If EHG is truly afraid of Thorns becoming an AFK passive build and their goal is for active gameplay, then Reflect should really be removed and replaced with a new mechanic.
A proposition could be to change “Thorns” and “Percent Damage Reflected” to a new mechanic called “Shatter”; “Shatter” would function similar to “Armour Shred”:
Summary
Thorns
Shatter enemies for (x) when attacked.
Percent Damage Shattered
Shatter enemies for (x) when attacked.
Increase Shatter Effectiveness by (X)%.
When an enemy becomes “Shattered”, the next attack they take is increased by (x)
Shatters stack additively and the stacks are cumulative (all consumed on next hit)
Shatter Effectiveness offers multiplicative scaling for Shatter
This change would meet the goal of making “thorns” builds more active, while also making it more cooperative friendly since all party members could take advantage of a Shattered enemy.
Karate do, Yes. OK.
Karate do, No. OK.
Karate do, I don’t know - squish like grape. ~ Mr. Miyagi
It literally makes no sense to say: “We don’t want you to be able to make a build on (Mechanic X) so we went out of our way to design, code and release (Mechanic X) into the game. Please enjoy (Mechanic X) by not using it in any meaningful way.”
The simple fix to that is to make thorns not work with range/spell damage. So thorns is at least a semi-viable dps source, but must still be augmented with a traditional source to really function. This would prevent invulnerable tanks who can thorn anything to death without fear.
Hmm i agree, thats actually strange. Remove it from the game or make it viable enough so we dont have to put time in something that is intended to not work optimal.
I do hate afk playstyles so i still like that EHG is going for a more active playstyle. I just hope they will treat necro summoners the same way…
I have been trying (and failing) to make a Reflect Build since I bought the game. Even now with Flat Reflect available on Chest, Shield + Belt (plus Legendary items granting extra flat on the chest + shield), there just isn’t enough to be viable. So, you have to dip into “% reflected”, and that falls on its face quickly. I’m trying a few theorycraft builds where you don’t mitigate damage yet somehow you don’t die, but they are really niche and I have no idea how high they can go re: empowered, corruption, arena, etc. Likely not that high.
Yea, I can’t see % reflect working under any circumstance. It is first mitigated by what the player has, then you deal a % of that back, then it is mitigated by whatever the mob has.
Then take into consideration that monster damage/health ratio seems inverted to players (monsters have high health and low damage).
Flat damage reflect could work, but it probably won’t. Will have to see the kind of numbers the new druid gets. Like I said, at current, very high rolls with legendary combinations of flat reflect (and 100 attunement) still just gets you close to 2800 damage reflected. That is probably okay for trash, but is pretty weak for bosses. At least flat reflect still lets you mitigate incoming damage.
What needs to happen is an attack skill that adds a percentage of your flat reflect damage to its damage. That way your reflect can scale the damage of your attack.
Do modifiers that just say “increased damage” without any qualifiers (e.g. empowering sigils from sigils of hope skill) work to increase the damage of % and flat relected damage? Or how about “increased minion damage” when your minion has reflect? Thanks!
If something one-shots you (or your minion)? It’d be capped at the HP that was lost since that’s how % reflect works (after mitigation). Leech is certainly capped at the amount of HP a target has (ignoring the overkill leech on the unique).
