Armour vs Life. The choice

Hi there,

Planning my build for 2.3. I will do some sort of 2H Axe RT - some skill.

Question is what is better?
1. 30k passive Armour(before flasks or buffs) Juggernaut
2. 210% inc Life on tree + Kaom's Heart. I assume this means around 7k Life or more. In this case -> Slayer.

I would assume the armor route would enable me to do the content that I always avoided bosses, maps, map mods etc. Avoid the sudden deaths that are always from physical damage.

Am I correct in this? I believe a slightly higher life pool (2k more life in the best scenario) won't protect me as much as 30k Armour + 8 or 9 Endurance Charges + Soul of Steel(4%PDR) + Fortify.

Well, depends.
Fortify is effectively multiplicative with the charges, which stack additively with the armour, but the latter is calculated before the charges are added, so heavy hits aren't mitigated as much.
Essentially, with 9 charges, you'd get 40% phys damage reduction, which with armour would allow you maybe 60% on hard hitting bosses, maybe 70%; I never got that far with defensive builds. Guess I bore fast.
The 2k life with 40% damage reduction would most definitely work.
Fortify comes atop of both - I honestly see it as either an academic choice (crunch the numbers until you're bored) or a fluff one.
On the side, a very high armour build would make you practically immune to a lot of whites and blues, and bosses with a lot of smaller, less telegraphed hits.
Depends on the league; In Standard it's supposedly no consideration ( I don't play there), but in the leagues, the armour build would work without a Kaoms, which I'd rate as a significant advantage.

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nebunelux wrote:

Hi there,

Planning my build for 2.3. I will do some sort of 2H Axe RT - some skill.

Question is what is better?
1. 30k passive Armour(before flasks or buffs) Juggernaut
2. 210% inc Life on tree + Kaom's Heart. I assume this means around 7k Life or more. In this case -> Slayer.

I would assume the armor route would enable me to do the content that I always avoided bosses, maps, map mods etc. Avoid the sudden deaths that are always from physical damage.

Am I correct in this? I believe a slightly higher life pool (2k more life in the best scenario) won't protect me as much as 30k Armour + 8 or 9 Endurance Charges + Soul of Steel(4%PDR) + Fortify.

The question is, how much inc. life do you have with your first option?
And in your last sentence youre like discussing between 2k more life vs. 30k armour + 8 endurance charges + fortify etc. So wouldn't you get all these defenses (except armour) with your second option?
The problem with armour is, that it wont help you vs. biiig hits.. a big hit of a boss would easily oneshot you, if you only go on armour. Endurance charges, fortify etc helps there a lot more.

The slayer can offer a lot more dmg than juggernaut.. but at all, I wouldn't stack so much armour.. go with Kaoms and well Juggernaut for a bit more defense or Slayer for more dmg (you should take fortify and endurance charges so or so).

Well yeah I would take endurance charges and fortify in both cases. Basically 40% flat PDR + fortify.

But you have 30k armour standing in town.
When u fight a boss you get30k + 8 EC (which alone get 90% estimated PDR) + fortify + you will definitely pop a granite of iron skin which i assume will give 45k armour total.

My planned build has 173% life in tree + 273% armor.
If I would go the life route I could unspec all armour and just get more life + Kaom's.

I never got higher than T10 - T11 maps since they never drop. So I am not planning doing double Core Malachai or things like that.

Also with Slayer there no easy way to sustain all those charges. The recent changes to Juggernaut makes it even easier.

But for general mapping mid-tier to low high-tier maps, which one will get me further?

In the end both are good for mid tier mapping. In the high tier is Slayer + Kaom's more efficient? 30k - 45k become useless in high tier maps? It seems like an exaggeration to me.

This is only an opinion But in the years I have played I have tried high armor, high life and both..And it seems to me the least I have died on a character is when I have at least 4k life and 5-6 k es with leech on it.
Even at times my armor is only 2k I still have insane survive ability.

2nd best is when I take the bm node

Juggernaut - God tier for resisting physical damage (since you can sustain high duration Immortal Calls without trouble).
Elemental damage will still hurt, but Abyssus Juggernauts should be a thing now and if you plan to roll a juggernaut Hegemony Era + Abyssus + 10 endurance charges should be godly.

Slayer - More offensive compared to Juggernaut without Abyssus but should be weaker than jugger with one, a lot of leech. In my opinion better coupled with evasion/dodge than armour so that you can leech in between hits.
You will be leeching 3k life per second with a proper slayer build.

In perandus I cleared t15 Core map with a dodge/evasion slayer (level 94) and that was without the buffed state he is in now, it cleared most maps without problems.

That being said they both play a lot different:
Juggernaut - reduction & immunity
Slayer - leech & evasion

This is my opinion only that is.

Thanks for the input.
Really well put.

My idea was to do a Hege's Era build at the start.
Problem was that it was nearly impossible to do a crit build AND high armor. And if i don't take 300% inc armor in the tree, the double armor from juggie doesn't do much. So there's that.

In order to get 25-30k armor in town you need to get inc armor, Unbreakable and Determination and scrap crit and go for 2H Axe RT, eventually Atziri's Disfavour or some top tier rare.

On the flip side you can do Crit with hege's with low armor(5-10k), so you're vulnerable to phys reflect. Because you use Added Fire, Hatred and HoA, you're vulnerable to elemental reflect. All of this because of the high damage a crit build provides.


I really don't see how you can get high enough armor for it to matter, enough life and go crit.

RT high Armor Juggie
Crit Staff 200% Life Juggie

you are all worrying only about physical damage.

but what kills is elemental multipliers - crit*shock*-max will wreck anyone no matter 30k armour or 50k..

i consider 20k armour perfectly enough and move on - the elemental damage can really hurt (XX% added as everything + -max + mobs are angry == issues)

and 2.3 will bring A LOT of new mobs, most of these with spells.

so id go with life, some armour, some evasion, some block/spell block and some dodge/spell dodge. putting all eggs into one basket can and will backfire

116 points juggy tree:



Things to note:
174% life (has 2 sockets which can push it to 188%)
332% armor with juggernaut class
102% accuracy (this will translate to attack speed with juggernaut)
Lack of int needs to be compensated somehow (gear) so you can use a staff

It would require 2 good jewels tho, but it should work.
Alternatively drop the eagle eye cluster for another jewel socket.
The %damage increase is only at ~330% (~370% with charges up), with a good rustic sash and more STR from gear you can break 400% with charges up which should be more than fine since you are going crit with abyssus.

With this a 2k armor chest alone will give you 16k armor, abyssus will yield another 2.5k and you can maybe gather another 1.5k armor from rest of gear (belt/gloves/boots). This would put you at 20k armor in town, with 8 endurance charges and 4% flat reduction from Soul of Steel.

Also I wouldn't use Added Fire on a hege build:

About physical damage, here are my 2 cents, for late game :
> high pool (try 6.5K+)
> Leap Slam + Faster Attacks + Fortify (if you don't play a Champion)
> Enduring cry & Warlord's Mark for endurance charges
> high level Arctic Armour (if you don't use a movement skill for damaging)
> manual Immortal Call + Faster Casting for desperate situations
To give you an idea, with Fortify, 6 endurance charges, and a lvl 19+ AA , you get a stable 39% physical resistance while moving, and 46% while stationary.
By stable, i mean something that works in all situations, high boss fights included.
Armour is just a bonus against trashies, nothing more, so don't rely too much on that.

EDIT :
Soul of Steel, yes, but 4 points is expensive (using those 4 points to take life nodes instead will also protect you from elemental & chaos).