Arghhhhhhhhh, this game, dude...

I feel like every time I start enjoying myself playing this game, I just get slammed by an elemental reflector.

I don't know why this is still in the game. Is it the die hard fanboys that say removing it removes "difficulty," which is a core draw of PoE?

What am I supposed to do? Inch my way through every pixel of map discovery? Refuse to drop any damage down until I can manage to mouse over an Extra Fast rare inside a pack of a bunch of tiny dudes just to check for the Reflects Elemental Damage tag? Or maybe waste a gem socket on a weak aoe spell just to see if it reflects onto me - and constantly use this every pull?

Can you imagine that in any other game? You're getting rushed down by a Blanka, but if you attack him, he reflects damage back to you anyway? Or if you Awp someone down middle of Dust 2, you also die? It's a joke of a mechanic.

The draw of PoE is build diversity. But things like damage reflect take away from that. They force a certain balance in your build, which should not exist if you can be skilled enough to avoid damage. It's like Jailer 1-shots in D3. They finally nerfed that a bit; in fact, they also had damage reflect mobs, but nerfed those as well to reflect flat amounts of damage rather than based on the damage you yourself did. Nor does it last indefinitely, lol.

I dunno. This shit is just really draining me. Clearing maps, having fun, la de da - BAM, damage reflector. There goes the last large chunk of time that I've spent trying to gain this 1 level that I need. Time to gain that exp back, and HOPE I don't slam into another reflector...

----

Half of my entire point here is that the only advice you can give me on this matter is to get life leech, and/or get more health/ES/whatever.

When in reality, this dumb AF mechanic just simply needs to be removed. Let the die hards cry about it for a little, but it's not like it actually takes anything away from them. If the removal of damage reflection makes the game suddenly easy, then it was never hard to begin with. Just easy with a dumb mechanic every now and then.

If a reflect rare can kill you that means you have too much damage and too little survivability. It's a check of sorts, not a difficulty factor.

As a famous man once use to say:

"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself......"

Some potential solutions (pick all that apply):

1. Increase your resistance against your own damage type. Resistances help against reflected damage too. This probably means raising your resistance cap from the default 75%. Some useful items (not an exhaustive list):


2. Increase your effective HP pool. The reflect amount is 20%, so with 75% resistance you deal 5% of your damage to yourself. You'll need to deal 20 times your effective HP of damage to the monster in order to kill yourself on its reflect.

3. Learn to recognize the reflect mobs faster. They have an intricate yellow aura around their feet with elemental symbols spinning around it. Physical reflect mobs also have a similar aura, but the symbols are different. The elemental version looks like this:


4. Use skills you can stop at a moment's notice. Firestorm, Icestorm, Ball Lightning and such can be dangerous because they continue dealing hits after you've activated them. If you start taking damage from reflect your only hope is to use flasks and try to survive until the skill ends.

5. Use skills that don't deal hits. Only hits can be reflected and damage over time does not hit. Scorching Ray and Blight come to mind.

6. Pay attention to yourself and your surroundings. If your HP starts dropping unexpectedly, hit some defensive flasks and stop using skills while you evaluate the situation.

7. If your build is a glass cannon, accept that it's fragile and play more cautiously. Don't rush into packs and be ready to run away at the first sign of trouble.

8. Use totems, minions or traps. Their damage is not reflected back to you. Fire builds will have an easier time squeezing in a damaging totem than others thanks to the availability of single-gem fire totems.

Yes, PoE has build diversity, but that doesn't mean that every build is viable. You can't create a build with all damage and no defenses and then charge headlong into a bearer pack and expect to survive. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of your build and adjust your playstyle accordingly.

The game provides a certain set of challenges you're expected to overcome. Reflected damage is one of them. There's plenty of ways to deal with it, some of which I listed above.

"

raics wrote:

If a reflect rare can kill you that means you have too much damage and too little survivability. It's a check of sorts, not a difficulty factor.

That's exactly what I said, though.

-GRANTED, I was in my MF gear, and it's a bit less of a problem in my real gear. But not only does that not change my point, but it also could arise as a problem again if my offense scales faster & higher than my defense.

Which, as I said, is taking away from the whole part about build diversity. It's forcing players to shy away from glass cannon builds, rather than having incentive because they're not skilled enough to play it.

It is also a lot easier to spike your damage up than it is your defenses. High defense gear is always exponentially more expensive as your upgrade threshold goes up. Offensive, not nearly as much.

Like, I get ragged on for having low ES, now at 5744. But anything considered an upgrade for me is well over 5 Exalts. Meanwhile, I have less than 30 Chaos's worth of currency in my stash at any given time.

I dunno. There's just an imbalance in this game, and it causes several ripples. It's hard to lay out the whole map of what's wrong with this game. I do enjoy it, too, but god damn. Sometimes it's a struggle.

"

ShadyC wrote:

You're getting rushed down by a Blanka, but if you attack him, he reflects damage back to you anyway? Or if you Awp someone down middle of Dust 2, you also die? It's a joke of a mechanic.

I assume it's knowing the other player's character and what they're capable of.
Like if you go Blanka and rush someone and don't pay attention to what character they are you get smashed down hard?
...with a grab or a throw or something?

Sorry, I'm not very familiar with Street Fighter.


With Counterstrike though, I think the analogy is if you constantly rush B, the other team decides to keep a player or two waiting for you and instead of flashing, smoking or changing tactics you keep on rushing B. That's dying to damage reflection.

Or a teammate drops the bomb and you go to pick it up without checking to see if anyone on the other team is guarding it. That's like killing a rare without checking the mods.

"

ShadyC wrote:

Which, as I said, is taking away from the whole part about build diversity. It's forcing players to shy away from glass cannon builds, rather than having incentive because they're not skilled enough to play it.

You can be a glass cannon, but you can't be a reckless glass cannon.

Helpful post, thank you. Indeed my resists are not naturally maxed, and I usually just pop a Flask to finish the deal. But when I reflect onto myself because I'm dropping big aoe's from off-screen to remain safe (which is another problem with reflect), then I don't know to pop one. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this is that I need to naturally cap my lightning & cold (I use Brotherhood). They sit at about 50% right now, so another 25% is basically halving the damage I'd take from reflect compared to right now.

I do have some problems with some of these tips, though.

For starters, I am color blind. I forget what type, but green & yellow are hard for me (among other combos, but). So seeing a specific monster aura on, say, a desert map... Not gonna happen. As for a symbol difference in elemental and physical reflect, I'll have to look at each one and see if it's noticeable to me. But, again, this doesn't help me when I shoot off-screen. Which is a very defensive play, by the way, and I get punished for it, lolll... So the game not only wants me to forcibly play defensively, but also to play defensively in a certain way... Ughhhhhhh..........

"

crystalwitch wrote:

With Counterstrike though, I think the analogy is if you constantly rush B, the other team decides to keep a player or two waiting for you and instead of flashing, smoking or changing tactics you keep on rushing B. That's dying to damage reflection.

Or a teammate drops the bomb and you go to pick it up without checking to see if anyone on the other team is guarding it. That's like killing a rare without checking the mods.

Well that's the thing. That's precisely my point.

Your analogies are off, because you're adding other elements. You tried to make it make sense in the CS world, and that's precisely my point.

The correct analogy is, quite simply, one of the enemy players has damage reflect. That's it. That's the analogy. Kill him, he kills you. That's it. That's the analogy.

And it's stupid, right? Well it's no less stupid in PoE. Even if we assume it's a 20% damage reflect in the CS scenario. Well, an Awper now cannot headshot that target without also instantly dying. That enemy player can now abuse "headshot" areas, where that's the only place you can hit them in. And now everyone else has to adjust and hinder their play against this guy, avoiding overkill damage at all costs (which will be trying to avoid headshots in most sub-100 HP cases), but all the while this reflecting player is free to go to town. He can do whatever he wants freely.

I got these rare mobs coming at me at mach 3, dealing 4k damage a hit, but I gotta tippy toe around it? It's just stupid.

"

You can be a glass cannon, but you can't be a reckless glass cannon.

I don't feel like I play reckless at all. But there's "not being reckless," and then there's dropping a Decoy Totem around every single corner and spending 35 minutes on an easy map. At that point, why am I playing glass if it slows down my clear speed?

Meanwhile, all these other players are running around dealing massive aoe chaos damage, moving at 300% move speed, and clearing Lake in 1 minute. Be sure to pick up your Exalts on the way out!

Ugh...

Like.

Damage reflect is a cancer in the game. You're just telling me some of my chemotherapy options.

"

ShadyC wrote:

The correct analogy is, quite simply, one of the enemy players has damage reflect. That's it. That's the analogy. Kill him, he kills you. That's it. That's the analogy.

And there are things like that in shooters. CoD is notorious for it, there are Martyr, Last Stand or Dead Man's Hand deathstreak, if you kill someone there's a chance you will die if you aren't careful.

Anyway, we found the culprit, you should have your reses capped at all times in endgame, even when under resist reduction curses.

"

ShadyC wrote:

Can you imagine that in any other game? You're getting rushed down by a Blanka, but if you attack him, he reflects damage back to you anyway? Or if you Awp someone down middle of Dust 2, you also die? It's a joke of a mechanic.

When being rushed down by a Blanka, always open with a ranged attack ( if at distance ) or a standing fierce ( if he is airborne ). F,D,F, HP is also acceptable for shonen type characters.

But above all else, never get into melee with an electrified Blanka.

"

JoeShmo wrote:

F,D,F, HP is also acceptable for shonen type characters.

Shonen? :)