Which is better? Armor, Evasion, or ES

Making my own build and I wonder whats better for endgame and maps, if I should go for Armor Evasion or ES. I''m sorta new so I don't really know the differences too much

I hear a lot of talk about armour being the go-to defense in the current patch. Personally I prefer layering a variety of defenses while having armour as a solid base, because you definitely need to survive a hit, as eventually you will get hit. Add some evasion, fortification and block and you're good to go.

In current situation u need good amount of phys def on any char. Meaning with armor u invest in one kind and get it, while with es and ev u need to invest extra in it, leaving less space for other things. Imo, es is better, than ev right now, cuz it gives u big hp pool(easy 3k more, if u push, 5-6k more), than u would have with ev and it works for all kind of dmg. Still viable non the less, just needs more investment.

At the end, when the build is rdy and gear is good, i would say es and armor r equally good. Es is just more expensive to gear. Ev definitely falls behind those 2, cuz it works only on atks.

You can't really compare ES to eva or armor, it's essentially life for ES builds.

Armor is worthless vs big hits and evasion is worthless on bad rng but what you can do is layer multiple types of defensives such as high evasion character using acrobatics/phase acrobatics and arrow dodging or an armour character using enduring cry and fortify.

Armor is best, no question here.
it gives good mitigation and works against unavoidable special attacks and spells (physical damage spells).
for big hits there are granite flasks which in most cases doubles protection and for really big hits there are endurance charges.

Evasion no longer works in this game since there are gibers which deals 5k+ damage hits (boss, random criticals, aura stacking).

ES might work, but as someone else said- it needs currency. There are places where its just not possible to recharge shield (like malachai or kaoms arena) and leech got nerfed hard. Its really tricky to make ES work.

armor and eva are both garbage compared to block/dodge.

Assuming you have 6k life and coil, then eva is way better, since it protects you against chaos/elemental damage as well, mostly from map mods or hybrid attacks.

armor is useless against things that actually kill you(big hits), lol @ that guy on reddit with 100k armor having to tp out vs carnage, what a joke, 100k armor, lel, can't even tank.

Yes block and dodge mitigates damage moderately, but u cant block and dodge killing hits forever. It can be as extra defense i would say.

Quite an often option is to take only granite and life flasks and stack as much life as possible..

The way it works is this:
Armor will always mitigate a part of the physical damage. The bigger the hit, the less is mitigated. So 2000 armor in maps won't do a whole bunch for you. You need to stack armor really high. like 10k before flask, 25k with granite. More is better.

On top of that you really want Fortify which gives you a flat 20% reduction on all hits taken. That is big for melee! Just keep in mind, damage over time is not a hit! Don't stand in the poison cloud...


Evasion lets you not take damage sometimes. But you will take full damage in regular intervals. Let's say your chance to evade is 50%. That means you only take every 2nd hit from white mobs. Bosses can have higher accuracy and maybe you can only evade one of three hits or less. This can sometimes save you but in the long run you will eventually take that one big hit that kills you. So for hardcore leagues evasion can only be part of your defense.

That is where Acrobatics and dodge step in. They increase your chance to avoid a hit further. But there is still that one big hit that you will take at 100%. It will happen if you play long enough. You best option is to keep your distance (bow) and make sure the mobs are distracted (Decoy or skellie totem).


Energy shield will just give you more hit points. Very good if you get hit occasionally but you have time to recover between hits like a summoner. The downside is that any damage you take will stop your energy shield from recovering. You stand on burning ground? Tough luck. No ES regen. You are locked in a tight room with lots of tiny enemies who plink away at your ES? Tough luck. No ES regen. But you can take hits that might kill an armor or evasion user outright if you stack enough ES.

So with ES you need to pick your fights sometimes. Let's say you roll a Jungle Valley map with burning ground. You can do the map but I wouldn't risk the boss room. There are dozens of tiny spiders everywhere and with patches of burning ground you might not find a spot to regen your ES. So without Ghost Reaver you are hosed unless you can dps everything down very quickly.


In my opinion for a new player armor is best. Good ES gear is drops very rarely so you will need to buy it most likely. Evasion is always a bit of a gamble and you need to know what you need to avoid. Get lots of life, life regen, life leech and armor. Depending on your skill you can use the gem Life Gain on Hit. If you hit lots of mobs quickly that will keep you alive through crazy stuff. If it works with your build always have one in your inventory!

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AmbushRacer wrote:

armor and eva are both garbage compared to block/dodge.

Assuming you have 6k life and coil, then eva is way better, since it protects you against chaos/elemental damage as well, mostly from map mods or hybrid attacks.

armor is useless against things that actually kill you(big hits), lol @ that guy on reddit with 100k armor having to tp out vs carnage, what a joke, 100k armor, lel, can't even tank.

If u try to compare armor/ev/es to block/dodge, than u obviously have no clue and the rest of ur comment is trash. U do not compare them, u stack them. Each one of these on it's own is useless.

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Nephalim wrote:

You can't really compare ES to eva or armor, it's essentially life for ES builds.

Never heard about EHP? All this things contribute to it, so u can compare them.

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1337fun wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

You can't really compare ES to eva or armor, it's essentially life for ES builds.

Never heard about EHP? All this things contribute to it, so u can compare them.

It's just the way it is used, ES is most often just a replacement for life pool, it's a factor in EHP calculations only on a few exotic builds, like aegis or EB-MoM.