Theorycrafting: Most Defensive Build
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I'm not looking to make the "best" build, as "best" is dependent on each player's preferences.
I'm looking at making a build so defensive it can take on any content and survive, deathless, regardless of player control AND connection problems. Here are two builds that I'm looking at:
Expensive and End Game
This build would utilize The Harvest unique Jasper Chopper, which gives the unique mod "Gain Flask Charges when you deal a Critical Strike". This is used to fuel all flasks so that a new mod is gained instead of a Surgeon's Mod.
Items planned: Lightning Coil (alternate would be Incandescent Heart) When used in conjunction with Taste of Hate, physical damage taken would be reduced to 40% of normal (30% with legacy Lightning Coil). Incandescent Heart might be used, but flasks will deal with elemental damage. Taste of Hate, Divination Distillate, Ruby Flask, and Topaz Flasks would give a minimum of 16% maximum elemental resistances. With the Witch flask nodes, they would grant 20% maximum elemental resistances and 30% of physical damage taken as cold damage. This means the build would take a total of 43% of physical damage, 1.5% of which as cold and 1.5% as lightning after 95% elemental resistances. Elemental damage would be only 20% of normal (5% is 20% of 25%). This leaves the build with one open flask slot and only three flasks to obtain the following desirable mods: "of Warding" to grant curse immunity. "of Staunching" to remove bleed. "of Grounding" to remove shock. "of Dousing" to remove burning. "of Heat" to remove freeze/chill. Due to the sheer amount of mitigation the build would have, the "of Warding" and "of Staunching" would most likely be chosen, as most status effects wouldn't be applied-again due to the sheer amount of mitigation. In the case that status effects are a problem, other flask mods would be chosen. As for prefixes, the following would be desired: "Perpetual" to increase charge generation from The Harvest. ***Need clarification*** "Ample" to increase maximum capacity. "Surgeon's" to increase recharge rate. Belt of the Deceiver could be used to reduce critical damage taken if a rare ES belt is not required. Eye of Chayula could be used if a rare ES amulet is not required. Voidbringer gloves could be used if rare ES gloves are not required. Steppan Eard boots could be used if rare ES boots are not required. In summary: 1. Physical damage would be reduced to 43% of normal, 1.5% of which would be cold and 1.5% as lightning. 2. Elemental damage would be 20% of a "normal" build, as resistances would by 95%. The build would only need to get 90% elemental resistances to cap resistances, assuming curses are not a problem. 3. Crits would recharge ALL flasks, which provide a huge source of survivability. 4. Using spells to deal damage and score crits means accuracy is not a problem, and hits are guaranteed. Although this build seems powerful (don't have any of the items so I can't actually test it), it requires micro-management and doesn't achieve exactly what I'm looking for. But it's something to aspire too.
Cheap and Effective?
Life, evasion, Acrobatics, block, and Cast on Crit.
This build would only use Lightning Coil for any significant mitigation, or Cloak of Defiance if lots of %mana and mana regeneration can be obtained on gear as another form of "mitigation". So evasion, dodge, and block would be stacked to maximize damage avoidance. Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics give 40% dodge and 30% spell dodge, but 30% less block chance. Allocating almost all of the dual-wielding block nodes as a Scion, dual Ungil's Gauches would give 24% or 40% block. With dual-wielding inherent block chance, this build would obtain 54.6% block chance. Stone of Lazhwar would give 27% spell block. This means ~27% of attacks and ~51% of spells would actually "hit" and deal damage. This is without calculating evasion, Blind, other defenses, and non-legacy Ungil's. With normal Ungil's, block chance would be 43% and 21% spell block. 34.2% of attacks and 55.3% of spells would hit and deal damage. All other gear would be oriented towards life, resistances, crit chance, and crit multiplier. Still working on the exact details as I am still tweaking it. | |
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Anyone? Thoughts?
Clarifcation on two things: 1. If I have 30% increased flask effect, would taste of Hate cause 39% of physical damage to be taken as cold instead? Or would it remain 30% taken as cold? 2. If a flask has increased charges gained, would The Harvest generate more charges for that flask? Last edited by Natharias on Sep 9, 2015, 1:30:56 AM
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AFAIK most supertanky builds are block builds. This used to be so powerful that it got a major nerf a few patches back (including reducing the block chance of existing uniques, so there are no legacy versions) but it still is one of the most tanky things to do. Getting the max 75% block requires quite a few passives but can be done. The tricky part is the spell block, stone of lazhwar is cheap and rainbow strides aren't too expensive either, together giving you some 60% spell block, but both of these items are ES-caster oriented while all the good block nodes are life/melee oriented. Outside of these you can only get tiny amounts of spell block, mostly through corruptions. Getting a high armor shield will give you tons of phys damage reduction from the shield slot alone because of all the 'increase def from shield' nodes. An armor+ES combo shield might be interesting too.
Using reckoning + life gain on hit or life leech will help a lot without using a gem slot in your main attack skill. If you manage to keep up a bunch of endurance charges, this will make you essentially invulnerable to phys damage. Running the three elemental auras for extra max ele res is possible, but getting a lot of aura passives on top of the block passives is going to be tricky. In a totally different direction, I thing there are builds that essentially try to run immortal call or even vaal immortal call 24/7 which if achieved is super defensive as well. | |
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Immortal Call with the duration nodes from the tree.
6-7 charges, enduring cry and maybe "ec on melee stun". Saffel's and all three purities. Lazwhar and some block nodes for higher spellblock. -> immortal unless you fuck it up yourself. 3.5 build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2299519
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I think Cast on Crit is far better for flask charge generation than self casting. You can use Voll's to generate infinite Endurance Charges and CoC - Immortal Call for physical immunity. Along the lines of this build.
But builds like this, based on flasks, are far from able to take on any content. -max resist maps will screw you over, and some enemies have resistance penetration as well. Not to mention connection problems - your flasks will fall off very quickly, and even short lag spikes can result in gaps in your flask uptime. The block/dodge based build will have trouble with damage that isn't a hit from a spell or attack. Detonate Dead, ground effects, degens. Another thing to keep in mind for planning defensive builds is you will most likely take _some_ damage no matter what you do, and committing too hard into defenses can cut your recovery so low that you can't stay alive through the time it takes to kill things. | |
" " Max block through "conventional" methods is not an option. It requires so much passive investment that it would be better to pay my self to death to get good gear. That's why I went to Ungil's Gauche so that max block could be attained (pre-acro modifier). Immortal Call is a non-option. I'm not doing the fucked up Romira's Devotion, as I might as well go with Mjolner at that point. That's money I don't care to spend. The first build won't need e-charges or immortal call, as far as I can tell. The second one wouldn't be able to run it as it wouldn't allocate skill duration and wouldn't have e-charge nodes. " Well we'll see how Harvest does. So long as crit chance is 50-60%, it should generate enough charges. Surgeon flasks only get 1 charge per crit, and I think it's one per Surgeon and not limited to one per crit. But how is it that you think that -max res maps will screw it over? It would lose about half or more of the maximum elemental resistances, and an Incandescent Heart can easily be swapped to help deal with elemental damage. Leech has shown to not be effective. 40k dps and leech does less than dual Cybil's Paws, both against groups AND against single targets. LGOH-heck, even Thief's Torment gives better recovery for attacks than leech, even with the "passive investment". I cannot get leech to be worthwhile. There has yet to be a time where leech saved me and dealing more damage hasn't. That's why I'm going with crits; to fuel flasks I know have saved me in the past and will in the future. Last edited by Natharias on Sep 9, 2015, 10:49:02 AM
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Without doubt the tankiest build is crit mjolner+volls+romiras+saffels with insane ES armor/helm/boots/gloves.
You have 100% uptime of immortal call and with purity auras x3 and surgeons flasks with effect nodes you have 100% elemental immunity. Cant get any tankier than that. But I see you call that "fuck ed up" for some reason Last edited by link1313 on Sep 9, 2015, 1:47:24 PM
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" The Harvest can be obtained, as far as poe.trade has shown me, for 15 ex. A six-link Harvest costs the same as a Mjolner. Getting a Voll's Devotion Mjolner up and running can cost anywhere from 60-100+ ex; so yes, it is "fucked up" because it is so damn costly. Additionally, Mjolner doesn't allow you to easily fuel flasks, especially unique ones. That is the precise reason I'm looking at The Harvest. Taste of Hate can provide physical mitigation so that Immortal Call isn't required. Atziri's Promise, Divination Distillate, Doedre's Elixir, and especially Rumi's Concoction provide considerable benefits. I fail to see how a Voll's Devotion Mjolner can take advantage of any of these flasks at all times. Harvest can, provided you have a target to crit. Then there's the difference between attacks and spells. Mjolner builds use either Molten Strike (up close) or Lightning Strike (very limited range use). The Harvest can swap spells depending on the target. Mjolner must use lightning spells, and many of those are limited in what they can do. Harvest can easily spam something like Arctic Breath to apply chill, which slows enemies by 30%. That's a huge defensive bonus. There are a number of reasons I'm avoiding Mjolner and Immortal Call, as both are very costly to get going and don't provide a guaranteed mitigation. Mis-click once and your IC doesn't proc. Rely on CWDT and you can still be one-shot. Lightning Coil and Taste of Hate? You'll almost never die to physical damage unless it's a very lucky crit. I can keep going, but I think that should be sufficient for you to see how Mjolner just isn't as good. If you like, I can list every single problem with a Mjolner build and why I see the Harvest being superior. | |
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The best defence is the best offence. Just take VP and tank it up. :)
If I go first, I'll wait for you in the other side of the dark water.
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I actually think the most defensive build is probably Dy'ness tank. If you haven't seen it it's in the item display cabinet forum or just google it. Not gimmicky at all just pure overkill, 18k+ ES and 3k+ regen per second. With capped resists it's pretty much impossible to get killed.
IGN - Xukai
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