Hybrid builds: Do they have merit?

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adghar wrote:

I think Shadow is more well-suited to hybrid buffer than Templar, not least of which is due to proximity to the hybrid clusters that ES builds usually just convert

My melee Poison Trickster is still one of the strongest characters I've made. The 60% increased recovery rate is really nice for hybrid buffer builds, more than compensates for the Less Effective Recovery point you made. That node plus Leech being OP allows me to stay 2800/2800 ES with pretty solid uptime (over 3800/3800 Life).

That is for trickster. I think trickster is kind of op for hc builds because of the flat es and ev but I hesitate to call for changes because this is the only thing making hybrid es/ev viable in my opinion.

Problem is trickster is just really better on one of the two main types instead of going hybrid, and even if you do go hybrid you're still better off mixing pure ev with pure es gear in your various slots rather than using actual hybrid pieces.

The spiked shields are especially notorious for being absolutely stupid in design. You'd prefer to NOT evade attacks on a thorns build, because evading takes away from your damage, but you're forced to get evasion on your thorns shields. You're also getting es and ev on the same piece when again you'd want to focus on one or the other to maximize your rolls. And then there's the issue with how difficult it will be to ideally roll such a shield because you need too many stats on it. That whole category of shield is a mess.

But I've been saying this for years and ggg doesn't seem interested in fixing it, and frankly there are bigger issues to fix.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

The spiked shields are especially notorious for being absolutely stupid in design. You'd prefer to NOT evade attacks on a thorns build, because evading takes away from your damage, but you're forced to get evasion on your thorns shields. You're also getting es and ev on the same piece when again you'd want to focus on one or the other to maximize your rolls. And then there's the issue with how difficult it will be to ideally roll such a shield because you need too many stats on it. That whole category of shield is a mess.

Playing a bit of devils advocate here. There are two main ideas that address this. First is that thorns builds are practically nonexistent, you can just think of spiked shields as having no implicit.

The second is that it's not necessarily stupid design, it's designed around diversification benefits from finance; a type of "damned if you do damned if you don't" situation for the attacker.

Will agree that the design of spiked shields feels like trash, though. I use them for the evasion, ES, and looks-cool factor.

Anyway about the Trickster being better pure, I don't know about that. Because 60% recovery brings you up to respectable levels for both pools, you get to take advantage of stats that would usually just be wasted. My Trickster benefits from flasks and regeneration, without Zealot's Oath, and benefits greatly from Ghost Reaver despite the usually small buffer of 2800 ES. Remember, too, that 3800 Life, some Evasion, and practically permanent nonzero ES provides fairly solid defense against stuns and elemental status ailments, meaning I don't have to bother with things like Eye of Chayula, Valyrium, more than one flask of Heat, etc.

I mean subjectively my Trickster plays better than or just as any of my pure buffer builds? But I guess I might just be too lazy to go down the laundry list of CI downsides and address them all, so I've never made a "real" CI build.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

The spiked shields are especially notorious for being absolutely stupid in design. You'd prefer to NOT evade attacks on a thorns build, because evading takes away from your damage, but you're forced to get evasion on your thorns shields.

You can get 'Iron Reflexes' or 'Unwavering Stance' though. There are also items.

the sustain issue is a thing for sure. If you go hybrid then your leech rate and your regen rate are going to be based on either your life or your es where if you had it all in 1 pool youd get a higher rate. Then it only replenishes half your pool and stops. Its a bit messy, definitely not an area where hybrid shines.


With hybrid defense builds of any sort u really need to pay attention to the prefixes on gear, Im not sure that hierophant is a good example. Theres no quality on any of the gear, and theres 2 free prefixes on the chest with no master mod, could use % es&ar then put 20 scraps on it, get more energy shield. I think you can probably get a higher life pool on hybrid than any other way of doing things but your ability to sustain it will be worse than just about any other defense combo too.


I think with the exception of Aegis Aurora a build with energy shield is virtually always better with some evasion rather than some armour in my experience. Ironically the only 2 hybrid life + es builds I have in play atm use armour and not evasion, but I do have an awful lot of ci + evasion chars. We had the discussion on es + evasion a good while ago and since giving it a proper bash its pretty much how I make almost every ci char now. For me its now the standard, if its a char with es it also has evasion by default unless theres a good case for something different.



I really need to try more hybrid builds tbh, we have this monstrosity sitting in standard from a league or 2 ago...




but Ive not rly had the spark of inspiration to make something for it, theres no bigger picture of a good skill + solely life + es defense jumping off the page at me. Its not that this sort of hybrid has no merits, does it rly have comparative merit? Is there a reason to do it over a build that also has evasion or aegis or something like this? Maybe I just need to give it a go, Im skeptical tho, not seeing it on paper.

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Zrevnur wrote:

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Legatus1982 wrote:

The spiked shields are especially notorious for being absolutely stupid in design. You'd prefer to NOT evade attacks on a thorns build, because evading takes away from your damage, but you're forced to get evasion on your thorns shields.

You can get 'Iron Reflexes' or 'Unwavering Stance' though. There are also items.

That's a fair point, the shields would be ok with IR, but an entire class of items shouldn't be locked into a keystone just to make sense. Thorns implicit should've existed on ar items in the first place, not ev items.

Also to the other guy, I'm not going to address the post because lazy, but I disagree with almost all of it.

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sidtherat wrote:

dear OP: what is your PERSONAL experience in this area? you throw bold statements around. yet what qualifies you to make them without preamble 'i imagine that..'? your character list shows two characters: one basic RF inquisitor (weird concept but lets move on) and a completely bothed hierophant

are you really ready to talk about merits of builds you have never experienced? reading wiki and reddit does not substitute experience

answering your question: yes, they have. but these builds are for experienced players that are ready to think outside the meta and copy-pasta box. 3/4 of the stuff you wrote here is just funny and is as far from the truth as it can possibly be.

^^^^ Ignore this guy. He thinks 4.5k hp in red maps is enough when he literally rolled his red maps to be the easiest mods possible.

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allbusiness wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

dear OP: what is your PERSONAL experience in this area? you throw bold statements around. yet what qualifies you to make them without preamble 'i imagine that..'? your character list shows two characters: one basic RF inquisitor (weird concept but lets move on) and a completely bothed hierophant

are you really ready to talk about merits of builds you have never experienced? reading wiki and reddit does not substitute experience

answering your question: yes, they have. but these builds are for experienced players that are ready to think outside the meta and copy-pasta box. 3/4 of the stuff you wrote here is just funny and is as far from the truth as it can possibly be.

^^^^ Ignore this guy. He thinks 4.5k hp in red maps is enough when he literally rolled his red maps to be the easiest mods possible.

But he made the point that he wanted - you CAN play red tier maps with 4.5K HP - but you'll then have to pay lot of attention to mods and can't play the game while watching TV, I am a worse player than he is, but even I managed Tier 13-14 with 5K HP on my dual Dory Juggernaut, but of course I had to roll accordingly and pay attention, and mind you, not even reaching 6.6K HP felt better at times, when pushing past Tier 14 you do need a larger buffer no questions asked...

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sofocle10000 wrote:

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allbusiness wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

dear OP: what is your PERSONAL experience in this area? you throw bold statements around. yet what qualifies you to make them without preamble 'i imagine that..'? your character list shows two characters: one basic RF inquisitor (weird concept but lets move on) and a completely bothed hierophant

are you really ready to talk about merits of builds you have never experienced? reading wiki and reddit does not substitute experience

answering your question: yes, they have. but these builds are for experienced players that are ready to think outside the meta and copy-pasta box. 3/4 of the stuff you wrote here is just funny and is as far from the truth as it can possibly be.

^^^^ Ignore this guy. He thinks 4.5k hp in red maps is enough when he literally rolled his red maps to be the easiest mods possible.

But he made the point that he wanted - you CAN play red tier maps with 4.5K HP - but you'll then have to pay lot of attention to mods and can't play the game while watching TV, I am a worse player than he is, but even I managed Tier 13-14 with 5K HP on my dual Dory Juggernaut, but of course I had to roll accordingly and pay attention, and mind you, not even reaching 6.6K HP felt better at times, when pushing past Tier 14 you do need a larger buffer no questions asked...

If you plan to play deathless or HC there's no way 4.5k HP is enough, even if you have really solid gear, otherworldy, GMP, vuln, crit dmg mods, and a few other mods out there will instantly evaporate 4.5k hp. Not to mention, elemental damage melts that amount of HP in half a second, even when you are paying attention, so the idea that '4.5k' hp is enough is silly.


The lower your HP pool, the lower amount of the map pool you can run.

1) evasion/block helps a lot with ele damage.
2) there is no GMP mod. it is capped at 2 extra now
3) crit mods are pretty much nullified with evasion (for attacks) and enfeeble (all)
4) i can run 2-3 damage mod maps with these characters no problem. i wont attempt SICK combos. but guess what - most CI sponges wont either. because once you get 4 multipliers and stars align badly 4.5k nor 9k wont save you. GGG designed POE with runaway damage scaling and once you realize that, you do not risk it. but it is perfectly possible to get to 90 with these builds doing alch-n-go with minimal re-rolling. you have to play carefuly and know your limits and ofc cannot do 100% maps just like Essence Drain can do - but you can easily maintain red map pool while not being very picky

5) if everything else fails - just do the chicken move and log. because picking non-lethal maps is stupid but logout macros are 'legit'? right?


having played hybrid builds WITHOUT LEECH! into T15 maps i have to say that people are overblowing the damage dealt by mobs by quite a lot. general clear + beyond + 1-2 damage mods is walk in the park (and that guy is melee!). difficult stuff is SOME boss encounters. not even all of them.

5k + proper mix of all layers (including ES as yet another damage absorbtion mechanic) -> red maps no problem.

guardians and shaper are matter of 'are you using meta skill that does tripple the damage of other skills?' guardian fights are mechanical (except for the ads phase of chimaera), shaper is mechanical + dps check (blue balls + 3rd phase). knowing the fight well means a lot more than stats in all these cases.

Depend, my 4k Templar can face tank T16 trio, normal Atziry and duble Vool and what not.
Defences are Efective EHP so i got that marked up and 4K is plenty...
EHP is way more important factor then Max Life or ES pool, but you can make it worck ether way. Important is to not just relay on max high life or es, you need more or you gona get bursted in sec. Defences determinate how mach your life is worth.

I remember when i whas helping frend to do Leo daily, he whas discharge build and i whas runing EV build. Inaf to say he could not even hit me, he whas slow so you see how mach life he got when he is besicly a target practice for me. There are difrent ways to go abouth defences and you need to finde best one for the job.