01-31-2014, 04:29 PM
This is my first attempt at an in depth analysis for Path of Exile. I'm posting this here, as a way to gather my thoughts. I may, or may not be posting this to the official forums afterwards.
Not too long ago, GGG put together a one week race, that combined the mods of Domination, and Nemesis. I wont lie, I didn't play this event, because the idea absolutely terrified me.
I've been undone by two shrines spawning WAY too close together, and some crazy rare getting the benefits of both shrines. Adding a Nemesis mod in there? Well, that just seems like a recipe for this guy chucking his laptop at the wall.
But, I was really interested to see how it turned out, and I was really excited to look over the observations that GGG put together based on the race.
One thing stuck out like a sore thumb, and seemed to catch GGG off guard.
Iron Reflexes was the single most taken keystone passive for the event, and it was by a very large margin.
Well, lets define Iron Reflexes.
Iron Reflexes is a keystone passive just east of the Duelist Starting area. It removes your ability to evade, and in turn converts your evasion rating to armor. At the time of writing this post, at 1:1 exchange.
This is a common passive to take for a lot of builds. It isn't surprising to me, that in a one week race, where gear would be far more scarce than other races, people would flock to it.
If you are familiar with PoE, you are familiar with the flavors of Gear Available. You have
Armor
Evasion
Energy Shield.
And then you have the hybrids:
Armor / Evasion
Evasion / Energy Shield
Energy Shield / Armor
Most will agree that Armor ends up being a weak stat against deadly things. Deadly things being: Bosses.
Because the damage is either
Physical, and massive, nullifying armor values
Elemental, and bypassing armor.
Unless... Well, unless you have so much armor that you can get crazy.
And that's where Iron Reflexes comes in to the equation.
In a short race like this, you are staring at a keystone passive that will enhance your survivability in a way that is unmatched by any other keystone in the passive skill tree. No other keystone allows you to use 5 of the armor types to stack one type of defensive skill.
There is no current way to turn ES into Armor Or Evasion. There is no current way to turn Armor into ES or Evasion. There is no way to turn Evasion into Energy Shield.
But you can turn Evasion into Armor. That means that you have expanded your ability to go Armor, and increase the amount of gear that you are pulling from for upgrades exponentially. Now, Only Pure Energy Shield PIeces are not factoring into your armor. And even then, Energy Shield isn't "wasted", as it still provides it's same buffer.
Acrobatics, which any pure evasion character "should" take, decreases the effectiveness of your Energy Shield and Armor by half.
Chaos Inoculation, the closest thing to a "pure" Energy Shield Damage mitigation system, doesn't reduce your armor, or your evasion. It simply sets your Health at 1, and negates Chaos Damage. A factor that Evasion, and Armor Characters will still have to deal with.
There is no penalty, or trade off to Iron Reflexes. There is only reward.
So, We've Identified 2 problems so far:
Greatest Access to gear flexibility, which is admittedly a bigger problem is short form leagues than other formats.
and
No Penalty for use, as is found with it's contemporary passives keystones.
There are some other problems that Iron Reflexes highlights though. First, +Evasion is found in higher quantities, and on more pieces in the affix / suffix rolls than + armor for a great deal of pieces.
This means, that you can "out armor the armor" by going Iron Reflexes.
Now, this problem does "self correct" as you get towards end game gear. By doing a simple search on the indexer, you will find that your highest armor shields, etc... are going to be pure armor pieces. I found that the highest "armor" shield was 2717 armor, and the highest EV shield was 2552.
But while leveling (which was highlighted in the short form of the 1 week league) Evasion rating scales far faster on gear, and is found in higher quantities on gear, while leveling.
Couple this, with +evasion as a flat roll being found on jewelry items, while +armor is not (there is a legacy unique neck that bears armor, but that's it) and you can see why this happens.
So, while the values do even out in end game over the majority of pieces (Head, Chest, Gloves, Boots, Shield) you still have 2 more slots (rings) where you can skirt gain up to 150 armor per slot pre modifiers.
So let's recap the problems.
And then, there is the giant elephant in the room, that everyone sees, and why I saved it for last.
Grace
Grace is a 60% mana reservation Aura, that gives you a Flat Amount of Evasion, that increases as the level of the aura increases.
At level 15 of the gem, this aura grants you 1650 Evasion Rating. Which, under Iron Reflexes becomes 1650 Armor, pre modifiers.
Now, there is an Armor based Aura.
Determination
Determination is a 60% mana reservation Aura, that gives you a Percentage of increased armor.
At level 15 of the gem, this aura grants you 46% Armor.
This Aura (If you can reduce the mana costs) will stack with Grace.
For Determination to provide equal bonus at level 15 of the aura that Grace grants (without stacking the 2) You would need a Base Pre-modifier armor value of 3587 armor, which is only going to be found Ready for mapping gear.
The problem is, Grace is just a superior aura to determination when stacking armor, due to Iron Reflexes, and the Flat # vs % qualities present in the two auras.
So, recapping all of the problems:
What to do, is it a "real" problem.
I know I called this thread "The Case for why it's too good", and that's because, I do believe that Iron Reflexes, in it's current state is in fact too good. I believe that I have gimped my current main, because I refuse to take it. I know I have. But, I'm doing it, in some ways, to try and prove a couple of things.
While Iron Reflexes is really good, I don't currently believe that it is hampering the ability to use full armor, without Iron Reflexes. You will be leaving mitigation and damage reduction on the table, but you can live without it.
But I don't recommend it, unless you are trying to prove a point.
There are a few solutions that I think can be used to fix the problem. I don't think that all of the solutions need implemented, but I think that more than one of the following should be done:
1.) Smooth out the disparity of armor Vs Evasion while leveling.
This can either be done by increasing armor values present on items while leveling, or decreasing the Evasion rating to evasion % Ratio, and then reducing the amount of Evasion found on gear through the leveling process. While IR is a problem, the solution is not to make Evasion Based characters suffer because of it.
I'm personally, in favor of increasing the armor values present. It's less work in the long run, and doesn't run the risk of damaging Evasion in a negative way.
2.) Allow for rings to roll + Armor rolls, or remove the ability to roll +evasion on rings.
I'm not sure which of these options I would take to equalize the disparity. Rings already have such a vast pool of affixes that they can roll, I'm not sure I'd advocate even adding one more affix to the pool.
But the problem is, if you subtract, you have furthered the market of legacy items, which I'm also not a really big fan of.
3.) Institute a penalty to using Iron Reflexes. I'm not sure how much of a penalty should be assessed, but for internal testing purposes, I would probably start testing at a 50% penalty, similar to what Acrobatics now sports, and adjust from there, until I found a ratio that worked, and then go live with it. This would, give a bonus to the characters who were looking to play an armor character, but found a piece of Armor / EV gear that would serve as an upgrade if it weren't for the pesky EV rating present on the gear, but wouldn't allow for Evasion Rating to simply out perform Armor at being armor for the leveling experience.
4.) Rebalance Grace and Determination. This could be done a couple of ways. You could give Grace the % Based modifier that Determination has. You could give Determination the Static number base that Grace has. You could readjust the numbers on either (or both auras)
and the final idea, and perhaps my least favorite idea.
5.) You could, institute bonuses per character, for wearing items that "fit" their character, similar to what World of Warcraft did to combat classes wearing lesser armor classes.
I'm not exactly sure how well this could be implemented in a game like Path of Exile. It could be a terrible idea, that would even further imbalance things. It could not be enough of a bonus, and people would still wear the other gear. I don't know. But it is an option that WoW used, and it certainly stopped my Ret Paladin, and my DPS DK from wearing those leather pieces, no matter how attractive they were.
At the end of the day, Iron Reflexes creates a situation where taking it is always the right thing to do if you can. And that, really is the crux of the problem, in a game that is striving to allow for build diversity, and a vast tree of skills that allows for customization.
The problem really came to light for me as I looked at my characters. I have a level 83 Spectral Throw Scion who is specc'd for armor, but not Iron Reflexes, and a level 34 Infernal Blow Duelist.
My Infernal Blow Duelist is specced into Iron Reflexes. And at 34, He has just as much armor as my 83 scion
This, becomes the problem, and if I continue to make conscious decisions in the gearing of the Duelist, by the time he hits maps, he will be sporting an Armor Rating that is easily double, if not pushing triple, that of the scion, simply because I took him Iron Reflexes, and ran Grace, instead of Determination.
Not too long ago, GGG put together a one week race, that combined the mods of Domination, and Nemesis. I wont lie, I didn't play this event, because the idea absolutely terrified me.
I've been undone by two shrines spawning WAY too close together, and some crazy rare getting the benefits of both shrines. Adding a Nemesis mod in there? Well, that just seems like a recipe for this guy chucking his laptop at the wall.
But, I was really interested to see how it turned out, and I was really excited to look over the observations that GGG put together based on the race.
One thing stuck out like a sore thumb, and seemed to catch GGG off guard.
Iron Reflexes was the single most taken keystone passive for the event, and it was by a very large margin.
Well, lets define Iron Reflexes.
Iron Reflexes is a keystone passive just east of the Duelist Starting area. It removes your ability to evade, and in turn converts your evasion rating to armor. At the time of writing this post, at 1:1 exchange.
This is a common passive to take for a lot of builds. It isn't surprising to me, that in a one week race, where gear would be far more scarce than other races, people would flock to it.
If you are familiar with PoE, you are familiar with the flavors of Gear Available. You have
Armor
Evasion
Energy Shield.
And then you have the hybrids:
Armor / Evasion
Evasion / Energy Shield
Energy Shield / Armor
Most will agree that Armor ends up being a weak stat against deadly things. Deadly things being: Bosses.
Because the damage is either
Physical, and massive, nullifying armor values
Elemental, and bypassing armor.
Unless... Well, unless you have so much armor that you can get crazy.
And that's where Iron Reflexes comes in to the equation.
In a short race like this, you are staring at a keystone passive that will enhance your survivability in a way that is unmatched by any other keystone in the passive skill tree. No other keystone allows you to use 5 of the armor types to stack one type of defensive skill.
There is no current way to turn ES into Armor Or Evasion. There is no current way to turn Armor into ES or Evasion. There is no way to turn Evasion into Energy Shield.
But you can turn Evasion into Armor. That means that you have expanded your ability to go Armor, and increase the amount of gear that you are pulling from for upgrades exponentially. Now, Only Pure Energy Shield PIeces are not factoring into your armor. And even then, Energy Shield isn't "wasted", as it still provides it's same buffer.
Acrobatics, which any pure evasion character "should" take, decreases the effectiveness of your Energy Shield and Armor by half.
Chaos Inoculation, the closest thing to a "pure" Energy Shield Damage mitigation system, doesn't reduce your armor, or your evasion. It simply sets your Health at 1, and negates Chaos Damage. A factor that Evasion, and Armor Characters will still have to deal with.
There is no penalty, or trade off to Iron Reflexes. There is only reward.
So, We've Identified 2 problems so far:
Greatest Access to gear flexibility, which is admittedly a bigger problem is short form leagues than other formats.
and
No Penalty for use, as is found with it's contemporary passives keystones.
There are some other problems that Iron Reflexes highlights though. First, +Evasion is found in higher quantities, and on more pieces in the affix / suffix rolls than + armor for a great deal of pieces.
This means, that you can "out armor the armor" by going Iron Reflexes.
Now, this problem does "self correct" as you get towards end game gear. By doing a simple search on the indexer, you will find that your highest armor shields, etc... are going to be pure armor pieces. I found that the highest "armor" shield was 2717 armor, and the highest EV shield was 2552.
But while leveling (which was highlighted in the short form of the 1 week league) Evasion rating scales far faster on gear, and is found in higher quantities on gear, while leveling.
Couple this, with +evasion as a flat roll being found on jewelry items, while +armor is not (there is a legacy unique neck that bears armor, but that's it) and you can see why this happens.
So, while the values do even out in end game over the majority of pieces (Head, Chest, Gloves, Boots, Shield) you still have 2 more slots (rings) where you can skirt gain up to 150 armor per slot pre modifiers.
So let's recap the problems.
- Greatest Access to gear flexibility, which is admittedly a bigger problem is short form leagues than other formats.
- No Penalty for use, as is found with it's contemporary passives keystones.
- Better scaling / quantity found on gear while level
- Access to evasion on pieces of gear where armor is not found.
And then, there is the giant elephant in the room, that everyone sees, and why I saved it for last.
Grace
Grace is a 60% mana reservation Aura, that gives you a Flat Amount of Evasion, that increases as the level of the aura increases.
At level 15 of the gem, this aura grants you 1650 Evasion Rating. Which, under Iron Reflexes becomes 1650 Armor, pre modifiers.
Now, there is an Armor based Aura.
Determination
Determination is a 60% mana reservation Aura, that gives you a Percentage of increased armor.
At level 15 of the gem, this aura grants you 46% Armor.
This Aura (If you can reduce the mana costs) will stack with Grace.
For Determination to provide equal bonus at level 15 of the aura that Grace grants (without stacking the 2) You would need a Base Pre-modifier armor value of 3587 armor, which is only going to be found Ready for mapping gear.
The problem is, Grace is just a superior aura to determination when stacking armor, due to Iron Reflexes, and the Flat # vs % qualities present in the two auras.
So, recapping all of the problems:
- Greatest Access to gear flexibility, which is admittedly a bigger problem is short form leagues than other formats.
- No Penalty for use, as is found with it's contemporary passives keystones.
- Better scaling / quantity found on gear while level
- Access to evasion on pieces of gear where armor is not found.
- Grace
What to do, is it a "real" problem.
I know I called this thread "The Case for why it's too good", and that's because, I do believe that Iron Reflexes, in it's current state is in fact too good. I believe that I have gimped my current main, because I refuse to take it. I know I have. But, I'm doing it, in some ways, to try and prove a couple of things.
While Iron Reflexes is really good, I don't currently believe that it is hampering the ability to use full armor, without Iron Reflexes. You will be leaving mitigation and damage reduction on the table, but you can live without it.
But I don't recommend it, unless you are trying to prove a point.
There are a few solutions that I think can be used to fix the problem. I don't think that all of the solutions need implemented, but I think that more than one of the following should be done:
1.) Smooth out the disparity of armor Vs Evasion while leveling.
This can either be done by increasing armor values present on items while leveling, or decreasing the Evasion rating to evasion % Ratio, and then reducing the amount of Evasion found on gear through the leveling process. While IR is a problem, the solution is not to make Evasion Based characters suffer because of it.
I'm personally, in favor of increasing the armor values present. It's less work in the long run, and doesn't run the risk of damaging Evasion in a negative way.
2.) Allow for rings to roll + Armor rolls, or remove the ability to roll +evasion on rings.
I'm not sure which of these options I would take to equalize the disparity. Rings already have such a vast pool of affixes that they can roll, I'm not sure I'd advocate even adding one more affix to the pool.
But the problem is, if you subtract, you have furthered the market of legacy items, which I'm also not a really big fan of.
3.) Institute a penalty to using Iron Reflexes. I'm not sure how much of a penalty should be assessed, but for internal testing purposes, I would probably start testing at a 50% penalty, similar to what Acrobatics now sports, and adjust from there, until I found a ratio that worked, and then go live with it. This would, give a bonus to the characters who were looking to play an armor character, but found a piece of Armor / EV gear that would serve as an upgrade if it weren't for the pesky EV rating present on the gear, but wouldn't allow for Evasion Rating to simply out perform Armor at being armor for the leveling experience.
4.) Rebalance Grace and Determination. This could be done a couple of ways. You could give Grace the % Based modifier that Determination has. You could give Determination the Static number base that Grace has. You could readjust the numbers on either (or both auras)
and the final idea, and perhaps my least favorite idea.
5.) You could, institute bonuses per character, for wearing items that "fit" their character, similar to what World of Warcraft did to combat classes wearing lesser armor classes.
I'm not exactly sure how well this could be implemented in a game like Path of Exile. It could be a terrible idea, that would even further imbalance things. It could not be enough of a bonus, and people would still wear the other gear. I don't know. But it is an option that WoW used, and it certainly stopped my Ret Paladin, and my DPS DK from wearing those leather pieces, no matter how attractive they were.
At the end of the day, Iron Reflexes creates a situation where taking it is always the right thing to do if you can. And that, really is the crux of the problem, in a game that is striving to allow for build diversity, and a vast tree of skills that allows for customization.
The problem really came to light for me as I looked at my characters. I have a level 83 Spectral Throw Scion who is specc'd for armor, but not Iron Reflexes, and a level 34 Infernal Blow Duelist.
My Infernal Blow Duelist is specced into Iron Reflexes. And at 34, He has just as much armor as my 83 scion
This, becomes the problem, and if I continue to make conscious decisions in the gearing of the Duelist, by the time he hits maps, he will be sporting an Armor Rating that is easily double, if not pushing triple, that of the scion, simply because I took him Iron Reflexes, and ran Grace, instead of Determination.
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