The real reason Evasion isn't viable

Remember all that discussion about the true mechanics behind Evasion and the comparative math between Evasion and Armour proving that Evasion is theoretically equal if not better than Armour? It encouraged me to get an Evasion-based build to endgame and see just how well that theory works in practice. I can say that it's surprisingly effective on the lower difficulties and easily brought me to act 2 Merciless. And that's when I hit a brick wall.

There's a very easy reason why Evasion isn't viable, especially for HC. It's not the random chance that maybe a crit still lands and kills you. It actually has nothing to do with randomness. The real reason?

Vaal Constructs.
Leap Slam.
Projectile Weakness.
More Vaal Constructs.
Ethereal Knives and Bear Trap.
Leap Slam again.
Shield Charge.

These abilities deal Physical(+Chaos) damage, and cannot be evaded. At all. Projectile Weakness reduces your evasion to pretty much 0.

Evasion is the only defense in the game that is COMPLETELY NEGATED by several different abilities. ES gets countered by Chaos, but you can stack Chaos resistance or invest in CI. Armour gets countered by elemental-based attacks, but you can stack elemental resistances. There is no option for Evasion to prevent being countered by these abilities, except stacking more Armour. If that's your best option, why wouldn't you just wear Armour from the getgo?


I ran through Chambers of Sin with 0 deaths. I died half a dozen times in the Waterfall Cave level 1 to groups of skeletons that I've never feared on any character ever.
I took more damage from Vaal's constuct adds, than from his own lasers.

Screw randomness, it's the existence of 100% accuracy attacks that makes Evasion even moer unreliable than Armour.

Well, chaos damage isn't effected by armour either, and you rarely come across the other things there, so it's still pretty effective, and will help a lot more in situations that would kill you regardless of how much armour you have.

Armour is bad. Evasion is just much worse.



Armour and evasion are both just unreliable ways of increasing your effective HP. Increasing your maximum life is a reliable way of increasing your effective HP.

As evasion, armor, and life all come from the exact same places: passives and equipment, it really only makes sense to prioritize life. Armor and evasion equipment that dont have life are utterly worthless. I'm really not sure why +to maximum life is even available as a mod for armor, seeing how all it does is force players to aim to have it on every piece of equipment unless they're speccing CI.




But yes, evasion is problematic for reasons that extend beyond the random crits. It desperately needs to be reworked so that it is more viable than armor for builds with lower life, but without sustained tankiness. Right now evasion is LESS practical for low life builds which is plain dumb.

Evasion isn't much worse than armor.

Both are great at mitigating damage from small damage sources. For example, I have 200 hp regen. If I go stand in a decent sized pack of white mobs on a 66 map, I will die with no armor or evasion. If I have a decent chunk of both, I will gain more health than I lose.

For big hits, you can argue that after Life, Evasion is second best at preventing a death.

OP thinks he has a point but he really hasn't.

Just saying this in case some newbie thinks the OP has some good insight or something.

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ReZar wrote:

OP thinks he has a point but he really hasn't.

Just saying this in case some newbie thinks the OP has some good insight or something.

This guy thinks he's joining the debate but he really isn't.

Just saying this in case someone uses his statement to reinforce his opinion or something.

"

0nin wrote:

This guy thinks he's joining the debate but he really isn't.

Good point if this was actually a debate, you made a ridiculous "factual claim" what is there to debate?

You can't use crits as an example. Every build must be capable of absorbing full crit damage; this is significantly more noticeable with armour, right now. Evasion suffers less from this effect since you have no reduction to penetrate, anyway. Yes, you'll get critted every once in a while. It hurts you less than it does others. If it's causing deaths for you, probably need more life or better awareness.

There are specific things that nullify evasion entirely. Yes. Just like any other defensive system (except CI). Maybe there are more such things with evasion, but you learn to cope with it or you switch to a different system. Weakness in those contexts translates directly to overpowering strength in others.

Have you looked carefully at specific examples that absolutely demolish armour users? Being leapt by a full pack of goatmen? Being flickered by a full pack of elites?

It sounds to me like your defense leans far too heavily on your chosen defensive rating. Do you have a defensive curse on switch? Other damage filters? A control or misdirect? You won't get anywhere with just very high life/very high evasion rating. Or just very high life and regen. Or very high armour and very high life. You need defensive curses, control abilities, stuns, block, dodge - and this is why we'll always see these threads about "why XXX defensive system blows balls". Defense is more than high rating.

Plenty of us are 100% happy with current evasion mechanics. Armour mechanics. ES mechanics.

The frequency of such threads/complaints against every existing defensive rating system suggests to me that everything works fine right now.

Evasion is pretty fun in my opinion.

I am at a crossroad now where I can choose to go Iron Reflexes for full armour, or use Armour/Evasion gear.

In my mind Armour and Evasion go together pretty well. But I still havn't decided.