Deflect
Description
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User Notes
+0.25% chance per point that a player attacking you will automatically fail before combat starts. This is a PvP-only skill, with very little usefulness. Attackers automatically gain the first attack which would make it useful, but for the buff length. 5 hours is longer than most players log off, and at the level you gain this buff most players don’t PvP. If they ever extend the duration of this buff to 12 or 24 hours, it would be worthy.
I have seen this buff be highly useful, or at least highly irritating, when the user is expecting to be bombarded with attacks, mostly during a bounty or de-lvl party. It also has strong potential as a deterrent in GvG.
--Mystiikos 22:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
While Deflect helps against particular attackers, harassment, and de-leveling, I don't think it actually helps against bounties. What happens is you end up spreading kills over more users, so that more people participate (since they see Deflect and think they have a chance at the reward even if they start late), and they take longer to finish. In other words, instead of ending the bounty as quickly as possible by pushing a bounty hunter to 10 kills quickly, you draw things out allowing for more contenders and making them take longer to get to the targetted amount.
--Kalokairi 19:09, 3 July 2009 (BST)
The most useful I've ever seen this skill used is when attempting to make large purchases from the marketplace. Players who have a lot of money on them are more likely to get hit and lose money, however, they can only be attacked once per hour. Using this skill will reduce the chance that you lose large amounts of gold by 25%.
--Resido 11:10, 1 December 2009 (PST)
The keywords here are "before combat starts." That's what a lot of people fail to understand. When deflect activates, the combat ends before it begins, with no winner or loser. Many people assume that deflect will give the defender a chance to strike back, and it just doesn't work that way. For this reason, it's useful in PvP, since (as noted above) it restarts the one-hour timer, but its only real uses in GvG are to delay things until you can get the target some buffs that might actually win the combat or to aggravate an attacker and goad him into doing something stupid.
Note also that deflected attacks CAN be bountied...
Aliantha 21:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
