Improve Acrobatics

Let me start by saying to compare Acro with block. They both essentially accomplish the same thing ,warding off enemy attacks before they reach. However with block, you can actually invest points into defense directly on the tree by grabbing increased block chance nodes. Admittedly, block only works against attacks by default, but depending on the build can still ward off spells.

By default when you grab Acrobatics, that pretty much sums up your defensive mechanic defense right there, 5 nodes. You can't invest any more passives into dodge. Instead, you're forced to choose between evasion which has diminishing returns, life which isn't that present on the right side of the tree, and damage.

The only way to reach the dodge cap is by using a combination of uniques and flasks. You have no real way to invest defensively into your passive tree. You're relying on just pure skill to survive.

It's actually easier to get get more block chance as a dual wielder than to get dodge chance using Acrobatics.

On the right side of the tree, there simply isn't enough life that you can invest into to make up for the shortcomings of Acrobatics. That's why I'm proposing a new cluster of nodes that grant increased dodge chance for attacks and spells.

Evasion just isn't that useful, especially if Acrobatics should be functioning as the main defense.

My request is to either increase the number of life nodes to allow more significant investment or grant more clusters on the tree for increasing dodge chance.

As Rashek was using the power of the Well, he changed many aspects of life in order to save the world from the Deepness of the mists.

Many of his changes, however, created even more problems that needed to addressed.

He pushed the planet closer to the sun, in an attempt to burn the mists away.

However, he pushed too hard and the new orbit was too close to the sun.

The world began to burn.

So he created active volcanoes to produce large amounts of ash and smoke to partially blot the sun, and cool the world.

Yet the climate of ceaseless ashfalls required some mechanism to break down the ash, less the world suffocate on the accumulation of ashfall.

And so Rashek altered the plant life - to be able to survive the ash, and he created microbes to break it down.

However, that was still not enough to save humanity.

The biological change in the plants left them less nutritious to mankind. And indeed, the falling ash made men sick, causing them to cough like those who spent too long mining beneath the earth.

And so Rashek changed mankind itself as well, altering them so that they could survive.

Difrance of dodge and block.
Block need a shield or two weapons, it need stun and block recovery, harder do gain singnifican amunt for travel distance.
Acro is strong for builds that use shield becouse shields have defences in form of EV/AR/ES and so its maid as such to deminish it.



Lets say Raider is equivalent of Gladiator, what hapen when you gain suficient dodge and spell dodge is translated to effective life and so mach more power you gain for each aditional point.

Now you can say but thos items got no life, sure they dont but they have huge evasion and evasion is wey stronger then Dodge. When you combine realy high dodge and suficiently high evasion then what you get is amplification of evasion entropy reset to mach higher numbers then its may look like if you calculating them individualy.

Now to conter this low life problem its rather simple, just use MoM. Its posible and wery efficient.
In simple words mach more efficient evasion protect your rather high but less powerful Dodge, in turn when evasion entropy fail then its time for Dodge to trie and reset it. it can be some time before hit actualy land on your life that way. Block dont have such sinergy, insted it have shield defences bosting EV/AR/ES.

Way too much RNG in addition it's really not a good node most of the time but hey if you wanna be life and death with a single attack be my guess.

I don't think they wanna buff it if anything would probably nerf it more cuz reasons.

acro is really good. it just cant be end of it all as defenses go. you have to layer it with some mitigation technique

acro is much, much cheaper than block. thats something that op fails to address. you need to have a shield as well (in todays game, its admittedly not a huge problem, because shield charge is absurd) or you have to pick tons of block nodes on the tree.

with breaches being not as ubiquitous in 3.0, perfect form will be quite expensive, as it should be.

acro and block are basically the same mechanics, except block counts as hit, so it has a few more uses (ie aegis build, on hit enchants/items/etc), but acro/eva also has some goodies, such as kintsugi.

capping dodge is fairly easy, especially if you play as a trickster or raider. especially if you use vaal grace.

acro is the best bang for the least investment defense in the game if we pretend instant leech does not exist because its an abomination skewing everything else

also, acro is EXTREMELY strong with MoM
the biggest problem with acro/eva is always a big one-shot

MoM + acro + some evasion + kintsugi will be a beastly combination in 3.0, mark my words

thing is, if u think block is easier to get, then get block instead. Theres loads of block on the right side of the tree. If you find that your build cant get block because you either cant block or its locked behind melee nodes you dont have use for, then thats why you shouldnt have access to something as passively complete as block, your build is obviously some sort of ranged character.

As a bow char you take way less risk than melee. 1 node and you have 30% dodge... thats better than most shields will give you, then the small nodes are 3%s and a 4%, thats the same as the big block notables block builds travel distances for, then at the end a single point for 30% spell dodge. Thats pretty serious point efficiency and essentially gives your bow character 40% block + 30% spell block, if you put on a regular rare shield and invest 5 nodes hunting down block you are not ending up with those kind of figures. 4 nodes in testudo will get you 9% block, with a shield having what? 26% base? That gives you 35% block, no spell block.


Why does dodge exist when block is already there? Its limited, but its cheap for its power and its available to builds who are not melee, do not have a shield, builds that can camp top right tree crit, the sort of builds that you have to question if you want to have the same defensive options as a melee character imo.

well said. a lot of players take gladiator just for 'free' access to spell block without sacrificing a ton of gear slots and reckless defense jewel (which is very dangerous in maps).

and acro allows you still to have *some* block

if you have a 30% shield and acro, you have 40% dodge and 20% block. this gives you effective 52% chance to avoid attacks even without any evasion. and phase acro gives you 30% spell dodge.

and oh, enfeeble is probably the single most powerful defensive curse for any evasion+acro user. it mitigates almost a third of incoming damage, negates almost any crits, and stacks amazing with evasion because it lowers mobs accuracy (and because of how crits are rolled, lowering accuracy and crit, triple dips on the crit effectiveness reduction)

I used to have fun with the enraged dog in the old village ruin map when people were scared shitless of it. blind + enfeeble + evasion + acro = good luck for that thing to get a hit off.

honestly, acro is in a state where its almost too strong as a defense. too bad the game is currently focused around damage and leeching through hits, because a shift to a defensive meta circa open beta or 2.0 would make people realize the strength of evasion+acro

I cant remember the last time I made a life build on the right side of the tree that wasnt using acro. fuck it, any build (since I havent played ES in a while, because I dont like cheating myself and thats exactly what ES+VP is)

my lvl 90 trickster in hcssf mayhem ? zero leech and acro.

shit is extremely efficient. once GGG stops the brain fart that is VP, former glory of real defenses will return. I hope.

Developers pigeonholed acro to evasion, and mostly towards evasion based ranged chars. That's it. The same treatment had OG.

The results is everyone avoids evasion melees on the right side of the tree - they have no other defensive option other melees use to share or are penalized for trying, but are stuck in two types of quite unreliable defenses. Especially shadow, ranger can take the path to bottom-left without downsides.

Another problem acro has is it's really hard to stack, especially phase acro. Or if you stack it (atziri step, hinekora, daresso/hyrri, raider asc. etc.) then you are limited to certain items with no further upgrades just to have higher dodge.
High block chance chars don't have such issues - both shield and DW based.

Also, while dodge is about damage avoidance, same as block, it's slightly defferent and doesn't enable counterattack passive skills the way block does.
Block is also easier to stack and even max, especially as gladiator. You can back it up with armor, evasion, whatever - without downsides. Even mom works better with it, if you have items "% mana gained when hit", as hit blocked is still a hit landed.

Basically, in the attempt to restrict block chars of getting high dodge on top of it, acro turned into a really unattractive mechanic.

IMO, taking into account the open system of the game, the only solution is to release higher variety of items with acro/phase, along with increasing the numbers in certain ascendancies. Maybe add dodge in the affix pool.
As in its current state, acro isn't trash, but mostly so-so, the choice when you got no choice.