Damage reflection

Damage reflection is a game mechanic that makes an attacker (e.g. character, monster, trap, etc.) hit himself. Usually it appears as a modifier that causes a damage dealt to a target to also be taken by an attacker; but this mechanic is also being used in other places.

Mechanics

Reflect cares about the damage taken after mitigation, not the amount of life removed. The offensive stats of a creature can affect whether it takes reflected damage (accuracy, block chance reduction, etc.), but cannot affect the amount of damage dealt (critical strikes, penetration, ignoring resistance, damage modifiers, etc).

Although reflected damage hits, it intentionally doesn't trigger most on/when hit effects and, accordingly, cannot cause status ailments, stun, critical strikes and other similar effects that require a hit. Reflected hit, however, is able to yield a flask charge if the Flagellant's prefix is present there.

Damage sources

Like any other damage, reflected damage has a damage source, or, to be more precise, one of three sources – attack, spell or secondary. Damage over time doesn't hit and, therefore, can't be reflected. A source of reflected damage is always the same as a source of damage dealt to a target, e.g. if a creature hits with a spell, the reflected damage is a spell damage.

Interaction with leech

Leech is processed before reflect damage. Therefore the order of operations is:

Hit a target -> Leech -> Receive reflected damage

Reflect mitigation

• Reflected attacks can be blocked and dodged, and reflected spells can be blocked if the player has spell block or spell dodge. Block chance reduction will lower the characters block chance as well.

• Reflected damage is reduced by the attacker's armour and resistances. For instance if a player with 75% lightning resistance deals 100 lightning damage to a monster with 20% elemental damage reflection, the player will only take 5 of the reflected 20 lightning damage.

• Modifiers to damage taken, such as Fortify and Arctic Armour, also lessen reflected damage taken.

• If the reflected damage is attack damage, it can be evaded. It uses accuracy rating.

  • Consequently, reflected attack damage with the hits can't be evaded modifier cannot be evaded by the player. It can still be blocked or dodged.

• All damage over time effects cannot be reflected.

• Damage dealt by a player's totems, traps, mines, and minions will be reflected back to the totem/trap/mine/minion, not the player.

• Certain skills are explicitly stated to ignore reflection. Skills that ignore reflection are Herald of Ice, Infernal Cry and Detonate Dead.

The dangers of damage reflection

Reflection can be one of the most dangerous effects to encounter at high levels, especially for players focused on high damage output. A fast moving rare monster that appears quickly from off the screen can cause a large spike of damage to the player if hit by those high damage attacks or spells. Players must also be careful with skills that have a long duration (such as Spark supported by Pierce Support and Increased Duration Support), as once cast, they cannot be cancelled if a source of reflection appears.

Long-range attacks and spells can also be dangerous, as stray arrows and spells might hit a reflecting rare monster, causing a large amount of damage to the player.

Even monsters that are much lower level than the player and would normally pose no threat can prove deadly if affected by reflection, since the reflection is based on the player's damage output, not the monster's damage.

Reflection can sometimes be difficult to spot, especially in the heat of battle when the monster ability can be obscured by various skill effects.