2 Weird Game mechanics that might be bugged ?

I am actually working on a build and found 2 things weird and need help, because it seems to be bugged.


1) If I use Faithguard (runic Helm/ward) it says : "Increases and Reductions to Maximum Energy Shield instead apply to Ward" but items like "The Dark Seer" increase the Energy Shield instead of Ward. Does Faithguard only work with passive skilltree or only with itself ? WTF ?


2) More complex of a question, and more important for me. I use "Cast when stunned support" and skilled the Energy Shield Mastery node "Stun Threshold is based on 50% of your Energy shield instead of Life" that comes with the "Written in Blood" Notable passive node. Now to the problem.
When I use the Notable "Eternal Youth" my Energy Shield will quickly drop to 0 and stay there which allows me to get easily stunned.

But if I instead use the Notable "The Agnostic" which sets my maximum Energy Shield to 0, so that my Energy Shield is also 0, I am obviously permanently stun immune, because I tried many times already but cannot get stunned. Even with "Valyrium" (Ring) instead of the Energy Shield Mastery node I cannot get stunned. So it seems the problem stems from "The Agnostic" Notable.

Is that really working as intended ?

Faithguard is very explicit in its wording. It specifically mentions increases and reductions. The bonus from The Dark Seer is added ES, not increased, so the modifier from Faithguard does not apply to it. You could use Ephemeral Edge instead, which will provide increased ward with Faithguard.

As for the second part, it sounds like a bug. Many interactions with the amount you have of a resource do not work if you have 0/0 (e.g. checking whether you are on low mana with Blood Magic), but this one is working "in favour" of the player, which should not be intended.

1) Okay makes kind of sense, even if the wording could be better, but I guess it was always like that with GGG not being interested in clear wording. Ofc does, in the real world, adding mean an increase.


2) Yes so getting this Mastery Node "Stun Threshold is based on 50% of your Energy shield instead of Life" + Agnostic is a cheap way to get stun immunity if Unwavering Stance is out of reach, and you do not want to lose the advantage of evading attacks, which should be especially for Ward based builds kind of attractive.

But for my build it just means that I cannot use it, I am so pissed at this.
Thanks for your reply, schönen Tag noch.

1) All things in the game that say "increases and reductions" specifically refer only to "increased" and "reduced." Note that this means if there were items that had "more energy shield" or "less energy shield," these would not work either. This is not limited to Faithguard.

"

Tamo_Tua wrote:

1) Okay makes kind of sense, even if the wording could be better, but I guess it was always like that with GGG not being interested in clear wording. Ofc does, in the real world, adding mean an increase.


2) Yes so getting this Mastery Node "Stun Threshold is based on 50% of your Energy shield instead of Life" + Agnostic is a cheap way to get stun immunity if Unwavering Stance is out of reach, and you do not want to lose the advantage of evading attacks, which should be especially for Ward based builds kind of attractive.

But for my build it just means that I cannot use it, I am so pissed at this.
Thanks for your reply, schönen Tag noch.

In colloquial language, "added", "increased", and "more" are more or less synonymous, as are "reduced" and "less", but they each indicate different arithmetical steps in PoE, so they need to be distinguished.

If all those types apply to a stat rather than just "increases and reductions", the wording that is used instead is "modifiers to X also / instead apply to Y (at Z% of their value)". The distinction between "also" and "instead" is fairly obvious and indicates whether those modifiers still apply to the original stat, and the ratio is optional. Many examples of these apply at 100%, so it is not stated specifically, but if the ratio is different, it will be stated explicitly. In some cases this is less than 100%, in others it is more.

I recommend reading this wiki article. Reading the wiki can be a bit dry on occasion, but these interactions are shared across all stats in PoE and thus it is fairly important to understand them.

I understood that "increase" is actually a TAG but as such TAGs should have a different color instead of being mistakeably of the same colour as any other descriptive text is.