Evasion Vs. Armor

Thanks for the help. really appreciate it

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nebunelux wrote:

Regarding evasion, I don't recommend it. If you go armor/evasion you won't have enough armor to mitigate hits and neither enough evasion to get evasion to 50%. So you have 2 options (in fact 1):
- full armor: you can mitigate most mob's damage, big bosses may still be a problem
- full evasion: You will get to 50% evasion, meaning every 2nd hit you will be die in 1 hit you as you have no armor, nothing can save you. This is not an option.

So, bottom line - get Iron reflexes because you can wear 3 types of armor: Armor based, EV based and Armor/EV based. You will get more and more armor.

But your first priority should HP, aim for 200%+ from passive skill tree.

If you get oneshot regularly as an evasion user, the reason is not evasion but one of the following:

1) You failed at your build and didn't get enough life. You would likely have died as an armor user too (not necessarily to oneshot but what if you get hit by two such attacks in a row?).
2) The hit is so large that armor mitigation would have been negligible anyway. so the armor user would have likely died as well. This should only be the case with attacks like Brutus/Cole/Vaal slams which are designed to oneshot characters and must be dodged by moving a way, no matter if you have armor or evasion.

The myth about evasion characters getting oneshot easily is total bullshit. If that happens the problem is not evasion but too low lifepool of the character. In that case the character would be equally screwed even if they switched all their evasion to armor.

Generally armor provides better protection against large mobs of monsters that hit for low damage, and chargers which cannot be evaded. Evasion is much better against few hard hitting mobs which would pierce through armor, or mobs that deal elemental or chaos damage, especially ranged ones with Arrow Dodging. Thus the choice of armor vs. evasion should be based on which one of those you find more problematic.

Both defense mechanisms are still secondary in nature. You first need a large life pool for either to be of any use.

-Ropetus

I think you're missing the point.

By full Evasion I meant 0 Armor and 50% chance to evade on stat sheet.
By full Armor I meant high Armor ~ 40-50% damage reduction on stat sheet.

So are you willing to compare the damage received in these 2 cases?

EV: will not be hit every time, but every 2nd time and will get the full hit - no damage reduction. I assume you will get 1 shot at least by uniques and bosses.
Armor: will be hit every time but for much less thus can heal the damage throw whichever means you like.

Some people use a combination of these meaning:
- get as much armor as possible through gear
- get evasion through dex and grace aura

Bottom line: high evasion no armor - not viable even with high life pool. Maybe if you are ranged and are so good you never get a melee hit. :))

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nebunelux wrote:

I think you're missing the point.

By full Evasion I meant 0 Armor and 50% chance to evade on stat sheet.
By full Armor I meant high Armor ~ 40-50% damage reduction on stat sheet.

So are you willing to compare the damage received in these 2 cases?

EV: will not be hit every time, but every 2nd time and will get the full hit - no damage reduction. I assume you will get 1 shot at least by uniques and bosses.
Armor: will be hit every time but for much less thus can heal the damage throw whichever means you like.

This assumption is where you go wrong ;).

Have you ever played an evasion character? And are you familiar with the armor formula (reduction % reduces very drastically the harder the hit)? Against a mob that can oneshot an evasion character, armor has very little effect (your 40-50% reduction turns into more like 5%, maybe 10-15% at tops) so they will be equally screwed.

What I mean: If you have about 4-5k life as an evasion user (a typical end game value with good gear), there is no regular boss mob in the game that hits so hard to oneshot that character. The exceptions are stuff like high level map Brutus/Cole/Vaal slam attacks, but those will oneshot an armor user as well so both have to kite it. There might be a rare bear with increased damage, substantial physical damage aura and increased crit that can hit for such high damage, but that one is also a moot point because such a mob will also practically pierce armor.

The stuff you can't handle in melee as an evasion character, and thus have to kite them? The ones that hit so hard they would kill you as an armor user as well.

Also you can still use Endurance charges and Immortal Call as an evasion user. Those are not reserved for armor users only.

-Ropetus

Fully agree with Ropetus.

Also, even if you are full evasion, you might not get hit every 2nd time with 50 % evasion, since an evasion-user also can have Block, and if you also add Aggrobatics, there is a third roll to check if you avoid the damage (up to 30%).

I find that armor is really great when you don't need it, but not so great when you do need it. Evasion is sometimes great. HP, enfeeble, and endurance charges are great all the time.

Iron reflexes on its own I think is kind of pointless, you largely get it because you got unwavering stance. I think the decision is basically unwavering stance vs arrow dodging. Both are very strong keystones.