Value of Grace

So, I'll continue pestering this section with random questions.

How much is Grace worth, Defense-Wise?
My char is melee, with low defenses, and will at best be able to get life on 6 items, depending on if I decide on Wyrmsign instead of Thunderfists.

But I'll have over 50% increased aura effect. Will the added evasion make any difference, or should I just try to increase my DPS and play more hit&run?

What exactly are your current defensive stats and mechanisms? What else are you reserving mana with? Will Grace be a chore to run? What primary damage skills are you using?

It is a woefully under powered aura and in the same boat as vitality.

With half decent min maxing you can put the investment towards something much better in most cases.

That's is absolutely not true if you build around it. This aura will provide more evasion or armor than a top tier combination of shield and chest. With lvl 21 and 50% aura bonus, its a nice 4000 base evasion, that you can scale and turn into armor with iron reflexe. It is insane, but the aura reservation cost is high.

If you are going low life, you should not build around it, since that going templar is a nobrainer with the free base armor bonus and es from reservation.

Grab Grace with Iron Reflexes, Lightning Coil, Purity of Lightning, Arctic Armour and Saffel's Frame, get 5500+ hitpoints, get some increased armour/evasion rating passives from the tree, one or two bonus endurance charges, fortify, use flasks wisely and you can tank anything this game can throw at you. This is the most efficient way to build a mitigation tank I can think of. I've done it, it works amazingly well. You will have more skill points to play around with as you can sink almost everything in life and damage, no block nodes required.

The difference from a block tank is that you'll get hit by everything so you need to keep your eyes open and flask accordingly, will also need life leech to compensate the low but constant incoming damage.

Thanks for the opinions so far. Never used Grace on higher levels.

"

viperesque wrote:

What exactly are your current defensive stats and mechanisms? What else are you reserving mana with? Will Grace be a chore to run? What primary damage skills are you using?

Well, my current build plan is roughly this Currently using Reave for lack of any other inspiration.

There's room for a few more points, and some might be reallocated;
In any case, it's an ichimonji build, so I'll have at least +10% Buff effect;
I'm running all Heralds + AA in Victarios chest and if I get a second Ichi, Grace would probably replace Haste. Or if I get only one I could get that Prism shield and put something on life, I guess.
That'd sacrifice some 400-500 life, but certainly give my skills more wiggle room to be used.
It will obviously also weaken the effect of the remaining buffs. Tough choice.

It's really a buff Proof of concept, so I sadly can't create a Lightning Coil tank build or anything like that, and Iron Reflexes is some 20 levels away.
So the Choice of Auras is relevant, because that's the only thing this char has going for it.
Here's a preliminary Aura Calc.

And yeah, madness. Suicide. fun. :D

This build isn't going to work on so many levels. You'll die non-stop and your damage will be low on top of it. Sorry but it's completely unfeasible.

The only good thing is you'll get raped somewhere in Cruel so you won't be able to level it and waste too much time trying to make it work.

Well, I asked for feedback and skill suggestions before I started and no one answered. :P
Currently in mid-merc with some 4k dps, so it's good enough for my tastes as of yet.
Not less survivable than the CoC Cyclone Templar.
High tier maps? No, but so far I've grown bored of every char I made before reaching level 80, so I suppose I got no authority on that field anyways.
Though I freely admit that my builds have a startling tendency to die a lot come maps.

I figured there needed to be some use for Ichimonji; I guess I could always just switch the WED nodes for spell damage and turn it into a ranged caster.

I am amazed you even managed to reach this far with ~90% increased life from the passive tree, no damage avoidance and a melee char. 4k DPS is next to nothing, players have more by mid merciless with HC builds concentrated entirely on defense.

Grace is the second best aura, after discipline. (and maybe purity of fire but too situational)


It's the only way to get decent mitigation (13-40%) without gear. Arctic armour gives 13% but it's inferior because it doesnt work when you move.



Haste is underpowered. Vitality is fine (LL builds with flat life regen LOVE it when combined with earth golem)

"

Currently in mid-merc with some 4k dps, so it's good enough for my tastes as of yet.
Not less survivable than the CoC Cyclone Templar.
High tier maps? No, but so far I've grown bored of every char I made before reaching level 80, so I suppose I got no authority on that field anyways.

Well i suppose that 4K is enough for merciless to map t10. Especially in soft core :o ( i prefer soft core too btw)

Anyway, grace provides a very good defensive layer to any build, giving a minimum of 13% evasion, it gives 26% in my build.