Defence As Armour Based Melee

Been a long time since I've done an armour build. Still leveling and gearing right now, but I need help with defenses end game. Last time I made one, I distinctly remember that although I had high hp pool, my phys dmg reduction was crap. I couldn't afford more upgrades than what I had though and just self cast enduring cry (which I loathe).

Can anyone help me with advice and/or experience?

I was thinking maybe specing out of blood magic, buying a brass dome and running Iron reflexes, grace, determination (with enlighten of course). Would that be a good idea? I know armour is crap for big hits and has diminishing returns (or what ever), but what else can I do? Or would maybe brass dome and tri purity work (taking what ever measures I need to take to run tri purity).

I ask all this because eventually I want to take on Shaper.

I'm too used to being evasion + dodge + chest armour with gimmick (coil, kintsugi, perfect frorm+AA). My starter for league was Frost Blades Raider and it took way more punishment than my Slayer is right now, granted my gear didn't suck a**. Still though.

Edit: Using Starforge, so no dmg auras.

Armor definitely has diminishing returns, and doesn't help at all against elemental damage or chaos. So... you're going to need something other than piling on as much armor as you can. With high enough armor and life regen you can trivialize a whole lot of white mobs and even a lot of the rare ones. There will be enough maps to level up on, but you wont get to higher tier maps on armor and regen alone.

Mind over matter can be great on some builds

also adding leach is really helpful

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Shagsbeard wrote:

Armor definitely has diminishing returns, and doesn't help at all against elemental damage or chaos. So... you're going to need something other than piling on as much armor as you can. With high enough armor and life regen you can trivialize a whole lot of white mobs and even a lot of the rare ones. There will be enough maps to level up on, but you wont get to higher tier maps on armor and regen alone.

Hence why I mentioned three purity set up along with brass dome. To be fair though, it's not as bad as some people make it out to be (high tier maps). I've done high tier maps with sub optimal builds and/or gear. You just have to be careful about map mods and take it easy. Beside the point though.

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k1rage wrote:

Mind over matter can be great on some builds

also adding leach is really helpful

Well as a Slayer I'll have plenty of Leech but doubt MOM will be useful to me much, will it? Has something changed that I missed ( have been away for a couple of leagues).

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Zac89 wrote:

Been a long time since I've done an armour build. Still leveling and gearing right now, but I need help with defenses end game. Last time I made one, I distinctly remember that although I had high hp pool, my phys dmg reduction was crap. I couldn't afford more upgrades than what I had though and just self cast enduring cry (which I loathe).

Can anyone help me with advice and/or experience?

Main tip about armour build - dont build around armour!

I actually suggest just forget that Armour even exists, it's for good. Dont try to stack it, stack pure Life instead, and some endurance charges + Arctic Armour maybe...

Unless you're making an Aegis Aurora build, armour should be one of the last attributes in your wishlist.

Get endurance charges and life, roll a basalt flask, armor need no heavy investment the life nodes u pick up might accidentally have some % armor on them, that is more than enough.

200-220% maxlife from tree is pretty much mandatory for super endgame.

With 60k armour you'll mitigate ~70% of 15k(Shaper Slam) hit. Anyway for proper phys mitigation just go max endurance charges jugg.

Thanks for answers guys. Basically looks like I'll be casting Endurance charges again. God damn it hate Enduring cry. Gaining endurance charges for boss fights is such a chore for non juggs. Frenzy charges have frenzy/raider ascendansy. Power charges have pcoc on a 4 link or in main links (or skyforths if you're rich. Everything for endurance charges is janky or just plain annoying to use.

You could play a crit staff build, then you could get charges when you crit, besides this there really isn't any option to generate them automatically during bossfights, unless you could somehow stun them which is pretty much impossible if they have 10m+ life.