume they wanted to convey.

reflexes are not actually a physical trait that can be stiff like iron, it is more of an action, or rather reaction. you react reflexively to something, and if your reaction is as strong as iron then it is a good confident reaction. perhaps a sword duel would be a good arena to convey this meaning - a strong defense is a reflex one would desire.

if the first five google searches on iron reflexes point here, then i would consider it a good thing. how many poets would want one of their metaphors today to act in such a manner?

on a side note, chinese straight swords were made very flexible.

The suppleness of Asian swords really only came with steel.

Steel reflexes would be much better for this reason, and for the connotation of steeling one's self.

Ps I had to suffer years of tertiary level poetics, and I can almost hear my poetry teacher groaning and rocking back and forth at how bad 'iron reflexes' really is.

perhaps give him a copy of ZhuangZi in your favorite translation, unless he can read ancient Chinese.

but i guess he doesn't, since the mere process of learning ancient Chinese would make a character such as the one you described quite suicidal.

EDIT:
shaolin monks forge their body to be both strong and at the same time flexible and sensitive. a shaolin monk, unlike for example in karate, does not lose any feeling in his hands. his nerves in the hand stay as sensitive as any regular person, yet they can break rocks with their fingers.

their body can withstand massive hits, yet it is as sensitive as that of any human being, and much more flexible. they do not sacrifice any agility for their stone bodies. they do not sacrifice any feeling for strength.

it is of course a buddhist order, and as such, came to china after steel working was developed. yet they call their body forging art the iron shirt, not steel shirt.

perhaps there is something in iron after all...

My last words on this tangent: this is why translation is a creative balance between literal meaning and interpretive expression. What may be poetry in one language can be a poor excuse for a metaphor in another.

Oh, Iron is a very common term in Chinese martial arts, but still almost always with the indication of being strong, immovable and unyielding. Iron Head, Iron Will, Iron...monkey....if you were to describe a taichi practitioner as being 'like iron' I would either draw a big red circle around it, were critique requested, or sigh and walk away were it not.

...sooo I realise my agenda has moved beyond this thread's constraints. I will likely never be content with Iron Reflexes, but it's not as if the rest of the game doesn't impress the hell out of me.

strong, immovable, and unyielding reflexes... sounds like a martial artist's dream

imagine reflexes so strong, that no distraction can affect them, so unyielding that they would function even when your mind is compromised by fear.

being immovable means not that you are unable to move. nothing can move you, but it says nothing of your own ability to move.

in martial arts you repeat the same routine every day for years... but when the time comes, it is not a question of will, of thought, of anything. you wouldn't even realize that you acted, your mind would still be processing, but the iron reflexes would act!

maybe if it was iron joints there would be a mobility problem, but i still don't see the problem with iron reflexes...