Armor Vs Evasion

I get energy shield.

How do armor and evasion work? In general.

Melee, vs, ranges, vs spells.

Thank you

armor reduces physical damage, best against small hits like monkeys.
evasion lets you evade attacks, but it isn't completely random. If you have 50% chance to avoid an attack and you get hit, you won't be hit next time. Evasion can also downgrade critical hits to normal hits.

Spells always hit, their damage are reduced by resistance (fire, cold, etc...) or armor (ethereal knives deal physical damage, same with bear trap)

Ranged can be attack or spell, evasion only work with attacks.

And then, there's block (shield, dual wielding, staff). Block only works with attack unless you have "block chance applied to spells" from the templar area, or a unique with this affixe.

armor is damage reduction against all physical attacks and spells. It does nothing to lower the damage of anything other than physical. Armor works with diminishing returns, the percentage of damage reduction listed is an estimate of the damage reduced of white mobs of your level. Basically, the more damage you take in a single hit, the higher percentage of damage you take. Armor is generally not that useful endgame because of how powerful most mobs are.

Evasion gives you a percentage chance, based on the accuracy of the attacker, to completely avoid an attack. It works against all damage types, but not against spells or players that have Resolute Technique. The Acrobatics keystone does not modify your evasion, it instead rolls separately to see it procs. Evasion is also not that useful endgame, as characters that are pure evasion can die in 1 hit.

Endurance charges give you a flat damage reduction against physical damage, as well as increasing your resists. Unfortunately, Endurance charges do not stack well with armor. If you take 1000 damage, and the endurance charges were to reduce it to 700, your armor would still calculate the percentage it reduces from 1000, not 700.

Overall, life and life regen is the best defense, though completely ignoring armor and evasion is generally not advised.

Thanks, very helpful. So right from the get-go, I'm assuming one should try to balance out armour and evasion, as opposoed to specialize in one? Am I right?

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Euroclear wrote:

Thanks, very helpful. So right from the get-go, I'm assuming one should try to balance out armour and evasion, as opposoed to specialize in one? Am I right?

Well the choice is yours, honestly if built properly it doesnt matter which type of defence you choose, both evasion and armour has their benefits and flaws, for example evasion is in danger of being punctured to death, whereas armour characters are having trouble with elemental attacks

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Euroclear wrote:

Thanks, very helpful. So right from the get-go, I'm assuming one should try to balance out armour and evasion, as opposoed to specialize in one? Am I right?

Basically exactly the opposite. If you focus on armor, it will get better the more armor you got, since it will be able to reduce higher hits.

A lot of things that have been said here are false. I am surprised no one mentioned blocking mechanics even though OP had not asked for it. The more armor you have the better, evasion is not full proof. Evasion builds run the risk of being one shotted. Even though Evasion is not completly random its not something you want to rely on unless u are ranged. Even then you have to be carefull. So Roah is going to get lucky and crit you and u will die.

its not a mystery that so many people go for Iron Reflexes to convert eveasion into armor and wear shields.

They specialize differently (armor can get amazing physical damage reduction if you pair it with determination and/or well-timed, well-modded granite flasks, while evasion can make you practically immune to archer packs), but either way you'll want life to back them up to avoid the "one-shot" scenario that energy shield is best at defending against.
Both technically suffer from diminishing returns on the effective health they give you, but as you go up in level, the sheer quantities of each you can acquire more than make up for it.

Also note that Enfeeble (the go-to defensive curse for Hardcore, as I understand) scales quite well with both, as it reduces both accuracy and damage. On the other hand, it's a pure intelligence gem, whereas armor and evasion require strength and dexterity for their gear, respectively. Consider teaming up with a witch, or investing a bit in intelligence to use this skill at its best for maximum tanking.