Why Energy Shield/Armor Armor?

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Sony_Black wrote:

As others pointed out: EB build

And as others have pointed out as well - if you want to get the most of your int hybrid gear might be interesting (a lot of templar builds go into the which tree for something and thuus have a decent amount of int available eitherway)

I do concede that for EB builds with lots of auras, it works out well. But I haven't yet seen one that's melee. I also have a hard time imagining 100 int (so 20% more ES) is going to make things better. You'd still be missing out on all that ES that was burned by the initial alpha getting to the mob and therefore reducing your effective health pool during the fight by quite a bit. Whereas a pure Armor build would have more mitigation as well as more effective health after the initial alpha closing the distance.

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Sony_Black wrote:

And there is the point of the color of sockets - getting any combination including many blue sockets (on 5 or 6L) is MUCH easier on a hyrid chest piece (during closed beta i wanted 2 red, 1 blue and 2 green (and i couldn't equip the str/dex hybrid) which was still easier to get on the hybrid (still took around a lot of chromatics))

Slightly better RNG isn't really that convincing of an argument. You're still going to be dumping a crapload of chromatics on the item regardless. Not to mention all the gimping you're putting yourself through just for slightly less chromatic orbs...

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Sony_Black wrote:

If you are afraid that the physical damage reduction won't be enough you could still equip one or two pure str items e.g. shield users can have the pure str shield in their hand and thanks to some juici + def from shield nodes you can actually get really good amount of armor only from that one piece, so add some goo hybrid armor elewhere and you end up close to the armor of e.g. a 2 handed weapon user while also having ES (which is good against mages for example - armor doesn't help you there at all...) and a block chance ;)

I have a hard time imagining what you would gain as a melee-er going hybrid armor for everything but an odd piece:
1) I don't see how energy shield could help you better against spells since all spell damage just goes through resistances and that's it (if we assume that energy shield lost = health gained when going for pure Armor armor, which I don't think is that ridiculous of an assumption). Not to mention you'd be doing worse against physical going ES.
2) You could still have all the benefits of a shield regardless of armor or ES.

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Sony_Black wrote:

And again for shield users you have the Aegis aurora which replenish ES by 4% of your armor when you block (so it is specifically designed for hybrid users)

I did not know about this shield, and I do have to agree that would change the playing field quite a bit for a melee-er hybrid ES/Armor character. Just wish it all didn't have to depend on one sole item...

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logaintf wrote:

wild guess: because of stats needed. due to passive skill build and\or gems used you may need equal amount of str and int (to level your gems) so you wont have enough str to put pure armor gear, while you have enough str+int to put on highend es\armor gear.

Good point, I hadn't considered that. And looking at the highest str req armor chestpiece, 191 str might be reaching the limits of what you can't wear without gearing for extra str.

It might all be moot if that's the case.

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Beridel wrote:

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logaintf wrote:

wild guess: because of stats needed. due to passive skill build and\or gems used you may need equal amount of str and int (to level your gems) so you wont have enough str to put pure armor gear, while you have enough str+int to put on highend es\armor gear.

Good point, I hadn't considered that. And looking at the highest str req armor chestpiece, 191 str might be reaching the limits of what you can't wear without gearing for extra str.

It might all be moot if that's the case.

my lvl 16 gems already need 130 str to wear em, so if you go str+int you might need 150ish both just to use gems at full power. might as well adjust gear to be armor\es =)

50% chance to avoid stun is pretty damn good imho. Very handy if you're playing ranged which would include ground slam and lightning strike imo. An with life regen to es you will permanantly have a 50% chance to avoid a stun.

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Brussel_Sprout wrote:

50% chance to avoid stun is pretty damn good imho. Very handy if you're playing ranged which would include ground slam and lightning strike imo. An with life regen to es you will permanantly have a 50% chance to avoid a stun.

This is at the heart of the problem, he (like me) DOES NOT WANT TO BE RANGED.

As Templar you seem to have two(ish) viable options for HC or optimized SC, go full armor hp and leech and become a melee marauder, or go full int/ES/eldritch and become a ranged witch. There is no good hybrid build. There is no efficient way to become a melee caster, wielding both sword and magic, armor and ES, using both STR and INT.

I blame the super crappy keystones we get, some new ones I would like to see that would enable some cool hybrid play style.


Accuracy based on int instead of dex (or some equivalent)

Large bonus to armor and ES, at the cost of life leach (called purity of spirit or something)

Convert all physical DMG portions of skills to elemental DMG (basically + ele dmg needs to become more appealing or at least equal to + physical DMG, right now there is no competition)