How to prevent damage – guide & questions

Hi all
It’s another time when I need some more experienced players advice. This time is about damage.
There is quite interesting article about damage on wiki but it’s more about how, and what type of the damage players can do. I would like to know more how to prevent it and this is the subject of this post.
Below I put what I think I know + some questions about things I know I don’t know Would be grateful if someone could double check and correct me if I’m wrong with anything. I hope that will also help more players to plan their builds better.
Type of damage - how to deal with it
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Physical melee attack – block / armour (mitigation) / evasion / dodge
2. Physical ranged attack (projectile) – armour (mitigation) / evasion / dodge – can that be blocked?
3. Spell – spell dodge / spell block / elemental resistances (mitigation)
4. All type of elemental damage coming from melee or ranged attacks (skills like: Lightning Arrow, Glacial Hammer, auras, etc.) can either be avoided if the attack is avoided (block, dodge, evasion) or if not mitigated by elemental resistances.
*mitigation doesn’t prevent the damage, it only lowers it by certain %
*block / evasion / spell block / dodge - fully avoid the damage if there successful

I’m I right with what im saying?
Have I missed anything?

Thanks in advance

Correct.
Block works on all damage ofc you need spell block for spells.

However armor and evasion work differently from each other.

Armor reduces incoming physical with diminishing returns the higher the damage is i.e its very good for lots of small hits not so good for single big hits.

Evasion has an entropy function built in to it meaning that you cant get hit multiply times in a row by the same mob i.e its good for big hits but bad for lots of little hits.

IMHO the best you can do atm is very high DR 80%+ with very high block 50%+ this gives you a predicable incoming damage that you can build a life pool around.

On the practical front:

1. Always max your elemental resists. No exception

2. Block is the best mitigation in the game. Max block is insane.

3. On builds that aren't super biased towards strength / dex (and even some builds that are), if you have a lot of armour / evasion it's always good to get a little bit of the other. Diminishing returns.

4. Generally speaking 5-6k health with some chaos resist is the bare minimum for what most characters should be aiming for. Add 20-30% more if you're melee.

that seems about right but it makes sense to order these by type as well as by mechanic to get a more complete understanding:


Attacks (all):
block: damage is ignored but secondary effects like stun and shock still apply.
evasion: damage is ignored, entropy function instead of random chance, crits can be reduced to normal hits if 2nd evasion check succeeds
dodge: damage is ignored

note that the respective values can be differnt for melee or ranged attacks depending on passive keystones or certein unique items.


Spells (all)
spell block: same as attack block but separate value
spell dodge: same as attack dodge but separate value


Physical Damage (attack/spell):
endurance charges: reduces all physical damage by a certain percentage (4% per charge)
armor: reduces all physical damage depending on the ratio between armor and incoming damage value, stronger effect on small hits, relatively weaker against larger hits


Elemental Damage (attack/spell):
elemental resistances: reduce all incoming elemental damage by [resistance - penetration]%

note that the maximum reduction is 75% by default but can be increased using certain passives, flasks or items that grant +% to a certain maximum resistance.


Chaos (attacks/spell):
chaos resistance: same as elemental but maximum chaos resistance cannot be modified by regular means
Chaos Inoculation: passive keystone that makes you completely immune to chaos damage at the cost of setting your life to 1 (you still retain all your energy shield though!)


Special:
damage conversion: some unique items cause you to take part of the incoming damage as another type. For example, the Lightning Coil unique chest converts part of any physical damage you take into lightning damage, which can be easier mitigated by resistances.
Fortify (buff effect): multiplicatively reduces all incoming damage by a certain percentage (20% default, can be increased to 23% via passives)
Arctic Armour: reduces incoming physical and fire damage by X% (8-13% for gem level 1-21) while you are standing still

Don't forget about fortify. It's insanely useful in any build that can afford to run it. I'd almost call it mandatory on a melee build, just link it to your mobility skill so that it's always up when you jump into packs.

Immortal Call is a useful way to mitigate physical damage for any squishy build. The hard part is generally finding a way to generate the endurance charges reliably without putting yourself in a lot of danger. Builds that aren't squishy generally prefer the endurance charges over excessive use of immortal call, but you can level up your cast when damage taken significantly to reduce the frequency that it's used.