HP cluster on the right side of the tree (around acrobatics)

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SEXYSUPERSATAN wrote:

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Autocthon wrote:

Nobody does Es/HP builds,

People do: Aegis Aurora builds are among the tankiest in the game. Sadly the Shadow isn't even that great at that.

It's a niche build, based on one single item, and that doesn't really need a huge ES investment to be effective.
So this is really an exception.

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SEXYSUPERSATAN wrote:

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Autocthon wrote:

Nobody does Es/HP builds,

People do: Aegis Aurora builds are among the tankiest in the game. Sadly the Shadow isn't even that great at that.

Aegis Aurora "builds" are not Es/HP builds, they are HP builds wearing Es/Ar gear and using one of the best shields in the game which also happens to grant massive "healing" on block.

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Autocthon wrote:

Shadows are the best trappers...

I'm of the opinion that the lifewheel by scion makes the central part of the tree way to attractive and scion way too good at everything (hey 50% of the life you need in a build concentrated to one area, AWESOME) and should have been the third defence (an armour wheel with good efficiency would be nice).

Shadow is just a little schizophrenic. Nobody does Es/HP builds, and even if they did (which shadow naturally gravitates towards if you look at it) there's not enough HP in the shadow area to actually get the stats to flourish. Oh and those caster stats? Yah they're at odds with the attack focus of the skill handouts, which are light on actual spells.

Shadow needs a bit stronger life support, and claws / ghost reaver needs to be cleaned up to less heavily favor CI. Mana Leech = ES steal was one thing I've seen that looked good, or 50% of life leech applies to energy shield. In a Life/Es build (actual hybrid armour please?) that would essentially halve leech in exchange for double leech rate.

Isn't this thread supposed to be about how annoying those little life tails are by ranger though?

Shadows are not gravitated towards ES/HP builds, Templar is

Shadows gravitate to evasion/ES builds, seeing as they are INT and DEX based

Also can we stop with the high school style bitching on this forum?

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deteego wrote:

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Autocthon wrote:

Shadows are the best trappers...

I'm of the opinion that the lifewheel by scion makes the central part of the tree way to attractive and scion way too good at everything (hey 50% of the life you need in a build concentrated to one area, AWESOME) and should have been the third defence (an armour wheel with good efficiency would be nice).

Shadow is just a little schizophrenic. Nobody does Es/HP builds, and even if they did (which shadow naturally gravitates towards if you look at it) there's not enough HP in the shadow area to actually get the stats to flourish. Oh and those caster stats? Yah they're at odds with the attack focus of the skill handouts, which are light on actual spells.

Shadow needs a bit stronger life support, and claws / ghost reaver needs to be cleaned up to less heavily favor CI. Mana Leech = ES steal was one thing I've seen that looked good, or 50% of life leech applies to energy shield. In a Life/Es build (actual hybrid armour please?) that would essentially halve leech in exchange for double leech rate.

Isn't this thread supposed to be about how annoying those little life tails are by ranger though?

Shadows are not gravitated towards ES/HP builds, Templar is

Shadows gravitate to evasion/ES builds, seeing as they are INT and DEX based

Also can we stop with the high school style bitching on this forum?

Assuming that presence of Es means absence of HP in a build is ridiculous.

Shadows have as much going for Es/HP as Templars do... Who are Es/Ar by your definition, and not Es/HP.

Nobody goes hybrid gear while going CI. And if they do they go Ar/Es hybrid because nobody actually wants to play an Ev character (except me I suppose). But that's a fundamental problem with perception of defenses. Nobody at all does an actual HP/Es hybrid build, because there's no reason to do both when one or the other is simpler and more effective.

Shadows gravitate as much toward HP/Es as Templars do, just a matter of "hybrid" flavor. The big difference is Shadows have next to no good HP support in their immediate vicinity.

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Autocthon wrote:

Assuming that presence of Es means absence of HP in a build is ridiculous.

Nope, never said that. Just said that the focus for Shadow is for Evasion and ES, where as the focus for Templare is ES and HP. That doesn't mean that Shadows never get HP, or Templars never get evasion

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Autocthon wrote:

Shadows have as much going for Es/HP as Templars do... Who are Es/Ar by your definition, and not Es/HP.

No they don't, because Templars primarily spec into STR, which gives them a lot more health than Shadow. A Templar with STR/INT nodes and %ife nodes will have more health than a Shadow with DEX/INT nodes with %life nodes (if the shadow even chooses to get them)

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Autocthon wrote:

Nobody goes hybrid gear while going CI. And if they do they go Ar/Es hybrid because nobody actually wants to play an Ev character (except me I suppose). But that's a fundamental problem with perception of defenses. Nobody at all does an actual HP/Es hybrid build, because there's no reason to do both when one or the other is simpler and more effective.

Almost everyone that goes CI that plays a shadow gets the nullification node group, which grants bonus to evasion, ES shield amount, and ES shield recovery. They also have quite a bit of their tree in DEX, which gives a bonus to evasion (if you didn't realize)

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Autocthon wrote:

Shadows gravitate as much toward HP/Es as Templars do, just a matter of "hybrid" flavor. The big difference is Shadows have next to no good HP support in their immediate vicinity.

No they don't, you don't understand how the game mechanics work

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Autocthon wrote:

Nobody goes hybrid gear while going CI. And if they do they go Ar/Es hybrid because nobody actually wants to play an Ev character (except me I suppose). But that's a fundamental problem with perception of defenses. Nobody at all does an actual HP/Es hybrid build, because there's no reason to do both when one or the other is simpler and more effective.

I gotta be the exception that confirms the rule then :>.
Seriously, there are some things that got much better since I switched from AR/ES to EV/ES ( since IR's nerf ), like Kole/many bosses ridiculously easy facetanking in exemple ( Physical spells situations need much more focus though ).

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Deteengo wrote:

Almost everyone that goes CI that plays a shadow gets the nullification node group, which grants bonus to evasion, ES shield amount, and ES shield recovery. They also have quite a bit of their tree in DEX, which gives a bonus to evasion (if you didn't realize)

But they don't focus on it, and would prolly take something else ( like armor ) if they could I guess.
Now, I can't speak for everyone of course, but I feel like many people like better to rely on AR than EV.

the focus for templars is ES and Armour if you bothered to look at the gear and nodes. HP is just ab happy side effect of being a STR class and therefore being presented with actual options.

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deteego wrote:

No they don't, because Templars primarily spec into STR, which gives them a lot more health than Shadow. A Templar with STR/INT nodes and %ife nodes will have more health than a Shadow with DEX/INT nodes with %life nodes (if the shadow even chooses to get them)

Unless you're rocking 500+ strength life from strength at level 70 is something like 10% of your total life pool. That's miniscule. It's a joke. Life pools in "life gear" can and do break the 7k mark after 1.0.0

And even WHEN Templars go "life" they DON'T go ES at the same time. They might have ES but they aren't going to make an investment when they can have 7k life anyway. They're just going to have the free ES from gear because it's a free "life" roll and armour is a joke unless you're stacking it like mad.

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Almost everyone that goes CI that plays a shadow gets the nullification node group, which grants bonus to evasion, ES shield amount, and ES shield recovery. They also have quite a bit of their tree in DEX, which gives a bonus to evasion (if you didn't realize)

I did realize. And I also realize that nobody is wearing EV/ES gear the yare using grace and IR because nobody is going to give up 3k ES for evasion on tehir gear

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Autocthon wrote:

Shadows gravitate as much toward HP/Es as Templars do, just a matter of "hybrid" flavor. The big difference is Shadows have next to no good HP support in their immediate vicinity.

No they don't, you don't understand how the game mechanics work

I understand how they work, and like I said the reason you don't see HP on shadows is because pure ES rolls and CI is just plain easier because of node structure

EV/ES gear does not in any way favor CI more than AR/ES gear does. The only difference is immediate availability of HP nodes and proximity to CI itself. There is nothing stopping a shadow from getting near enough the HP of a templar as to make no difference except a complete lack of HP nodes. Stat and gear affinity have nothing to do with it. Shadow gear does not favor CI over HP, shadow nodes favor it because the player is not given the option of speccing into HP nodes without running in a circle around the ranger start area. Shadow is a statistical clusterfuck with no rhyme or reason and little to no cross synergy in pathing.

"Switch" the node setup for Templar/Shadow and you'd be arguing that AR/ES favors a "life hybrid" build (that simply does not exists outside of literally aegis aurora or low-life builds and neither of those are true hybrids).

@Fruz: Essentially yes. People who "go shadow and use evasion" are just cashing in on a free evade roll in a slot and the nullification clusters. They almost never, if they do at all, wear significant evasion. They use grace. They use IR. They're playing a templar that has easy crit nodes and crap spell selection in exchange for good CI/GR placement.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

To get this back on topic: I do not feel those six nodes should be connected. I think the ridiculous ten-node mega-circle of life near the Scion sets a really bad precedent.

I think that ten node mega-circle of life should be changed to a 10 node mega-circle of armour.

It was a terrible design decision.

I don't have an issue with life nodes near the shadow, but would like to see more evasion or evasion/life.

If you don't go with energy shield, and the two es/ev clusters, there's not a lot of options.

I took the ev/life cluster shown in OP's picture, then went all the way to the Ranger start for those life/evasion nodes. Which means my Shadow could have identical passives if it was a Ranger.

The pure evasion nodes near the Scion are nice, but pretty inconvenient to reach. Maybe a shorter route to it for both ranger and shadow would help.

I'm not sure how "shadows are the best trappers." A lot of the good min/trap nodes are more accessible as a scion, and scion has no issue with getting life nodes considering they have that bigass life wheel right by their start. Shadows and witches do have difficulty in getting enough life. The witch start, in particular, is pretty nightmarish unless you go pure ES.