Armour vs Life. The choice

@Snorkle_uk
Thanks for showing the gear. Now I got the complete picture.

I did the math and it checks out. This is really impressive.

Especially that pair of gloves is pretty GG. There is no similar gloves available even in Standard.

If you can pull this off, there's no reason to go to templar area and do crit staff.
This seems more tanky. Damage is not a problem for this build.




IMO stacking defenses is better than stacking life and relying on flasks for defenses. If you only have life, and for some reason you're out of flasks, you're f***ed. Also if you don't rush through maps like there's no tomorrow, you have downtime of flasks which means defenses. So yeah, I prefer having passive defenses than having conditional defenses.

In the end I think I'll go the armor route, dunno if I will go all the way til 30k, or stop at 20k and get some evasion. Well it all depends of what gear is available. 200%+ life.

This should do the trick ;)

Gloves like that need the flat 80 evasion bench craft to exist. The flat evasion/armour rolls on gloves are lower than the bench, so they cant drop that high. You just need to get either slink gloves or titan gauntlets with 100%+ defense roll and a free prefix.






the boots and the amule ton that build are temp bits but the rest of its the last gear ud ever really need for sure. Everything on it could be upgraded, there isnt a single bis item but its already well past the point where its fairly meaningless to get another 20% res here and bump this prefix up a tier or 2 there. You get gear like that because you can, basically, at some point and opportunity comes along and you take it because why not? Theres never a need, and with that in mind I will continue to upgrade it if the chance comes my way simply for the fun of it.

Sutff like the belt, you can get a mirrored one, forget the names of them, mind bond? costs what to mirror those? 240 exalts including fee? More? Mine cost less than half of that, and you would never notice the difference. Beyond that though I know I could replace my belt for 10 chaos and still not notice the difference. Switch the 6L disfavour for a 5L 400pdps vaal axe though and for sure you are going to feel that downgrade. With melee buy smart, make sure youre res capped for sure but then forget how pretty tri res is and just get good defensive prefixes on gear for as little as possible. If youre using devotos u can get a tri resist hat, even a goldrim for ele weakness maps, forget overcap on the main gear.

That marauder used to be sword + shield before juggernaut came along, the 2h axe cyclone was a ranger. I used to use evasion boots and a high armour shield, you can still do that and have say 17k armour + 13k evasion there abouts without breaking the 1 chaos per rare slot budget or using juggernaut.

something like this if your interested in general melee build ideas...


https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAEAAQBeAecCEQMnBS0ILg2NEPAS4RQgFE0UcRiRGY4aPhpVG6obrRv6I9Mj9iXfKCopLi5TL8wwfDGwNug94j38QzFE0kd-SO5KfUz_TUZNkk4qUEdTu1hjW69fP2EhYuxjF2VNZ6BvJ3TteK55OXrvfLh9dX7igTqCB4TZhO-HdojtivCLT4zPjX2XeZpqns2i6qOKo-ekGacwqfqxs7YsvJ-9Nr6nv9XBB8GCxFjEgsbYypDL9dIh02_TftRS137ZfNrB3L3h7-Of5FHnD-lG6dXtg-4O7w7yQfJa9kj8S_zF_ro=


you can do that as a marauder, duelist or ranger, swap swords for axes or maces. If you go juggernaut with a build like that youre going to end up with something like 35k armour + 13k evasion, or you can go evasion shield and get 23k armour + 20k evasion. Honestly though that would seem a bit of a waste, evasion starts getting really good around 8k, very good at 12k and then you start stacking an extra 5k on and getting very little back really. Armour seems similar when it gets into the 20k+ range, Im not sure Id bother stacking beyond about 25k in practice unless I had no access to evasion.

Shields with this setup end up with 40-50% block chance too though which is yet another layer of taking all the incoming attack damage and just brutally chopping it down by massive amounts. You could do this with gladiator and have that applied to spells, use a rumis flask to cap on demand, would seem a far better aspect to add in than going jugger with a shield and simply pushing already strong armour further into overkill amounts. Or maybe you do go jugger but with a saffells or an aegis that doesnt just bring another 1400 base armour but adds an entirely new defense mechanic that way.

Life> armor

Spike dmg is never phys dmg.

Trust me phys dmg is not a problem in the game and even where it can be harsh for ES builds, you still have more than enough armor to not care about it because those are mainly fast small hits, which you shrug off with 10k armor.

Check my juggernaut, it had around 7k life and was practically immortal, could have been way better if I leveled it a little further to grab blood magic and that extra juicy 35% life, but was still good enough.

And if you still don't believe me, just think about fortify, enfeeble and taste of hate(which you could legitimately use on a melee phys build), those allow theese practically naked casters/ eva builds to take any kind of hits.

"

nebunelux wrote:

IMO stacking defenses is better than stacking life and relying on flasks for defenses. If you only have life, and for some reason you're out of flasks, you're f***ed. Also if you don't rush through maps like there's no tomorrow, you have downtime of flasks which means defenses. So yeah, I prefer having passive defenses than having conditional defenses.

In the end I think I'll go the armor route, dunno if I will go all the way til 30k, or stop at 20k and get some evasion. Well it all depends of what gear is available. 200%+ life.

This should do the trick ;)

I have to disagree. As for out of flasks, that's what the retch is for. I dont run out of flasks. I kill bosses before my flask duration is even half finished. Clearing moderately fast to keep flasks up is a joke with quicksilver's of adrenaline, onslaught, and the move speed from retch.

I could go down by 2k life and not use a Kaom's heart and get a shit ton of armour. However, just think how much armour I need to mitigate 2k worth of life. And suddenly I'm vulnerable to getting oneshot, which you quite aren't with 9k, unless you decide to tank Malachai/Dom/Vaal smashes. Not to mention bearers. Fucking bearers. What about maps with added ele damage. Ele reflect.

I should mention, I'm immune to any reflect with flasks up, which is always. I simply don't need to invest in armour, because fortify, taste of hate, basalt flask, endurance charges, LC, blasphemy enfeeble, they do the job better for barely any investment. Or rather have a much lower opportunity cost.

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krenderke wrote:

Spike dmg is never phys dmg.

Have you ever been hit by a rare giant skeleton in a high map ?
Have you ever been hit by core malachai regular melee attack on first phase ?
Have you ever tried to take down a pack of blue porcupines at close range in a high map ?
I have more examples but not enough time to input them.
If you haven't tried some of those yet, do it, cause you'll probably come back with a different opinion.
All damage types have their spikes in Wraeclast, exile.

"

xhul wrote:

"

krenderke wrote:

Spike dmg is never phys dmg.

Have you ever been hit by a rare giant skeleton in a high map ?
Have you ever been hit by core malachai regular melee attack on first phase ?
Have you ever tried to take down a pack of blue porcupines at close range in a high map ?
I have more examples but not enough time to input them.
If you haven't tried some of those yet, do it, cause you'll probably come back with a different opinion.
All damage types have their spikes in Wraeclast, exile.

Have you ever tried to play without facetanking unnecessary, easily dodgeabe things?

"

xhul wrote:

"

krenderke wrote:

Spike dmg is never phys dmg.

Have you ever been hit by a rare giant skeleton in a high map ?
Have you ever been hit by core malachai regular melee attack on first phase ?
Have you ever tried to take down a pack of blue porcupines at close range in a high map ?
I have more examples but not enough time to input them.
If you haven't tried some of those yet, do it, cause you'll probably come back with a different opinion.
All damage types have their spikes in Wraeclast, exile.

ofc i did. and these are not the problem

first off - i do not use unwavering stance so i can evade like 50% of these hits (with flask, but i know how to use flasks). then my end charges and flasks protect me from remaining damage (ofc i manualy dodge the telegraphed stuff because why shouldnt i? there are no points for 'facetanked Core Malachai slam' achievements)

and i do not burn my end charges on .003sec immortal call cast randomly by TheLazyCOmbo.


but what will kill you is the same list of mobs in a map with 'added XX% damage as EVERYYYYTHING' because then the precious armour armour-stackers value so highly is USELESS. esp when they took US and are hit with pretty much everything that look at them funny (looking at you Porcupines)

POE defence mechanics are complex and using one and only one is a mistake that leads to one demise

"

xhul wrote:

"

krenderke wrote:

Spike dmg is never phys dmg.

Have you ever been hit by a rare giant skeleton in a high map ?
Have you ever been hit by core malachai regular melee attack on first phase ?
Have you ever tried to take down a pack of blue porcupines at close range in a high map ?
I have more examples but not enough time to input them.
If you haven't tried some of those yet, do it, cause you'll probably come back with a different opinion.
All damage types have their spikes in Wraeclast, exile.

True enough. I agree, there are plenty of physical damage spikes. And those are where you need armour the most, and where it fails the hardest :D

That's why you see snorkle stacking so much evasion along with armour.