25% Physical reduction vs 23% Evasion

I'm sure this has been asked before:

I'm right next to Iron Reflexes on a new melee char. With it I would have +25% physical reduction. Currently sitting at 23% evasion. I noticed a pretty big difference when I started running Grace, any suggestions as to which might be better overall in terms of game play. I've read some arguments that a moderate amount of armor and evasion is better overall than more of just one or the other.

I'm leaning towards converting to armor at the moment, at 23% evasion I'm not even 1/3 of all hits, and 25% reduction to all physical hits is a pretty big chunk.

Current physical reduction with armor is 30% btw. Not the greatest, but I am also running fortify on hit.

the thing is tooltip physical reduction is only estimate. in reality it is higher against small hits and much lower against big hits

in general, having low evasion is better than low armour (althoug the chance to evade is estimate too, it depends on actual monster accuracy rating)

but it all depends on what type of char you are (close range or fighting at distance) and also what other mods you have. for example if you have like 6 endurance charges, stick with armour. In general, armour is rather weak without additional flat phys reduction..

How does the reduction from armor vary based on the value of the initial hit? I've heard this claim before but it does not make any sense to me.

Check: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Armour

Hmm, never took the time to read that real closely. I understand why it's calculated that way I guess (builds with 90% reduction would be almost invincible), but being able to mitigate a max of 1/10 your total armor seems just a little silly.

Well it makes sense in a general way. If you're wearing a suit of armor, and I throw 1000 tooth picks at you, you won't feel much of it. But if I whack you over the head with a tree trunk, your armor won't protect you much.

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invain62 wrote:

Hmm, never took the time to read that real closely. I understand why it's calculated that way I guess (builds with 90% reduction would be almost invincible), but being able to mitigate a max of 1/10 your total armor seems just a little silly.

Yeah, they have even changed the formula in the past to be a bit more effective.

Well that´s why you need to add an extra "flat" physical damage mitigation (endurance charges, basalt flask, arctic armour) or use some sort of converted damage such as lightning coil, IH, taste of hate etc´.

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Namcap wrote:

Well it makes sense in a general way. If you're wearing a suit of armor, and I throw 1000 tooth picks at you, you won't feel much of it. But if I whack you over the head with a tree trunk, your armor won't protect you much.

That's a pretty good analogy. I think the frustration is you would never in a million years know information like this based on how it's worded in the game.

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invain62 wrote:

being able to mitigate a max of 1/10 your total armor seems just a little silly.

The thumbrules on wiki unfortunately get you thinking immediately in a way that's not entirely useful (how much rating do i need to achieve xx% reduction). It's not useful because it's misleading: you don't need hundreds of thousands of armour rating to make it do work against big hits.

A much more useful way to think is "what's the cheapest way to mitigate enough that I survive any given moment, then scale my effective healing so I can recover my health before the next hit?" - Unfortunately, effective health and effective healing are also really treacherous ways to think about defenses in PoE. For some very compelling reasons. So it needs even one more abstraction to an idea of survivability (this idea would encompass randomness and time, two dimensions that effective health neglects).

Some of the top content creators for path of exile call armour a noob trap, and it's an apt name though even these guys fall into a spectrum. Some think it always underperforms other choices - others will tell you it's just a bit tricky to use properly. Regardless it's an apt label. That is, new players might mistakenly believe that all they need to do for a better defense is just get more armour. After all, armour was a universal defense in diablo 3, right? Noob trapped.

In reality, you need to understand what armour does before you can maximize its value. Also, armour can't stand alone; it needs to be paired with other complementary defenses. But there's no basic guide out there for that. So, new players should steer clear of armour-focused builds, and get endurance+regen instead.

If you're a new player and you want a str-aligned character, I suggest the following. Don't just switch to evasion, it'll make for a really awkward build.
- Only get whatever armour bonuses are free as you acquire life and life regen. Don't purchase pure armour passives unless you know what you're doing.
- A chestpiece, shield, or helm with high armour rating is worthwhile but only if it also has life and resists on it. For now don't worry at all about armour rating on boots or gloves, or bonuses on your accessories.
- Get as many endurance charges, as much %physical damage reduction and %life regen bonuses as you can acquire naturally & cheaply (ie they're already along the path to where you want to go)
- Learn to maintain your endurance charges. Always maintain your endurance charges.
- Get a basalt flask. Make sure you're using it every time you engage a tough mob pack or it's not worth the flask slot. If you also have some armour on your gear, an "of iron skin" suffix will help a lot too.
- Have some kind of block. Dual wield block. 1h/shield block. Get some bonuses to chance to block that are already near your current path (they'll also come with armour rating bonuses, but that's ok)
* If you can't get block because you want to use a 2hander, get another layer of defense. Fortify is good but requires maintenance like endurance. Enfeeble on blasphemy is better and doesn't require maintenance but might require you to give up some dps.

Because big hits penetrate armour to a lower reduction, and plenty of situations don't involve physical damage at all, armour has gaps. Because avoidance is totally binary, some hits are very large, and most situations involve a mix of monster types, evasion dodge and block have gaps. Defense in PoE is all about layering different kinds of defense that complement each other well.

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invain62 wrote:

being able to mitigate a max of 1/10 your total armor seems just a little silly.

What's silly about it? 250,000 armour in a game where highest maximum Life values ever reachd are about 15,000 and most people don't even reach half that can't be allowed to be that powerful.

30,000 Armour isn't even that hard to reach either, and for a character with 6k Life, -3,000 physical damage taken at least doubles the number of physical hits that character can take without dying, and I'd say +100% eHP is no laughing matter.

It feels as though when people knock the 1/10 of total Armour thing that people assume Armour and Life are equally available and expensive, point for point
They're not. 2,000 Armour, for example, is not a lot of Armour, as it is less than 1% of what the theoretical maximum is.

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For all practical matters, though, if you want to build Armour and have it feel impactful other than against swarms of small hits, you NEED Endurance Charges. This has been discussed elsewhere on the forums if you want to look for it (too lazy to talk about it now, may come back later to write something up).