An idea to fix the Vaal Pact+Ghost Reaver combo

"

Bouveti wrote:

The flaw I see in your proposition is that elemental and chaos damage are a thing and armor cannot help against it (evasion can if the source is an attack).
I don't exactly know the proportion between physical and other types of damage that is relevant lategame but I guess it must be at least 50% if not more being other than physical damage.

Other than that, your reasoning is pretty accurate to me.

The thing I'm curious about...

Block has nodes to let it go from Attacks only into Spells too.

Evasion is Attacks only, but has Phase Acrobatics to at least allow some Spell Dodge.

Armour is Physical only. No nodes exist to assist with anything else. It's only physical no matter what.

I wonder if it'd be possible to create some nodes that allow for Armour to give something in addition to its phys reduction? For example, a percentage of Phys reduction as Elemental Reduction.

"

PS: Are there any melee spells that would be hurt by this kind of change ? I can't think of any actual melee spells but I'm far from all knowing (RF could be considered melee but I belive it doesn't work with leeching).

While not specifically "Melee Spells" there are some close range Attacks/Spells that are not "Melee" that would be hit by the suggested change to VP:

- Shrapnel Shot
- Flame Surge
- Incinerate
- Lightning Tendrils

Spring to mind (Out of ones that "Hit". I mean, technically, Blight and RF are close range too, but they don't "Hit" so don't Leech)

Though, I suppose at least Shrapnel Shot and Incinerate could be easily fixed by letting the Point Blank support allow for VP to work (Since that support turns your ranged attack into a pseudo melee one. Well, at least when trying to optimize damage)

"

Bars wrote:

Also, ES is not a problem. The problem is life being fucking terrible and disproportionately low to the damage output of high-tier maps. Hell, it's too low even for mid-tier maps nowadays. Try playing a life-based Shadow, Witch or Ranger in a SSF league and it becomes glaringly obvious. You pick every life node along the way, get life on gear, and it's still between the 4-5k mark at around level 80, which is inadequate even for tier 6-7 maps if you're in HC.

If I'm not wrong perfect life rolls on all the gear can give you 900ish life.
A good es chest can give 800 es alone.

"

The thing I'm curious about...

Block has nodes to let it go from Attacks only into Spells too.

Evasion is Attacks only, but has Phase Acrobatics to at least allow some Spell Dodge.

Armour is Physical only. No nodes exist to assist with anything else. It's only physical no matter what.

Very good point. Another idea to add to those on the previous page:
One keystone in between Templar/Marauder/Duelist:
"25-33% of Armour applies to elemental damage" or something like that.

Maybe change Acrobatics keystone so evasion does apply to spells, without extra investment to actually get spell dodge? "But spells don't have attack rating, so how you calculate evade chance?" <- just apply default attack rating of the monster to the spell, doh. Phase Acrobatics and nodes behind it are kind of underwhelming.

"

If I'm not wrong perfect life rolls on all the gear can give you 900ish life.
A good es chest can give 800 es alone.

It would be great to add another possible affix to existing items.
ES has hybrid, flat ES, and %ES - 3 mods to roll, making their combination rare and expensive.
Life has strength and flat life, 2 mods to roll, so its easy and quite cheap, but also limits progression. Maybe +1-10% to maximum life, split between 5 tiers or something? Or hybrid regen/+flat life mod?
That would do nothing on its own to rebalance VP+ES without other changes, but it's still something to help left side of the tree, and another affix to roll would indirectly make rolling perfect ES gear only slightly more difficult.

"

Bristoling wrote:

Maybe change Acrobatics keystone so evasion does apply to spells, without extra investment to actually get spell dodge? "But spells don't have attack rating, so how you calculate evade chance?" <- just apply default attack rating of the monster to the spell, doh. Phase Acrobatics and nodes behind it are kind of underwhelming.

On the contrary, Phase Acrobatics is actually quite nice.

It's just regular old Acrobatics that sucks (Also, those filler nodes). Mostly because it gimps anything other than Evades + Life to take it. But also because Evades and Dodge are 2 different mechanics that don't mesh that well together (I.e. 50% Evade + 30% dodge is not 80% chance to not be hit)

So yeah... Allowing easier access to Phase Acrobatics and potentially making it use evades would be neat for improving Evade builds.

You just have to consider The Perfect Form when adjusting PA to make sure it doesn't get screwed over.