[Snake]

I agree with everything listed in this OP, good one Spooks. +1, I'd love to see Ether Invitation have some use again.

In my opinion on this new system, Ether Invitation doesn't even need a cap anymore, as the '% damage reduction' can pretty much effectively mitigate any sorts of damage that are higher than 200, with or without armor in the middle of the math. (Saying out of personal experience when I saw what happened to the Excel weapons and guns during the beta, rest in chaturanga, they will never be forgotten)

Even if one's to boost the damage to 420% and do a sweaty 1000 brute crit damage? Nope, you might do 500-600, and that's without counting the other sorts of physical damage reduction, which are pleeenty. (Never forget that there's a Monk skill that fully denies damage)

One big and funky example of how damage reduction acts? See a Matador with 300 Rage Energy retaliate a max stack Vampire for 25 dark damage. Yo-ho, that was just beautiful.

Anyway, I'd love to see this going for a while, just to see what may happen. We will never get results by just making up a billion hypothesis without seeing it in action.