Hybrid might be...Good?

Look, we all knew, Hybrid got MASSIVE EHP pools...But they had their issues, namely in scaling, and more so in Chaos Damage.

ES/Life wheels are far and few between, but scaling never stopped Hybrid, really.

What stopped Hybrid from being really good was chaos damage. Reaching 135% Chaos Res, to be Merc Capped, was hard enough...But it forced more life scaling than ES, to survive large chaos hits. In the end, after the chaos res rolls, and the needed life focus...Hybrid ended up being mostly a life build...With some ES on top.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Esh's_Visage

This solves a large problem of Hybrid right there, WHILE preventing it from being used (abused?) like Shav's.

But that only makes Hybrid Viable, not....GOOD. Just alright.

And then you see...

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Presence_of_Chayula

60% Chaos Res, instantly negating the Merciless Resistance Penalty. Poof, gone.

20% of Maximum Life converted into ES.

AND it keeps the Stun Immunity it's known for.



Combine those two...And perhaps even Heirophant, for Sanctuary of Thought, maybe Mind Over Matter as well, in case your ES gets breached...And DANG, suddenly you will be massively tanky.

So now the question is, with these options, is Hybrid good? Even more, is Hybrid now better than CI?

I expect presence to be expensive as hell this league though. It does kind of make hybrid up there with CI builds. Pure life still getting the crap treatment.

"

Nssheepster wrote:

What stopped Hybrid from being really good was chaos damage.

Lol, my hybrid life/ES melee poison build was one of my strongest characters I've ever made in Prophecy League (I skipped Essence).

In order for hybrid Life/ES to be good you need recovery mechanisms for both Life and ES.

I never did the theorycraft as to why my Life/ES character was so frickin' good, my guess would be that the Life/ES nodes around Shadow are super-efficient, and Trickster helps (helped, I guess, for you temp league regulars) jack up the Recovery for both Life and ES a ton.

But you are right that Chaos Resistance is helpful for Life/ES. I ended up stacking a lot just because The Pale Court was riddled with chaos damage and I wanted to beat it deathless. I can't remember if I ever did, but I think I'd stand a much better chance now that I have a ton of chaos res.

However, against ordinary content, getting more than 60% chaos resistance (0% in Merciless/Maps) was never really necessary on my hybrid Life/ES. You just need to figure out recovery for both pools and then you're good for any non-Chaos-heavy content (and even then, you can survive Apex of Sacrifice just fine with 0% net chaos resistance).

"

adghar wrote:

"

Nssheepster wrote:

What stopped Hybrid from being really good was chaos damage.

Lol, my hybrid life/ES melee poison build was one of my strongest characters I've ever made in Prophecy League (I skipped Essence).

In order for hybrid Life/ES to be good you need recovery mechanisms for both Life and ES.

I never did the theorycraft as to why my Life/ES character was so frickin' good, my guess would be that the Life/ES nodes around Shadow are super-efficient, and Trickster helps (helped, I guess, for you temp league regulars) jack up the Recovery for both Life and ES a ton.

But you are right that Chaos Resistance is helpful for Life/ES. I ended up stacking a lot just because The Pale Court was riddled with chaos damage and I wanted to beat it deathless. I can't remember if I ever did, but I think I'd stand a much better chance now that I have a ton of chaos res.

However, against ordinary content, getting more than 60% chaos resistance (0% in Merciless/Maps) was never really necessary on my hybrid Life/ES. You just need to figure out recovery for both pools and then you're good for any non-Chaos-heavy content (and even then, you can survive Apex of Sacrifice just fine with 0% net chaos resistance).

There are parts of the game where you are hit for 5K+ pure chaos damage. Did you have 5K plus life and significant ES at the same time? Or did you just get lucky and never get hit quite that hard?

"

Nssheepster wrote:

There are parts of the game where you are hit for 5K+ pure chaos damage. Did you have 5K plus life and significant ES at the same time? Or did you just get lucky and never get hit quite that hard?

I had 4k Life, 4k ES. Where is there 5k+ pure chaos damage? I rarely play T14+ Maps. Is that an Uber Atziri thing?

Wait what hits for 5K+ chaos damage? I can't think of anything that does that... MAYBE one of the overgrown ruin bosses?

"

Docbp87 wrote:

Wait what hits for 5K+ chaos damage? I can't think of anything that does that... MAYBE one of the overgrown ruin bosses?

Based on my memory, running with about 60% chaos resistances (net 0% in Merciless/Maps), nothing ever hit me for more than 300-600 chaos damage.

But to be fair, I'm about as attentive as a brick wall, Prophecy was a long time ago, and I think I may not have communicated clearly before, it's T12+ Maps I rarely run, over my entire game lifetime I've run probably 20 T12s, 5 T13s, 1 T14? Not sure, something like that.

"

adghar wrote:

"

Docbp87 wrote:

Wait what hits for 5K+ chaos damage? I can't think of anything that does that... MAYBE one of the overgrown ruin bosses?

Based on my memory, running with about 60% chaos resistances (net 0% in Merciless/Maps), nothing ever hit me for more than 300-600 chaos damage.

But to be fair, I'm about as attentive as a brick wall, Prophecy was a long time ago, and I think I may not have communicated clearly before, it's T12+ Maps I rarely run, over my entire game lifetime I've run probably 20 T12s, 5 T13s, 1 T14? Not sure, something like that.

I know there is no enemy that does more than some 3k pure chaos damage. Now 3+k mixed chaos is in the game.

Physical, fire, cold, and lightning mitigation are mandatory. Chaos resistance is a luxury. This is how it was explained in open beta, and it remains true to this day.

I was under the impression that hybrid has been viable ever since they buffed the ES recharge delay? That the problem before was you had no way to top off your ES between packs when moving very quickly unless you went ES leech because the delay was so long, and now that the delay is super short you don't need to rely on any special mechanics to top off your ES while clearing.

"

gilrad wrote:

I was under the impression that hybrid has been viable ever since they buffed the ES recharge delay? That the problem before was you had no way to top off your ES between packs when moving very quickly unless you went ES leech because the delay was so long, and now that the delay is super short you don't need to rely on any special mechanics to top off your ES while clearing.

Hybrid's issues have been Chaos Damage. ES Recharge can be solved by Essence Surge, Soul Strike, or just taking ZO and converting Life Regen. That's also an "issue", so to speak, with any build involving ES, CI and LL builds have the same problem.

The issue unique to Hybrid is chaos damage, simply because it loses a lot of power by trading out a good chest piece for Shav's or Lorica. Going from a high end, let's say 600 ES chest, with 100 Life, to a chest with some 350 or so ES....It's a big loss. Because of that, you had to deal with chaos damage just on your life pool, which was usually smaller than a pure life character's. That makes it rather hard to deal with.

It's also worth noting that because chaos passed ES, Hybrid builds ran a life flask. With this shield, you could drop that life flask, and keep a little life regen, so that WHEN your ES is breached, you'll heal back up slowly, and not need to take up the flask slot with it. Before, chaos damage, or poisons, would necessitate keeping the flask.