Mechanics i would like to see changed (Health and Block)

First of all, I would like to say, that I really love the game. Especially how the mechanics are implemented and how well made the passive on masteries and skill trees are done – really good job! The second thing I will say is, that I by no means think that I know the stuff better than the developer, all the things below, are only described by my own experience – since I do not access the same numbers and calculations as you guys.

However, there are some few things I would like to see changed or buffed in the future:

Health Versus Protection:

In the current state of the game, Protection seems a lot better than health – on almost any class. There a lot of reason for that, but mainly it boils down to, the support from spells, better stun avoidance, better bases (for protection) and how Protection mitigate all dmg which allow you, to not invest in any kind of health gain. I would like to see health getting buffed in the future.

I will say this, health is a lot “easier” to balance around than protection – which I would say is a big pro (please keep it that way)

Increase the accessible to block chance and nerf block protection:

Right now, block protection is too high. Blocking in the current form, seems like dodge, because when you block, it mitigates all incoming dmg. I would like to see the block protection overall getting nerfed, but instead granting more access for stacking block protection – like affixes on gear and such (maybe let amour and protection increase, also affect block protection?). On that node, I would also like to see block chance be more accessible – so it’s possible to reach 100% block chance on certain classes, if they choose to make a heavy investment on that.

Anyway, keep the good work up! Although I have played all classes, the sentinel is the one I have played the most – and my points, are definitely being affected by that.

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Eheh i see why :slight_smile:

Hey Johnnybigods :slight_smile: I am open to hear a different view on the matter :slight_smile:, escpecially people with other backgrounds than sentinel. And just to clarify, i have all the classes lvl 90+. The sentinel is just the one i have played the most :slight_smile:

Block protection doesn’t mitigate all incoming damage, when you block the protection value used to calculate health lost is increased by whatever your block protection value is, I’ve generally not seen that go up much above 80%-90% and that’s on a relatively tanky character (though I’m not at home on my pc at the moment). If you’ve already got 50%-70% damage reduction from your normal protections, the diminishing returns mean your block protection isn’t going to go too far into the 80s or 90s.

As far as block chance is concerned, I’ve reached 94% on my block-focussed Paladin but that was only for 4 seconds after casting Ring of Shields (which has a node that gives up to +25% for 4s, RoS has a cooldown of ~15s I think). It could probably go a few % higher with a max roll on the shield & a T5 block chance affix, but it’d “only” be around 75% without the buff from Ring of Shields.

If you would nerf the damage reduction from shields/blocking/etc, then I don’t think it would be reasonable to let the Int-based builds have so much ward.

My point by that it “mitigate all dmg” is, that the block protection is to good right now - its ofc a bit of a exaggeration, but only by using shield, you can reach 1600 block protection (from base). Add a t5 block protection role right now, and you have plus 600 - 2200 in total. So if you only take 2000 dmg, it mitigate it all - it is not affected by how much health you have. If we talk about the block protection %, it is calculated of the sum of protection and health. So you can’t really use the % to anything - since it depends on rather you choose to use health or not on your character. Block protection are a extension of your current health, and therefore there is no diminishing return on it. Regarding block chance, i believe the max block chance you can reach on a paladin is 90% (with full uptime, ofc more with ring of shield). This is ofc, highly subjective, but i dont think a class like sentinel should being build around something that only works 90% of the time. This might work for ranged classes and dodge, since it another playstyle - but this is just my opinion :slight_smile: Regarding Ward, i think ward is in a great place right now, compared to protections (atleast of what i have tested) :slight_smile:

I thought how protections worked (whether you block or not) was that the amount of health you loose is a function of your hp & protection, so if you have 500 hp & 500 protection the amount of hp you would loose to a hit would be 50% of that hit (hp / (hp + protection) = 500/ (500+500) = 50%). So if you’ve got 500 hp & 2,000 protection the protection would absorb 80% of the damage & you would loose hp for the other 20%.

From what I understand from your comment, if you take a high level character into a low level area, they woudn’t loose any hp as their protection value would be higher than the incoming damage, IMO this wouldn’t be a good design.

If you have a look at the wiki (which I assume is correct), the damage taken calc is agrees to what I said above, damage taken = damage dealt * (hp / (hp + protection)), ignoring ward & penetration.

So using your protection figure, if you had 700 hp, 700 normal protection & 2,200 block protection, you would “only” mitigate 81% of the incoming damage (which is still quite a lot), regardless of whether the hit is for 100 damage or 1,000,000 damage. If you had 700 hp, even if you had 4,700 protection, you would only mitigate 87%. You’d need nearly 6,000 protection to mitigate 90% of a hit.

Edit: I am reasonably confident that if you plug your hp & protection figures from in-game into the formula above you’ll get the % figure the game shows. And that this % is how effective your protection is at reducing the amount of hp you loose when you take a hit (or a dot).

Edit#2: sorry for being pedantic, I’m an accountant, it’s an occupational hazard.

Arh okay, i have not seen those formula before. So if they are true, as i am presuming they are, since they are from the wiki, it makes more sense not to stack health if you choose protection (or maybe find a equilibrium, where protection and health should be). Then the wording of a extension of your health is not entirely true. Then it is just a resist like every other game (with a cap on how much dmg it can mitigate), that reduce the dmg of that specific dmg type. But i still stand with my point, protection is superior to health. But it does seems, that using health as a hybrid defence for vitality’s protection, will make you worse off, since increase in health will reduce your mitigated dmg. Hmm i will have to think a bit more now. thanks for pointing this out to me :)! I does makes sense for me now, why they have chosen to show the %

Haha dont sweat it Llama8 i love to discuss the mechanics :)! Glad you joined in.

Yeah, you could cheese the formula by keeping your protection constant & minimising your hp, and while that should result in also minimising your hp lost to a hit of a given size, you’re still exposed to big hits from bosses & damage/crit modifiers on monoliths.

IMO the wording on explaining protections are poor, but it’s not an entirely trivial concept & LE is taking a more complicated view of it than most other games (where resists are a % & once you hit the cap you’re good to go & max hp). LE has diminishing returns, but more is still always better… Until you run out of passive points & affix slots on gear.

IMO, shields giving a big buff to survivability (as they do) is good, because you’re giving up damage both from the base items you use (using a two-hander or dual wielding when that gets implemented) , the affixes you put on your gear (protections v health v more offensive ones, though I can’t remember if there are any offensive suffixes available) & where you put your points (both passive & skill).

So yes, you can make a character tanky as fuck, but how much damage are you giving up?

It is & it isn’t. Most other games have % as a linear thing, you stack it until you hit the cap. LE it’s not linear, you “should” stack it until you can get more survivability from stacking health (protection against really big hits) or damage (killing everything before it can kill you).
Protection can be viewed as equivalent to health, but that’s a simplistic view that’s not (as far as I’m aware) how the game actually works. But you’ve got to start somewhere when you explain a new spin on an existing concept.

Protection probably is superior to health, up until you have so little hp & the mobs can hit for so much that it’s not & you have to start your monolith/arena run again…

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You have giving me something to think about. Thanks a lot :slight_smile:

I’m glad I’ve been able to give someone else more work to do. It makes my cold heart slightly less cold.

Hahahahaha, ofc :smiley:
I just did some calculations, just for fun, to see the effect of increase health, while you are using protection as defence.

example 1:
Damage: 5000, Protection: 5000, Health 500
Effective health: 5500
Damage taken: 454,55
Health after: 45,45

example 2:
Damage 5000, protection: 5000, health 2000
Effective health: 7000
Damage mitigated: 3571.43
Damage taken: 1428.57
Health after: 571,43

Difference in health, after the damage taken: Example 2 - Example 1: 526

Not completely sure, if the calculations are done right

Yeah, that looks like what I would expect to see.

My only 2 comments would be that a) the lower hp build could regen/leech back up to full hp faster (since both regen & leech are not a function of hp) & b) the higher hp character would be able to take bigger hits without dieing (the lower hp build can only take 5,500 of damage before protections while the other one could take a hit of 6,999).

But of course, every character does have some form of sustain/regen/leech…

Tahts true. But to reach 4xtimes the health, you also need to make a heavy investment. But mate i will delete this post, since i have to rethink a lot, and the original post might not be as true as i thought :slight_smile:

Well, yes & no. The maximum damage you can take in a single hit is (health + protection), but damage is not mitigated in the simplistic way you suggested above.

Which is why I don’t think block protection & the like is too overpowered. Yes, you can get a lot out of it, but you have to build your character around it, which isn’t unreasonable.

Edit: and it was a nice diversion from answering tax/audit questions, so, 10/10, would be pedantic in one of your threads again?
Edit #2: or doing 3 months worth of expenses…

i appreciate it a lot, that you took your time to explain it for me :)! Hahaha well glad it could be a diversion! Not sure what you mean by pedantic, since my English is a bit limited :P. Anyway, thanks for the detailed responses

Just another question thrown in here. If you block isn’t it Incoming dmg - block protections = damage and damage - protections = HP loss? If you block only you block protections count or did I missread something?

I am not completely sure what you ask. But if i understand correctly you are asking, if protection is added to your block protection, when you block a hit? When you block, block protection is added to your amour and protection. So what i believe, after Llama8, set me straight with some of the formulas. Block protection is additive with your protection - if that makes sense? So if you have 5000 block protection and 5000 protection, when you take a hit, you can calculate it, like you have 10000 protection

No, all block does is increase the protection figure that the game uses to protection + block protection.

In addition to that though, there’s also the % damage reduction on block suffix.

I still think I get something wrong :D. If block protection is the only thing calculated against the dmg from a blocked attack blocking is uselsess if you have naturaly higher protections then block protections and on top of it it looks like blocked attacks can’t glance. I’m confused time to look into the wiki ^^.

Then I wasn’t clear, if you block an attack the game uses your normal protection + block protection which is why if you check your defensive stats screen the damage mitigation on block is higher.

In the wiki it states that the defensive calculations given are ignoring block & glancing blow (in the Combat Order -> Damage from other sources section).

In the defensive calculations section, it breaks down the scenarios into

  • unblocked hits
  • blocked non-physical hits
  • blocked physical hits
    Then underneath those 3 formulae it states that glancing blows reduce damage taken by 50% on a successful roll, I take that to mean that as long as you fail a dodge check (dodge mitigates all damage), you then roll for block (to see what value the game needs to use for your protection figure), the game then calculates the health lost.

Glancing blow can occur either before or after the game does the damage mitigation from protections calculation.

Damage taken from mana before health probably happens right before your health is reduced.