Need little guidance on passives.

"

BackwoodsS wrote:

Iron reflex is handy but I wouldn't reach for it unless you are building around that idea. Having some evasion, even a small amount, still adds to defense. If you are blocking, a little evasion goes a long way. Personally, I like to play hybrid armor/eva on melee rather than just armor. I don't use cwdt-ec-ic on melee so I have 6-7 full time endurance charges helping on the armor mitigation end.

I guess it depends on personal experience.

I find that the thing that kills me the most in Merciless is being stunned. Thus, Unwavering Stance (or high evasion) really helps. If you can't get much evasion, it's better to get Iron Reflexes and use Grace. Grace with IR is better than Determination in 95% of cases. And of course, if you take IR, you might as well take US.

@ Foukka - post your current skill tree and we can advise more easily. Also, what do you think you need at the moment? It's good to be continuously evaluating your character, for two reasons:
1. You can learn what you need, and what works in the game
2. Other people's advice will not always apply to you. Your own struggles may be very specific; perhaps something we can't foresee. For me, as I mentioned, it's usually getting stunned, because of my play style.

skill tree:
Passive skill tree build
A bit slow progress but only playing this char with two friends few hours a day.
They both play play dual claw lightning stuff.
I like enduring cry and healing totem for party play.
Not really sure how much i can utilize these endurance charges other than increasing stats for unlimited time as long enemies near. Passive tree only have 2 near they might be worth picking up.

Cyclone and and heavy strike both have life leech so at least in cruel difficulty they keep me alive.
Cyclone usually only when needing to move better spot in horde of enemies.
Shield charge move faster.
So far i'm looking for some curse to weaken mobs. Punishment does not seem to be effective.

Grace would be better for party play and with my stats there is only like 10 armor difference for me, but friends are low armor and almost pure evasion. Most likely switch as soon i get my hands on it.
determination: for me 2558->3571
grace with same level game would be 1026 -> 3584
but for party play grace wins.

"

SponTen wrote:

Grace with IR is better than Determination in 95% of cases.

Fortunately, that isn't hard to determine, once you pass 4k base armor, determination starts being better. Unfortunately, you need fairly good gear for that, say, a 1,8k chest, 1,2k shield and helm+gloves+boots set over 1k in total.

"

raics wrote:

"

SponTen wrote:

Grace with IR is better than Determination in 95% of cases.

Fortunately, that isn't hard to determine, once you pass 4k base armor, determination starts being better. Unfortunately, you need fairly good gear for that, say, a 1,8k chest, 1,2k shield and helm+gloves+boots set over 1k in total.

But not many people are going to have 4k base armour from gear without any % armour or evasion passives.

Hence, that's part of the 5% cases :)

"

SponTen wrote:

But not many people are going to have 4k base armour from gear without any % armour or evasion passives.

Hence, that's part of the 5% cases :)

Yeah, like I said, base armor, just from gear. If you want to do it it's easy enough for a shield user, armor pieces are pretty cheap currently and you don't have to bother spending points to get IR nor stack enough dex to use high level grace. The problem is people don't really bother to stack armor, we got lightning coil and perma IC, however, coil got a bit of a nerf and warcries are getting a rework so it might be popular again, depends on how badly they mess it up.

going to update little process here
act 2
59 passive
next goals: bloodless and soul of steel and maybe bloody bludgeon and maybe resolution technique before or after.
current dps is around 2100 with heavy strike ( 5 linked)
new passives vengeance, reckoning
current gear:
lvl 71 passive
major passive changes: more endurance points
i feel combination of evasion and armor better than pure armor.
lvl71 gear:
main dps still heavy strike
buff: cwdt: immortal call combo
now i got 2x enduring cry other outside cwdt combo. (needs leveling)
molten shell into vaal version
feeling a bit stuck, dps is not awesome