"100% reduced reflected physical damage"

Hi folks!

I just made my ever-first visit to "The Alluring Abyss" with our fellow hostess Atziri, Queen of the Vaal. She reflects physical damage and i'm playing a blood arrow gladiator...so i bought a body armour with the "you and your minions take 100% reduced reflected physical damage" on it.

As soon as i shot her, i immediately died. All tries at the alluring abyss: i died when i shot. After that i visited a map with a "monsters reflect 18% physical damage" modifyer. Same issue: dead after one shot.

There was no curse or modifier active inflicting the damage reflection. So, the property of the armor does not do the slightest amount of what it says it should do. Is this a bug? Or is this a misunderstanding because i didn't read page 19628 on the wiki explaining why a desciption in this game gives an F about what it describes?

During Harvest, i digged down deep into the game and the amount of frustration due to misleading descriptive texts and unpredictable behavior of background processes is just epic. This game is made for Day-1-subscribers, who witnessed all the evolution this game made through, leaving newcomers like me in a pool of frustration. I'm no casual gamer, i just invested about 400 hours with my character during Harvest and i'm still surprised with sh!t like this. Imagine going into a store, buying an umbrella merchandized as "100% rain proof": If the amount of rain just doubles underneath it, you're in Path of Exile. Like every oneshot death in this game is never explained, so is my disgust regarding the incredibly misleading descriptions and mechanics.

So, why exactly is Atziri or a normal phys-reflect modifier on a normal map circumventing a "100% reduced reflected physical damage" armor? Any Day-1 players out there ready to bard the "didn't you know" hitsingle?

P.S.: sorry, i'm utterly p!ssed. I lost all my progress of two gaming days.

Here's what I think happened:

* You have a ring with Vulnerability curse on hit, which cursed Atziri when you first hit her.
* Atziri has curse reflection, so you in turn got cursed with Vulnerability.
* Vulnerability causes increased physical damage taken, which partially counteracted the 100% reduced reflected physical damage taken from your armor, leaving you with ~60% reduced reflected physical damage taken.
* You took 40% of your hit in reflected damage and died.

What Ekaye said.

"You take x% reduced reflected physical/elemental damage taken" is often mistaken for the "cannot take reflected physical/elemental damage" from Elementalist and Slayer.

While similiar, the former is only another version of "reduced damage taken", not to be confused with "less damage taken" (from Fortify or Wind Dance) which follows a totally different logic.

Reduced damage taken is the opposite of Increased Damage Taken, and we both know of their deadlyness because they are applied on the damage after mitigation - first Armour, eleRes, chaosRes and Damage reduction in general kicks in, then the damage is either amplified (and not further lowered by resistances) or lowered. We also know that "Reduced damage taken" will be countered by "Increase damage taken".

This makes every "reduced reflected physical/elemental damage taken" vulnerable to any source of "increased physical/elemental damage taken". Some ways to get an Increased Damage Taken on self are:

> Being Shocked or self-shocked (Atziri has a Lightning Storm attack), unless you manage to get Immune to Shock (which is another way to say 100% Reduced effect of Shock on you)
> Being cursed with Vulnerability or Projectile Weakness.
> Have an Abyssus and/or an Oro's Sacrifice equipped
> Being a Berserker and taking Rite of Ruin Ascendancy notables

And some more less common ways are
> Being under a Bear Trap effect (The Reaver from Rampart maps throw them)
> Having equipped one or more of the following: Brittle Barrier, Princess, Nomic's Storm, The Rat's Cage, The Beast Fur Shawl
> Having a Hyaon's Fury equipped and at least 1 Frenzy Charge
> Having an Infernal Mantle equipped and being on low mana

In those cases, you will need to get over 100% reduced physical damage taken in order to compensate for that. For example, if you have an Abyssus with 50% increase physical damage taken, you will need to have at least 150% Reduced reflected physical damage taken. If you need to go for Vulnerability too, you may need to go even up to 200%.

Usually, using Yugul's pantheon and getting a Sybil's Lament on the right ring ON TOP of having 100% physical/elemental reflected damage taken should be enough even in those scenarios. The first two combined are usually how most of the builds deal with battles against reflecting enemies - luckily, only Atziri's battle has a crippling reflect, but there can be nasty surprises in Racecourse maps and even against a certain Lieutenant during Izaro's Labyrinth

One last thing about Curse Reflection: it works only on curses that are inflicted, but do nothing against applied curse which are not applied by an hit, and they are safe to be used against Atziri or other things that "reflect curses". Example of such applied curses are:

* Curses from Blasphemy
* Curse aura from a Doedre's Effigy (from Doedre's Skin)
* Curse aura from a Skitterbot while under a Profane Proxy
* Temporal Chain, Projectile Weakness and Punishment from Sentari's Answer

Thank you for your answers. This is truely enlightening. Didn't know my own curses can be reflected.

But there is still a flaw: where is the information found in gameplay, that gives the information needed that a boss like Aziri reflects curses? I didn't see it onscreen, although this is a crucial information?

Tons of information isn't directly presented within the game. Atziri's reflect is but one of many things you learn through experience, forums, wiki, etc.

for BOTH the normal & Uber variants, she's wielding the very interesting Atziri's Mirror unique. This unique is available in game for relatively CHEAP (via trading) & can be found as a normal unique drop. It CAN be chanced (not boss-locked, as it was added prior to patch 1.2)

In the Uber encounter this item is buffed statwise. It does NOT become her Reflection Shield. This shield CANNOT be chanced (prophecy-gated.)

"

bvanharjr wrote:

for BOTH the normal & Uber variants, she's wielding the very interesting Atziri's Mirror unique. This unique is available in game for relatively CHEAP (via trading) & can be found as a normal unique drop. It CAN be chanced (not boss-locked, as it was added prior to patch 1.2)

In the Uber encounter this item is buffed statwise. It does NOT become her Reflection Shield. This shield CANNOT be chanced (prophecy-gated.)

The shield is simply cosmetic where the Atziri encounter is concerned. She has 2% phys/ele reflect built-in, and curse reflect is built-in as well. These apply to both normal and Uber, and the stage she's in doesn't matter. That combination is what killed the OP.

An additional thing to know about atzi's curse reflection i discovered not long ago :
The curse reflection isn't directly targetting the unit that cursed her, it can affect multiple units at once.
I'm not sure if it's AOE-based, or if it automatically curses all hostile units.
Long story short, if you're in a 2-players party, and have 100% reduced reflected physical damage taken, you'll die from reflect if the other player curses her with vulnerability.

"

AngryGekko wrote:

Thank you for your answers. This is truely enlightening. Didn't know my own curses can be reflected.

But there is still a flaw: where is the information found in gameplay, that gives the information needed that a boss like Aziri reflects curses? I didn't see it onscreen, although this is a crucial information?

GGG has allowed itself to become comfortable with the belief that all players study and know the (unofficial) Wiki front to back.



What's a Hardcore player supposed to do when new content is released?

Well, risk a RIP that couldn't reasonably be avoided, or what most do: Grind it on Softcore first, and/or wait for others to learn everything about it and study off of their efforts.



Doesn't seem like an intuitive style of game design, but it's not changing, either, because nothing does, except FotM balancing to extend average play time.