How to know what killed me?

Folks,

Is there some kind of in-game (or mod/add-on) mechanism that can tell me what killed me? Any log or otherwise accessible knowledge?

I suffer from random deaths dealt by rare mobs (on maps the same level as my char or even below), on all of my characters, regardless of build. It doesn't happen often, but it pains me that I have no idea what caused them and how to behave in the future and where to put passive points next for maximum mitigation.

I'm of course capped on resistances, have run life-based builds and CI, but am otherwise not an experienced player and fairly casual.

Have I missed something obvious that is already in the game that would provide this info? What I'd like to know after dying is whether I was killed by physical, elemental or chaos, reflected or just dealt direct, something else, or even just what were the mob's prefixes/abilities (without a dance and mousing over every rare mob, I don't know how else I can get at this detail).

I feel information starved, though I accept it, if it is a conscious game design decision (you have to figure it all out the hard way, trial/error/deaths).

I just have a feeling that maybe I missed some obvious trick or information panel or mod?

probably volatile(sp)monster mod , or corpse explosion , or map mods with insane crit and - resistances ? As to a log i dont think there is but maybe , hopefully some poE pro comes and has a better answer.

Thanks, yeah, would be good to be able to tell more specifically. I feel as blind in-game, as you responding to my post. It must be "something", but hard to tell what. Lag certainly doesn't help.

Some of those deaths do indeed look like explosion graphically, maybe that's it. I try to pop a couple flasks before engaging a pack with rares.

I just ran Arsenal (tier 10), monster lvl 77, as lvl 79 juggernaut. Boss was trivial, but I died 5 times on rare mobs, very frustrating. Nothing too scary in map mods to my limited knowledge (I'm ele damage based, no ele reflect, the one I'm avoiding):

- desecrated ground (barely noticable chaos dmg)
- 60% chance for monsters to avoid ele status ailments
- 78% extra dmg as fire from monsters (guessing the biggest threat)
- 50% less effect of curses on monsters
- 15% chance for monsters to cause status ailments
- 25% reduced flask charges

2 out of 5 deaths were instant, the other 3 my health dropped in 2-3 chunks/hits over 1-2 seconds, not much time to do anything. Not enough time to inspect mobs' modifiers by mousing (for my old hands anyway).

These bastards are pretty nasty, they cast pretty strong phys spells, just like undead evangelists, but their version is rly easy to miss, hits harder, triggers faster and it hits after monster is dead (for 2-3 sec).

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Eye_Hatchery

If it is rares that are giving you trouble it might be that there are nemesis mods that you didn't notice. Here is a link to the list and their meanings.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Monster_modifiers#Nemesis_modifiers

You can tell if a rare has a nemesis mod easily because it will look more gold than yellow. Some of the mods are kind of throwaways but others will kill you if you don't react to them accordingly. My advice to you is when you see a rare, disengage and read it's mods before attacking.

wolf

If you have too little leech and high dps, it could be ele reflect. Rares could still have this mod sometimes even if the map itself doesn't have this mod. Watch out for curly circles below the rare monster.

Another possibility are volatile and corrupting blood mods on the rare monster.

Certain breed of rare monsters deal very high damage such as devourers, bears, goatmens, giant skeletons. A single latency spike could mean death.

I think you highly underestimated the "monsters have 15% chance to cause status ailments" mod. With the added fire damage, you can get pretty nasty burns and if I understand it the right way and any damage of them can cause any status ailment, then boy are you in a rough spot with this mod. Shocks are a scary thing. NEVER underestimate the damage that can come from being shocked in this game.

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Ogodei wrote:

I feel information starved, though I accept it, if it is a conscious game design decision (you have to figure it all out the hard way, trial/error/deaths).

I just have a feeling that maybe I missed some obvious trick or information panel or mod?

We need more info (character stats and monster types around/involved) to give better advice. Making a post-death screenshot might also help.
Some monsters (stygians) make explosions which can one-shot kill you if you have low life. Others can group-alpha-strike you. But without more info its just a guessing game.

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Zrevnur wrote:

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Ogodei wrote:

I feel information starved, though I accept it, if it is a conscious game design decision (you have to figure it all out the hard way, trial/error/deaths).

I just have a feeling that maybe I missed some obvious trick or information panel or mod?

We need more info (character stats and monster types around/involved) to give better advice. Making a post-death screenshot might also help.
Some monsters (stygians) make explosions which can one-shot kill you if you have low life. Others can group-alpha-strike you. But without more info its just a guessing game.

In a way, what you're asking is exactly my question - more info... but where am I supposed to get all those details? I'm assuming mousing over after death is all the tooling available to me (or disengaging pre-fight as someone said above - does that mean reading mods while kiting?). The rare dies with me half the time, but I certainly try to read their mods if they're still alive.

I'm asking more about the game UI mechanics for obtaining this information. What I'd like to know is not why I died in those particular cases (well, that too), but how to work out a method of knowing/finding out why. Once I have the method, it should be fairly easy for me to google the answers for particular cases, or pick more defensive passives, or crowd-source an answer from you guys (but I need to come equipped with the details, just as your questions point out, which I'm struggling to extract from game).

I'm happy to be told like a 5yr old how others do this - am I on the right track if I say you approach a rare mob, see potentially scary visual indicators (as someone mentioned above as well), mouse over to see mods, read fast enough while kiting if necessary, attack armed with the knowledge, job done? Is that all there is to it, any way to obtain more knowledge pre-fight or post-death, especially when the mob dies with you?

I'm assuming no combat log of any sort hiding behind a console command? I'm pretty sure there isn't having done some research, but asking just in case.

The char in question is Brainmuscles - https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Ogodei/characters

Thanks for your answers so far!

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Ogodei wrote:

I'm asking more about the game UI mechanics for obtaining this information.

This game is very bad at giving knowledge/understanding to the player. In order to successfully play a "normal" (or worse) build you need a lot of knowledge. Trying to get all this knowledge inside the game is very difficult.

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Ogodei wrote:

What I'd like to know is not why I died in those particular cases (well, that too), but how to work out a method of knowing/finding out why. Once I have the method, it should be fairly easy for me to google the answers for particular cases, or pick more defensive passives, or crowd-source an answer from you guys (but I need to come equipped with the details, just as your questions point out, which I'm struggling to extract from game).

Some people do video recording of their gameplay. If you do that and post a link to the video people will tell you in most cases exactly why/how you died and what you could have done better.
Otherwise: As has been pointed out: Mouse-over, post-mortem screenshot, naming the types of monsters.

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Ogodei wrote:

you approach a rare mob, see potentially scary visual indicators (as someone mentioned above as well), mouse over to see mods, read fast enough while kiting if necessary, attack armed with the knowledge, job done?

The exact mods on rare monsters are usually not that important. Except for some 'Nemesis' mods and some other mods which have visuals. There are exceptions to this. And if you have a wimpy build those exact mods are more important. The most important rule is: If it is a hard hitting 'Nemesis' (orange colorization) rare and you cant/wont kill it from afar: Mouse over to make sure its not a 'volatile'.

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Ogodei wrote:

I'm assuming no combat log of any sort hiding behind a console command? I'm pretty sure there isn't having done some research, but asking just in case.

Video recording is the only "combat log" available to players.

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https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Ogodei/characters

You dont have enough life on gear.
Your tree looks very inefficient to me but I cant recommend a good one - no experience with this kinda build.
You probably should get more %life on the tree as well.
There is no point using 'Iron reflexes'. Having some evasion is much better than having a tiny bit more armour. If you take too much damage from phys you should add endurance charges. I would use some more (not too much) evasion gear besides Devoto to complement armour but other people will probably tell you otherwise. And grab 'Bravery' and 'Cloth and Chain' for it.
You dont have an instant life flask (Bubbling or Seething Divine) and they got no quality on them.
Dont know but 'Eye of Innocence' may contribute to your deaths.