Should Physicial Damage mitigation work like the other damage types?

Preface

We've had a lot of changes affecting how damage is mitigated in PoE. In particular with the release of 2.0, there have been some substinential changes how certain defense mechanisms work (AA, EB changed, MoM moved in the tree, IC self cast, addion of fortify, adjusments for armor, life leech changes, etc...).

I don't really want to comment on those changes in particular, but there seens a generally heated argument about how to mitigate physical. Regardless of the current options given, I think it is time to raise a more fundamental question:

Should Physical Damage mitigation work like other damage mitigation?

In PoE, we basically have 5 damage types. Out of these 5, elemental mitigation is the easiest one to achieve as it readily available on gear and even in the tree. Chaos damage is harder to get and the magitude of the modifiers is lower, but also possible to mitigate this directly though gear.
For physical damage this is not case.

Yes, there are options to mitigate physical damage, but essentially they do work very differently from the other damage types. There are some % reduction available though specific skills like EC or AA (or very few particular skill nodes), reduction though conversion (which then can be mitigated), armor and flat reduction (still available on certain uniques).

However, the big question is, why shouldn't physical damage just work like the other damage types? (i.e. primary mitigation though resistance)

In essence the current state of physical damage forces down people to a particular path of mitigation that is used thoughout most, if not all characters, optimally this turns into more optional options for *additional* mitigation.

There are certainly arguments you can raise against that, but I think it's ultimately just a question of designing around the issue. It would be easy to say it hurts diversity, but I don't think this is really the case - if it was similar to chaos damage mitigation for example, using certain skills or other techniques might still be a very viaable choice and it wouldn't invalidate old uniques.

If I renember correctly Chaos Damage used also to be unmitigatable essentially (in original CB), then moved to be mitigateable and later also effected by the resistance penality. I don't see why the same process shouldn't apply to physical damage as well.

I think the points arguing for such a change are much bigger though:

That physical damage exists and can be mitigated would be much easier communciated to new players if simply was on the charcter spreadsheet - if you compare it to Armor for example, it's really misleading. That estimated reduction doesn't really work out and if you don't understand the mechanics, it's really gonna get back at you. (Like 50% mitigation, but why do I still get tons of physical damage from big hits?).
Now if that was redesigned, and 50% for example would actually /mean/ 50% (and armor would get its separate reductions) I think that would be much clearer to about any player.
This is pretty much an argument for consistency as well. It would be consistent with other damage types found in the game.

I also think it could actually help diversity. Mostly because physical reduction would be rollable on gear (and achieveable from the tree) and you wouldn't have to rely on certain skills or skill combinations to achieve physical mitigation. Instead you can use additional mitigation techniques if your character allows for it, and for hardcore players, you most likely really want to.

It should also make the game easier to balance for GGG. I think being able to design around a certain amount of mitigation is easier then designing a ton of skills, uniques and other stuff (IC, EC, Lighting Coil, Taste of hate, armor, etc) to provide mitigation exclusively.

How physical mitigation *could* work

Basically, I'd just make it work like the other ones in essence.

• 75% Physical Resistance cap (fixed! I don't think there should be +max physical ever)
• regular -20, -60 difficulty penalites
• mitigation can roll as mod on gear
• can be found in tree in specific places

But as I said, if we actually want a bit of diversity, we could spice things up a litte, here are some ideas:

Physical mitigation is limited to armor slots (as in body armor, gloves, shoes, helmet, shield), i.e. it can't be rolled on jewellery or weapons

Basically that makes giving up an armor slot much harder, since it would be very hard to mitigate missing physical damage. In particular this means uniques in these slots might be very valueable and as such also gives a decent boost to rare items.
In particular making it restricted to those kinds of armor sets would also give value to rare mods. It would also make it very important to try to get +%physical damage reduction as you can't get it on your other slots.
In the future, basically certain existing uniques or new uniques could also provide reduction, making them a viaable choice as well.

Lore-wise I think it would make a lot of sense that armor actually acts as armor mitigating damage.

So for example, we'd just have a bunch of regular mods that scale all the way up to 82 or so like the current mods do. I.e. starting with low physical resistance mods all the way to high physical mods.

Additionaly most types of armor come with implicit reduction

This would make armors generally much more interesting. Most armors currently do not have any kind of implicit. There are only few exceptions like astral plates or occultist vestments, but they are pretty rare. I'd make it current armor values, i.e. have shields/armors the greatest amount and gloves/shoes the least.

Yes, it would be a new base-line of mods, but I think make corruption of armor pieces much more interesting (i.e. a question of weather you want to sacrafice your implicit), and also open up oppurtunities for more different mods. It would make the choice harder to choose what kind of mod you actually want.

Furthermore, to make things more intresting there could be some twists to the reduction mod that could be thematically fitting, but provide reduction.

• +x% Physical Resistance and x% reduced/increased Cast & Attack Speed
• +x% Physical Resistance and x% reduced/increased Movement Speed
• +x% Physical Resistance and x% reduced/increased Damage

These could also be a replacement for the current (hidden) movement speed penality on armors. As such the notables (at duelist for example) could ingore the negatives from armor implicits. Plus it would diversify the game more, as certain builds might be able to ingore certain types of penalities.

Additionally generally these kinds of reductions could be in contrast to the primary defense value on the armor. For example, a high armor, ev or es armor piece might have a low reduction, while one with a lower base armor, ev or es from the same level might have a higher reduction.

Some examples:

• Body Armor, lv20, 100 Armor, (6 to 8)% Physical Resistance
• Body Armor, lv20, 130 Evasion, (6 to 8)% Physical Resistance
• Body Armor, lv20, 50 Energy Shield, (6 to 8)% Physical Resistance
• Body Armor, lv20, 80 Armor, (9 to 12)% Physical Resistance and (4 to 6)% reduced Movement Speed
• Body Armor, lv20, 100 Evasion, (4 to 6)% Physical Resistance and (3 to 5) % increased Attack/Cast Speed
• Body Armor, lv20, 35 Energy Shield, (4 to 6)% Physical Resistance and (5 to 8)% increased Damage
• Body Armor, lv20, 100 Armor, (8 to 12)% Elemental Resistances
• Shield, lv20, 100 Armor, (6 to 8)% Physical Resistances
• Helmet, lv20, 80 Armor, (4 to 6)% Physical Resistances
• Gloves, lv20, 60 Armor, (3 to 5)% Physical Resistances
• Shoes, lv20, 60 Armor, (3 to 5)% Physical Resistances

So as you can see, those implicits could be used to diversify armors a bit more as well. Examples have been choosen to fit thematically as well. It will also apply to uniques, which means even if with uniques you'll not be fully negelegting mitigation. I don't think the implicits at higher levels should be much higher (maybe only sightly so), since that is what mods are for. This also basically allows the following:
Normal: Easier to cap out since a lot of resistances will be form base implicits
Cruel: Implicits will help to cancel out the penality, but focusing on resistances is required
Merciless: the to 16 to 24% (22% to 32% with shield) you get form implicits will be negible.

What about "armor" if we get physical resistance?

One thing that is kind obvious is that we're invading armor terroitory. To make armor not obsolete it would obviously still need to fill a purpose. In the past I'd have argued to give it a percentual physical resistance, but with the system above this doesn't make sense.

Actually, let's stop for a moment and look at the 3 base defense types from gear besides resistances:
ES - gives you an extra hit pool, that regenerates on it's own when you don't take damage. Basically allows you to take more damage at once.
EV - allows to evade attacks. Essentially allows you to avoid incoming damage as long it's not from a spell
AR - reduces the incoming damage from physical attacks and spells

Looking at that I think armor is the one that really falls out of line, in particular with the proposed changes; armor doesn't mitigate other damage types and I think it should.

Basically I'd rework armor into "absorbtion"-type defense, keep the current mechanic (tweaked to work well with the values), but masically make it something that you really want to reduce damage from *all damage types*. The idea here is basically that armor becomes really the armor streotype: we spec into armor in order to *TAKE* damage and *mitigaTE* it, regardless of the damage type or source.

So in the end, we have something like this:
ES - good at: taking big hits once in a while as long you can regenerate
EV - good at: avoiding hits and critical strikes giving you a chance to replenish life (or es)
AR - good at: mitigating small hits allowing you to take more sustained fire

It's debateable whether this should only work against attacks or also against spells. Considering how spells are separately balanced I'd think it would just be best to make it work against attacks (and it would be inline with evasion). If not evasion becomes kinda out of line and it involves a certain amount of balance questions. But it could just be *less* effective against spells (like... 25% of armor mitigation applies vs spells).

Impact of changes, adjusting skills, etc...

So basically, I think this leaves the game at the following:
* Core Defense (Life Pool; for CI this is ES)
* Primary Defenses (Resistances)
* Secondary Defenses (AR, EV, ES)
* (optional) Tertiary Defenses (Block, Dodge, Uniques, Endurance Charges, MoM, skills, etc)

Is this a good thing? I think so. It means that basically after working up to the tertiary layer, you have the most important defenses setup. Anything after is optional, for characters that want more survivability it gives them decent choices, and for hardcore characters or characters that aim for level 100 this is probably still absolutly necessary.

One thing I haven't answered yet though is how this would affect existing mechanics.

The ones that are not specific to physical resistance are basically just working like before (dodge, block, MoM etc) except it's less sucky against high physical enemies. Keep in mind those mechanics are *NOT* there to primarily mitigate physical damage, but to provide damage mitigation in general; in the game's current state they may be "abused" to provide physical mitigation since there is very little in terms of actually doing so.

For ones that do affect physical mitigation, I think it could just be layed on top or made to provide resistances. So, going into the skills directly here are some examples:
* Endurance Charge: gives the 4% mitigation normally as physical resistance (just like with ele resistances; it could be changed to provide additional bonues as well, if deemed "too bad")
* Lightning Coil, Taste of Hate and other xx% converted to xx% damage: Reduction applies first, then it is converted and reduction applies again: 25% phys * 25% converted basically with 75% capped resistances. This means out of the 30% converted damage from LC a player would only take 6% as opposed to 25%, for a total of effticve ~19.375%, still making it a viaable choice to reduce physical damage in particular for eample
* AA: Should probably be treated as additional reduction. So for example at 75% cap, AA with 10% phys reduction would be = 25% * 90% -> 22.5% damage.
* Immortal Call: The question is whether is still serves it purpose then, it may need a redesign. It still could be useful to avoid high damage from certain bosses, but probably generally less so if the damage is generally lower; it could be sightly worked into provding a set amount invulnerability (think "absorbs xxx damage for xxx seconds" based on charges it consumes), allowing you to tank something like the big slam-like skill

Lastly: What do you think?

I think how Physical mitigation works today is to prevent 'to automatic' (nobrainer-builds).

Imagine if you had 80%+ in all resistances (including physical) and the damage is reduced by a flat amount not matter if small of big physical hits.

That would be the death-sentence for the many passive defense skills like enfeeble/temporal chains/ fortify/endurance charges or granite flasks.

"

gandhar0 wrote:

I think how Physical mitigation works today is to prevent 'to automatic' (nobrainer-builds).

Imagine if you had 80%+ in all resistances (including physical) and the damage is reduced by a flat amount not matter if small of big physical hits.

That would be the death-sentence for the many passive defense skills like enfeeble/temporal chains/ fortify/endurance charges or granite flasks.

Did you actually read the entire post?

a) it should be fixed 75%. The cap relief is really bad for the game, and I don't think should be possible to reach 75+% directly

b) End charges would still be helpful to reach the cap

c) armor rework as mentioned in post would not invalidate granite flasks *at all*. Arguebly they'd even be much stronger mitigrating all damage

d) additional stacking of defenses that do not interact with physical directly like enfeeble/temporal chains would not become less useful if the game is balanced around it. Nothing would change about them, they'd still be good and have a purpose. Actually if you say for generic defense the *ONLY* purpose for them is to mitigrate physical damage, it should tell you something is very, very, very wrong with the game. They exist for specific purposes, like enfeeble still would be a good idea against heavy hitting or crit enemies, temp chains against enemies that could chase you down. And just like Fortify will still be helpful for melee characters to counter the fact that they have to expose themselves to more damage compared to range characterse. This has basically nothing to do with physical damage itself.

Mitigate?

I'm sorry I wasn't going to post but... why are you having so many migrations? "Physical damage migration" sounds painful - you might want to get that checked out.

"

Omega_k2 wrote:

It would be easy to say it hurts diversity, but I don't think this is really the case - if it was similar to chaos damage migration for example, using certain skills or other techniques might still be a very viaable choice and it wouldn't invalidate old uniques.

You should address this further, because I don't think you've explained your counter to this anticipated argument very well.

How are your questions about physical mitigation any different than me asking "hey how come strength increases my melee physical damage, but dexterity doesn't increase my ranged physical damage? And why doesn't intelligence increase my spell damage? This isn't consistent!"

You seem aware that diversity of mechanics has value in games like this, so if you're pushing for homogenization I think you need to defend it better than that quote.

I agree with you on some points, but that's what really stuck out to me.

"

Omega_k2 wrote:

Did you actually read the entire post?
...

Your problem is you make to many unnecessary examples.
It would be nice if you come faster and more direct to your points then it would be more clear what you want.
Your post is to long with much 'filler content'.

Problems are generally adressed short and directly without writing a 'novel' or roman;)

Its nothing personally against you but your entire post is somehow 'diffuse'.

I think the migration of physical damage is fine. Mine flies south in the winter, and north in the summer.

If you mean "mitigation", you really should edit your post. Physical mitigation is fine. Endurance charges, Fortify, nodes from the tree, armor, IC, ... there's lots of sources of physical mitigation.

What people don't see is that you shouldn't be able to mitigate all forms of damage. Each should come as a trade-off. Currently, the struggle is to max them all while keeping a decent offense. Don't expect to max them all.

I think its fine as it is, I dont see any reason why they would want to change it.

There is a far more elegant way of addressing the situation though.

1) make physical damage taken as X element% more common.
2) limit the max amount of this type of mitigation to a single source per character.

This has two effects with are beneficial to the community as a whole.

1) items with physical mitigation conversion stats become more common and cheaper as a result (since one can only utilize a single piece of them per character)
2) balancing the physical damage can be stabilized more in the assumption a character will have at least one source of this flat mitigation.

In practice this means a character can no longer utilize BOTH coil and taste of hate at the same time, since only one will activate.

This also assumes more items are created with these stats or that they also become available on rare items

like 15% physical taken as fire damage/ - 40 fire resistance.(as a local modifier)

All of the other reductions, like armor/endurance charges and fortify remain like they are. This automatically makes the STR area of the tree more capable of enduring physical damage, which is the intent.

But also grants options to the other parts of the tree (dex/intel) for flat mitigation.

Peace,

-Boem-

(also please edit your post, migration doesn't mean what you think it means?)