Help me understand AA vs Armour vs Other ways!

So basically im wondering about the different ways to stop damage. Mostly physical. I understand that big hits will go threw armour either way. So more or less talking smaller ones. I normal play with grace and IR gives me basically 40% which in merc is very knowticeable because the smaller hits dont really hurt so it seems much more safe.

My question however is sometimes you cant or dont want to go IR grace combo. What is equal to it? For example is AA basically the same thing at a certain level or better or worse? Is MoM better or worse and at what level. And my real is if I have IR grace combo and AA up is it that much more! Or do they not overlap or how does that work?

I dont want to have to go all the way to that combo on a witch, id much rather stack ES gear get EB and go AA or MoM chest at some point but I havent played it much so just not sure how "tanky" I will be compared to the combo! Thanks for help!

Coil is very very good and if u manage to sustain AA with and have endurance charges, it would be really good defense vs phys. Coil + endurance charges r easy, but also running AA with it can be tricky.

I would say, that AA is similar to good armor rating. It helps vs small hits, but is not really noticeable vs big hits.

MoM "just" makes ur hp pool bigger, allowing u to take lager/more hits. If u combine MoM with block, it becomes really good defense. U can see it in the video at 1:50 how spell block + MoM saved me. Spell block alone or MoM alone and i would be dead.

I dont understand what you mean by power charges? Do you mean endurance charges? Thanks for info!

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vortex315 wrote:

I dont understand what you mean by power charges? Do you mean endurance charges? Thanks for info!

Power charges are just another type of charges but not endurance. There are 3 types Power(int/blue), Frenzy (dex/green), Endurance(str/red)

I know what power charges are...I dont understand how they were important to the topic of defensive is all I was wondering. Ive been playing for some time I just havent made a character with ONLY AA or ONLY MoM or BOTH AA/IR combo so I was wondering mostly about how effective those were.

For example 40% dmg reduction from armour and AA at level 20. Does the flat dmg from AA go first then the armour or other way around...ect ect. Thanks :)

1` of the bigest advantages of AA is that it reduces the damage by a set amount before it checks past your armour , this reduces the amount of damage your armour has to negate. Basicaly this means that you will take less large hits that armour starts to scale poorly against. Especialy when you get AA over leveld witch in a way is pretty easy. Any +2 cold wand + level 3 empower will get you a VERY strong level 25 AA that combined with the % damage convertion you get from a lightning coil you end up having a massive damage reduction BEFORE the damage checks into your armour. Sure having all this damage reduction is great for small hit's basicaly negating them strights up however once you get it up to max amount you find that large hits become vmuch MUCH more managble to negate with arounr.

Also i want to talk about self cast moltenshell. This is something i use when leveling pretty much ANY character, however at late game it's not a small buff , especialy if you have inner force nodes ( you probley do have these if useing a high level AA ) no tree buffs and no over leveling at level 20 that 1000 EXTRA armour. Dosent sound like much but when you consider how much armour you get on gear 1000 becomes a large amount. that's like having 2 or 3 more gear slots with decent armour rolls on them. Now with only a few nodes you find that armour reduction jumps up a shit ton just from this 1 gem . It helps ALOT vs large hits. The CWDT set up also helps however you don't have it up on that first most important hit , + it's effectivness is much less as it's not leveld up. For phsical damage midigation self cast moltenshell is VERY nice.


As far as MoM is conserned , it's great however i find it is something that need's to be built around . Just slaping on a cloak of difiance is "ok" but not optimal by a long shot. 800 unreserved mana is a minimum to run it with at least 175-225 mana regen. Personaly i like over 1000 unreserved mana closer to 1200 and around 300 + regen before i set out to use it. Great HP pool bump however if you have a option to use it it's very nice ( high AA with lightning coil is better )


The other thing to consider is getting GG armour on gear + self cast moltenshell + perma granet flask chain + 6 ish armour nodes off tree ( 1 or 2 good ones ) it's hard to do but once you get your armour to insane levels with 100 % up time it starts to negate a shit ton more of large hits . The problem hear is with no other midigation you will still be at risk from massive hits ( high map level bosses like high map vaal slam ) If you do howver manage to get close to max armour + good block chance + good regen. You can become a face tanking god who lulz at vaal slams ( your DPs sucks balls however ususaly )

Thank you! very helpful! I was also wondering about block chance and how good it really is. I mean I know its good but 40% or 50% or mandatory to get near max block chance or max. But thanks a ton!

Pretty much once anything gets to a 40% chance it's helpfull . However to rely on it having close max is desiarable if not manditory in some cases ( running a low HP pool block or dodge character on HC mode )

with block it really starts to shine when you get it to extrem levels , but 40 % will make a noticable diffrence. again block and dodge both have 1 major side effect and draw back , the satars aline and your get fucked over by bad luck. Lets say you have 90 % block chance the odds of getting hit with 4 or 5 hits in a row is VERY low but eventualy it WILL happen so having a very large hitpoint pool ( HP or ES no matter ) is still important and must be obtained. what will hapen is you will be god like and take no damage most of the time with the odd spike damage when you miss the odd block. But when the Random number genorator is felling mad you will get fucked over and die.

1 other thing i wanted to mention to you but forgot about was if you are not taking the ER converted to armour keystone don't totaly neglect jade flasks. Ususaly with no ER at all while walking around if you pop a jade flask you get about 30-40 ish dodge chance, this combined with high aroumr will help alot vs some mob types ( devoers is the most noticable 1 as some of the mobs will miss you if you react fast ) same with flicker strike mobs or anything that dose high phsical damage in rapid sucsetion. Most time when people say they got 1 shoted it's not true ( sometimes people do get 1 shoted iut's just much more rare than the player base makes it out to be ) what IS common however is taking 3 or 4 large hits at the same time or very close to the same time ( killing you before you know what is happening , making you think you got 1 shot ) again a jade flask can really help with this even if your priamry tank style is max armour/HP pool , just having 1 or 2 of them large hits negated 100 % can save you

Does that reduce 20% from crit passive node still worth getting if you are close enough?

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ariesdante wrote:

Does that reduce 20% from crit passive node still worth getting if you are close enough?

If your close yes it is. When leveling it's very usefull. When you get higher level it's not as great and most player spec out of it at high level , usualy to travel the tree faster or get more base life nodes . It's a pretty nice node , underated IMO .

Edit:
Perhaps also a good time to metion the flask nodes around the tree that buff flask effects , is short they are fucking strong as hell . Always worth picking up if close by a cluster of these things.