The main source of frustation, especially for new players

Yep, they were. Gone now.

I don't know if you've stumbled across the formula for armour - one thing PoE does quite well is hide information, but the mitigation % isn't really accurate.

Damage Reduction Factor = Armour / ( Armour + (12 * Damage) )

For large hits (the kind of thing you'll encounter much more often during Vorici missions fighting rogue exiles) your armour can rapidly become useless. I.e. 20k armour against a 5k hit = 25% mitigation. And all the while, your character sheet is telling you that you get 70+% mitigation.

Edit to add: armour doesn't affect elemental damage either.

The best defense is not your chest armour, it's being on the move constantly. After that, the other mechanisms discussed throughout, cast when damage taken being the king.

"

davidnn5 wrote:

Yep, they were. Gone now.

I don't know if you've stumbled across the formula for armour - one thing PoE does quite well is hide information, but the mitigation % isn't really accurate.

Damage Reduction Factor = Armour / ( Armour + (12 * Damage) )

For large hits (the kind of thing you'll encounter much more often during Vorici missions fighting rogue exiles) your armour can rapidly become useless. I.e. 20k armour against a 5k hit = 25% mitigation. And all the while, your character sheet is telling you that you get 70+% mitigation.

Edit to add: armour doesn't affect elemental damage either.

The best defense is not your chest armour, it's being on the move constantly. After that, the other mechanisms discussed throughout, cast when damage taken being the king.

Yeah, i'd probably have bought some had i know you were selling those armor at fair prices. At least i'd get myself a set of 9 pieces (well, 6 since 2 I have) to get armorat 5L for levels 35, 50 and 65 on each specific type.

I haven't stumbled upon the armor formula but knowing how the formula for evasion is I was pretty sure that the same principle would apply to armor as well. Still the truth remains that many time it's that little bit extra, enough to be able to land one extra hit.

Moving is a good defense if you are not a melee character like the one I am playing now, but I went into merveil with 75% resistence to cold + over 5K DPS. the only thing I dislike in her is the teleports but I suppose if she didn't she'd probably die faster than Dominus.

Even then you can move but you'll still take lots of damage against certain oponents and if you have the misfortune of some very specific type of opponents where you have to close in to be able to deal damage, it becomes a pain in the ass. Besides I always try to be mobile no matter which character I play, I try not to have any less than 20% extra move speed.

Can you start a thread in the gameplay help forum please with the following information:

Both your cahracters:
- current build
- Items
- Build you are trying to achieve at say lvl 75
- gems and links youre using (also curses, movement skills etc.)
- some numbers like life, mana, regen etc.
?

post the link here. We will take a look.

Ill be dammed if we cant find a working solution with either a four link or a cheap 5 link that still doesnt die as often as you seem to be dying atm.

regards

One thing we must all try to remember about the OPs post. This person is still thinking about defense in terms of just about every other ARPG ever, base stat of defensive gear slots is the most important factor. OP hasnt gotten far enough to realize that, here in PoE, the primary defenses are completely and utterly shit without a secondary form of defense that synergies with your main defense mechanism.

I personally hate that this game almost requires such heavy investment in defense but that is an entirely different subject.

"

One thing we must all try to remember about the OPs post. This person is still thinking about defense in terms of just about every other ARPG ever, base stat of defensive gear slots is the most important factor. OP hasnt gotten far enough to realize that, here in PoE, the primary defenses are completely and utterly shit without a secondary form of defense that synergies with your main defense mechanism.

This is exactly why I`m trying to help the OP with his builds. His Viewpoint would change drastically if he actually understood how this game works.

"

derriesen wrote:

"

One thing we must all try to remember about the OPs post. This person is still thinking about defense in terms of just about every other ARPG ever, base stat of defensive gear slots is the most important factor. OP hasnt gotten far enough to realize that, here in PoE, the primary defenses are completely and utterly shit without a secondary form of defense that synergies with your main defense mechanism.

This is exactly why I`m trying to help the OP with his builds. His Viewpoint would change drastically if he actually understood how this game works.

While this is true, there is nowhere in the game, especially at the levels OP is playing at, to suggest that the mechanics of this game are any different than all the other ARPGs OP has become accustomed to. This is the only game i know of where your main defense is complete shit without investing significantly in secondary and passive defenses.

"

thedestroyerofkids wrote:

OP hasnt gotten far enough to realize that, here in PoE, the primary defenses are completely and utterly shit without a secondary form of defense that synergies with your main defense mechanism.

And that's why half of the charcters you meet in towns wear Tablua Rasa. If you have that 6L nothing else on it matters. Shit 5L is better than decent 4L. But OP wants great 5L-6L and doesn't grasp that if you have shit 6L it will last you forever.

I was lucky enough to find a 6L white chest. After alchemy and few chaos I got this . Frankly it's a crappy 6L chest but it lasted from lev 70 to 89 and will probably stay on that character forever.

Bottom line is: You don't need 6 5L chests to progress and swap them every 10 levels, you don't need 5L at level 35 to progress unless your build is messed up completly and unfortunately you have to read some guides on the forum to understand how the game works.

I asked OP 3 times what build he's trying to do and all I got was: specific. That doesn't mean shit. Post your gear, tree and gems and we'll show you where you made a mistake and try to help you.

18 bloody pages and not a single post from OP explaing what he wants to build but just moaning he needs new 5L every 10 levels.

"

gfurm wrote:

"

thedestroyerofkids wrote:

OP hasnt gotten far enough to realize that, here in PoE, the primary defenses are completely and utterly shit without a secondary form of defense that synergies with your main defense mechanism.

And that's why half of the charcters you meet in towns wear Tablua Rasa. If you have that 6L nothing else on it matters. Shit 5L is better than decent 4L. But OP wants great 5L-6L and doesn't grasp that if you have shit 6L it will last you forever.

I was lucky enough to find a 6L white chest. After alchemy and few chaos I got this

. Frankly it's a crappy 6L chest but it lasted from lev 70 to 89 and will probably stay on that character forever.

Bottom line is: You don't need 6 5L chests to progress and swap them every 10 levels, you don't need 5L at level 35 to progress unless your build is messed up completly and unfortunately you have to read some guides on the forum to understand how the game works.

I asked OP 3 times what build he's trying to do and all I got was: specific. That doesn't mean shit. Post your gear, tree and gems and we'll show you where you made a mistake and try to help you.

18 bloody pages and not a single post from OP explaing what he wants to build but just moaning he needs new 5L every 10 levels.

Very true, but people become set in their ways. I remember when I first started playing this game. Nowhere did it tell me i should basically dump all my nodes into life and defense, and coming from other games where damage potential and survivability were really choices instead of noob traps, i neglected almost all life and defensive nodes in favor of damage, this did not end well and i spent a lot of unnecessary currency trying to force it to work.

To me its sounding like OP is having the same problem but in reverse, OP is over emphasizing defense to the point that potential significant damage upgrades are being dismissed in favor of insignificant defense options.

I dont disagree with your stance, i just feel the OP is not going to be receptive until the game beats them down a bit more or they get lucky and find one of those good items that inspires deeper creativity within the game.

It seems we will just disagree forever then.

I'll put it in one long sentence:
Semi-newbies want cool builds and cool gear in a few hours of gameplay and they want to make their own build trees (they fail horribly) and they need a 10L item to make up for theirs fails and lack of game knowledge and they believe that build-diversity matters and not the loot-game itself and demand the expensive items straight away and refuse to use potions and such properly because that is too much work and they refuse to use existing newbie-friendly builds.

Truth is, there is enough build-diversity for relative cheap builds up to level ~80 if you don't mind having a shitty clear-speed. They just refuse to play those builds. Okay but then don't ask for a free godlike 5L/6L with good stats every 10 levels while leveling.


Because the +350 base armor from a body-armor literally adds 1-3% armor at normal/cruel when you have a flask or an aura up. Therefor I conclude that you do not know what stats are important.
THREE PERCENT! Holy crap we argue about 3% damage reduction for like 1-4 chaos...

And if you don't like hitting (white) potions that give you instantly 70-80% damage reduction on low levels (and more with a single aura) and then 'argue' about not having enough armor on your 5L/6L during leveling then I am speechless.

And I also disagree on clearspeed, they differ a lot. If you claim it to be 10% at most then I'm sorry if I insult you, but you are also a semi-newbie.
I see people who need a full minute to clear like one screen with a few blue mobs. Others need 2 seconds (literally) and then spend another 3 seconds moving to the next screen. That's like 2000% more clearspeed. Not 10%. Sure I'm comparing newbs with rich pro's but still the difference can be HUGE.

All you need to know is how to use xyz or join a guild.
I just checked it (again) and I could buy a 5L for 2chaos and several for ~4 and a lvl35 one for 3c. Oh wait you want a near perfect 5L lvl35 5L AND a near perfect lvl40 AND lvl55 one.. Sjeesshhh.. I can't take those semi-newbies seriously anymore. I have no words for that.
Okay if you don't know xyz then I understand but ONLY then. But GGG doesn't want to make trading easy and doesn't mind item flipping and whatever so they clearly don't want to make trading easy for newbies and if they do, they don't want to spend money on implementing it because an ingame marketplace would greatly benefit newbies and it would disadvantage the rich&experienced.

This game is not Diablo 3 where you max gear in less than a week. I even maxed my Monk in diablo 3 (found the frostburn and that ice items that instantly kills frozen enemies on the same day I capped my level).. I was a god in a single level day and all I had to do was max defensive stats and I had 75 mil toughness in no-time.
So there was nothing more to do for me... I And trading was disabled so I capped my entire character in like 3 days total. How is that fun?
I heard they nerfed it by now but still Diablo 3 = a giant noobgame in my eyes.

"

gfurm wrote:

I asked OP 3 times what build he's trying to do and all I got was: specific. That doesn't mean shit. Post your gear, tree and gems and we'll show you where you made a mistake and try to help you.

18 bloody pages and not a single post from OP explaing what he wants to build but just moaning he needs new 5L every 10 levels.

To be fair, the OP isn't moaning. It's really him restating his original point of view, that a 5/6L shouldn't be RNG-gated, as discussions go back and forth.

Having said that, I think the build he's going for, based on what he's said, sounds inefficient, and as a result, has probably contributed to the lack-of-progression frustration he's feeling.

It'd appear he's going for a variation of this lightning tendrils build http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1103409/page/1 (correct me if I'm wrong OP), using a blood magic gem instead of mana to run spells, while relying on block, dodge and evasion for defenses. Seems like he's stretching himself too thinly in terms of passives and gear choices.