The Illusion of Complexity

Yah that would. I've personally never been on the "evade is bad" bandwagon anywa, almost all my characters are evade and I feel squishy in actual armour.

Because armour requires actually worrying about your gear being good.

armor is simple: you get 'enough' of it or you go full banana (40k+). first one stops white hits, second one PROBABLY removes phys one-shots. all states in-between are wasted effort

second one is possible ONLY with IR+Grace+Determination (that is if you want to take any other nodes besides armor)

first one can be done with gear (thus limiting yourself) or with IR+Grace + Granites

IR+Grace(+Determination) + Granites is way cheaper gear/passive wise

CI users can wear full ES gear and take IR and have enough armor protection for miniscule cost (starting scion IR is cheap to get)

ofc there is the discussion about ar vs eva vs hybrid (and i prefer eva) but if you want to get 'enough' armor IR+Grace is the cheapest way to do it

there is a reason people take IR. some of them are sheep following Kripp from CB, but others did the math and realized that there is not much difference between 5k armor and 20k armor. both stop white trash hits and neither protect from large spike phys dmg. so why bother? one passive (that happen to be very accessible), one aura and all your armor whoes are gone. granite(s) fill in the role of 'boss buttons' and you are set. heck, i even got chars up to 80 that do not exceed 1000armor unboosted and im fine (with mediocre eva/block) - granites are amazing and probably trivialize armor as a stat too much.

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sidtherat wrote:

CI users can wear full ES gear and take IR and have enough armor protection for miniscule cost (starting scion IR is cheap to get)

Yon don't really play CI, do you ?
Because that 'minuscule' cost is 'just' your second aura slot ( since the first one is most liekely for discipline ), which means :
- if you are a physical melee/archer = no hatred
- if you are an elemental melee archer = no anger/wrath
- if you are a caster = no haste
- if you can't afford taking enough %reduced mana aura nodes = no purity of lightning/cold/fire for some situation ( or not purity of elements ), or no vitality if you are a RF user.


So basically, only casters can take it without a too big loss, that's far from being 'minuscule'.


People massively took IR in the 1 week race because it makes the character less gear-dependant with grace, which is not a bad thing to me.
From 20k armor, you start reducing big hits, especially if you pop a granite flask to boost it up to 30 / 40k.
Saying that there is no difference between 5k and 20k is just wrong imho, it makes a big difference with any crit / bigger hit.

Im a huge believer of the illusion of complexity and or diversity in games. This game is a text book example of that.

On the surface it looks incredibly complex. Once you learn whats going on, have a frame of reference, you realize its anything but what first glace impressed on you.

When I first got this game I saw that skill tree and went "oooh man I am going to have fun making builds"

Then the realization that viability is gonna nerf those options. To the point where I can pretty much make two bow builds, and just about any non claw melee build(non CI as well) using the same exact life node/IR path between Templar and dualist.

What I have for about 5 characters is a single passive build tweaked a bit.

Then I realized how many (different from my life node build) builds I couldn't possibly do, due to the lack of expensive and rare gear.

Then add another layer of restrictions to counter desync.

What im left with is about as much diversity as I had with D3. Please wipe the foam off your mouth and take a deep breath fanboys, sorry to mention D3...deep breath...calm down...

Illusion of complexity/diversity is real. You might not care, and enjoy the illusion. I just think this game is text book on the subject.

They could REALLY stand to rework the passive tree, rework skill gems, and rework mechanics, and I think this game would have the diversity and complexity as it appears to have on the surface.

At least in D3 when you get bored of a skillset you can just switch it out and keep going.

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Fruz wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

CI users can wear full ES gear and take IR and have enough armor protection for miniscule cost (starting scion IR is cheap to get)

Yon don't really play ... do you?

I think you're onto something there Fruz...

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anubite wrote:

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Fruz wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

CI users can wear full ES gear and take IR and have enough armor protection for miniscule cost (starting scion IR is cheap to get)

Yon don't really play ... do you?

I think ...

yeah right

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Fruz wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

CI users can wear full ES gear and take IR and have enough armor protection for miniscule cost (starting scion IR is cheap to get)

Yon don't really play CI, do you ?
Because that 'minuscule' cost is 'just' your second aura slot ( since the first one is most liekely for discipline ), which means :
- if you are a physical melee/archer = no hatred
- if you are an elemental melee archer = no anger/wrath
- if you are a caster = no haste
- if you can't afford taking enough %reduced mana aura nodes = no purity of lightning/cold/fire for some situation ( or not purity of elements ), or no vitality if you are a RF user.


So basically, only casters can take it without a too big loss, that's far from being 'minuscule'.


People massively took IR in the 1 week race because it makes the character less gear-dependant with grace, which is not a bad thing to me.
From 20k armor, you start reducing big hits, especially if you pop a granite flask to boost it up to 30 / 40k.
Saying that there is no difference between 5k and 20k is just wrong imho, it makes a big difference with any crit / bigger hit.

CI spellcaster uses clarity and discipline if not going full-aura-banana. and there is a difference betwen CAN use and MUST use. CI CAN do that. i sketched Scion passive tree with 56 points left that is full CI, GR and IR with aura passives:

Base Aura Area Of Effect +%12
Aura Effect +%42
Base Mana Reservation -%25

that turns 1900EV into 2700EV, build also takes +50% evasion so it is around 4000+ EV already. iron skin + JAde with +eva mod and just guess how much armor you get WITHOUT ANY armor gear

Haste for casting? hardly necessary. a bonus, but when you can replace it with no need to worry about phys white hits - it is a nice price for that (with no gear!). this also removes practically bleed issue and phys induced non-boss stun is also gone

there is little difference between 5K and 20K armor and you know it - hits you talk about are "99% added as lightning" that armor does NOTHING against. you granite vs rare with crits/bosses, you have end charges/molten shell if really something spiky is going on. and you wear all CI gear (for optimum buffer that is most important anyway) for few extra passives. it can be done and passive point cost is 7 dex nodes (and most likely youll need dex anyway for EK, bear trap or XMP)

if im still around by new leagues and IR is as is now most of my chars will be based around this concept because it makes gearing SO TRIVIAL once you get your CI set. the price is so low.

Well, I'd definitely like to see a new aura for casters pop ( or maybe buff the haste cast speed
, idk ), it is true that atm, a caster's optimal choice in addition to discipline is probably grace, I should have said "you don't play non caster CI, do you ?", my bad on that.
Lack of a better choice for casters builds it is then.


( I maintain that RF builds most-likely need vitality, and can't always go for grace with the remaining part of their mana pool ).


Now I really ( honestly à disagree on the 5k -> 20k armor part, because it's from 20~30k armor that it really starts becoming something useful for larger hits. Of course, this won't do much against couple of rare physical huge hits unless you pop a granite and a jade before receiving the hit.

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Autocthon wrote:

At least in D3 when you get bored of a skillset you can just switch it out and keep going.

Haha so true !

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sidtherat wrote:

CI spellcaster uses clarity and discipline if not going full-aura-banana. and there is a difference betwen CAN use and MUST use. CI CAN do that. i sketched Scion passive tree with 56 points left that is full CI, GR and IR with aura passives:

"Sketching a passive build" is not equivalent to actually doing anything and showing the results. Not by a long shot. What's possible on paper is often not possible or nearly as simple when it's put into action. You should maybe play the game and post some screenshots.