I have done some testing with damage reflect. It's a very interesting concept, reducing damage (ranged, magic and area) while reflecting those back to the attacker. The closest equivalent is block rating (warrior specific) with the sword and board passive. However it's night and day in terms of relative effectiveness.
Issue 1: 250 DR gets one 1% DR chance. In game 40 BR gets one 1% block chance (despite the patch notes saying 50 per 1%). The lesser glove enchant offers both block rating:100 and DR:500. If both enchants should offer similar in game performance, then 250 DR per 1% chance should be changed to 200 DR per 1% chance.
Issue 2: DR only absorbs 30% and reflect that damage back. There is no critical block like block chance (80% DR vs 40%). It would make sense for a similar meta, that is DR chance > 100% becomes critical DR, absorb 60% and reflect that damage back.
Issue 3: Shield as an equipment offers significant amount of block rating by itself. ~2200 for Lv75 shield. This is roughly 55% block chance on its own. Cloak/Mantle gear slot makes perfect sense for a build in stat slot DR. Now I don't expect a perfect Lv75 mantle comes with 11000 DR (to equal a perfect shield in terms of block chance). But 5000, or 25% DR chance sounds reasonable to me. For table top DnD players, Cloak of Deflection should recall some fond memories.
Issue 4: Lv75 perfect block stat is 128. Given the 40 block per % calculation, a single slot is worth 3.2% block chance. So the max lv 75 DR should be 640 instead of 510 from what I can see on reforge options.
Issue 5: There should be a passive dedicated to DR available to every class. Mage currently has mage armor which offers 3000 DR plus +25% DR damage. Combined with their innate 2100 DR, mage has a 5100 DR built in. Now warrior having the same mage armor passive doesn't make much sense. Instead Deflection Mastery is a proper name. This could offer a flat 5000 DR with no + to DR damage just to be different from mage armor. Of course warrior needs to give up a passive to fit this in. I think most warriors will gladly give up Intense Training for Deflection mastery. I don't recall seeing Intense Training anywhere on the LB.
Issue 6: Lesser enchant DR is 500, there should be greater and exotic enchants for DR to allow players that want to specialize in DR. Looking at relative power difference between lesser and greater, Greater DR enchant should offer 1000 DR while exotic DR enchant should offer 2000 DR.
Issue 7: Open up more enchant slots for gears that currently don't offer any: helm, boots, pants, cloak. This will go a long way for any aspiring DR warriors/mages.
Quick calculation: 2000 DR is 10% DR chance. 25% for cloak built in stat, 25% for DR passive, 10% for enchants (gloves, head, pants, cloak, boots) gives you 100% DR. Anything above that will give you critical DR. Stat slots are very valuable commodities. 3.2% chance per slot is a high price to pay for critical DR. Like Block, I think the road to critical DR should come from active skills.
Hence the 2nd part of this post.
I have thought long and hard about WW and how to make it competitive while not inadvertently further boost the already top shelf Warlord set. The WW proc currently is a significantly better way to access WW benefits than the active WW skill itself. It's quick (1sec or so vs 4sec) so the lack of alacrity and locking out of other skills during animation are manageable drawbacks. It also triggers WW benefits such as movement speed, damage reduction, sucking in of nearby mobs without using up a valuable skill slot. Best of all, given WW's rather pedestrian damage output, WW proc is the most efficient way to keep up the Butchery buff from Cleaver without suffering the full WW's numerous dealbreaking drawbacks. Thus the best Bleed set is also the best for direct damage build.
The solution is to make WW a ramping skill. Like a chaingun, its effectiveness ramps up the longer it stays in the firing mode. So how to make a 4sec animation skill better than its 1sec proc version? Make each successive second more impactful. So the WW proc will only ever given you the weakest 1st sec benefits.
Whirlwind:
Ability Level 10:
Deals 1000% weapon damage (900% is harder to do math besides WW is weak anyway so let's make the base an even 1000%)
Damage increased by 25% when dual wielding.
Targets hit deal 15% less damage per equipped weapon for 2secs
*Increases Damage Reflect Rating by 2000.
**Damage increases by 1000%, Damage Reduction increases by 5% per equipped weapon, Damage Reflect Rating plus 2000 every second.
Movement speed increased by 30%
*So I added DR 2000. This makes a lot of sense as a spinning dervish creates a cyclone of air around, deflecting incoming attacks.
Now the ramping part. So by
second #2, WW does 2000% WD, 20%DR per weapon, 4000 Deflect Rating
second #3, WW does 3000% WD, 25%DR per weapon, 6000 Deflect Rating
second #4, WW does 4000% WD, 30%DR per weapon, 8000 Deflect Rating
So this avg out to 2500% WD over 4 seconds with the heavier hitting come from the latter part of the animation. This actually makes WW far more competitive with devastate in mob situation, although probably still need something like 7targets to equalize. Still a lot better than the current 17+ situation. In a previous post, I laid out the fact that WW is severely lacking in the defensive department, thus more of a deathtrap than a fearsome skill (all except the full defender setup that can fall back on blocking). This ramping up of not only damage but also DR is critical in order for WW practitioner to survive peak trials as a DW. Quite frankly this won't be enough.
To further enhance WW's effectiveness, here is a modified Juggernaut 4 bonus (we still want WW to be that signature skill for Direct Damage).
Jugg4: Whirlwind ramps up 100% faster to a max of 7000% WD, 45%DR and 14000 Deflect Rating and lasts 3 seconds instead of 2 after WW finishes.
So what does this really look like?
second #2:3000% WD, 25%DR per weapon, 6000 Deflect Rating
second #3:5000% WD, 35%DR per weapon, 10000 Deflect Rating
second#4: 7000% WD, 45%DR per weapon, 14000 Deflect Rating
So Jugg4 WW avgs about 4000% WD, ends with 90% DR for DW (needed to survive any kind of mob pull at 150+), + 70% chance to DR. Recall earlier one can achieve 100% DR with expanded enchants and passive, Lv75 perfect cloak. This makes 75% critical DR possible. Even higher if someone wants to dedicate gear stat slots. DR critical % should be capped at 90% (just lower than critical block's 95% max).
Mage's frostbeam is also ramping skill in case anyone wondering if ramping exists in the Eternium world. I think Death from Above is a potential candidate for adding Damage Reflect buff. As far as BH is concerned, since they are clearing 160+, maybe show them some DR love when the other two classes close the gap.
Issue 1: 250 DR gets one 1% DR chance. In game 40 BR gets one 1% block chance (despite the patch notes saying 50 per 1%). The lesser glove enchant offers both block rating:100 and DR:500. If both enchants should offer similar in game performance, then 250 DR per 1% chance should be changed to 200 DR per 1% chance.
Issue 2: DR only absorbs 30% and reflect that damage back. There is no critical block like block chance (80% DR vs 40%). It would make sense for a similar meta, that is DR chance > 100% becomes critical DR, absorb 60% and reflect that damage back.
Issue 3: Shield as an equipment offers significant amount of block rating by itself. ~2200 for Lv75 shield. This is roughly 55% block chance on its own. Cloak/Mantle gear slot makes perfect sense for a build in stat slot DR. Now I don't expect a perfect Lv75 mantle comes with 11000 DR (to equal a perfect shield in terms of block chance). But 5000, or 25% DR chance sounds reasonable to me. For table top DnD players, Cloak of Deflection should recall some fond memories.
Issue 4: Lv75 perfect block stat is 128. Given the 40 block per % calculation, a single slot is worth 3.2% block chance. So the max lv 75 DR should be 640 instead of 510 from what I can see on reforge options.
Issue 5: There should be a passive dedicated to DR available to every class. Mage currently has mage armor which offers 3000 DR plus +25% DR damage. Combined with their innate 2100 DR, mage has a 5100 DR built in. Now warrior having the same mage armor passive doesn't make much sense. Instead Deflection Mastery is a proper name. This could offer a flat 5000 DR with no + to DR damage just to be different from mage armor. Of course warrior needs to give up a passive to fit this in. I think most warriors will gladly give up Intense Training for Deflection mastery. I don't recall seeing Intense Training anywhere on the LB.
Issue 6: Lesser enchant DR is 500, there should be greater and exotic enchants for DR to allow players that want to specialize in DR. Looking at relative power difference between lesser and greater, Greater DR enchant should offer 1000 DR while exotic DR enchant should offer 2000 DR.
Issue 7: Open up more enchant slots for gears that currently don't offer any: helm, boots, pants, cloak. This will go a long way for any aspiring DR warriors/mages.
Quick calculation: 2000 DR is 10% DR chance. 25% for cloak built in stat, 25% for DR passive, 10% for enchants (gloves, head, pants, cloak, boots) gives you 100% DR. Anything above that will give you critical DR. Stat slots are very valuable commodities. 3.2% chance per slot is a high price to pay for critical DR. Like Block, I think the road to critical DR should come from active skills.
Hence the 2nd part of this post.
I have thought long and hard about WW and how to make it competitive while not inadvertently further boost the already top shelf Warlord set. The WW proc currently is a significantly better way to access WW benefits than the active WW skill itself. It's quick (1sec or so vs 4sec) so the lack of alacrity and locking out of other skills during animation are manageable drawbacks. It also triggers WW benefits such as movement speed, damage reduction, sucking in of nearby mobs without using up a valuable skill slot. Best of all, given WW's rather pedestrian damage output, WW proc is the most efficient way to keep up the Butchery buff from Cleaver without suffering the full WW's numerous dealbreaking drawbacks. Thus the best Bleed set is also the best for direct damage build.
The solution is to make WW a ramping skill. Like a chaingun, its effectiveness ramps up the longer it stays in the firing mode. So how to make a 4sec animation skill better than its 1sec proc version? Make each successive second more impactful. So the WW proc will only ever given you the weakest 1st sec benefits.
Whirlwind:
Ability Level 10:
Deals 1000% weapon damage (900% is harder to do math besides WW is weak anyway so let's make the base an even 1000%)
Damage increased by 25% when dual wielding.
Targets hit deal 15% less damage per equipped weapon for 2secs
*Increases Damage Reflect Rating by 2000.
**Damage increases by 1000%, Damage Reduction increases by 5% per equipped weapon, Damage Reflect Rating plus 2000 every second.
Movement speed increased by 30%
*So I added DR 2000. This makes a lot of sense as a spinning dervish creates a cyclone of air around, deflecting incoming attacks.
Now the ramping part. So by
second #2, WW does 2000% WD, 20%DR per weapon, 4000 Deflect Rating
second #3, WW does 3000% WD, 25%DR per weapon, 6000 Deflect Rating
second #4, WW does 4000% WD, 30%DR per weapon, 8000 Deflect Rating
So this avg out to 2500% WD over 4 seconds with the heavier hitting come from the latter part of the animation. This actually makes WW far more competitive with devastate in mob situation, although probably still need something like 7targets to equalize. Still a lot better than the current 17+ situation. In a previous post, I laid out the fact that WW is severely lacking in the defensive department, thus more of a deathtrap than a fearsome skill (all except the full defender setup that can fall back on blocking). This ramping up of not only damage but also DR is critical in order for WW practitioner to survive peak trials as a DW. Quite frankly this won't be enough.
To further enhance WW's effectiveness, here is a modified Juggernaut 4 bonus (we still want WW to be that signature skill for Direct Damage).
Jugg4: Whirlwind ramps up 100% faster to a max of 7000% WD, 45%DR and 14000 Deflect Rating and lasts 3 seconds instead of 2 after WW finishes.
So what does this really look like?
second #2:3000% WD, 25%DR per weapon, 6000 Deflect Rating
second #3:5000% WD, 35%DR per weapon, 10000 Deflect Rating
second#4: 7000% WD, 45%DR per weapon, 14000 Deflect Rating
So Jugg4 WW avgs about 4000% WD, ends with 90% DR for DW (needed to survive any kind of mob pull at 150+), + 70% chance to DR. Recall earlier one can achieve 100% DR with expanded enchants and passive, Lv75 perfect cloak. This makes 75% critical DR possible. Even higher if someone wants to dedicate gear stat slots. DR critical % should be capped at 90% (just lower than critical block's 95% max).
Mage's frostbeam is also ramping skill in case anyone wondering if ramping exists in the Eternium world. I think Death from Above is a potential candidate for adding Damage Reflect buff. As far as BH is concerned, since they are clearing 160+, maybe show them some DR love when the other two classes close the gap.
Comment