EV/Dodge characters - how to cheat death?

So yea another whine thread.

I decided to play shadow as assassin this league and I found out that something is horribly wrong with monster damage. I'm lvl 78 now, sticking with damn tier 4 maps at best. Can't get any higher cuz of monster damage. I have 4k hp with capped resistances and about 50% evade chance paired with 30% dodge (I know dodge and evade do not reduce damage taken). I took ascendancy talent that makes me immune to critical damage, yet I'm still oneshotted by some rares and most bosses. Life Leech is not a thing today, should be reworked (not crying about vaal pact rework, it shouldn't give insta leech). I have all possible leech nodes taken but its still shit. If 'get more life' is the solution, then how the hell I'm going to deal enough damage to kill anything? Even now high regen mobs are pain in the ass even tho I have 35k dps unbuffed. I know its low but well... I need life.

Any ideas? Anyone who agree with me?

50% and 30% dodge is NOT a lot. You can get sources of dodge and more evasion than you have. Are you using a stibnite flask? It blinds enemies and increases evasion when needed. You can take phase acro and the points going to that give some more dodge as well as spell dodge.

Are you wearing all Evasion gear and taking evasion nodes on tree? I made a character designed around dodge/Evasion and the White wind dagger. I have really high evasion and dodge chance and added layers of defense with Cast when damage taken and Immortal call.

Try following a build on the forums to get some ideas, but from what I can tell you need to specialize in your gear a bit.

Also, travel to the Scion life wheel. There is simply no way around it. And a Decoy Totem. Even if it's just to bait the initial aggro, it can go a long way to avoid death by mobbing.

I'm getting to scion life wheel, need 3 more lvls for the main node. Yea I'm almost full evasion on items, just 1 is hybrid with armour. I know 50% is not that much, but still I can't evade every hit even with 90%. I'm using blind on my totem and whirling blades also. The problem is that melee evasion characters are just meat, can't really compete with ranged evasion or armor melee characters. Or are you going to tell me that 4k life is not enough for T5/6 maps? I've done T15 maps with 3k hp and evasion builds only... not an option anymore.

vaal grace-increased duration, more than 5k life, evasion flasks (stibnite in particular), if you are heavily reliant on life leech prob still want vaal pact. Just some suggestions.

I am using vaal pact ;) it still doesn't really help

Blind gem has 10% proc rate, which sucks. Using stibnite essentially raises your evade chance to 75% by blinding all nearby enemies and gives you 100% increased evasion.

Should have fortify on your whirling blades for damage mitigation. Also, jade, and basalt flasks help a lot. Granite would be at half strength due Acrobatics.

Quartz flask gives additional 10% dodge. So do three node behind acrobatics. Also look for dodge on gear. Several decent uniques have dodge.

Lightning coil and other uniques that change physical damage to elemental damage might help. There are essences that also do this. Or farm Lighthouse map and pick up blue helmets from Warbands at end. Redband mod changes 10% of physical damage taken to fire damage.

And a CWDT-IC setup is helpful.

I dunno, I never really go to scion life wheel on evasion characters and Im still at 6-7k life by the early 90s, you do need to take all the life nodes in sight around the duelist/ranger/shadow tho and probably some jewel slots. I think you can get around it but its definitely a way out of the problem, if you can get there its a ton of life. For my tastes its just too far away.


Its hard to tell at 78 cause thats still quite a low endgame level, I dunno what sort of life totals are realistic tbh. Also chance to evade %, dunno what to make of that, whats your actual evasion rating? 5k? 10k? 15?


If youre a melee build, evasion + dodge, then in my experience for a heavy duty red tier map faceroller in around lvl90-95 you want like 20k+ evasion, 6.5k - 7k life, 40/30 dodge, and really I would want a lightning coil too, I literally wouldnt play it without a coil personally. For ranged like bows and wanding you can knock about 500 life off that estimate. You also want a basalt flask, if you can get one a taste of hate, and you want to keep endurance charges up. That will feel mighty tanky and can just slam though very harsh high tier maps all day without any real danger.

How that scales down to lvl78 I dunno, maybe 4-5k life is about right for there, you get a fair chunk of life per level, less nodes taken, probably not in the full end of the line gears. You can survive without the coil, without phase acrobatics, without 15k+ evasion, without 5k life... but not all at once, if youre not hitting any of those marks then things are gonna fall apart. If you can sort out 2 of them youll probably feel a lot better.


If you dont have em get a basalt flask, roll it with the chemists mod with a value that brings the charges consumed down to 30 so you can use it twice. Also get cast when damage taken with enfeeble, leave the cwdt at lvl 1, take the enfeeble to lvl 5. Both of those are survival essentials for evasion builds, honestly I use them on every build but evasion more than anyone is gonna get work out of those 2.

You need to get more than 5k hp at the very least. As someone who has max (78%) block gladiator, I can tell you that 78% chance of not taking damage is not a lot unfortunately. Said galdiator also has surrenderer, basalt flask, end charges (+ascendancy buff), fortify, and that is still not enough for comfortable play.

I mean damn, my kaom 7,6k life slayer with leech and regen, 6 end charges, fortify, basalt, endurance cry (so taunt on enemies for reduced damage), immortal call, enfeeble on damage taken and taste of hate can still get destroyed randomly sometimes.

Heck, even my now nerfed scion with 10k ES, enfeeble, temporal chains, arctic armor, basalt, end charges (warlord mark), old Vaal pact + whispering ice (meaning I could insta heal from the entire map by simply clicking on the screen) and some other defensive crap, COULD STILL DIE TO RANDOM CRAP FOR NO REASON.

There are never enough defences in this game. Ever.

There are several different aspects in terms of ingame mechanics and skill tree balance, which combined make eva/dodge builds feel underwhelming.

1. Overall game balance is at an all time low. GGG keeps throwing (untested) stuff, which under certain circumstances may turn broken - especially in maps, where enemy's damage multipliers are a norm.
Game's cluttered with so many features, than no one in their team knows what's actually going on, and any attempts to "balance" this junkyard of mechanics, skills, items, and whatever you may think of, usually turns half-assed or inefficient. As all these interact with each other, at times with unpredictable consequences.

It was once a game advertised for its emphasis on HC. At the moment HC is nearly dead, and that's a process. Balance is wacko.

2. Evasion/dodge builds have a glaring downside: no matter how dodgy you are, at times you'll get hit, and you won't be able to absorb the damage due to no/low mitigation. And your defences will drop off completely - everything you've worked around as an eva/dodge build will become useless.
You could get hit by a single hit with insanely high phys damage (bosses, some rares). Or you'd get hit by a volley coming out of a white/blue pack.
In both cases, lack of damage mitigation is likely to result in oneshot.

BTW that's the reason why pure evasion/dodge builds are considered trash on HC, no matter what.

Another form of damage mitigation - MoM, doesn't work well with pure EV builds for the above mentioned lack of damage mitigation.

3. You can work around evasion + damage mitigation/avoidance, but if you intend to use dodge it turns highly ineffective - to the point you are forced to drop either the dodge, or the mitigation, unless you intend to gimp yourself on purpose.

4. Life nodes on the right side of the skill tree are in a terrible state. First, both in numbers and percentage. Second, their placement/positioning - many of them are unreachable "on the go", and in practice it means you need to make some strange curves which are likely to affect negatively your build.
To add insult to the injury, those paths include mostly dexterity nodes, which are hilariously weak, compared to strength ones.
In addition, there's just a few strength on the right, which doesn't help your HP pool at the slightest.

In practice, evasion/dodge builds (especially melee attackers) need HP the most - as when they get hit, they take full damage. But at the same time are extremely poorly supported in this aspect.
To get even worse, within the current "life meta", damage of mobs got "adjusted" accordingly.
It's sad to play according to the new meta rules, but actually not being part of it.

TLDR:

Avoid dodge like the plague - it's a noob trap. Better work around hybrid EVA/AR builds, add some block if you are melee and can afford it.
Cherry pick the juiciest nodes and gtfo to the left side of the tree where the party is.
Use endu cry, and if you can grab 1-2 additional charges on the left.
Pay attention to flat HP on your gear, do your best.
Lightning coil makes wonders, try it out if you never did. It's also a hybrid piece of gear.

I'm sorry about the essay.