Stun / freeze mechanic broken

In the beta I tried a CI / low life ES build and experienced what I already knew :

Stun and freeze ( effect / duration ) are based on life and seemingly dont take into account energy shield - not even for CI builds.

This mechanic is broken.

First of all - there is no way threw the passive skill tree to protect an ES character from Freezes and Stuns without an impossible stretch that breaks any build. A complete build branch based on a keystone passive ( Chaos Inoculation ) should not depend on uniques like Eye of Chayula or Dream Fragments.

Second - when a character switches to CI his energy shield should be taken into account for calculations of his EHP since it IS his effective health pool. Same is valid for low life ES builds. Actually ES should be taken into account for any build - as compensation the overall threshold could be lowered. ( I added an real life example at the end why energy shield should matter in EHP calculations )

Third - the Stun mechanic in game is broken as a whole. It does not make sense that a char gets stunned without taking any damage ( having played this game a lot most people will know what I mean - stuns are ( at least partially ) independant of actual hit calculations which does not make sense. One can not be stunned if he wasnt hit ). Same logic applies to the Cast when stunned gem - it triggers almost randomly - when the character really is being stunned the gem is not triggered while it is triggered a lot when the character actually has not been stunned at all.

The Awakening is a great update and I am looking forward to its release. But for the next bigger patch I really wish that the stun / freeze mechanic gets an overwhaul since it is ilogical and counter intuitive and even build breaking.

As a short term fix for ES builds the Arcane Vision keystone could be modified so that "Freeze and Stun are based on ES instead of life".

Edit : I would like to add an example - if I had an energy shield in real life and a rocket was shot at me the question of me being shacken / stunned by it would depend on the relation of the strength of the impact to the strength of the shield - my own strength ( health pool behind the energy shield ) would only be affected if the energy shield was too weak to protect me from the impact. Conclusion : Stun effect and duration depend on the shield and my own life.

maybe u are wearing a shield and getting stunned as the result of blocking a large attack, possibly a ranged attack, while taking no actual damage from the attack and hence it seems like you were stunned out of the blue?

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

maybe u are wearing a shield and getting stunned as the result of blocking a large attack, possibly a ranged attack, while taking no actual damage from the attack and hence it seems like you were stunned out of the blue?

You are right - I think this is what I meant and looking it up on the wiki the mini stun on block mechanic makes sense so that point is invalid.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

Yes. This is how the stun system works.

May I ask how the stun system works with regards to energy shield based builds ( e.g. chaos inoculation ) ? I am playing a low life energy shield based wander in the beta ( my first serious low life / es character ) and he seemingly gets stunned by every small hit. I didnt experience this with any of my previous characters ( all life based ) - no matter if they utilized armour or evasion and also I dont think they got stunned as easily even if they didnt pick up Heart of Oak or Practical Application ( which I never pickup for casters since there is no neccessity ). Even without stun prevention nodes none of my life based characters ever had any issue with stuns because the only enemies that would cause stuns were slow hard hitting enemies like Rhoas. Yet this ES based character gets stunned even by white archers ( with an ES pool comparable to the life pool of my life based characters at that point, including my previous character(s) on the same beta build so its not an issue related to the current beta ballancing which to me seems to be fine ) - around 2.6k at A2M.

Is energy shield taken into consideration equally to life for stun effect / duration calculations and if not why not since it is part of a character's EHP ?

Sorry if I my perception is wrong there.

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Vipermagi wrote:

Counting ES would make Stun/Chill/Freeze/Shock trivial due to higher attainable values, especially for hybrids.

So it is broken for ES builds so it is not broken for hybrid builds ? Why does every ES based build have to use Eye of Chayula and Dream Fragments. Thats two gear slots gone to make an ES build playable.

How can someone even come to the idea to add a keystone "Chaos Inoculation" knowing that every build that does it gets stunned frozen and shocked by every small mob and is basically unplayable ?

I already proposed a simple short term solution :

Add "Status effects are based on ES instead of life" to Arcane Vision keystone.

Thinking about it for a minute a second solution came to my mind :

Base it on the higher of each

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Mark_GGG wrote:

Yes. This is how the stun system works.

What an arrogant reply to a long and detailed topic about a broken mechanic with regards to ES. Why even bother answering since you seemingly only meant to say "We did it perfectly - no need to improve stuns - shut up".

Well I got you - just dont play an ES build without having obtained a Shavronne, Eye of Chayula and Dream fragments.

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AdFinitum wrote:

I already proposed a simple short term solution :

Add "Status effects are based on ES instead of life" to Arcane Vision keystone.

Chaos immunity and potentially huge eHP buffer are a significant advantage. Stun and status effects are not a problem, they're an intended drawback.

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raics wrote:

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AdFinitum wrote:

I already proposed a simple short term solution :

Add "Status effects are based on ES instead of life" to Arcane Vision keystone.

Chaos immunity and potentially huge eHP buffer are a significant advantage. Stun and status effects are not a problem, they're an intended drawback.

My low life ES buld has no chaos immunity and its EHP is as small as a life build. What is it being punished for - why is it unplayable per game mechanic ?

Furthermore an ES build chieves the same amount of EHP as a life build only BIS items make it gain more which woul be possible with life Uniques as well.

ES builds come with the punishment of not being ablt to use a flask to just heal. They will just die after a certin amount of constant damage without any immergency button. That feels punishing enough. Furthermore I have a feeling that you only stated an oppinion and the mechanic is not intended but just a side effect of the mechanic being there before ES was introduced.

The people posting in this thread are the ones being arrogant, not GGG. You're coming into a game you clearly do not know much about and saying it should be completely different.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Auxium - Chill and Freeze duration are based on ES.

You're mistaking ES as simply an alternate path where the rules of the game stay the same except you get automatic 33% regeneration as a base. Stun, Freeze, and Shock are all based on the damage of the hit versus your total life pool. This is why it's so hard to stunlock/freezelock/shock many boss monsters - their life pool is so large that you have to be doing a significant amount of damage and/or have a significant amount of added +% time to your status effect to make it work on them.

ES gets a base of 33% regeneration. They made those passives even stronger/more accessible in the Beta with the Intuitive Leap jewel. A number of ES builds are also evasion builds to help avoid this. They also use shields as:

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When an attack is blocked, the game also calculates if the attack would have caused a stun were it not blocked. If it would have caused a stun, the blocking animation is played, stunning you briefly. If it would not have caused a stun, then you get a "free" block with no animation. Faster Block and Stun Recovery and Increased Block Recovery modifiers reduce the length of the blocking animation.

As another poster said, you get 50% chance to simply avoid stun outright with any energy shield at all.

Tl;dr OP is incorrect and does not understand the game's mechanics which I admit can definitely be frustrating. However, it is not really GGG's fault that you don't understand them when there is a plethora of detailed information in the wiki. The onus is on you to level up your knowledge before trying to give feedback.

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AdFinitum wrote:

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raics wrote:

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AdFinitum wrote:

I already proposed a simple short term solution :

Add "Status effects are based on ES instead of life" to Arcane Vision keystone.

Chaos immunity and potentially huge eHP buffer are a significant advantage. Stun and status effects are not a problem, they're an intended drawback.

My low life ES buld has no chaos immunity. What is it being punished for - why is it unplayable per game mechanic ?

If you have no Chaos Immunity, then that is your choice. Low life without some sort of Chaos mitigation is a recipe for death. See my post above for reasons why ES is not a simple alternate path to having a life pool.