How much %Armor is too much / counter-productive?

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gilrad wrote:

But as has been said earlier, the real problem is with elemental damage. There's really nothing you can do about that except Purity of X auras, flasks, and going Path of Life Nodes.

That's not really the problem of armor, that's true for any build.
Stack life, stack (max) resists, use flasks.

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I find it important to use Endurance charges.
When going for an Armor build, make sure you grab them and keep them up.
They provide enough additional damage reduction that "normal" attacks will no longer hurt.

Facing crazy high physical damage, convert the EC to Immortal Call.

To answer the op question, I'd say:
Take the "free" armor, the Armor+Life nodes, Armor+Damage nodes.
This will get you to about +150-200% armor.
Stop there, don't take pure armor nodes. Rather take your EC and life.

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Peterlerock wrote:

That's not really the problem of armor, that's true for any build.
Stack life, stack (max) resists, use flasks.

That's just untrue.
Evasion, spell/dodge, spell/block all actively reduce the elemental damage that you take.
Armor does not and cannot do this.

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pneuma wrote:

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Peterlerock wrote:

That's not really the problem of armor, that's true for any build.
Stack life, stack (max) resists, use flasks.

That's just untrue.
Evasion, spell/dodge, spell/block all actively reduce the elemental damage that you take.
Armor does not and cannot do this.

The only "fair" comparison in your list is Evasion.

And Evasion does nothing against spells, same as Armor, and is only slightly more useful against elemental attacks, because... are there any that do serious damage? I still have to find one that really threatens me.

Dodge and Block are mechanics on another level.

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Peterlerock wrote:

The only "fair" comparison in your list is Evasion.

And Evasion does nothing against spells, same as Armor, and is only slightly more useful against elemental attacks, because... are there any that do serious damage? I still have to find one that really threatens me.

Dodge and Block are mechanics on another level.

However Evasion goes well with dodge/spell dodge, while armor, not so much.
While there is that new "less block chance" from acro, armor doesn't seem to be bound hard to blocking. (just like Evasion is bound with dodge).
Also, the nature of Determination might be the breaking point for armor - you either have the Determination, and have the intended amount of mitigation, or you don't and are on below the average all the time. And Determination costs mana. This is not the case for dodge, when you simply get it, and you're done. Grace MIGHT help, but you are fine without it.

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Peterlerock wrote:

Dodge and Block are mechanics on another level.

Dodge and block and evasion and armor are all granted by skill points.
We are talking about skill point tradeoffs... right?

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Peterlerock wrote:

...
And Evasion does nothing against spells, same as Armor, and is only slightly more useful against elemental attacks, because... are there any that do serious damage? I still have to find one that really threatens me.
...

A good example is the x elemental damage added as extra damage mod.

IF you evade that attack, you take 0 damage. If you mitigate by armor, you only mitigate the physical damage, but take the full elemental hit

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blawa wrote:

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Peterlerock wrote:

...
And Evasion does nothing against spells, same as Armor, and is only slightly more useful against elemental attacks, because... are there any that do serious damage? I still have to find one that really threatens me.
...

A good example is the x elemental damage added as extra damage mod.

IF you evade that attack, you take 0 damage. If you mitigate by armor, you only mitigate the physical damage, but take the full elemental hit

25% or less*.

I don't get the 25% or less, can you explain what you mean?

€: Ok I'm assuming you mean resistances, but that's another form of mitigation. I explicitly wrote "by armor" and in this case, you take the full 100%

For each point of armour, your armour per point effectiveness decreases.

For example:

To get 25% reduction against 1000 PHD, you need 4000 armour.
To get 50% reduction against 1000 PHD, you need 12000 armour.
To get 75% reduction against 1000 PHD, you need 36000 armour.

I did a quite complicated simulation with many factors. And I have one bad news. Unless you have more than 4500 base armour (with detemrination/grace if you use it), it's not worth to invest points in pure armour nodes.

If you have more than 4500 it's worth to invest few (the more you have the more points it's worthy but still few, you would probably grab them anyway).

And that's because physical is just one source of damage so increasing physical reduction by 5%, won't give you extra 5% eHP overall (there is chaos and elemental and various DoTs).

To sum up, you only invest in pure armour nodes:
1. If you have more than 4500 armour (if not it's better to invest in life).
2. Or life nodes are too far, and you have some very nice armour nodes around you (but you have more than 2500 armour).
3. Or you need help with reflection but only IF you deal many small physical hits.
4. Otherwise life nodes > armour nodes.

If you want superior defence against physical damage, then instead of 20 armour nodes take endurance charges and go immortal call. Much more effecient.

EDIT: I did some extra simulation, and it seems that even with 8000 base armour it's not worth to invest pure armour, coz... you have enough armour already. So ye armour nodes are a waste.

You may have read some lies about armor.

It does a great job of making the little hits a complete joke, and the more armor you have, the harder the hits you perceive as little. This is very addictive, and it's hard to get too much.

As others stated, 8000 is a very nice minimum goal for a serious armor build.


A good question becomes what is your goal? If you want to just farm merciless piety, then 8000 or possibly less is fine. If you want to farm 78 maps, and you worry about getting 1 shot, then numbers closer to 30,000 generally are used as what would theoretically be needed to prevent such.


Since you are build planning, also make sure you are 20-30% over capped on resists, and shoot for 160% health (or more for melee.)



If you're thinking of going crazy with 250% increased armor, I'd recommend starting with 100% and leaving the possibly of the other nodes open for later consideration.


Lastly, yes, armor is indeed only one spoke of your defenses.