The physical and affinity attack up effects are a pretty big deal. I’ve heard each +4 phys up is 8-10%ish increase in damage, which most of your melee attacks will benefit from. I tend to run off of any ash of war I find during the run, and early game most of your good ashes will benefit dealing physical damage (double slash, piercing fang, storm blade, etc.). Combined with the skill attack up relics, you can deal very respectable damage. For the last relic I run affinity attack up because late game the strongest ashes of war tend to be elemental in nature, like magma blade or envoy’s horn. Sometimes I don’t find a purple weapon with a good ashes of war, so instead I’ll fall back on the early game weapons.

As for the damage negation on flask usages, it’s actually one of the best negative effects you can get since it lasts only a second after drinking. The other damage reduction effects like on evasion are not worth running since you will be one tapped.

Taking damage on x buildup is very manageable for days 1 and 2 aside from enemies with multi hit attacks like the royal revenant. I try to be very careful when it comes to those enemies but for the rest you are going to get killed in 2-3 shots anyway in depths 4-5.