Remove IR add new keystone, ideas welcome

"

Autocthon wrote:

EV+AR is more effective than AR overall.

Did you tried this? In my experience it is not, even after last patch. Really. You will not have enough neither ar not eva to make it viable in higher level maps. Especially, as a melee.

"

tmaciak wrote:

"

Autocthon wrote:

EV+AR is more effective than AR overall.

Did you tried this? In my experience it is not, even after last patch. Really. You will not have enough neither ar not eva to make it viable in higher level maps. Especially, as a melee.

Have you seen the EV/AR on hybrid armour?

Hell have you seen the math on EV+Granites against an average white hit (800 damage)? Iron Granite alone against average hits is 38% damage reduction. Ridiculous scaling returns on Enfeeble. Effective non-use of armour against actually threatening hits (did the math on Kole when Kripp got one shot form 4k HP at level 60ish).

Then of course there's the fact that if you already have 20k+ armour and are using a granite to get above the 30-40k mark another 3k Armour from Grace is worth like half the actual reduction in incoming damage as the +10% Evasion it's giving you as EV.

Mixing defenses will almost always reduce overall incoming damage more than stacking one defense.

"

Autocthon wrote:

Mixing defenses will almost always reduce overall incoming damage more than stacking one defense.

Agree. I pretty much always pick 2 defenses for each character I make; Acrobatics, CI and Shavronne's are only exceptions.

Which I feel is the problem with IR. It's trying to be the "pure armour" equivalent to Acro and CI in a way, but it encourages very non-armour gear. If anything, the biggest problem with IR is actually that it makes pure-armour gear feel like a "you're doing it wrong" choice. What we need instead of IR is a keystone which actually synergizes with pure-armour gear; I don't feel that hybrid defenses need significant keystone help, therefore evasion does not need an additional keystone, although perhaps a unique that grants Iron Reflexes or a similar effect would be appropriate (a Shavronne's for evasion).

Reading too much BS or points brought up against the IR nerf, while they only support the no nerf.

Extra defense comes from block, enduring cry or a very reliable form of CC. It is very hard to get a nice mix of armour and evasion and certainly it is not stronger, because the points you give up on the tree can easily cost you block, life, LL etc. The stuff you really need or simply reliable dps to do some stuff.

Pure evasion can supplement their defense with dodge and spell dodge, while armour can have stun immunity or simply... very high armour.

Take Triumphant Lamellar:

271 Armour
340 ER
Total: 271+340 = 611

Zodiac Leather:
603 ER

Glorious plate:
553 AR

1. The above differences are not big at all.
2. If you spec into IR than taking nodes that boost your ER do not boost your AR. Your ER gets added to your AR. AR nodes will boost the converted ER. As such the right side orientated builds which got a lot of dexterity, but have no access to Armour nodes get gimped hard.

(50% iER):
TL:
271
340 *1.5 = 510
778 AR

ZL:
603 *1.5 = 904.5 AR

GP:
553 AR

If you got 2 layers of defense you do simply have 271 AR and 510 ER. In this scenario you have 50% less armour than a glorious plate. Not reduced, but less. Take an armour cluster for 50 aswell:

TL: 406.5 AR 340 ER (or if you at least had 3 more nodes spend and went to the middle: 510) ER
GP: 829.5 AR Do you see how that ~50% less kicks in?

With LS you do be more efficient, but still spend more nodes to get into high meaningful values.

Have a look at what it takes to go from the increased ER nodes to the increased Armour nodes. It is damn hard to pull that hybrid off and only happens with very OP endgame pieces (helmets with 800 armour, boots with over 500 evasion, chests with 800 armour and over 1500 evasion etc.). Don't forget you just as hard need life. Simply put for 95% of the people playing PoE this is not an option at all, you take block, leech, CC etc. Evasion has the nice option to use granite flasks, but a rather cheap trick. Doesn't mean that ar does not benefit more from popping granite flasks, because it does.

Fact is that 50% increased armour or increased ER costs you 3 nodes. In terms of dexterity that is 250 dexterity. Or in +30 nodes: 8.3 nodes. in +10 nodes 25!!! The gap between 3 or 9 nodes is huge. However if you from 1 patch to another miss 70% increased AR from dexterity it costs you more than 3 nodes to compensate. For any build that is a huge drop. I suggest all of you take out 1 defensive cluster out of their build and not respend it anywhere. That is what this patch did.

Also this explains why the life side of the tree has better armour nodes. The armour nodes are superior to dexterity. One thing you lot seem to forget and apparently the developers as well is that though IR and dex with leather can give more armour, than pure armour, that pure armour can catch up with less nodes and will have far more life, LL and life regen, because those are pretty much locked up to the left side of the tree and inherent to the strength nodes.

The current change warrants that all the +10 dex nodes should give you +5 to life just as strength does and than leather and armour gear should be similar. The only reason IR was favored above evasion, was because evasion sucked and this mostly had to do with faster attacks mobs, more accurate, higher crit etc. (inherent and the damn auras). This has changed and that change alone is enough to make a decision between IR or staying evasion. The choice got removes when IR got trashed, with the dex nerf.

You can find posts form me dating back 2 months or more that specifically open this discussion up and where I wrote down my findings testing between evasion and IR with a melee build. Unlike the playerbase that advocates for the IR nerf, that influenced the developers , those mostly unread posts draw the right conclusions, but were not considered.

SO again:

Where is my respec?

"

Autocthon wrote:

"

tmaciak wrote:

"

Autocthon wrote:

EV+AR is more effective than AR overall.

Did you tried this? In my experience it is not, even after last patch. Really. You will not have enough neither ar not eva to make it viable in higher level maps. Especially, as a melee.

Have you seen the EV/AR on hybrid armour?

Yes I have seen, I use those on my main:



And with those:



I have no inclination to resign from IR, even after nerf (although I lost ~1,75K ar). I'm not happy with IR nerf, but it is still valuable keystone which allows me to focus on one defence to make it viable lategame.

And I virtually have no problem with physical damage at least to lvl 76 maps. Of course enfeeble and blind (from BoR) helps.

EDIT:

On Anarchy, I have two chars: EB wander templar who uses ar/es equipment and runs Grace and EB FP shadow who is pure eva (mainly eva/es equipment but gloves and helmet are pure es and uses spirit shield).

At the moment, templar have ~2K armor and ~2K evasion and shadow ~4K evasion. More or less, the point is, that in fact templar is kinda hybrid ar/es and shadow is pure eva. Both are fragile, but shadow seems to be quite visible less fragile. So for me, it proves, that you have to focus either on ar or eva. So was stated in post above.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

What we need instead of IR is a keystone which actually synergizes with pure-armour gear

This is the purpose of Unwavering Stance. Armor is designed to make you no longer fear the average mob (but still fear spike damage). You sacrifice the character's negligible base evasion* and can wade through crowds without worrying about a random stun locking you in place or interrupting your slow, strength-heavy attacks.

"

tmaciak wrote:

"

Autocthon wrote:

Yes I have seen, I use those on my main:

And with those:

I have no inclination to resign from IR, even after nerf (although I lost ~1,75K ar). I'm not happy with IR nerf, but it is still valuable keystone which allows me to focus on one defence to make it viable lategame.

And I virtually have no problem with physical damage at least to lvl 76 maps. Of course enfeeble and blind (from BoR) helps.

EDIT:

On Anarchy, I have two chars: EB wander templar who uses ar/es equipment and runs Grace and EB FP shadow who is pure eva (mainly eva/es equipment but gloves and helmet are pure es and uses spirit shield).

At the moment, templar have ~2K armor and ~2K evasion and shadow ~4K evasion. More or less, the point is, that in fact templar is kinda hybrid ar/es and shadow is pure eva. Both are fragile, but shadow seems to be quite visible less fragile. So for me, it proves, that you have to focus either on ar or eva. So was stated in post above.

What's your average armour multiplier on armour characters? And remember once you actually get high end hybrid gear the gap narrows to about a 30% difference. Hybrid gear can roll the defenses individually because they're different affix groups. Yes that means that good armour is harder to get, but it also means a build like this

Boasting 200% EV/AR mix (and 200% life) is going to have crazy levels of reduced incoming damage, because the Armour and EV formulas have (not precisely but for purposes of simplification) Diminishing returns.

Yes stacking one or the other will feel less squishy. No it's not actually better in a mathematical sense.

And even after multipliers the EV rate provided by base EV is better for you than the DR provided by an armour conversion (and vice versa)

"

Autocthon wrote:

What's your average armour multiplier on armour characters?

I have only L&S, partially Mind & Matter, Phalanx and Testudo. My actual main char build @ 86 lvl:



With those items above and Grace&Determination combo I have 15,5K armor before granite. 196% life, 5,4% regen, 60% block.

As I wrote, I don't have problems with physical damage, it's elemental damage which is threat for my main char. For some bosses I swap shield for Saffell's Frame.

And BTW, did you tried your build on high level character on maps >70 lvl? Because I don't see that you have such characters and it seems, that you just do theorycrafting...

"

tmaciak wrote:

"

Autocthon wrote:

What's your average armour multiplier on armour characters?

I have only L&S, partially Mind & Matter, Phalanx and Testudo. My actual main char build @ 86 lvl:

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUAAnEEswUtDH0OrRB_FHUVIBkuGbQaOB0UI00n7SmlKk0s6TJ-Mok26TrYPC0_J0A2RHJHfkp9TdhQUFFgU99USVXGVvpX4lhjWNtZ818_YEtlTWaeZ6BnvWqTbmluqnKpdEF07Xflerh673zZhMSE2YTvh3aMdozPj0aQVZuDm6GiAKcIp4SplavFrKqsr66TtPm3PriTud2-p8APwBrEFcT2xp7GrsbYytPPZdDQ0k3Uj9Xt3Q3jaudS52PsOO5v7w7wH_Iv8kXz3fZI-tL8xf4K

With those items above and Grace&Determination combo I have 15,5K armor before granite. 196% life, 5,4% regen, 60% block.

As I wrote, I don't have problems with physical damage, it's elemental damage which is threat for my main char. For some bosses I swap shield for Saffell's Frame.

And BTW, did you tried your build on high level character on maps >70 lvl? Because I don't see that you have such characters and it seems, that you just do theorycrafting...

I know the numbers for high level maps. I tend to theory craft, and in all honesty 90% of the time the math is right.

Guarantee you that build works at high levels. 200% Armour multiplier is going to bring armour right in line with what your build has, while also having respectable evasion in the 40% area if my math is correct. Obviously favor armour mods over EV mods in this case.

Anyway, point being that if you don't have much of an armour multiplier (average on armour characters) the 50% less armour on hybrid gear isn't going to be as big a deal because the hybrid build can get hybrid nodes which are really efficient to close the gap. I'd put this build (if I did my napkin math correct) around 12k armour and evasion with middling to good gear. Depends on mods though, and has a lot of dependency on what other mods you prefer to have. I can do soem full mathing later.

I never assume, that I find proper gear and tend to build passives gear independently. IMO in my build there is no wasted points and "chassis" of the build is need to take most interesting life and life regen nodes.

So, I'm still glad from IR even after it was nerfed (although I don't like it nerfed) because it widens my gear criteria. With IR I can use ar/eva gear, which would be unusable for me and as I tend to be self found (all items I showed in this topic are self found) it is quite important for me.

So, IR is still for me good way to convert eva to ar and be able to focus on ar. I even proposed in other topic to create another keystone, which converts armor to evasion (can be named Flexible Steel or smth like it).

But why you just don't use it and forget about it if you don't like it?

I play computer games for almost 30 years and never liked or trusted evasion. My characters trends always to be heavily armored battlemages. But I don't writing on forums, that evasion should be removed ;)