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

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CookieVortex wrote:

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.

There's not too many pure armor nodes, and as I wrote above, I'd probably never take them.
But there's a lot of hybrid armor nodes in the tree, and when you are walking right past them and you like their secondary effects, grab them...

Like...
Combat Stamina: 30% armor, 5% life, 1.8% life regen, 3 points.
Unyielding: 58% armor, less damage from crits, 3 points.
Juggernaught: 10% life, 24% armor, 20% flask life, 2 points.
Marauder start: 4% life+ x% armor nodes, x points.
Blunt Instrument: 40% armor, 40% mace/staff damage, 3% attackspeed, 3 points.
Bloody bludgeon: 20% armor, 38% damage, 3 points.

There's nothing wrong with these.

I'm not so sure about Soul of Steel and Armor Mastery, those look a bit inefficient to me.

But the rest... take them when you got the skillpoints and are next to them, and try to wear gear with high armor rating, and profit.
No need for complicated calculations, "more armor > less armor".
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OP, pure armor is unreliable, unless combined with other forms of damage mitigation/avoidance (eva/block/aa). Then it shines at its best.
You can always make an AR char to have fun with, up to low maps. After that fun will begone.
As it was already stated, no matter how much you invest in it, it'll be never enough. This game is land of the damage spikes, armor doesn't fit in alone.
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Last edited by torturo on Dec 18, 2014, 10:11:42 AM
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torturo wrote:
OP, pure armor is unreliable, unless combined with other forms of damage mitigation/avoidance (eva/block/aa). Then it shines at its best.
You can always make an AR char to have fun with, up to low maps. After that fun will begone.
As it was already stated, no matter how much you invest in it, it'll be never enough. This game is land of the damage spikes, armor doesn't fit in alone.


How do you build then 2-handed weapon character based on armor defenses reliably?
MY CHALLENGES ARE DONE ON HC, IT'S NOT SC GUYS!
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Filousov wrote:
How do you build then 2-handed weapon character based on armor defenses reliably?

"Reliably" doesn't match the pure armor 2h builds.
Some did it with mirror worthy gear and sick HP pool.
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Last edited by torturo on Dec 18, 2014, 10:47:12 AM
I dont think you should look at it in how much % from tree you need, its how much actual armor you want that matters.

And the answer to that is around 8k, that is the sweetspot for armor from my experience, its just enough to reduce most of the non huge hits, which is what armor is for, mitigating the big hits with armor requires a much too large investment which in turn will make you less tanky, so you focus on just mitigating the small-medium hits, 8k is enough for that.
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Last edited by VictorDoom on Dec 18, 2014, 11:00:42 AM
OP also take into account you won't have a shield which is a big source of base armour. Endurance charges are a must for armour based characters which has a great upside, you can use those charges against the big hitters with inmortal call. Also don't forget to roll a nice granite flask :)

As for elemental damage, alas there is not much to do as 2h melee but using flasks.

For the original question, I'm in the "there is no such thing as enough unless it's 100%" bandwagon. For me the reason is (but I'm a little biased as I only play HC), that in this game there are so many factors you cannot count for them all. You can be rolfstomping mobs until a pack of heavy physical damage mobs comes around with one or two rares with some aura combination, maybe there is also a totem around in a reflect map who knows. To me it's not about all those times were you have "too much" armour but the one time you don't have enough :)
In other words I would try to get as much armour as possible without sacrificing other defenses.

Cheers, Necro
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at this point armor is only really viable if you use in conjunction with flat reduction mechanics

such as any mechanic that converts a part of the physical to elemental
endurance charges
and arctic armor.


if you are going an armor build , you flat out need endurance charges. the difference between having endurance charges and not is comically wide as you can easily get 8 charges worth of flat %physical reduction nearly 30% of any strike you take will be removed and for armor that kind of reduction as an almost exponential effect of its mitigation.

but there in lies a peculiar question , armor works because those other mechanics work on their own. the opposite is certainly not true.

endurance charges dont give a fuck about armor , and lightning coils conversion is technically better than what armor can ever give you vs big hits.

seriously if you have like 85% lightning resist from say a topaz flask you will tank boss hits better with 0 armor on than a fela with 10k armor and no coil

it comes to the point where pretty much everyone ignores the implicit armor stat on gear to a point

and this isnt even considering how having 7 endurance charges opens up the possibility of 20 second long immortal calls , 20 second holy shit that is alot of seconds .
Last edited by Saltychipmunk on Dec 18, 2014, 11:36:28 AM
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Ouroboros226 wrote:
wow... I wake up and my thread is suddenly filled with info <3 Thanks everyone!

"Which defense" is a fairly controversial issue, and I apologize for introducing that tangent to your original question.

Lots of people have rough gut-feeling numbers about the right about of armor. I usually try to aim for ~8-10k if I'm using armor and/or IR and alongside endurance charges, I feel good after that.

You'll develop your own heuristic in time. :)
Armor is a tricky beast, partly because Immortal Call exists. Depending on your tree, picking up the 90% skill effect duration with 3-(4 with oak) endurance charges may be preferable to armor. Along with the Increased Duration gem this will earn you more than 13 seconds of 100% damage mitigation on demand.

Using this optimally can be a bit of a stressful brain drain, though, which is not for everybody. That's why so many just use CWDT Immortal Call.

I do wonder how different things would be if there was a "Evasive Call" skill that let you evade (well, I think it would have to be dodge mechanically) 100% of attacks based on endurance charges, or "Intelligent Call" skill that allowed you to block 100% of spells based on power charges. Actually, let's not wonder about that last one, because it would completely break the game in favor of crit even more.
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