When does Iron Reflexes become worth it and should I add it to my build?

I have an armor-based 2H Berserker that is really close to IR and I'm confused as to whether it would be worth picking up? My tree has about 200% increased armor on it but only incidental increased evasion. My character is KaruiKarlFranz if you want to look.

Iron Reflexes follows the same rules as damage conversion, which means that your x% increased Armour will also apply to any Armour Rating you gain from converted Evasion Rating. You don't need any x% increased evasion to boost Armour granted by Iron Reflexes.

The main reason to take Iron Reflexes is so that you can gain Armour Rating from Jade Flasks, Grace aura, and pieces of your armour that grant Evasion Rating (such as a Buckler or a Leather).

So is it a net gain (loss?) in overall physical damage reduction (assuming I keep using my Lion's Roar and Hatred/Herald of Ash) or is it only good for tricks like jade and granite flask?

I understand the basics of the keystone itself but is it generally better to have the evasion and the armor or is it better to take the keystone (in my case) and convert all my evasion to armor and be left with 5% base evasion?

There is no general answer to this question.

Obviously, if your gear has little to no evasion rating, it's not worth the points spent.
The effectiveness of armor depends on the content you are doing. In low tiers of content, armor is extremely effective. In high tiers, it's only really effective in combination with endurance charges and flasks.
There are reflect considerations as well depending on your setup. If you have RT, evasion is useless at mitigating reflect. While armor is useless at mitigating elemental reflect.

"Modern" builds really don't use either armor or evasion though, just a high life pool, and other defense mechanics like Immortal Call and flasks, combined with killing fast.
Unless you're using something like Abyssus, in which case you will need a lot of armor to survive.

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Craftyman wrote:

My character is KaruiKarlFranz if you want to look.

We can't look at your character. Seriously don't know why people block this.

Here are some situations where Iron reflexes is worthwhile:
1) when you have a decent amount of flat evasion on your gear (or other sources), but not much increase evasion on the tree compared to your increased armour bonuses. (eg: if you have 200% increased armour, and not many evasion nodes, it's much more worthwhile. If you are using determination then it's even more worthwhile)

2) When you have pure evasion gear (eg: queen of the forest) but would rather have armour for defense.

3) When you don't want/need to evade anything (eg: a proc-when-hit/block build, or a unwavering stance build etc...)

I have set my character tab to be viewable. My build is reverse Heavy Strike.