"Thicket of Blinding Light" And the viability of reflect builds discussion

General
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Hey all, just wanted to make this post so that I could talk about reflect builds and their newfound viability with the new primordial body armour coming with Beneath Ancient Skies.

I have had a reflect build created in game since 1.1 Harbingers of Ruin, and it has evolved considerably through Tombs of the Erased, notably with the introduction of reflect suffix on weaver idols, so id like to say I am pretty knowledgable around Reflect damage and the viability of builds that utilise it.

First id like to talk about the power and scaling of the new primordial body armour.

The new body armour seems unbelievably over-powered. Not just at making reflect builds decent C or B tier capable, but potentially some of the most powerful S tier builds across the entire game.

Having an effective Attack Speed of twice a second, and being able reach 50kish damage reflected using “Thorn Shell” Unique shield, the clear speed will be pretty insane. Also the fact that it relies on enemies looking at you, its effective AoE is screen-wide, since this tick damage will apply to all enemies facing you at the same time.

Not only that, but the huge scaling on the body armour for reflect damage against bosses will, in theory, make it one of the most potent boss-killers outside the absolute top meta.

Neither of those points includes the fact that, not only will it tick every 0.5 seconds, but you can get further reflect damage procs through enemies actually hitting you.

Here is the part to talk about specific builds and variants, and their pros and cons.

Two generic theory-crafted build ideas have spawned. One being a Primalist Druid/Shaman Spriggan Form utilising the Thorn Shield skill. And, Sentinel FG/Paladin which is prevalent due to the much higher survivability and tankiness, but also has more access to things scaling with attunement. (Attunement being the primary scaler for Thorn Shell and thus your reflected damage).

I personally am biased towards Primalist reflect builds, since that is the reflect build ive created in game, so I apologise if that bias comes across in this post.
This is my initial plan for my reflect build this update: Willselby01’s Reflect Shaman Build Planner.

I believe that between Druid and Shaman, the latter is better for a reflect build. It simply has more access to Attunement, through +10 in mastery passive bonuses and 8 in “Elemental Shrines”. This means Shaman gives 18 attunement that cant be accessed through the other two masteries, compared to the Druid’s 10 total attunement in “Harmonious Wisdom”.

Shaman also has access to “Conflux” passive tree node, which is 8% less damage taken from shocked enemies. Through storm bolt procs from Maelstrom and the Shaman passive tree, it is very easy to apply shock on enemies. Admittedly, Druid is alot better if your build utilises Shapeshifter Buff, and “Roar of the Woodlands” in the Spriggan Form Skill tree.

For sentinel reflect builds, I would argue Paladin is in a better spot, though im not super knowledgable on how to exactly build a Sentinel reflect build.

From my understanding, As a Paladin, you still have access to the Forge Guard nodes: “Thornmail”, giving you reflect damage normally and reflect damage scaling with armour mitigation. And “Iron Attunement”, granting you DoT mitigation through armour from Attunement, which is the main scaler of reflect builds. Since both of these nodes reside in the first half of the FG tree.

But, from Paladin you get healing effectiveness scaling with attunement from the mastery passive bonus, the node “Prayer Aegis” to give endurance threshold scaling with Attunement, and overall more total attunement in the second half of the tree. As an added bonus, Paladin makes it much easier to scale defensive/healing skills to support the tanky playstyle of a reflect build. All of this would be unavailable to a FG.

Thats all of my yapping, I am very passionate about reflect builds in this game and the new unique was a godsend for likeminded people. Please start a discussion between me and even yourselves down below and ill keep an eye on and respond to comments. (also feel free to share your own planners for reflect builds and potentially nicher uses of it).

Thanks for reading! <3

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Yeah, it feels like Spriggan form is the dps version (through spamming Thorn Shield), though if you want to do that you’d need to take the nodes that give rage from your healing totems or vines. You can also take a Spriggan & Bear for more buffs from the Spriggan’s healing aura, more flat thorns per Vit, etc.

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/Br2D8pmB

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Can reflect crit?

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Of course not, why do you ask? Flat reflect ignores the damage calculation entirely & is applied directly to hp/ward.

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Apparently yes, you can reflect critical strikes. Which is why it’s better to take “reduced damage taken from crit” and NOT take “crit avoidance”. In other words, you WANT to take critical strikes as that will just be more reflect procs

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Because you specced the spriggan into giving you crit.

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And crit avoidance.

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Crit avoidance doesn’t mean you avoid the hit, it just turns what would have been a crit into a normal hit.

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Ok I misunderstood the question. No, reflect cannon crit itself. But also you don’t want to use crit avoidance, you want reduced damage from crit

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When both are capped they are functionally identical unless you have some effect that requires taking a crit. I can’t think of any of those off the top of my head.

Edit: and if you had % reflect with crit reduction you wouldn’t reflect additional damage from the crit either. So given crit avoidance is stupidly easy to get with a Spriggan, I’d go with that.

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Thorn Burst can crit though.

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The armour blinds all enemies that are looking at you so should take care of crit avoidance in most cases. It’s not very often an enemy isn’t looking at you when attacking you.

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Fair, I’d forgotten that.

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I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what it means? The entire hit is avoided, like the dodge mechanic. . . right?

Obviously for 99% of builds it’s functionally the same when capped, but not for a reflect build.

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Nope, it just turns a crit into a normal hit.

https://www.lastepochtools.com/guide/section/critical_strikes

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No. Instead of taking 200% more damage (or whatever the multiplier is) you just take the regular damage. You always take the damage, otherwise that would be DR, not crit avoidance.

Basically, you avoid the crit, not the hit.

Likewise for reduced damage from crits. It only reduces the crit part. The hit will always deal normal damage.

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The default for crits is x2 (100% more) @ 200% crit multi.

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Ok thanks for the clarification! In any case, for this build it wouldn’t seem to matter at all if everything is blinded. So you wouldn’t need to spec any type of critical mitigation into the build

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Yeah, you could spec into Entangling Roots for an additional heal if 800 every 1.5 seconds.

I’m assuming that Eterra’s Blessing would push you OOM even with rage from healing totems.

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/QWk3dm0Q

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I think the only way to keep rage positive using Eterra’s Blessing proc would be to also use Tears of the Forest. And even then it would be iffy if it were to proc too many times.

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