Endurance Charges Overpowered?

Right now with the current size of a granite and the current armour budget, if you somehow manage to reach 90% reduction versus a large attack, the EH breakdown goes like this:
- 80% additional effective health thanks to endurance charges: 1/(1-.45) = 180%
- 220% additional effective health thanks to the granite flask: 1/(1-.75) = 400%
- 600% additional effective health thanks to worn armour: 1/(1-.9) = 1000%
.... think about it.

edit: one last datapoint. Wearing just the armour (and drinking granite) with no endurance charges, you'd be at about 50% reduction in this scenario. That is, 100% additional EH from armour rating (total 200%). So, having 9 endurance charges multiplies the EH gained from worn armour by a factor of six, if the charges would put you at or above the reduction cap. Keen guess.

That's based on hitting reduction cap at 55k armour rating under a granite flask (well below budget maximum) with 9 endurance charges. Your effective health can be in the range of 2.5 times higher thanks to worn armour. That much defense would take a 4200 damage brutus slam in cells while you're afflicted by vulnerability (total 5500 damage) and only let 550 damage through.

The big difference lies here: You need to be able to granite to a very high percent reduction, regardless of damage intake. Obviously, the character screen will never show you what your reduction is against that big cells brutus while you're afflicted with vulnerability. But you CAN get to the point where your granite flask gives you respectable reduction (in the range of 80%). By picking up armour passives, and especially by running determination. If you get to that point, armour affixes outpace life affixes for EH, even against very large hits. As long as that granite keeps bringing you above 80% reduction.

But chaos damage, specifically, made it a shaky proposition. Things have changed since then. We have chaos resistance.

"

Zakaluka a écrit :

Mob damage progresses linearly.

As function of what ? level ? Do you have any data to support this, I would be very interested to have a look at it.

The only thing I could give you is my CB analysis of how much damage brutus' normal melee attack does at various levels. That's only 4 datapoints because I never nailed down good numbers for Cells.

To be more precise you'd have to pick a more common monster type (say, regular ol' monkey) and collect a lot more datapoints.

I want to point out the problem with Nerfing Endurance Charges and Buffing armor, something that seems to be what people are calling for: Doing so will have a net neutral effect on ability for melee characters to tank - they will still rely on endurance charges to tank, more likely than not.

However, it will have a giant net positive effect on any character that uses armor but not endurance charges. However, the biggest "member" if this class of character is ranged characters - elemental archers, caster templars, ground slam marauders, etc. etc.

Ultimately, the net result would be an increase to the defensive capabilities of ranged characters, and a net neutral result to the defensive capabilities of melee characters. Is that really the direction the game should go?

"

Zakaluka a écrit :

They are far too necessary. And now that we've gone way off track, I'll state my main point again: it'd be okay for the armour budget to be higher than the evasion budget. Add something more to the armour budget, cut 1% from the value of an endurance charge. Flatten out armour scaling, make it more valuable at low values and less valuable per point at high values; while holding the reduction ceiling vs rating in the same place. 9 endurance at 5% per has an obscene effect on the reduction/EH curve.

Armor is already significantly more valuable than evasion. Evasion suffers being even more cruelly diminished by the formula than armor. Most people forget that the evasion formula is reliant on the enemy accuracy. Adding the fact that many attacks are undodgeable puts the value of evasion even lower. Making armor even more valuable than it currently is would just go further to push every character to either pick up IR, or stack armor via str gear.

Further, making armor significantly more valuable at low values would make ranged characters way more powerful, while making it less effective per point at high values would again leave melee characters about where they are now (when taking endurance charge nerfs into account).

Can anyone answer how any of these proposals wouldn't just shoot the already-ahead ranged characters into the atmosphere while leaving melee where it is currently?

"

FamousTrip a écrit :

Armor is already significantly more valuable than evasion.

I believe strongly that evasion provides a more universal, and significantly better defense point-for-point. In most situations, not all. After having spent plenty of time in endgame using both setups: a 7-endurance armour stacker, and a block/acrobatics pure evasion melee character. The evasion character can wade in worry-free more often than the armour character. The armour character has to turn tail and run far more often than the evasion character.

I've experienced this first hand, in endgame, in hardcore league. A few times. I'm pretty sure most people making these kinds of comparisons haven't spent a terribly long time in evasion land.

Of course, if you try to plot effective health vs armour, then overlay effective health vs evasion - evasion will look pretty terrible in comparison. The comparison lies, though : evasion works against a larger percent of your damage intake than damage does, so the two curves have completely different characteristics. It's not fair to put them next to each other, at all.

It's very hard to compare the two quantitatively. There are a few very specific niche situations where the comparison holds water, and evasion actually does fall behind armour: notably, in a situation where you're facing all melee opponents that only deal low or moderate physical damage. If even a fraction of the damage you're tanking is elemental, or chaos, or projectiles, evasion performs much better than a comparison to the armour formula suggests. If your melee opponents do very high damage, evasion once again does considerably better.

"

Zakaluka a écrit :

"

FamousTrip a écrit :

Armor is already significantly more valuable than evasion.

I believe strongly that evasion provides a more universal, and significantly better defense point-for-point. In most situations, not all. After having spent plenty of time in endgame using both setups: a 7-endurance armour stacker, and a block/acrobatics pure evasion melee character. The evasion character can wade in worry-free more often than the armour character. The armour character has to turn tail and run far more often than the evasion character.

I've experienced this first hand, in endgame, in hardcore league. A few times. I'm pretty sure most people making these kinds of comparisons haven't spent a terribly long time in evasion land.

Of course, if you try to plot effective health vs armour, then overlay effective health vs evasion - evasion will look pretty terrible in comparison. The comparison lies, though : evasion works against a larger percent of your damage intake than damage does, so the two curves have completely different characteristics. It's not fair to put them next to each other, at all.

It's very hard to compare the two quantitatively. There are a few very specific niche situations where the comparison holds water, and evasion actually does fall behind armour: notably, in a situation where you're facing all melee opponents that only deal low or moderate physical damage. If even a fraction of the damage you're tanking is elemental, or chaos, or projectiles, evasion performs much better than a comparison to the armour formula suggests. If your melee opponents do very high damage, evasion once again does considerably better.

But your doing your whole analysis without even taking into account that evasion is reliant on enemies having low accuracy.

Your right that most haven't spent a terribly long time in evasion land though, because evasion characters are prone to death. I'm curious as to what build you used that you could wade into hordes of enemies worry free endgame. Specifically how you managed enough points for block, acro, and enough HP to not get 1 shot by big yellow mobs that managed to hit you.

I'm curious if you think evasion is a better stat, point for point than armor, can you surmise why most players, even experienced ones who understand how armor works, still go for armor over evasion, particularly in things like Iron Reflexes. So far in favor of it that often times even marauders with relatively low dexterity will venture all the way to IR, just to turn their relatively low evasion into armor?

"

Zakaluka a écrit :

Right now with the current size of a granite and the current armour budget, if you somehow manage to reach 90% reduction versus a large attack, the EH breakdown goes like this:
- 80% additional effective health thanks to endurance charges: 1/(1-.45) = 180%
- 220% additional effective health thanks to the granite flask: 1/(1-.75) = 400%
- 600% additional effective health thanks to worn armour: 1/(1-.9) = 1000%
.... think about it.

It's all in the order you present them. Logically if you're trying to compare marginal benefit, the factor that's easiest to sustain should go first, and the ones that are hardest to sustain should go last.

"

Zakaluka a écrit :

"

FamousTrip a écrit :

Armor is already significantly more valuable than evasion.

I believe strongly that evasion provides a more universal, and significantly better defense point-for-point. In most situations, not all. After having spent plenty of time in endgame using both setups: a 7-endurance armour stacker, and a block/acrobatics pure evasion melee character. The evasion character can wade in worry-free more often than the armour character. The armour character has to turn tail and run far more often than the evasion character.

I've experienced this first hand, in endgame, in hardcore league. A few times. I'm pretty sure most people making these kinds of comparisons haven't spent a terribly long time in evasion land.

Of course, if you try to plot effective health vs armour, then overlay effective health vs evasion - evasion will look pretty terrible in comparison. The comparison lies, though : evasion works against a larger percent of your damage intake than damage does, so the two curves have completely different characteristics. It's not fair to put them next to each other, at all.

It's very hard to compare the two quantitatively. There are a few very specific niche situations where the comparison holds water, and evasion actually does fall behind armour: notably, in a situation where you're facing all melee opponents that only deal low or moderate physical damage. If even a fraction of the damage you're tanking is elemental, or chaos, or projectiles, evasion performs much better than a comparison to the armour formula suggests. If your melee opponents do very high damage, evasion once again does considerably better.

I have noticed this. I recently switched from 16,000 armour via Iron Reflexes to 2,000 armour and 8,000 evasion with Arrow Dodging. I'm finding it much much easier to play in a group. While it's true that Iron Reflexes allowed me to facetank hordes of physical enemies, that would get me killed more often than not when one of them would happen to crit me with elemental damage, or a chaos damage snake would snipe me from afar. Now that I have arrow dodging, I can't jump face first in the middle of groups, but I can walk up to the front of the group and cleave to my heart's content without worrying about archers, tentacle machine-guns, or spike snakes. And if I do need to tank a few enemies at once I can always pop a granite flask.

Of course, that's in groups. I fully expect that if I tried that solo I'd get slaughtered. Also I still use endurance charges constantly, so they really haven't lost any importance.

Here's food for thought.

Are frenzy charges required to play ? No, unless you make a build around them.

Are power charges required to play ? No, unless you make a build around them.

Are endurance charges required to play ? Yes, if you play melee, you have no choice. It's endurance or you're screwed.

But the necessity of endurance charges isn't the problem, it's a symptom. A symptom that there is something seriously wrong with either damage of mobs, armour or melee.

"

Thalandor a écrit :

Here's food for thought.

Are frenzy charges required to play ? No, unless you make a build around them.

Are power charges required to play ? No, unless you make a build around them.

Are endurance charges required to play ? Yes, if you play melee, you have no choice. It's endurance or you're screwed.

But the necessity of endurance charges isn't the problem, it's a symptom. A symptom that there is something seriously wrong with either damage of mobs, armour or melee.

Wrong, let me correct that for you :

Are frenzy charges required to play ? No, unless you make a build around them.

Are power charges required to play ? No, unless you make a build around them.

Are endurance charges required to play ? No, unless you make a build around them. (Your build here is melee).

;-)