The Illusion of Choice

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Why do people ignore the meaning behind a post, and focus on the word for word used?

Have you ever had an argument with someone, only to later come up with the winning points while you were in the car, or the shower? The internet is the kind of place where you can argue for arguments sake, and use all your shower-inspired cutting rhetoric right on the spot. Sadly, some people cannot just resist.

There was a book I read ages ago. It was a longer book, but one of its central lessons was pretty memorable: "when facing a possible argument with someone else, the trick is not in finding how they are wrong, but rather figuring out what they are right for."

Pretty good quote, that.

How is my post extreme?

As far as I am aware, unless you are a summoner (which was already discussed) playing anything thats not a almost a full tank isn't really viable

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Courageous wrote:

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I suppose I could have told you about the level 60 GSlam Mar that I cleared Merci with, but he had 1700 HP at the time, and I wouldn't want to tempt you into thinking that is a "pure tank".

It absolutely isn't tanky (my level 64 cold shadow has 2200 HP in comparison). I would guess, however, that in SP play he will become unviable, no? I can't manage: the health bubble is just too sensitive. My elemental resistances range 50-75%, chaos res -24%, HP 2200. MP play is quite easy, however.

He's over 3k health and rising now. But he wasn't when I killed Piety.

And summoned pets don't mean shit to Piety, btw.

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Reizoko wrote:

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c2games wrote:

The examples between 10dps and 5dps are just that, examples. There are there to show how choosing between superior and inferior options is not a choice.

Well, it's obvious that 10dps vs 5dps isn't really a choice. Doubt anyone would think it is.

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Those are not choices because HP is superior to armor/eva/ES (ES is a special case with CI, but HP ES builds do exist) and defense is superior to offense. The reasons are already in the thread and have been acknowledged.

That is just plain wrong. People use armor/evasion/energy shield (even without CI) nodes. People DO use offensive nodes. A lot of them. There is NO build that I know of that does not use at least as many offensive nodes as HP nodes.

Let me quote myself:

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Also, it's a lie that people invest 100% in defensive stats. That is not true for any build that I know of. It's not even 50% most of the time or 50% at most, but people just seem to ignore all the none life nodes when looking at a build and call life node stacking.

While there might be people playing 100% defensive builds (they have the choice to do so, you know?) every single popular build out there is about a lot more than just stacking HP nodes. Check the class forums and look at all the threads with lots of pages (that are posted by people that have an understanding of the game). You probably won't find a lot of pure defensive builds. Most builds do not have more than 35 HP nodes, actually 30 is already a pretty high amount and probably only melee builds would use that many.

Nugiyen's leveling build:
His 39th node he takes is his first damage node. In total he has 4 offensive nodes, not counting STR. Edit: missed 4% atk speed at the start, so 5 offensive nodes.

This thread (and this forum) would be so much better if everyone would stop with all the hyperbole-ing, OP shouldn't have put in his post that armor is useless. But it's true that most viable HC builds consist mainly of HP/ES, armor, ER and keystone passives.

Yeah, because my 3 witches that use 3 different elements, and one of them having CI and another Eldrich battery are all the same.

And don't even get me started on some of the crazy duelist builds.

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Sisaroth wrote:

Nugiyen's leveling build:

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAm40ILhmO7YPTfu960amw0pC-_MVnoN0Nh3aQCluvSn0Y23TxQ5whYJ65Dq1AoCmlBS1gS3rvdO2E72EhGlVkozboWK8B5zpSeA2nMN-_qW6ezRQgtfJN49IhUEduqqxZVw3-j9lhah4ZLqgYJ-3yL_PdrKq53XKpWfPvDnzZwBrnUpBVVEmnhF8_Gjj2SOw4jM9X4lBQd-UyiVhjBLPG2BRNAnGiADJ-

His 39th node he takes is his first damage node. In total he has 4 offensive nodes, not counting STR. Edit: missed 4% atk speed at the start, so 5 offensive nodes.

LOL...

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Sisaroth wrote:

Nugiyen's leveling build:

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAm40ILhmO7YPTfu960amw0pC-_MVnoN0Nh3aQCluvSn0Y23TxQ5whYJ65Dq1AoCmlBS1gS3rvdO2E72EhGlVkozboWK8B5zpSeA2nMN-_qW6ezRQgtfJN49IhUEduqqxZVw3-j9lhah4ZLqgYJ-3yL_PdrKq53XKpWfPvDnzZwBrnUpBVVEmnhF8_Gjj2SOw4jM9X4lBQd-UyiVhjBLPG2BRNAnGiADJ-

His 39th node he takes is his first damage node. In total he has 4 offensive nodes, not counting STR. Edit: missed 4% atk speed at the start, so 5 offensive nodes.

This thread (and this forum) would be so much better if everyone would stop with all the hyperbole-ing, OP shouldn't have put in his post that armor is useless. But it's true that most viable HC builds consist mainly of HP/ES, armor, ER and keystone passives.

Armor is generally useless, its just slightly less useless than evasion. Armor is only gotten because in that build, you don't have much of a choice (and its conversion through iron reflexes).

To be clear, i just checked the tree, and he didn't get a single armor node. He got 4 evasion nodes which gets converted to armor through IR, but thats because he didn't have a choice (it was either that or plain dex due to the location in the tree). The rest of his build is just life,liferegen,str and elemental resist

The thing is, in a lot of cases, you are forced to get armor (cos its on gear and for other reasons), its just that it generally becomes ineffective when you hit the brick wall for armor. If you are doing maps and around 75-80, anything more than 8-10k armor and you will notice barely any difference in damage reduction (and that is obviously lower in lower levels). And the thing is, you can get that 8-10k purely through gear naturally, there isn't any investment into it through the tree

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Sisaroth wrote:

This thread (and this forum) would be so much better if everyone would stop with all the hyperbole-ing, OP shouldn't have put in his post that armor is useless. But it's true that most viable HC builds consist mainly of HP/ES, armor, ER and keystone passives.

I put in that it's useless because it is.

A simple granite flask with increased armor % is enough.

I have no armor on my marauder. 400 and change. But I have 90% damage reduction on command between a granite flask + endurance charges.

Armor, like evasion with high accuracy mobs, also decreases in usefulness the harder you get hit. Another reason why, overall, it's completely lackluster compared to HP/resists. Because those scale no matter what. 80% damage reduction is 80%.

Why spend points into a defensive stat that doesn't scale, doesn't protect you versus large hits, and can be made up with a simple granite flask?

Same thing with evasion. Flame Totem/LMP/Blind and I have at least 75% avoidance without picking up any evasion nodes or evasion armor. You could grab every node, use grace, have high evasion gear, and might reach 60%.

delete

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funshynebare wrote:

A simple granite flask with increased armor % is enough.

So what? Isn't it feasible that there are perfectly fine builds that don't want to use granites and stack a decent amount of armor through gear and determination? Armor isn't great but its certainly not useless.