Projectile Evasion Revision

Projectile evasion needs fixing in the regards that it doesn't apply to all attacks labeled as projectiles. The main ones being spells. Apparently projectile spells override projectile evasion simply on the fact they are spells, when in all reality, projectile evasion should be applicable to "projectile" spells as well. I believe this because, on the core mechanics side of things, projectile evasion is a useless game mechanic if it is only applicable to about roughly 1/10 of the games projectile content. This goes from situation advantage to outright pointlessness if on such a short scale of function. I would highly advise revision of this part of the game for further game functionality and fine tuning for balancing purposes.

I agree.

Spells are not Attacks. These are separate classifications.

Attacks are subject to Accuracy, which overcomes evasion.

Spells have no accuracy or evasion concepts.

Because of this attacks are allowed more attack speed increases, and higher base crit chances (but to crit with an attack you must succeed two accuracy checks.)

This is the game. These are the mechanics.


You can only evade projectile attacks, because only attacks are subject to accuracy and evasion. You can still block and dodge projectiles, with the appropriate spell dodge and spell block. There is currently no Spell Evasion, because there is currently no spell accuracy. This is just the difference between attacks and spells. This is also a weakness of evasion. Everything has strengths and weaknesses.

You have to understand that things can be part of different concepts. It can be a spell or an attack, it can be a projectile or not, it can be fire or cold or lightning or physical or chaos. But projectile evasion will not give you spell evasion, if spells cannot be evaded.


Evasion is good. Many things, like the fire/cold/lightning/chaos from some skellies/constructs/snakes might be tagged actually as a projectile attack. So Ondars plus good evasion might make you very strongly defended against these, or even your own self to reflect from wand and bow attacks (or spectral throw.) But Evasion needs some weakness. And that is spells. Just like armor does nothing for elemental or chaos damage. Evasion does nothing for spells, and chaos damage bypasses energy shield. On the plus side, evasion also uses entropy, such that it is more reliable and consistent than block or dodge.


You have to understand that these unique differences are what make things more complex, and thus not all cookie cutter copies of each other. They allow you to layer your defenses in smart and strategic ways.

Think of it in Rock, Paper, Scissor terms. Armor can defend any physical damage (spell or attack), but not Elemental or Chaos. Energy Shield can defend any Physical or Elemental spell or attack, but not Chaos. Evasion can defend any attack Physical, Elemental, or Chaos; but not spells. Elemental Resists are great for any elemental spell or attack, but do nothing for physical or chaos spells or attacks. Spell Block is good for spells but not attacks. Regular block is good for attacks but not spells. Similar for dodge...

So even if you have high evasion, you might still need resists and even some armor for spells. Ondars, which boosts projectile evasion is good, but since you have zero ability to evade a spell, zero times any multiplier is still zero.

Then according to you, I am right. Projectile dodge is a pointless mechanic. Spells that act like attacks should be subject to evasion simply just on function. They act as an attack. Projectiles are irrelevant in classification of spell or attack because at the end of the day...its still a damn projectile. So, all other classifications are null and void. If you are not going to treat projectiles all in the same manner, then you can remove projectile labeling from spells so they cannot get benefits of projectile damage enhancement. That is literally a double standard case. Projectiles can get damage enhancements for being projectiles even if spells, but projectiles evasion cannot work on projectile spells because it is a spell? That is a fallacy and needs revision. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, that is failure both in game design and balancing.

'Spell' versus 'Attack' is a fundamental dichotomy in Path of Exile. If you think the game should randomly abandon this dichotomy on a whim, you're playing the wrong game.

You also seem to be mixing up 'evasion' and 'dodge'. They're different rolls, and dodge *can* apply to spells, because it's a fixed percentage chance. Evasion fundamentally can't, because it competes against accuracy, which is something that spells don't have. Think of it like this: an Attack is something that has to be physically aimed by the attacker, using their muscles. A Spell emanates from the caster's mind and goes in exactly the direction the caster wills it (the hand gestures and shouting are just to help the caster gather the necessary mental focus), so the caster's dexterity, weapon grip and so on are irrelevant.

@OP: I assume that you find Ondar's Guile not doing as much as you thought it would do and are therefore upset. But i can assure you that it is still one of the best keystones in the entire skilltree and probably the main reason whay evasion and ar/eva hybrid builds are good.

If you get to around 50% evasion this means that you are all but immune to some of the scariest stuff out there in PoE if you take Ondar's. Devourers, Tentacle Miscreations (read: TTB), Avian Retches, Piety's GMP Ice Shot etc. all use projectile attacks. Ondar's means that, witha decent evasion rating, you will get hit only once per 20 shots fired at you or 33 if you also took the Acrobatics cluster. That is a huge amount of mitigation and basically let's you ignore an entire form of damage almost entirely. It also helps immensly against reflect for any ranged attack char, giving it even more utility.

Now if somehow evasion or just projectile evasion was also applied to projectile spells, it would be insanely overpowered. Ondar's makes you almost immune to one of the three most common damage types. If it was applied to spells too, you would then be almost immune to two of these three. This would then result in 90% of layers going for evasion/Ondar's and give it a huge advantage over any other defense mechanism.
Spells are meant to be hard to avoid, spell dodge and spell block only exist in limited quantities for a reason and if you really want to getting hit by spells, then you will have to invest. Get yourself Atziri boots, Phase Acrobatics and run an increased duration Vaal Grace whenever things get dangerous and most important: learn to dodge some of the most scary stuff by moving out of the way.

No, that is not why. I am calling out that projectile nodes can buff spells while remaining immune to projectile dodging. This means they are classified as projectiles while not remaining projectiles. A fireball is no different from an arrow. They both fly at a target, in which the target can get out of the way. Now, why should an arrow be more penalized than a fireball. They are both forwardly projected objects. If spells are not considered this for dodging purposes, then they should not be considered this for buffing purposes either. It is a messed up double standard that leans power in the direction of spells rather than finding a balancing point. Do you get what I mean? It is a fallacy in understanding and classification. If it can be buffed like a projectile then it should equally be able to be dodged like a projectile. I get spells have no hit chance, but spells that are projectiles should function differently seeing as they are projectiles and every other projectile that isn't a spell has a hit chance. If spells that are projectiles have no chance to miss, then neither should arrows for ranged builds considering they function on the same core principles of forwardly projected objects through this broke understanding GGG has. You forget, the substance of the object is irrelevant if it is a projectile. The key classification term here is projectile and what it should consist of, because right now it has consistency issues in mechanics as for as functionality and balancing goes.

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Dreadnaut3447 wrote:

No, that is not why. I am calling out that projectile nodes can buff spells while remaining immune to projectile dodging. This means they are classified as projectiles while not remaining projectiles. ...

No, this means they are classified as projectiles, but not as attacks. That the projectile concept and the attack concept are separate ideas in this world. That an attack doesn't need be a projectile. And that a projectile does not need to be an attack. It allows for similar but different things. It allows for projectile evasion to have a weakness to projectile spells. Everything in this world has a weakness.

You can try to explain that perhaps because it is a spell it has a micro amount of homing ability that you just cannot evade or dodge if it comes in your close proximity, unless you have a special spell dodge "power" to push it away. That this is differentiated by its magical signature and your magical ability (from the regular kind.) But you're taking it too far, we're just accepting it and moving on. Perhaps you're trying to envision "magic" in a real world of physics. Um, magic breaks physics, or it wouldn't be magic...

And what are you asking they do? It sounds like you're asking them to make spells and attacks less differentiated, and more "more of the same". I'm quite confident that is a bad idea, as you'll effectively end up halving the current content.

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DirkAustin wrote:

Why mess with what works?

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If you want to "evade" spell projs, then i suggest you take spell dodge. Plain and simple.

What he said.