What does "Overwhelm" mean?

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Astasia wrote:

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dyneol wrote:

If I talk 'overwhelm' you know exactly what I mean. If I say penetration you know exactly what I mean.

Why do we need an "overwhelm" mechanic on top of the already established penetration mechanic though? What's wrong with physical penetration?

Because it works different than penetration. It does not go below 0 resist.

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dyneol wrote:

Because it works different than penetration. It does not go below 0 resist.

Sure, but why? Why not just have physical penetration is what I'm asking. Why make something new with new terminology that does something very similar to a mechanic that already exists with a minor variation?

It's a word they came up with to replace the super awkward "enemies have -#% to Total Physical Damage Reduction against your Hits" phrase.

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Astasia wrote:

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dyneol wrote:

Because it works different than penetration. It does not go below 0 resist.

Sure, but why? Why not just have physical penetration is what I'm asking. Why make something new with new terminology that does something very similar to a mechanic that already exists with a minor variation?

Most likely because of the way phys damage scales in the grand scheme of things. Having it go below 0 would basically add another Multiplier and ppl might feel forced to invest into that multiplier, subsequently leading to Monster phys damage reduction rebalance because of this new way to powercreep.

The difference is not "minor" at all.

Elemental damage mitigation works quite a bit different from phys damage mitigation. One uses (for the most part) a rating which depends on the amount of damage received, the other a flat percentage.

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satanttin wrote:

it's something new players have the first time they play xd

Lol!... but true.

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dyneol wrote:

Most likely because of the way phys damage scales in the grand scheme of things. Having it go below 0 would basically add another Multiplier and ppl might feel forced to invest into that multiplier, subsequently leading to Monster phys damage reduction rebalance because of this new way to powercreep.

The difference is not "minor" at all.

Elemental damage mitigation works quite a bit different from phys damage mitigation. One uses (for the most part) a rating which depends on the amount of damage received, the other a flat percentage.

Depends on how they source it I guess. If it's something easy enough to get and use for every build, then maybe people will feel like they need to use it. I don't feel forced to use like an elemental penetration curse on all my elemental characters though.

It's minor from an end-user standpoint, and the difference shouldn't be important. As a player a stat like this should be along the lines of, "Ok this makes me do 15% more damage." Instead of requiring a calculator and intimate knowledge of the damage formula to find out it's actually 5-10% or whatever.

That's just my point of view. The way they've done it doesn't bother me, I'm not complaining, but it just seems a bit superfluous and makes me scratch my head some times. It doesn't help with the idea that the game is overly complex either, leading to the multiple jokes about that in this thread.

If it doesn't go beyond 0. just call it "ignore physical resistance". Over this over that just to sound sophisticated is stupid.

We have -resist that function the same, they aren't wrote as "Overspell".

Overwhelm is physical penetration, but it doesn't work exactly like elemental penetration, in that it can't become a negative number, where elemental penetration can.

It's great on bosses, mobs with armour, endurance charges, or map mods with added physical resistance. It means you ignore a big chunk of that with Overwhelming hits, depending how high your "physical penetration" is compared to their resistance.

It could potentially become 0%, but it doesn't necessarily mean it will, so you can't call it "Ignore physical resistance". It wouldn't be the same, and rather overpowered.

GGG likes to introduce new names for different mechanics to set them apart. This probably is to set a precedence for a new unique modifier or game mechanic. For instance, technically the inquisitor node "overwhelms" all resistance, but does not go below 0.

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deepinggiap wrote:

If it doesn't go beyond 0. just call it "ignore physical resistance". Over this over that just to sound sophisticated is stupid.

We have -resist that function the same, they aren't wrote as "Overspell".

This would be incorrect though. You do have "Ignore elemental resistances" while you also have "Elemental penetration" which are two very different things.

With Ignore resistances, resistances are always 0% on elemental hits, regardless of both the resistance buffs or penetration debuffs on the target. Meaning if you have any penetration, it will effectively "buff" the monsters resistance to 0%. This is why Inquisitors that take that passive never invest in pen.

Penetration is more straight forward in that it reduces elemental resistance by the number, regardless of how high the resistance is at the start. If you have 90% total penetration on a mob without any resistance, you end up hitting as if it had -90% resistance. On a boss with 80% resistance, you hit as if it had -10%.

This is why penetration is rather bad on PoB when you look at "normal monsters" and generally becomes one of the top supports when you put it to "Shaper". Where it's good, it's usually better than % more damage modifiers, unless those are significantly higher.