Deflection- any use or not?

sasageru

Title says it really.

I've heard deflection isn't really all that useful, that it essentially provides a chance to deflect a certain degree of damage from an attack at random. I've recently been looking at my build and have mostly decided to drop deflection, but before I do, I want a bit more information.

Is it worth having in comparison to other stats e.g. defense, life steal, regen, hp...?

beckylunatic

Deflection is great when it works, which means that it's like lifesteal and the higher % chance you have of it activating, the more results you'll see from it.

It's also somewhat class-dependent. I think stat changes have contributed a lot to Combat HRs being less effective because they were so deflect-oriented but not adjusted to compensate. TRs have higher deflection severity than other classes and for them it can be an "oh hey, that didn't even hurt" stat.

Whether or not it's worth it, I would say depends on what you play and how you play.

sasageru

I can understand that. In answer, I play a TR, non perma-stealth with a concentration on DPS. I have previously been adding deflection into my build through enchantments and armor kits. Now I've seen the benefits of life steal, I'm building to add that, but can't see a way to do that without removing some deflect or another defensive stat, as I'm reluctant to remove any of the feats/boons/enchants I have concentrating on damage output.

beckylunatic

For a high DPS TR, building lifesteal may indeed be the way to go.

The thing with these new stat (non)caps is that you can't have it all.

sasageru

Yeah xD I either have to give up some deflect or some DPS to add in more life steal, so far Deflect seems to me the better option for removal as it works on a chance basis and although it might let you survive a few more seconds, life steal enables me to recover quicker to avoid those situations from occuring as often. Or thats the theory at least.

Still, if anyone does have any more input as to deflection I'd be interested to hear it.

ghoulz66

Deflect is good when a class/build can stockpile it with ease without sacrificing LS, like TRs, HRs, or Crapinels- I mean Sentinels.

suicidalgodot

Provided it does indeed work as intended, it's from a purely mathhead viewpoint more useful for squshies than Defense is, because it's not cancelled out by enemies' ArPen.

wentris

TR makes best use of deflect, because his base deflection severity is 75%, while other classes have 50%. That means if you deflect an attack it hits you for 25% of base damage, while other classes get hit for 50% dmg. There is also an elixir from invocation coins that increases your deflection severity to 85% (Foehammers afair). Defense for TR is useless, especially that it bugs itself and simply doesnt work in epic dungeons, plus if you dont stack enough of it - like 30%+ of total damage reduction - it will be reduced to 0 with mobs armor penetration - unless you have some outside damage resistance buffs, but TR is rarely a target of them. If you have to choose between deflection and HP you have to consider the following scenarios:
1. You dont have enough HP to survive 1 hit from mob and increasing HP wont change that. Choose deflection - you will almost always survive deflected attack, that isnt meant to 1 shot you anyway.
2. You dont have enough HP to survive 1 hit from mob but increasing HP will change that. Choose HP - Even if in long run deflection would decrease damage taken more there is more important thing - with deflection you have as much chance to survive the attack as high your deflection chance is. With HP you have 100% chance to survive attack, even if you have to back off and be healed immediately after it. This is especially important on boss fights where you cant come back to fight after death.
3. You do have enough HP to survive 1 hit from mob. My opinion - choose more HP. One can say that if you already have enough HP to survive an attack and you will never have enough to survive two its better to take deflection from now on, because it will let you take 2 or more attacks. And this is correct. Mathematically. In combat you have different situations where HP provides more reliability. For example mob damage varies - you can take this particular attack, but without some more HP you can die to other one. Mob damage increases with time, because of damage reduction bug, so the same attack that now hits you for 90% HP will hit you for 105% of your HP 2 minutes later - it resets after death but the longer you can survive with bug - the better. And it doesnt seem its going to be fixed soon. You can also have not full HP bar when attack happens, for example you took 80% hit and your life steal/DC healed you to 75% HP - if you had more HP you could take another attack, now you die from second attack, if your deflection fails.
Generally randomness in defense is something I dont like and try to reduce to minimum, because in long boss fights, where you cant come back to battlefield its better to take more damage overall, but live, than less and die randomly.
Also, if you are in #1 situation - remember that if you never get any HP and always stack more deflection - you will always be in #1. So at some point #1 should look like:"You dont have enough HP to survive 1 hit from mob, but if you swapped all possible deflection with HP - you would" look #2

rayrdan

For a pve player deflection from impossible to catch, cha e dex should be enough. I would slot savages and take every possible lifesteal boon

sasageru

Hi, thanks for all the replies. I've moved from 7% lifesteal to 14% lifesteal and have removed several of the deflect orientated boons I had previously been using. So far, i'm finding I have more survivability in PVE outside of epic dungeons, so seems to be effective if not more so, and I still have almost 3k deflect naturally from general gear and build, so seems adding life steal and removing a bit of deflect is working.

Thanks for all the additional information, it's been useful

dsn1118

they say 20% LS is the way to go but dont take my word for it.I am just a musclehad GF.

suicidalgodot

dsn1118 wrote: »

they say 20% LS is the way to go but dont take my word for it.I am just a musclehad GF.

...for hard-shells deflect is less efficient. For soft-wrapped squishies, it is.

See my comment above: Mobs that have e.g. 3k+ ArPen = 30%+ Resistance Ignored will reduce low Defense-based defenses to nothingness. Deflect then still works, irrespective of the mobs' ArPen.

Tanks (and to some extent also the wire-knit wearers DC & GWF) can profit more from stacking Defense. LS and HP are on a different scale and, again, the base value somewhat decides whether it's meaningful to stack there or not.

fenyxdrayven

weve got a Pally tank with divine protector, plus a deflect GF with lightning enchant, with KV up, certain fights with lots of AOE are insane, its epilepsy inducing madness when the 2 of them explode. 2 Tanks in a party that top the DPS massively, talking 200/300m+ most times in etos, each... its daft, and its because of deflect...

suicidalgodot

fenyxdrayven wrote: »

weve got a Pally tank with divine protector, plus a deflect GF with lightning enchant, with KV up, certain fights with lots of AOE are insane, its epilepsy inducing madness when the 2 of them explode. 2 Tanks in a party that top the DPS massively, talking 200/300m+ most times in etos, each... its daft, and its because of deflect...

That's a good idea and technique. I pull my hat before your creative approach.

sasageru

I've got 16% life steal now and it's already making a noticeable difference for me, whilst deflection wise, i havn't noticed any real change despite reducing my stat figure. So far so good.

silverkelt

I remember some impressive deflect % builds I used to have with my old combat hr.. I so much miss that combat hr.

instynctive

I'm stacking Def/Defl on my GWF with Cruel Enchants. I just added two more on my new Personalized Adamant Ring of Piercing and have seen an incredible difference.

I had read somewhere that these two stats will "stack". It's all still really confusing, but what I do know is that my GWF can absorb a lot more punishment than a friend's GWF, that is stacked with just defense and HP.