Results of the Worst Keystone Poll!

theres more useless and weak keystone and also theres area in skill tree that least used/least taken as its worst/weakeast and GGG didnt buff them anyway

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Nubatron wrote:

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Ozxell wrote:

is there any big downside of imbalance guard that I'm not aware of?

i think if that keystone moved to the MOM location it will immediately turn to god tier keystone just like the old Glancing blow and every witch/templar build will be forced to take it. i must be missing something here.

It depends on your build. If your build easily gets 51-90% physical damage reduction, the node is a negative.

Imbalanced Guard is keystone for those who primarily rely on armour for mitigating phys damage.

As armour mitigates different amount of damage depending on value of the hit, it can work good either for 4K or 40K armour.

4K armour will behave like 8K giving better mitigation to lower phys hits.

40K armour will turn into 80K and will be effective for hits of 10K+ phys damage while being capped at 50% reduction for mid damage hits which you can survive anyway.

i can't really call the trade-off as a downside tho, it's like saying the downside of buying a house is you have to spend money.

With the imbalance guard you trade off the potential to stack armour / phys reduction for a cheap and high effective defense mechanic, just like other keystone.

edit: for example, the downside of elemental overload is you have to proc it your self, you can't proc it through mine/totem, something like this, the "Your Critical Strikes do not deal extra Damage" is not its downside but a trade off.

hey OP why isn't my elemental overload vote on the bottom with 1 vote, I wasn't joking as a keystone its the worst.

Also imbalanced guard is only the worst because its description is written in the worst possible way if it said doubles your armour but caps physical reduction at 50% people wouldn't vote for it :p

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Exile009 wrote:

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jeerinho wrote:

Dance with Death + One with Nothing + Kaom's Heart + Kaom's Roots = the auto-attack build, since you literally can't socket anything

Technically, you still have 3 possible sockets - two Unset rings + a Black Maw Talisman.

On a related note, they should add UNSET BELTS! Two sockets, linkable.

I forgot Hungry Loop exists

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TorsteinTheFallen wrote:

Imbalanced Guard is keystone for those who primarily rely on armour for mitigating phys damage.

As armour mitigates different amount of damage depending on value of the hit, it can work good either for 4K or 40K armour.

4K armour will behave like 8K giving better mitigation to lower phys hits.

40K armour will turn into 80K and will be effective for hits of 10K+ phys damage while being capped at 50% reduction for mid damage hits which you can survive anyway.

I'm pretty sure it caps all sources of physical damage reduction to 50%. Armour is only one way to get there, and honestly it's the least effective due to the diminishing returns in my opinion. You can get 90% physical damage reduction with 0 armour if you really wanted to, and it's a true 90%.

10/11 Endurance Charges (3 Natural, 3 Tree, 1 Ascendancy, 3/4 equipment) gets you to up to 66% physical damage reduction if you use enduring cry appropriately and take Juggernaut. Aspect of the Crab with the right equipment can get you a 10% minimum. Juggernaut has a built in 5% reduction if you take Unbreakable, which would be funny on a 0 armour build. Oak gets you 2%. Flasks and/or pantheon easily gets you the rest of the way. Or you could dual wield Nebulochs. There are a lot of ways to 90% outside of armour.

I'm not saying anyone would do that because it's overkill, but armour is not the only form of physical damage reduction and other methods of getting it don't have the diminishing returns as you've mentioned above.

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Nubatron wrote:

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure it caps all sources of physical damage reduction to 50%. Armour is only one way to get there, and honestly it's the least effective due to the diminishing returns in my opinion. You can get 90% physical damage reduction with 0 armour if you really wanted to, and it's a true 90%.

10/11 Endurance Charges (3 Natural, 3 Tree, 1 Ascendancy, 3/4 equipment) gets you to up to 66% physical damage reduction if you use enduring cry appropriately and take Juggernaut. Aspect of the Crab with the right equipment can get you a 10% minimum. Juggernaut has a built in 5% reduction if you take Unbreakable, which would be funny on a 0 armour build. Oak gets you 2%. Flasks and/or pantheon easily gets you the rest of the way. Or you could dual wield Nebulochs. There are a lot of ways to 90% outside of armour.

I'm not saying anyone would do that because it's overkill, but armour is not the only form of physical damage reduction and other methods of getting it don't have the diminishing returns as you've mentioned above.

I does cap phys reduction to 50% from all sources. Armour is least effective for big hits.
My point was just about armour if you don't have any other flat source of mitigation. It that case it's almost always worth taking.

yeah lol, the only reason imbalanced guard is even on this list has to be because people completely misunderstand either the reduction part or how armor works against big hits. Its a quite good key stone that allows you to survive phys hits with not much investment

It's good to know there's someone who knows how imbalanced guard even works.
I just got lost in description and never ever dared allocating it.