In response to how "GGG always addresses anything Evasion related"

This is a continuation of my

GGG, so your idea of addressing anything evasion related.....

I wanted to wait for the patch to hit before posting.

This is my final evasion thread. At this point everything is falling on deaf ears and whenever GGG wants to "fix" evasion they'll just make it get an armor/energy shield bonus anyway.

I can see it now

"

Patch XYZ

Chris: "We decided to rework our current evasion entropy system. We got a lot of feedback from players and went through extensive testing on the Alpha realms. I feel you'll be pleased with the solution we came up with :).

Evasion gear now grants a multiplicative bonus to armor AND energy shield.

We realized evasion based characters were taking a lot of hits whenever they engaged in battle. This resulted in very spikey damage and unavoidable death situations. To address this, we decided to make it synergize better with armor and energy shield.

We feel this change will make evasive characters stronger, and we plan on adjusting the multiplicative bonus (possibly making it higher ;) ) depending on the feedback we get."

(I'm so sorry for using you Chris. It's just you're the who always posts the news/patch notes on the site lol. I mean I pretty much didn't have a choice if I wanted to mimic a future evasion fix patch notes :D )


I wanted to use a post from that thread which described what I said in that thread.

"

DeathDiciple wrote:

I just want to address one thing. The thing where they went wrong a long time ago - when EVA had higher ranking than armor, therefore forcing people into IR just for that, what did they do? Instead of nerfing IR they nerfed EVA!?

At this stage you just can't push eva values higher (to their necesary values) due to IR existence. What do we get instead? Find an optimal value where IR/2+30% is higher than IR (or armor) would've been on it's own, keeping in mind that dodge works on non-avoidable things AND phase 20% adds a bit of value too...

With 'same values' EV will never be good enough to make IR not being the obvious solution, period. No entropy can fix that, nor any half assed solution like that. The evade chance % calculations have to change, or evasion numbers need to change.

DeathDiciple Thank you. 10000x everything you said.

Evasion scaling is terrible because of Iron reflexes. An entire defense mechanic is utter trash because of 1 keystone.

Everyone who uses evasion without going Iron Reflexes is punished for not taking Iron Reflexes because the defense mechanic they are trying to use is optimized with a keystone that converts the defense they are trying to stack into another armor type.

"

DeathDiciple wrote:

How do AC tanks work in other games? By being able to hit the sweet spot so they evade 90-95% of the attack. Noone would give 2 shits about it if he could reach 'max 60%' or something like that.

Exactly. This this this this

Evasion characters should be reaching 60% evasion. Speccing into evasion nodes moderately-intensely should net you around 70-90% evasion.



WE SHOULD RETURN BACK TO PURE RNG EVASION


At this point we can go back to PURE RNG evasion cause those numbers favor pure rng than the "entropy system"

GGG doesn't even have to change much. Take us back to pure RNG and make evasion numbers scale much higher.

If we return back to Pure RNG evasion, and If evasion characters are averaging 60% evasion, with the specialist reaching 70-85%, then I assure you evasion WILL work.

We can return acrobatics back to its former self, and have it's tag along the lines of

PHASE ACRO

Half of your evasion added as chance to dodge
Removes all armor and energy shield


PHASE ACRO

1/3 of your evasion added as chance to dodge a spell


At this point acro would be an extra specialized keystone. 60% pure rng (for avg evasion characters), with a separate 30% pure rng again. Specialist reaching the 70-85% would benefit more from it, just like how people who stack more ES benefit more from Chaos Innoculation's multiplicative bonus.

"but 80% pure rng..."

The evasion specialist will have less life than the avg evasive characters. So they need more avoidance. I mean that's the point in specializing? Right?




Return back to pure rng evasion, and let us have nothing more to do with this suicidal entropy system. The entropy system is nowhere near as good as pure rng once you start reaching higher numbers.

GGG Doesn't care though. They love iron reflexes too much to actually make evasion work AND stand alone without crying out for help to armor or energy shield.

Rather than either remove IR completely (which I personally see as the best option) or send it on a vacation like they did other mandatory keystones (Avatar of fire and the gem punishment [which has returned]), then balance evasion to work with pure rng and higher numbers, we get an unusable system that does nothing but get you killed because of 1 single keystone.



THIS WOULD MAKE DEXTERITY ACTUALLY OUTSHINE STR AND INT IN SOME AREAS

Dexterity is beyond bad right now. No wonder evasion suffers the same fate.

Dexterity should get a higher evasion % bonus. Not 5%. More like 10-15%. (You can also increase the accuracy bonus while you're at it)

By making dexterity increase your evasion % higher, and with pure rng evasion, evasion characters would benefit from, you know, stacking the stat [DEX] that was designed for them with the defense mechanic that was designed for them. Rather than avoiding every dex node at all cost and converting it.

You would actually see rangers staying within the ranger's tree, and people actually travelling all the way from the other side to stack some evasion/dex. Right now starting as a ranger/shadow means buying a first class ticket to ES/Armor+life.



GRACE = DETERMINATION

In turn, Grace aura can also become percentage based rather than a flat evasion bonus. So that people can't just tack it on for "OMG 50% pure rng and I have no evasion gear?!?! ROXORZZZ".

This would be a requirement if evasion is taken back to pure rng and numbers scale higher.

It would only benefit those with evasion gear

Stacking dex and wearing evasive gear should help you plenty, with grace being an extra benefit that helps evasive based characters more than any other character. Just like determination.

Using determination with 0 armor still = 0 armor, and grace should follow suite.



FUNNY ENOUGH THIS SUGGESTION FOLLOWS HOW THE SKILL TREE IS CURRENTLY DESIGNED

As anyone who has tried to stay in the dex area knows, your health bar is not going to be on par with those on the opposite side of the tree.

That's fine. But for it to work, evasion has to work.

1. 60% Average
2. 70-75% Specialist
3. 80-90 Evasive Tank

Evasion characters averaging 60% pure rng would have highest life pool. They want to use evasion, but they don't want to stack it. They'll get hit the most.

70-78% specialist would have less life or less dmg, depending on which one they sacrifice. They stack evasion, but not at all cost.

80-90%. Real evasive tanks. Only possibly with heavy specialization AND an evasion shield. Evasion stacking and dmg avoidance is the only thing they know, and they do it well. The only dmg they have is viper strike, but they don't care. That is the road they've chosen to take.




"But that much pure rng avoidance....Isn't that a bit too much?"

No

Evasion only protects you against attacks (projectiles/melee). Charges will still auto hit. Spells will still auto hit.

If you've used block chance, you'll notice that even with 75% block chance you'll still get hit. In a series of consecutive attacks.

The difference is block chance is an extra defensive mechanic, and its design is intended to complement your existing armor type.

Evasion is a defensive mechanic, intended to complement evasive characters. For this to happen evasion characters have to be able to evade attacks. With no guaranteed death scenarios like the current entropy system.

For them to be able to do this, they need to reach high numbers with a pure rng evasive mechanic in play. Going pure rng and saying evasion characters should be around "40-60%" rng is not going to do anything.

Evasion characters have less life for a reason. It's not coincidental that you see so many rangers going to the duelist/marauder tree. Life is almost a myth in that section of the tree. There is a reason so many shadows use CI. 40-60% pure rng with 0 armor and little life is not going to do anything.

This will also make dexterity attractive. Which is long overdue.




"But the problem with evasion is getting 1-shot....."

The problem with any armor type is getting 1-shot. This is not evasion specific. Ar/ES characters can get 1-shot too.

With the current entropy system, getting 1-shot with an evasive character is so easy it's guaranteed (pun intended). The guaranteed hit mechanic, evasion entropy, is what causes this.

Getting 1-shot is a problem of monster dmg, not evasion.

I simply want evasion to work.




Patch 11.0

Evasion is still the same. A defensive mechanic that still doesn't work. Nothing has changed, and I wasn't expecting any at all.

As long as the entropy system remains, as long as iron reflexes determines how evasion is balanced, and as long as evasion can't scale higher, then I expect evasion to be in this state forever:

Useless, only used to be converted to other armor types, and cry out to its parents, armor and energy shield, any time he can't handle things by himself. Just like his brother dexterity


You cannot have one without the other. Making the death sentence simulator, entropy, scale better won't improve evasion. Higher numbers on a guaranteed hits leading to stunlock leading to death system is still....a guaranteed hits leading to stunlock leading to death system. Just like giving evasion a multiplicative armor/es bonus (which is bound to happen with how GGG approaches anything evasion related), won't address evasion either.

Lemme guess GGG? You'll borrow from mother Energy shield and give evasion a "50% chance to avoid stun"? Or how about "X% of your evasion rating is added as physical damage reduction" from father Armor?

ENTROPY HAS TO GO.

IRON REFLEXES HAS TO GO

PURE RNG NEEDS TO RETURN.

EVASION NEEDS TO SCALE TO HIGHER NUMBERS.

^

For some reason I am picturing OP with a burning bra and a megaphone.

Evasion isn't spikey though, 50% guarantees that every other swing will miss you. I find evasion to be fine. It's really good against bosses too that would otherwise ignore your armor. Brutus is a joke with high evasion.

There was this excellent recommendation in another thread (it was actually a keystone being discussed), where they proposed that for certain values of evasion, you would every SS seconds gain the ability to cap any single stroke of damage done to you to DD% of maximum health.

I liked it, because this is sort of the opposite of armor. Another advantage of this recommendation is that if you are using IR it's useless.

Finally, it's super complimentary with what already happens with evasion.

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Rowsol wrote:

Evasion isn't spikey though, 50% guarantees that every other swing will miss you. I find evasion to be fine. It's really good against bosses too that would otherwise ignore your armor. Brutus is a joke with high evasion.

Evasion isn't spikey?

Good against bosses that would ignore your armor? Like kole?

Brutus/kole is a joke with high evasion?


Are you saying this from experience or theorizing?

"

Courageous wrote:

There was this excellent recommendation in another thread (it was actually a keystone being discussed), where they proposed that for certain values of evasion, you would every SS seconds gain the ability to cap any single stroke of damage done to you to DD% of maximum health.

I liked it, because this is sort of the opposite of armor. Another advantage of this recommendation is that if you are using IR it's useless.

Finally, it's super complimentary with what already happens with evasion.

I think I understand the concept behind the keystone you're talking about. The thing is I don't want mandatory evasion keystones.

Evasion should work by itself, without keystones. When that's settled then keystones can be introduced.

"

Rowsol wrote:

Evasion isn't spikey though, 50% guarantees that every other swing will miss you.

Evasion IS spikey by definition.

Agreed that the problem with the current defensive mechanisms other than stacking life is inherent to the current system.
1) Because armor gets less effective against single points of high damage like bosses, you are still forced to stack life to survive the burst. The current patch tends to make average enemies trivial while doing nothing for hard-hitting bosses.
2) Entropy-based evasion is novel, but as OP mentioned it is a death sentence for EV builds. Likewise, if nothing is done about Iron Reflexes, so long as armor is more effective than evasion, no one will bother with an EV build because taking IR will give you an equivalently better AR build.

One solution might be to boost EV values, reduce the effectiveness of IR (make it so all total EV/AR is calculated separately and then added together) and reinstate pure RNG for EV rolls when you take the Acrobatics keystone. The whole point of an EV based character is the gambling aspect- you are betting that you can resolve the engagement before you take a string of hits, and that you can tank the occasional hit through leech/regen. At the same time, boosting EV values and reducing IR effectiveness should allow hybrid EV builds to carve out a niche.
A possible solution for armor is a damage cap based on your armor, which reduces the maximum damage taken from any single hit down to a % of your maximum life. This could come in the form of a keystone, or could be scattered as Notables at the end of an armor node path. This guarantees you cannot be 1-shotted as long as you have enough armor, but does not protect against DoT or a flurry of mid-damage hits. There are obviously a lot of balance issues that would need working out, but this is just the beginning of an idea.

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Asphael wrote:

"

Rowsol wrote:

Evasion isn't spikey though, 50% guarantees that every other swing will miss you.

Evasion IS spikey by definition.

Correct.

The way the entropy system works makes evasion spikey, and leads to death quickly. Double check on crit doesn't change that either.

It's so bad that you get stunlocked all the time, and all your attacks/casts get interrupted when monsters are attacking you.