[Balance for Evasion classes] Proposal for more melee class diversity

I have an idea to balance the game for evasion-based melee classes (crit/dex shadow/ranger, claws build, etc. etc.)

(If you tl;dr, jump directly to "the solution" paragraph)

The Problem
Evasion doesn't scale well for endgame. This problem affects mostly HC characters (obviously) where survivability is #1 focus for pretty much any build. Ignoring the fact that as of now ranged classes have a huge advantage compared to melee, there's another very important problem here: levelling as an evasion based melee character is suicide.

Sooner or later every single evasion-based build has to go through Iron Reflexes talent to be able to survive in HC, especially at cruel/merciless difficulties. Even this, though, sometimes is not enough and in the end it all comes down to full str characters stacking hp nodes and resolute technique because... who needs dex?

Why doesn't evasion work well?
Because of RNG. There's no going around this, the randomness of an evasion-based build can simply destroy a perfectly specced character and make him totally useless for HC runs (you die, you lose the game more or less).

Doing some very trivial calculations (assuming a balanced def alternative build) we can easily see how two characters, one full str with armor boosted and one full dex with evasion boosted can compare with each other:
Character A (armor based) has 50% damage reduction from armor. This means that out of 1000 damage over time (sustained damage, not just one hit) he will receive 500.
Character B (evasion based) has 50% chance to evade. This means that out of 1000 damage over time (again, sustained damage) he will receive approximately 500.

What's the difference then? It's pretty much the same, right? Wrong

With a certain 50% damage reduction, you can be sure that ALL the damage you're going to get will be halved (ignoring resistances for argument's sake). With 50% chance to evade, however, even a simple attack that goes above your total HP (Also ignoring the fact that evasion-based characters have less HP on average) can simply wreck you. There's no real protection, even if the result balances itself compared to armor, the evasion character *will* eventually die in HC. It's not really luck, there's no luck in repeated chance (probability distribution converges on a single value), it's a fact.

You're in HC, if you die once, you lose. And that is going to happen.

So why would anyone ever want to go with evasion on HC? There's really no point, it's more risky (and it's not even a "risk", as I said, it *will* happen). There's no incentive in running an evasion build, there's no real advantage either. You're just getting wrecked.

The solution:
Here's my suggestion: Add a simple talent in the skill tree that makes it so that the specified character will retain 1HP even after a one-hit-kill attack from an enemy.
Okay, this is really overpowered if you think well about it, so let's specify the limitations:
- The character must have full hp (aka go from full to below 0 in one single hit, no repeated hits, just one strike)
- The talent will activate with a cooldown of X seconds (I suggest 5-10 seconds, not relevant) so you can't just use instant-recovery flasks to become immortal
- The talent won't work with Chaos Innoculation
- The talent won't work with Iron Reflexes
- You can still die from DOT status (poisoned, puncture, burning)

This talent would simply make it so that even when relying on probability/chance/luck in evasion, you'd still get a chance to play alternate builds (and not just stacking HP) in HC league.

Where should this talent be placed?
If you ask me, I'd be all for placing it at the opposite side of the tree from the HP/STR classes, maybe somewhere between Iron Reflexes and Arrow Dodging. This way we would ensure STR-based tank characters (like the Marauder) won't get an easy chance to obtain such skill (which would really be overpowered) and if they really want to, then they'll have to sacrifice skill points/hp nodes.


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This is about it, let me know what you think, I'd be really interested to hear feedback especially from developers/game designers and from higher level players (maybe people who experienced evasion-based builds in HC at Merciless)

bump to this because I don't really know if people actually read it or not D:

I'm not playing hardcore but I guess that's just how hardcore is, and how you have to play it.
If your number one goal is to survive you will have to skill differently.
Just recently I realized that you can get better chances if you use your skills wisely.

For example: On cruel act 3 I just can't tank all the damage anymore. Act 2 already was hard enough (at the end), but for act 3 my gear is way to bad. So I did some experiments with my skill gems and found out that it is indeed pretty useful to combine Enduring Cry with Spell Totem that way I got a Totem that pulls all the enemies. Pretty neat.
Before the totem collapses from the damage I usually can kill at least one or two enemies.
Of course I don't always need them ... but if damage is to much to tank this is a nice solution.

By the way: I'm playing a marauder, so basically the class you said is easy to play XD.

You're right the skill would be pretty powerful.

The question is would this skill be active in pvp as well?
Because I guess that would really suck XD.

Ranged evasion chars could also learn this.
They can "hit and run" you and even if you manage to get to them they will survive a heavy hit which would have killed them and continue running.
After that they just have to keep running for those 10 seconds and they are good to go for another mortal hit, which they will survive again.

Overall I think this is a bad idea.

"

grasmann wrote:

I'm not playing hardcore but I guess that's just how hardcore is, and how you have to play it.
If your number one goal is to survive you will have to skill differently.
Just recently I realized that you can get better chances if you use your skills wisely.

The problem is that at the moment there's pretty much only one way to "survive" if you're a melee character (which is to pump everything into HP). There's no alternative, there are some esoteric builds with CI and some peculiar stuff but even that is not viable. This is an idea to give a different build and a chance to different characters to survive in such an environment.

"

grasmann wrote:

The question is would this skill be active in pvp as well?
Because I guess that would really suck XD.

Ranged evasion chars could also learn this.
They can "hit and run" you and even if you manage to get to them they will survive a heavy hit which would have killed them and continue running.
After that they just have to keep running for those 10 seconds and they are good to go for another mortal hit, which they will survive again.

Overall I think this is a bad idea.

If you really expect to one-hit-kill a ranged character in pvp... ehh, I really don't know. Keep in mind that this talent would activate only if you're full life and go directly to 0 (or below), usually in pvp you always have to chip away health (because characters are more or less balanced with each other) so it would be unlikely to trigger.

But yeah, I'm an HC player, I really don't relate well with the Default league, you guys might have way multiple builds as far as I'm concerned, I don't really know.

With my marauder I currently got something like 1400 DPS on level 55 if I use Infernal Blow ( Well, I use it for every hit, I don't do normal hits ) and I only have 1200 HP. So my guess is that a pure evasion character would have much less than 1200 HP. I guess chances are not bad for me to one-hit-kill.

Of course a lot of that damage is fire-damage which would be reduced by the resistances, but even than it's something like 700 DPS.

"

grasmann wrote:

With my marauder I currently got something like 1400 DPS on level 55 if I use Infernal Blow ( Well, I use it for every hit, I don't do normal hits ) and I only have 1200 HP. So my guess is that a pure evasion character would have much less than 1200 HP. I guess chances are not bad for me to one-hit-kill.

Of course a lot of that damage is fire-damage which would be reduced by the resistances, but even than it's something like 700 DPS.

That's exactly the point I'm making though, with resolute technique you can pretty much nullify their defences (except for dodge chance).

I don't think this talent would be that overpowered in pvp, there is far more powerful stuff you can choose.

"

Morgawr wrote:

Why doesn't evasion work well?
Because of RNG. There's no going around this, the randomness of an evasion-based build can simply destroy a perfectly specced character and make him totally useless for HC runs (you die, you lose the game more or less).

That's at least 90% false. Evasion in this game uses a mechanic called "evasion entropy."

When you first run into a pack of monsters, your entropy value is set to a random number between 1 and 100. Whenever you're attacked:
1) First, the game adds the chance to hit of the incoming attack to your entropy value; for example, if your chance to evade is 75%, it adds 25.
2) Then it looks at the entropy value. If it's 100 or more, the attack is a hit, and 100 is subtracted from the entropy value. If it's less than 100, the attack misses, and the entropy value doesn't change.

This means that evasion isn't random. If you have a 90% chance to evade a particular monster attack and you face ten of them at once, exactly one of them will hit you. Every time.

Being out-of-combat for a few seconds re-randomizes your evasion entropy value, and other mechanics (blocking, Acrobatics dodging, critical strikes) remain truly random.

So yeah, nice armchair theorycrafting, too bad it isn't based on the reality of how the game actually works.

And in all honesty, if you're trying melee in a position where you would be one-shot with an evasion-based build and two-shot with an armour-based build... going armour isn't going to save you, you're still going to die. I will say that evasion builds do get slightly more burst damage, so they tend to like the instant-heal flasks a little more; however, they also take less elemental damage from attacks and evasion rolls twice against criticals, which isn't a bad trade.

I don't agree with this. Make an evasion, block, acrobatics character with as high life as standard armor chars and you will see your survival is as good or better then armor based chars. In addition to getting hit rarely you get hit even more rarely by criticals. Only possible problem would be physical damage that is spell based as it ignores block and evasion and dodge and only armor reduces it (like Oversoul rocks).

A big part of the problem is that some mobs are way overtuned. You can be playing around in a zone where most mobs hit for a few hundred damage, but then one mob hits for three thousand and the only way to not get one-shotted is to stack ridiculous amounts of armor. These things will probably get chiseled away as the open beta proceeds, making it somewhat less mandatory to focus 100% on armor.

I tried making an Armor/Evasion character and could barely manage to not die on Merciless Terraces. After switching to Iron Reflexes I blasted through Terraces with ease.

I really have no idea why armor performs that much better, but it certainly seems to. I would get two-shotted or Three-shotted by Rhoa charges before, but now it's not hard at all.

Evasion was supposed to be strong against single strong attacks, and Armor strong against many weak attacks, but it seems like Armor is strong against everything and evasion weak against everything.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

Morgawr wrote:

Why doesn't evasion work well?
Because of RNG. There's no going around this, the randomness of an evasion-based build can simply destroy a perfectly specced character and make him totally useless for HC runs (you die, you lose the game more or less).

That's at least 90% false. Evasion in this game uses a mechanic called "evasion entropy."

When you first run into a pack of monsters, your entropy value is set to a random number between 1 and 100. Whenever you're attacked:
1) First, the game adds the chance to hit of the incoming attack to your entropy value; for example, if your chance to evade is 75%, it adds 25.
2) Then it looks at the entropy value. If it's 100 or more, the attack is a hit, and 100 is subtracted from the entropy value. If it's less than 100, the attack misses, and the entropy value doesn't change.

This means that evasion isn't random. If you have a 90% chance to evade a particular monster attack and you face ten of them at once, exactly one of them will hit you. Every time.

Being out-of-combat for a few seconds re-randomizes your evasion entropy value, and other mechanics (blocking, Acrobatics dodging, critical strikes) remain truly random.

So yeah, nice armchair theorycrafting, too bad it isn't based on the reality of how the game actually works.

And in all honesty, if you're trying melee in a position where you would be one-shot with an evasion-based build and two-shot with an armour-based build... going armour isn't going to save you, you're still going to die. I will say that evasion builds do get slightly more burst damage, so they tend to like the instant-heal flasks a little more; however, they also take less elemental damage from attacks and evasion rolls twice against criticals, which isn't a bad trade.

Do your research first. If you take a large hit, then dodge a weak hit from some other enemy, you might very well take another large hit from the first enemy right after and easily die. It doesn't work anywhere near as reliably as you make it out.