You know what happens when your Reflexes turn to Iron?

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Ascendic wrote:

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Charan wrote:

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wiggin wrote:

About the name: in my language we use a pretty similar phrase. It means that you don't panic or react when you don't really have to. You are controlling your reflexes with your will. You don't close eyes when a punch is coming for example. (And not losing your vision may be a real advantage in a combat.) I am pretty sure this is what are they trying to tell us by IRON REFLEXES name of keystone.

About the effect: i have no problem with it.

About evasion: Well... I haven't reallly tried a pure evasion build but I have no problem with making evasion work with ES or armor.

@Iscariot: it takes away all your evasion, you are left with that 5% chance to evade.

edit: I forgot - I am not against those suggestions at all (especially with the bleeding thing), pure evasion could become viable that way.

Iron will is the English equivalent of that, I believe, if any such equivalent exists. Not Iron Reflexes. In English, 'Iron reflexes' makes no sense.

His explanation was pretty spot on to what they are trying to portray with 'Iron Reflexes' imo.

You are taking the word 'iron' too literally. In your context, 'Iron Will' would make even less sense than 'Iron Reflexes'. How can you have an iron will? Unless by will they refer to the document which states how your estate shall be divided upon death.

Will is not a tangible thing so how could it be 'iron'? Even if it were a tangible thing how would turning your will to iron mean that it is easier to control? Iron is not malleable by any sense and would probably make most anything harder to control.

You see where I am going with this?

Eh, you want to interpret 'will' as 'last will and testament' after telling me I took the word 'iron' too literally? Funny. But okay.

I feel I've sufficiently explained why 'Iron Reflexes' is a stupid name and have moved on to other, more worthy projects, but I'll summarise here:

1)Iron is unyielding, stiff and typically immutable. Reflexes need to be quick, mercurial and adaptive to work properly

1a) By reflexes I mean the 'cat-like' instincts/trained ability people have to react extremely quickly to situations. Please note that cats are not often called 'iron-like' whence referring to their dexterity

2) Iron 'Will' is much more logical because it indicates a will that will not be moved. It is staunch and strong. A pliant will, on the other hand, is often seen as weak and easily swayed; low 'will' resistance in Dungeons and Dragons, for example, makes you more susceptible to mind control. Thus 'Iron Will' is favourable. You want your will be to indomitable. This means it is not easily moved or affected. Reflexes that are not easily moved or affected are sort of useless or, at the very least, not very good

3) Just to show I've nothing against metals in general, I stipulate that 'Steel Reflexes' would be far superior -- Steel CAN bend, and is actually quite famous for its necessary flexibility when it comes to weapons. Also, 'Steel reflexes' can be read as 'steeling one's reflexes', which also makes sense in this context

4) Iron can rust and is actually quite well known for it. Steel can too, but not as easily.

None of these matter, however, because you look at the flavour text, it's very clear that reflexes aren't even relevant anymore.

"Why should I dodge blows that I do not fear?"

So you're not even bothering to dodge them anymore. That is to say, you're not relying on your reflexes. By some magic of keystone bullshitsu, all your grace, fluidity and nigh preternatural celerity (all fancy ways of saying 'holy shit matrix dodge skillz!') is converted into sheer body armour. You're not dodging, because you 'no longer fear the blows', therefore your reflexes are out of the equation.

I've no doubt that GGG has bigger fish to fry than this and will most likely just let it slide, because only a few players will bother to look at it the way I did. Whenever someone tells me I'm 'reading into things too much' or being 'too literal', I am reminded of why I do what I do, and why I figure they don't.

More's the power to them, I fucking miss not *actually reading words* and thinking about their meaning sometimes, especially in a context like this where it really shouldn't matter.

But I figure if GGG didn't want people like me playing their game and picking it apart even at this level, they wouldn't have made the game so enticing and inviting for nitpickers and overthinkers.

That's all the licence and permission I need to make threads like this and revel in the pointless debates that ensue.

Linguistic mystery being explained with logic - that usually doesn't work well. The best you can come up with in cases like this are comparisons.

Anyway you know what would solve this deep problem affecting whole game and every single player playing it? Coughremovingironreflexescompletelycough.

No I havent read all 23 pages. >_>

If it hasnt already been suggested how about calling it Iron Constitution instead? :-)

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Chameleon wrote:

No I havent read all 23 pages. >_>

If it hasnt already been suggested how about calling it Iron Constitution instead? :-)

Because constitution has a strange RPG residual effect of implying health rather than armour.

Logic or not, I always thought the description and function of this keystone are oddly disconnected, So i see where Charan is coming from here.

I didn't read the whole thread, but I agreed with the original post.

In fact, I made a similar suggestion in another thread a couple months ago. Basically, it was to replace Iron Reflexes with a keystone called "Spread the Pain" that could do something like: If you get hit for more than 33% of max life, you spread part of the damage that overflows the 33% as damage over time for X seconds, but at twice the overflow total (downside of the keystone).

This way, when you fail that evasion roll, you're not dead, but you better get the hell out of there while the DoT effect is ongoing and you heal up. It even gives a way to survive critical hits, without the double evasion rolls shaninigans.

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zeto wrote:

I agree with the above poster that iron reflexes does this function... however the solution to add a DoT is new, and a fairly innovative idea.

I'm adamantly against evasion providing straight damage reduction, and in my mind Iron Reflexes must go bye bye. It's a band-aide for a bigger problem, and I totally agree with OP that this keystone destroys the essence of what evasion is.

In another thread I made a suggestion for alternatives, but someone there also commented that keystones should NOT be required by a build to make it viable....

so in that light, evasion should probably innately prevent strings of attacks that would outright kill you in under a particular window of time. Like, you can only take X% total hp in damage over Y time given Z evasion out of E expected evasion rating at this level.

It just should not be possible to die in 1 hit, or even a string of hits that happen at once, if you are an evasion based character.

This guy just plucked the thoughts right out of my head. Basically if you were to be reduced to 1 or less hp, you gain one second or so of invulnerability. And of course it cant happen more than once every XX seconds.

23 pages @_@

Charan's very eloquently framed the issue in the first post. Basically evasion builds shouldn't wilt in one hit, and Iron Reflexes (or whatever it'll eventually be called) shouldn't be the only way out.

I've never levelled a evasion-based char high enough to comment on the harder difficulties, but I've read enough posts about having to literally run from mobs that a high armor char could easily tank because one hit would wipe the char out.

Perhaps the "glancing blow" mechanic could be realized in this way - after the rolls to hit and dodge are made, damage could be some multiple of the difference between the "to hit" and "to dodge" roll.

As to the linguistics of the node...how about "Resolute Stance" or "Nerves of Steel"?

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Aziraphale wrote:

This guy just plucked the thoughts right out of my head. Basically if you were to be reduced to 1 or less hp, you gain one second or so of invulnerability. And of course it cant happen more than once every XX seconds.

I have NEVER been one shot as a melee shadow going full evasion with Acro/Phase Acro since the skill tree changes that added life to the Dex side of the tree. If you have, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!

Just had an interesting idea, and don't really have time to search out an appropriate thread. I figure this is as good a place as any, since it has Charan's attention.

If the problem is that Eva characters have no real defense against the unlucky 5% chance to hit, and therefore are at the mercy of the rng when it comes to spike damage.. +% life nodes help, but they're a little underwhelming on the right side of the tree. Granted, you don't want a toon with 95% chance to evade AND melee marauder-like quantities of life.. But maybe there is a middle ground to help compensate for Eva's weakness without being horrible unbalancing.

I also think that the 1% dodge chance nodes after acrobatics are kind of "meh" but they're worth taking anyways to get to phase acrobatics. What if they also came with a small "+5 base maximum life" bonus, which would give pure eva a little more "umph!" when speccing into those % life nodes, while remaining small enough and out of reach for armour based melee marauders, who would love to get their hands on every flat +life bonus possible. There could also be additional +base maximum life nodes attached to each acrobatics node.. I don't quote know what the appropriate balance would be but something like:

Acrobatics
(+1% dodge,+5 base max life) -> (+5 base max, +5% life)
(+1% dodge,+5 base max life) -> (+5 base max, +5% life)
(+1% dodge,+5 base max life) -> (+5 base max, +5% life)
(+1% dodge,+5 base max life) -> (+5 base max, +5% life)
Phase Acrobatics

Total of +40 base max life and +20% life, for +4 more skill points. A small bonus compared to +life mods from gear, and cleverly tucked away such that only pure eva has access. For those 4 extra skill points the toon gains slightly more advantage from the other +% life nodes they take, thus compensating for spike damage without (hopefully) being broken.

Just a thought.